theSteveBlog

steve.thefuhry.com

2009-04-01T12:59:00.002-04:00

I have been very busy lately, but here are a couple things I made that are kind of nice:

theSteveBlog is going to change locations soon to:
steve.thefuhry.com

Also, I have created:
FindaCatholicMass.com

PHP's mysqli, and mysqli_real_escape_string()

2009-03-29T19:12:00.002-04:00

I used to use $newValue = addslashes($newValue) when inserting data into MySQL and $currentValue = stripslashes($currentValue) when pulling it out. Then a week or so ago, I discovered mysqli_real_escape_string().

Seriously, start using it because then you don't have to ever do $currentValue = stripslashes($currentValue) when pulling data out.

Here's the procedural way of doing it (just took it right out of the docs):
$link = mysqli_connect("localhost", "my_user", "my_password", "world");


$newValue = mysqli_real_escape_string($link, $newValue);

And here's the object oriented way of doing it (less verbiose and just as clear -- I prefer this method).
$db = new mysqli("localhost", "my_user", "my_password", "world");


$newValue = $db->real_escape_string($newValue);

The only thing that bothers me is that there is no reason they couldn't just have called the function ~~mysqli_escape~~ (.. crossed out just incase.) I mean really, that's one of those functions that there is no way out of having to use it (at times) every line for 20 lines of code.

jQuery login without refresh

2009-03-22T19:47:00.006-04:00

I have spent a lot of time recently writing javascript, and I recently discovered jQuery. It is pretty much amazing. Here's a super easy thing I wrote to use jQuery's ajax stuff to log in a user without refreshing the page:

1). login.js

function logMein() {
var username = $("#usernameId").val();
var password = $("#passwordId").val();
$.post("./login.php", { username: username, password: password }, function(welcome) { $("#loginDiv").html(welcome); } );
}

2). element to get jQuery:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3/jquery.min.js"></script>

3). put <div id="loginDiv"><?php require_once('login.php'); ?></div> where you want to have the login thingy

4). login.php

@session_start();

require_once('class/user.class.php');
// checks to see if user submitted form stuff, if yes, tries to login
if (isset($_POST['username']) && strlen($_POST['password']) >= 6) {
$username = &$_POST['username'];
$password = &$_POST['password'];
$userLogin = new User($username);
if ($userLogin->getExists() === TRUE && $userLogin->passwordMatch($password) === TRUE ) {
$_SESSION['username'] = $username;
}
}
// if user has been logged in successfully, say welcome, else rewrite form
if (isset($_SESSION['username'])) {
$userObj = new User($_SESSION['username']);
$userInfo['id'] = $userObj->getId();
$userInfo['username'] = $userObj->getUsername();
$userInfo['firstName'] = $userObj->getFirstName();
$userInfo['lastName'] = $userObj->getLastName();
$userInfo['email'] = $userObj->getEmail();
$userInfo['city'] = $userObj->getCity();
$userInfo['state'] = $userObj->getState();
$userInfo['country'] = $userObj->getCountry();
echo "Welcome ".$userInfo['firstName']."! ";
echo "Logout";
} else {
?>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<form name="login" action="" onsubmit="return false" method="post">
username:<input type="text" id="usernameId" name="username" maxlength="50" value="" />
password:<input type="password" id="passwordId" name="password" value="" />
<input type="submit" id="submitLogin" value="Login" onclick="logMein();" />
</form>

}
?>

Update June 2, 2009:
Per neniu's request, this should be the User class I wrote for this script. I do not think it has been thoroughly tested, as I never got around to implementing this in a production environment.

require_once("{$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']}/db/mysql_connect.php");

// need to fix all the mysql_real_escape_strin()g stuff

class User {

private $db;
private $username;
private $id;
private $firstName;
private $lastName;
private $password;
private $email;
private $city;
private $state;
private $country;
private $exists;

function __construct($username=NULL) {
$this->db = db_connect();
if ($username != NULL) {
$username = mysqli_real_escape_string($username);
$query = "SELECT * FROM `user_tb` WHERE `username`='$username' LIMIT 1";
$result = $this->db->query($query);
if ($result->num_rows < 1) {
$this->exists = FALSE;
} else {
$this->exists = TRUE;
$row = $result->fetch_array();
$this->username = $row['username'];
$this->id = $row['id'];
$this->firstName = $row['firstName'];
$this->lastName = $row['lastName'];
$this->password = $row['password'];
$this->email = $row['email'];
$this->city = $row['city'];
$this->state = $row['state'];
$this->country = $row['country'];
}
}
}

function getUsername() {
return $this->username;
}

function getExists() {
return $this->exists;
}

function getId() {
return $this->id;
}

function getFirstName() {
return $this->firstName;
}

function getLastName() {
return $this->lastName;
}

function getEmail() {
return $this->email;
}

function getCity() {
return $this->city;
}

function getState() {
return $this->state;
}

function getCountry() {
return $this->country;
}

function passwordMatch($password) {
if ($this->password == sha1($password)) { return TRUE; }
else { return FALSE; }
}

function addUser($username, $firstName, $lastName, $password, $email, $city, $state, $country) {
$username = mysqli_real_escape_string($username);
$firstName = mysqli_real_escape_string($firstName);
$lastName = mysqli_real_escape_string($lastName);
$password = sha1($password);
$email = mysqli_real_escape_string($email);
$city = mysqli_real_escape_string($city);
$state = mysqli_real_escape_string($state);
$country = mysqli_real_escape_string($country);
$query = "INSERT INTO `user_tb` (`username`,`firstName`,`lastName`,`password`,`email`,`city`,`state`,`country`)
VALUES ('$username','$firstName','$lastName','$password','$email','$city','$state','$country')";
if (!$this->db->query($query)) {
echo "Failed to create user.\n
".$this->db->error; return FALSE;
} else { return TRUE; }
}

function editUser($username, $firstName, $lastName, $password, $email, $city, $state, $country) {
$username = mysqli_real_escape_string($username);
$firstName = mysqli_real_escape_string($firstName);
$lastName = mysqli_real_escape_string($lastName);
$password = sha1($password);
$email = mysqli_real_escape_string($email);
$city = mysqli_real_escape_string($city);
$state = mysqli_real_escape_string($state);
$country = mysqli_real_escape_string($country);
$query = "UPDATE `user_tb` SET
`username`='$username', `firstName`='$firstName', `lastName`='$lastName', `password`='$password', `email`='$email',
`city`='$city',`state`='$state',`country`='$country' WHERE `username`='$username' LIMIT 1";
if (!$this->db->query($query)) {
echo "Failed to edit user.\n
".$this->db->error; return FALSE;
} else { return TRUE; }
}
}

?>

MS SQL datetime to Unix Timestamp

2009-03-21T11:25:00.004-04:00

Here's a quick, easy, and painless way in PHP to convert MSSQL's nasty datetime format to a nice Unix Timestamp:

$MSSQLdatetime = "Feb 7 2009 09:48:06:697PM";
$newDatetime = preg_replace('/:[0-9][0-9][0-9]/','',$MSSQLdatetime); // strip fractional seconds
$time = strtotime($newDatetime);
echo $time."\n";

Just did it for 4 columns in ~110,000 rows, (a little less than half a million times) and it seems to have worked just dandy.

Backup MySQL to Gmail using PHP

2009-03-18T23:41:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I rewrote a cool script to backup a MySQL database to a Gmail account using PHP.

The original source came from here, but I ended up rewriting over half of it because it did not work on our servers, and there was some other stuff that I did not like.

The script uses mysqldump to get a dump of your db, archives it, and emails it as an attachment to your gmail account. Remember, gmail has a 20mb limit on attachments.. but for most small sites that is more than you'll ever need.

Here's the rundown on how to use it:

1) Register a Gmail account to backup your db to.
2) Get these three files: mysql2gmail.php, class.phpmailer.php, class.smtp.php

wget http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/113063/mysql2gmail.php http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/113063/class.phpmailer.php http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/113063/class.smtp.php

3) Change the stuff on the top of mysql2gmail.php until it works.

Here's the source:

#!/usr/local/bin/php.cli
<?php

/**************************************************************************
mysql2gmail Version 0.01               3/19/2009                                    

    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>

 mysql2gmail is a branch of bu2gmail, which is available at:
   http://tjkling.com/simple-mysql-backup-to-gmail/ 
   http://tjkling.com/download/bu2gmail.txt
 mysql2gmail depends on class.phpmailer.php and class.smtp.php
 
/*********** CHANGE THIS STUFF UNTIL IT WORKS ************/
$host = 'localhost';                    // set to localhost or your servers ip
$sock = '';                        // if your servers use a sock, set it here (ex: /tmp/mysql5.sock)
$muser = 'mysql_username';                // MySQL username
$mpass = 'mysql_password';                // MySQL password
$dbname = 'database';                    // MySQL database
$g_user = 'mysite.backup@gmail.com';            // the gmail account you registered     
$g_pass = 'gmailPassword';                // your gmail password
$g_name = 'Some Name';                    // The name you want the emails you send to be from
$backupDirectory = '/home/mysite/www/tmp/';        // full path to a temp directory.. don't forget to put a slash at the end!

/*************** CHANGE THIS STUFF IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING ********************/
require_once("class.phpmailer.php");            // original source: http://phpmailer.codeworxtech.com/
require_once("class.smtp.php");                // original source: http://phpmailer.codeworxtech.com/
if ($sock != '') { $sock = "-S " . $sock; }
$time = time();
$body = "This is a backup of the $dbname database taken on " . date('F j, Y, \a\t g:i a', $time);
$backupName = 'backup_' . date('Y-m-d.G:i:s', $time);
$subj = 'MYSQL ' . date('Y-m-d', $time) . ' at ' . date('g:i A', $time);
$db_conn = mysql_connect($host, $muser, $mpass);

// run mysqldump and get the output
$command = "mysqldump -h ".$host.$sock." -u ".$muser." -p".$mpass." ".$dbname;
exec($command, $output);

// converting the array that exec() outputs into a string..
$count = count($output);
for ($n=0;$n<$count;$n++) {
  $string .= $output[$n]."\n";
}

// archive the output into a gz file...
$filename = $backupDirectory . $backupName . '.gz';
$zp = gzopen($filename, "w9");
gzwrite($zp, $string);
gzclose($zp);

// do stuff
$mail = new PHPMailer();
$mail->IsSMTP();
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->SMTPSecure = "ssl";
$mail->Host = "smtp.gmail.com";
$mail->Port = 465;
$mail->Username = $g_user;
$mail->Password = $g_pass;
$mail->AddReplyTo($g_user, $g_name);
$mail->From = $g_user;
$mail->FromName = $g_name;
$mail->Subject = $subj;
$mail->MsgHTML($body);
$mail->AddAddress("$g_user");
$mail->AddAttachment($filename);
$mail->IsHTML(true);
if (!$mail->Send()) {
  echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
} else {
  echo "Message sent!";
}

// delete the file. why waste valuable webspace when gmail gives you > 7gb for free?
unlink($filename);

?>

PHP vs Python

2009-02-25T20:33:00.002-05:00

For better or for worse, I am far more proficient in PHP than Python. However, when it comes down to syntax, I would much prefer to write in Python.

I love the simplicity of Python; I tend to make fewer mistakes with its eye-friendly syntax. Although, at this point, I am so familiar with PHP's C-like syntax, that I can sometimes write 100+ lines of code without a single syntax error (and I don't use your silly error-correcting IDEs, but vi with only basic syntax highlighting on the command line).

Anyways, I have been writing several hundred lines of PHP daily for the past week or so, and I just can't get over how amazing PHP's official documentation is over Python's.

When I am trying to figure out how to do something new in Python, especially if it involves using libraries I am not familiar with already, I have to go through all kinds of hell googling around to find decent documentation on it. However, with PHP, just type in php.net/some_function or php.net/variables or whatever, and you not only get what you are looking for, but also a very smart list of similar functions / information as what you are viewing.

If I could go back and teach my 13yr old self how to code again, I would use Python because it is sane, scalable, and very efficient. But if I needed to assign my 13yr old self a project to complete, I would have him use PHP, because he could actually figure out how to do it.

Python Script to Send SMS via Gmail

2009-02-19T00:31:00.006-05:00

Recently I wrote this little script to send a text message to my phone using my Gmail account. It uses a python library called libgmail. (Debian / Ubuntu package: python-libgmail should do the trick).

My cell carrier is Alltel -- you'll have to change myCellEmail to match that of your carrier (list provided courtesy of wikipedia).

#!/usr/bin/env python
import libgmail

stuff = libgmail.GmailAccount("me@gmail.com", "password")
myCellEmail = "1234567890@message.alltel.net"

stuff.login()
msg=libgmail.GmailComposedMessage(myCellEmail, "", "Hello World! From python-libgmail!")
stuff.sendMessage(msg)

Cheers!

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

2008-12-08T21:47:00.004-05:00

I snapped this photo today of the elevation of the Host at Immaculate Conception in Cleveland (map). Today was the Patronal feast of the parish, and they had a beautiful liturgy in the usus antiquior with two priests as subdeacons.

Advent (6 days away!)

2008-11-24T13:54:00.004-05:00

I have often wondered why Advent, unlike Lent, is not considered a time of fasting in the Roman Rite. For most Eastern Catholics, it is like a mini-Lent in many respects -- after all, we are preparing for the coming of our Lord.

As good as fasting is, perhaps it is for the best. I can relate to Flannery O'Connor who said in a letter to a man reviewing one of her novels,

"I have 50 or 60 pages on the [new] novel but I still expect to be a long time at it. It's a theme that requires prayer and fasting to make it get anywhere. I manage to pray but am a very sloppy faster." (The Habit of Being, p. 59)

So in the spirit of a Western Advent, here is a good drinking song written by everyone's favorite militant Catholic, Hilaire Belloc. This is from his excellent little novel, "The Four Men." There are several other good drinking songs scattered througout that book along with the notation.

[Audio]
Noël, Noël, Noël, Noël
A Catholic tale have I to tell,
and a Christian song have i to sing,
while all the bells in Arundel ring

I pray good beef and I pray good beer
this holy night of all the year
but I pray detestable drink to them
that give no honor to bethlehem

May all good fellows that here agree
drink audit ale in heaven with me
and may all my enemies go to hell,
Noël, Noël, Noël, Noël
May all my enemies go to hell,
Noël, Noël

Funeral Arrangements for Giselle Updegraff

2008-11-18T08:56:00.004-05:00

I just received an early word on funeral arrangements for Giselle Updegraff:

Wake:
Friday, Nov 21, 1-3pm & 5-9pm
Ritondaro funeral home, 126 South Street, Chardon, OH

Funeral: Saturday, Nov 22, 11am
St. Helen Church, Newbury OH
Also, there will be a viewing at St. Helen's before the funeral from 9-10:45am

Edit (19 Nov 08 11:45am): More info has been posted here.

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine;
In memoria æterna erit justus,
ab auditione mala non timebit.

Domine, Jesu Christe, Rex gloriæ,
libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum
de pœnis inferni et de profundo lacu.
Libera eas de ore leonis,
ne absorbeat eas tartarus,
ne cadant in obscurum;
sed signifer sanctus Michæl
repræsentet eas in lucem sanctam,
quam olim Abrahæ promisisti et semini ejus.

Hostias et preces tibi, Domine,
laudis offerimus;
tu suscipe pro animabus illis,
quarum hodie memoriam facimus.
Fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam.
Quam olim Abrahæ promisisti et semini ejus.

On Suicide

2008-11-16T17:53:00.010-05:00

In my language studies, I spent some time translating an Old English text describing different illnesses along with their causes and symptoms. I came across one that I cannot remember the Old English word for (I believe it was right out of my Old English grammar book, so I'll look it up when I have it on hand), but the Latin word for it was melancholia.

There were said to be four types of liquids that do much to determine personality type. These fluids come from your liver and are stored in your gallbladder. Melancholia was believed to be the result of too much "black bile," one of these four fluids. What modern science has done to prove or disprove these theories I do not know, but we now call melancholia "clinical depression."

I have never experienced depression. I have experienced intense moments of sadness, perhaps even prolonged moments of sadness, but never depression as it has been described to me. This afternoon a friend called to tell me that an old friend, a beautiful young lady, committed suicide last night by jumping out of a seven story window. My mind keeps returning to Dante's seven story mountain in Purgatio.

Anyways, I would like to propose the reading of this short excerpt of Chesterton's Orthodoxy from chapter 3 entitled "The Suicide of Thought." Of course he comes across rather harsh on the subject for those who may be mourning the death of a loved one due to suicide. However, Chesterton is truly more harsh in his praise of life than his condemnation of death.

No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a pagan to die for the world,and enough of a Christian to die to it? In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational optimist who fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He is ready to smash the whole universe for the sake of itself.

I put these things not in their mature logical sequence,but as they came: and this view was cleared and sharpened by an accident of the time. Under the lengthening shadow of Ibsen, an argument arose whether it was not a very nice thing to murder one's self. Grave moderns told us that we must not even say "poor fellow," of a man who had blown his brains out, since he was an enviable person, and had only blown them out because of their exceptional excellence. Mr. William Archer even suggested that in the golden age there would be penny-in-the-slot machines, by which a man could kill himself for a penny. In all this I found myself utterly hostile to many who called themselves liberal and humane. Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes--for it makes even crimes impossible.

About the same time I read a solemn flippancy by some free thinker: he said that a suicide was only the same as a martyr. The open fallacy of this helped to clear the question. Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to end. In other words, the martyr is noble, exactly because (however he renounces the world or execrates all humanity) he confesses this ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live. The suicide is ignoble because he has not this link with being: he is a mere destroyer; spiritually, he destroys the universe. And then I remembered the stake and the cross-roads, and the queer fact that Christianity had shown this weird harshness to the suicide. For Christianity had shown a wild encouragement of the martyr. Historic Christianity was accused, not entirely without reason, of carrying martyrdom and asceticism to a point, desolate and pessimistic. The early Christian martyrs talked of death with a horrible happiness. They blasphemed the beautiful duties of the body: they smelt the grave afar off like a field of flowers. All this has seemed to many the very poetry of pessimism. Yet there is the stake at the crossroads to show what Christianity thought of the pessimist. (from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, chapter 3)

Simon Boccanegra

2008-11-04T17:49:00.005-05:00

Today I remembered an opera in Vienna (Austria) at the Opera House I went to with my friend Dan Spagnola.

Since the hostel we were staying at took our international student IDs as collateral, we weren't able to get student discounted seats. We stood in line until just before the opera started, and we got horrible nosebleed seats. I could only see the stage if I stood on my toes, but it was still an exhilarating performance, albeit uncomfortable.

Anyways, I understood very little of the opera on my own, as it was in some Milanese-Italian dialect that no one knows except people from Milan. But there was one part that struck me, and I only understood it at the time because they had German & English subtitles on these little hard-to-read screens (pretty nasty translations to English, I might add).

A couple weeks later when I was back in Rome, I was able to find the text of the play, and found that little part very difficult to translate. I even asked a couple native Italian speakers for help, and they weren't able to translate a couple of words. So I hit the books, and needless to say, I was able to translate this beautiful little Italian dialect that no one knows or cares about. Luckily, I wrote all this down a couple years ago, and am now sharing it with the interwebz:

The play is "Simon Boccanegra" by Giuseppe Verdi, and was written in 1850's. This is one of the last lines of the Opera, the tragic death of this one dude inspires this other guy that is in love with his daughter to exclaim upon his death:

CORO:
Sì - piange, piange, è vero,
Ognor la creatura;
S'avvolge la natura
In manto di dolor!

Most of this is really obvious either because the words are very similar or the same as either standard Italian or Latin (or both). Here were a couple tough ones though:

"Ognor" is the Florentine (standard Italian) equivalent of ogni ora (an old word). The literal definition of "ogni ora" is "every hour."
Another weird one is actually "la creatura." In Latin and Italian "creatura" is simply "creature." But that doesn't really make sense here. As it turns out, "la creatura" here means something made in God's image, or something that is loved -- a good translation might be, "the human heart."

The rest is fairly obvious and simple. Here's my translation, since an English translation of this play doesn't seem to exist outside of the Opera House in Vienna:

My translation:
"CORO:
Yes - it cries, it cries, it is true,
every hour the human heart;
wraps its nature
In a mantle of sorrow"

Edit: I was just thinking my Latin sucked worse back then than it does now.. in Latin, "creatura" can also sometimes mean "servant," so perhaps the second line here may be translated as "every hour the servant," to emphasize the human condition as relatively powerless and merely "creature-like."

Engineering & Whatnot

2008-10-21T21:15:00.002-04:00

I have not posted in here for quite awhile, but I intend to start up again at least once this week.

I am currently a post-baccalaureate student at Cleveland State University's Fenn College of Engineering perusing a degree in Computer Engineering. I have not spent a great deal of time considering what direction to take this blog as far as content, but you can be sure it will involve Free Software, the Catholic Church, and alcoholic beverages.

On American Morals

2008-04-28T15:07:00.003-04:00

Essay 3:
On American Morals

Another Chesterton essay which needs no introduction. I was at a my cousin Peter's wedding this past weekend in Rochester, NY where a number of us enjoyed the disgusting habit of smoking cigars. This one is for every good Christian who gets scoffed at for enjoying a good cigar.

Sex and Property

2008-04-22T23:32:00.005-04:00

Essay 2:
Sex and Property by G.K. Chesterton

This essay does not need much introduction. It is a brilliant critique of the way we moderns tend to view sex and also how we view property. His critique of the modern separation of love and life (contraception) is particularly intriguing.

(Update 4/18/2008):
I forgot to mention that this essay is from Chesterton's book The Well and the Shallows (1935), but the book is a collection of essays, all of which stand on their own and can be read independently of the others.

There are many vastly incomplete collections of Chesterton's works on the web, as they are in the public domain. One of the larger collections can be found here.

The Catholic Church and Free Software

2008-04-21T20:07:00.007-04:00

I would like to promote a few very good essays I wish had more exposure. I will do at least a few over the next few days (if all goes as planned).

They are short, so if you are anything like me, they will match your short American attention span! Each of these essays address problems that have been neglected in the Church and in our culture.

Essay 1:
Free Software's surprising sympathy with Catholic doctrine by Marco Fioretti

My Introduction: [skim if you are familiar with the free software movement]
If you are unfamiliar with the concept of Free Software (often known as Open Source), this essay will be great for you, but read on: "Free," or Open Source software is not to be confused with software that simply does not cost money:

"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer." [source] (As a Latin axiom puts it liber non gratias, which roughly translates, "liberty-freedom, not money-free."

The beer analogy (check out that link!) makes this easy: If beer companies followed the model of "free software," then Molson would not be a beer making company, but rather a "free" recipe that anyone could use to make Molson beer. So, a "Molson Canadian beer" could be prepared and bottled by anyone who followed that recipe, so long as they publish any changes to the recipe.

Free software is software where the author(s) provide both the software program (the beer) & the source code (the recipe) to the public. Under this model, I suppose programmers would not be paid to make programs, but to customize and improve them for companies that use free software.

My Summary:
This essay points out some remarkable parallels between the philosophy of the Free Software Foundation and Catholic social doctrine. This essay was written for advocates of free software to tell them about Catholic social doctrine. The vast majority of free software people are passionate atheists or agnostics, so the comments below the essay are quite negative.

But remember, there have been many people who have come to know Christ and His Church because of her social teachings, including E.F. Schumacher, Dorothy Day, and to some extent G.K. Chesterton and Jacques Maritain.

Further reading on this:
Christian endorsement of Free Software increases (a follow-up to this article including feedback from Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, who is an atheist)

The site that the author promotes: http://www.eleutheros.it/

A word on the author:
Marco Fioretti is an English speaking member of the Eleutheros Project, which is based out of Rome, Italy. "The Eleutheros mission is [...] to help all the Catholic Church, from the Vatican to every Parish, Catholic school or single faithful worldwide, to put in practice Her own teachings in the choice and usage of Information Technology." [source]

To My Friends From Bernardi House

2008-03-30T23:23:00.003-04:00

When I spent a semester abroad in Rome (Spring 2007), I was privileged to live with twenty-eight students including seven other seminarians (not including the four of us from Borromeo), most of whom from St. Thomas Aquinas University in St. Paul, MN. The seminarians live on the University's campus in St. John Vianney Seminary. Their seminary is so overloaded (from a few Dioceses) thatmany of them have been forced to live off campus in residential houses and rectories.

Despite many hundreds of miles between us, they remain some of the dearest people to me. The deepest conversion of heart I have ever experienced since I rediscovered Christ -- nay, since Christ rediscovered me in 9th grade, has come from Jesus Christ working through them and Father Joseph Carola, S.J.

That said, just yesterday someone posted their new vocations video on YouTube, and I would like to share it with anyone who reads this. The three seminarians who are interviewed throughout the video are all fourth-year college seminarians who lived with me in Rome. They are, in order of appearance, Andrew Brinkman, Shane Sullivan, and Isaac Huss. These three men have each had a tremendous impact on my formation first as a Christian man, and secondly as a seminarian.

Please watch this video, it is only 15 minutes (in two 7min segments).

St. John Vianney Seminary 1/2

St. John Vianney Seminary 2/2

As for me, it is back to my Senior Thesis (it's gunna be an allnighter); I promised a rough draft of approximately twenty pages to my adviser (2) tomorrow afternoon.

Winemaking Supplies on the Cheap

2008-03-18T14:59:00.011-04:00

All you G.K. Chesterton fans may be interested in this, as Chesterton was all about making things at home rather than in factories for the sake of human dignity:

For a few bucks you can put together wine making supplies that are just as good as those you can spend a lot of money for at your local homebrew.

One of the bigger expenses in making wine involve the containers you ferment the must in. You could sink $20 in the nice 7.9gal fermentation bucket, but it's much cheaper to get a bucket elsewhere. Typically the 5 or 6 gallon buckets you can find at Home Depot are food grade, but you could call the manufacturer to make sure. DO NOT use any bucket that has been used to hold anything other than food products.

You can also do what I did: go to a bakery (Giant Eagle) and get one for FREE that used to hold icing for cakes.

Next, go to your local hardware store and pick up a "rubber grommet" with these dimensions:
O.D. (Outside Diameter): 5/8"
I.D. (Inside Diameter): 3/8"

Drill a 1/2" hole (I'm pretty sure that's the right size..) in your lid, pop in the rubber grommet, and voilà: you have an airtight lid that will accommodate the standard airlock most people use for making wine. This lid looks EXACTLY like the one I bought at my local homebrew a few years back.

All in all, it cost me:
Rubber Grommet at Sears Hardware: 35¢
Airlock at local Homebrew: 90¢
Bucket at Giant Eagle's Bakery: Free
--------------------------
Total = $1.25 / bucket

The only downside is that you might have trouble finding a bucket bigger than 5 gallons, because you need something at least 6 gallons to be able to fill a standard 5 gallon carboy after primary fermentation is over. I've been using most of two 4 gallon buckets (each holding a little more than 2.5gal) and combining them into the primary.

One possible solution is to fill a 5 gallon bucket as much as possible (leave at least a few inches; some air is necessary for primary fermentation), and after you siphon all the wine into the carboy, fill the carboy up with glass marbles until the wine is near to the top (boil the marbles in water first to sterilize them). You will end up with a little less than 5 gallons, but hopefully not too much. The trick is not to leave too much air in the top of your carboy, it will do bad things to your wine.

For a secondary jug, you're pretty much stuck paying the $25 or so at your local home brew if you want a big 5 gallon carboy, (unless you get lucky enough to find a carboy on craigslist like I did for $10.. search for "glass jar," "glass jars" etc.. sometimes people don't call them carboys).

However, if you like to do smaller batches (or I suppose you could use several of these combined to equal one 5 gallon carboy), here's a cheap solution:

If you are a practicing Catholic (woo hoo!), just ask your priest to save the empty wine bottles they use to hold Sacramental wine. One priest I know said he uses three (3x) 1 gallon jugs every week! The secular alternative is to buy that cheap wine at Giant Eagle in the same jugs and just drink the wine. That's lame though.

This option is even easier than the last: all you need is the right size drilled rubber stopper and an airlock from your local homebrew. Now the link says that the rubber stopper I have pictured (which is the one that showed up on my reciept) is 1 - 1/8" Top and 1 - 1/16" bottom, but I clearly measured it to be 1 - 1/4" top and 1" bottom. I'd just bring the bottle to your local homebrew and make sure you get one that fits.

All in all, it cost me:
No. 006 Drilled Rubber Stopper: 70¢
Airlock: 90¢
1 Gallon Jug (from my Church): Free!
------------------------------
Total = $1.60 / Jug

Please post any corrections, experiences, or additional tips you may have!

St. Thomas Aquinas Lecture at Borromeo Seminary

2008-02-26T15:34:00.003-05:00

Our Bi-Annual St. Thomas Aquinas Lecture is coming up soon at Borromeo Seminary:

Monday, March 31st at 7:30PM
Rev. Joseph Koterski, S.J.
Sapientia et Doctrina: Benedict XVI Summons to Philosophers

There are three reasons, aside from the fact that it should be a good lecture, that you should attend if you are in the area:

It concerns Pope Benedict XVI (hard to go wrong there).
The title of his Lecture is in Latin. I mean, come on.. you don't get that often in Cleveland unless you're an organization like Virtus or something, in which case good luck finding anything in common with St. Thomas Aquinas' understanding of virtus.
I'm pretty sure his Curriculum Vitae is longer than anything I have ever written.

Anyways, definitely come to the Lecture. It's free, and it will be awesome.

An Old English Poem

2008-02-11T11:24:00.003-05:00

I am sorry that I have not written in a long time. This post was actually drafted on the 12th of December, 2007. I have revised it so that it is no longer about Christmas break! Anyhow..

I recorded this Old English poem for some friends of mine in Minnesota. It's called Cædmon's Hymn and the audio file is here. Old English is difficult to pronounce, and scholars are not even sure about some things. Oh, and spelling barely matters at all.

Old English had never been written down because they never really had a writing system (they had some runic symbols that they could understand, but that's it). So the monks, who knew how to speak and read Latin, began writing down things in Old English by figuring out how you would spell a word that sounded like, say, "herian" using the Latin alphabet.

The Monks also borrowed a couple letters from the runic system, þ and ð. They stopped using those a long time ago, and they were replaced with what is now "th," as in "they."

Anyways, if you look up Cædmon's Hymn, you will find several different versions, because different scribes wrote out words in different ways. Here's the version I know with my own translation; the capital letters and punctuation and stuff are not in the manuscript (you are lucky if you get spaces between words on a manuscript) and the Audio:

Nū sculon herian      heofon-rīċes weard,
metodes meahta      and his mōd-ġeþanc,
weorc wuldor-fæder,      swa hē wundra ġewæs,
ēċe dryhten,      ōr astealde.
Hē ǣrest scōp      ielda bearnum
heofon tō hrōfe,      hāliġ scieppend;
þa middan-ġeard      mann-cynnes weard,
ēċe dryhten,      æfter tēode
fīrum foldan      frēa ælmihtiġ.

Now we must honor      the guardian of heaven,
the might of the creator      and his thought.
the works of the father of glory      how his wonders are,
eternal lord,      set forth from the beginning.
He first shaped      the sons of men
heaven as a roof      the Holy Maker
then middle-earth      mankind's garden
the eternal Lord      made after
solid ground      the almighty Lord.

Cheers!

Mnemosyne and Wheelock's Latin

2007-12-07T11:35:00.000-05:00

Here's something exciting that I did:

Some time ago I made a small contribution to the Mnemosyne project, which is this flashcard program that is smart enough to tell you which flashcards you need to study if you give it a vocabulary list. My contribution was a Latin vocab list from Wheelock's Latin, which is probably the most respected introductory Latin text out there.

It took me forever to find someone with a complete vocabulary list from the latest (6th) edition, but I finally found one here, and sent them the list to add to their sourceforge project. This was back on November 30th.

Since then, it has received nearly 300 downloads, while the latest version of the program itself has under 2000 downloads (between both Windows and Linux).

I also put up step by step instructions on how to install the latest version from source on Ubuntu Linux here, in case anyone is interested (you should be).

Glory to Jesus Christ now and forever. And if anyone knows of any scholarships for me to learn Greek over the summer, let me know.

Spe Salvi

2007-12-04T10:10:00.000-05:00

This is my first post in a long time. I have been pretty busy this semester, but it's winding down pretty quickly. Today I wrote a Wikipedia article for my Old English class on the Old English poem, Soul and Body.

I finished my big Metaphysics research paper last week! I got an A- because I wrote the last three pages in an hour right before class, as the first seven pages took forever to write. So the conclusion is horrible. I do not have any papers I want to post from this semester; I have not written anything decent in a long time.

I have yet to read it, but I compiled a Printable Latin-English Lexicon of Spe Salvi, the latest Papal Encyclical. I also turned those annoying Endnotes into Footnotes (using the English source). Latin is on the right, and English on the left. Enjoy Latinists: odt, doc, pdf.

AND We're Back!

2007-11-08T11:30:00.000-05:00

So.. I haven't wrote in here for awhile, but I hope to start again. I will post something soon.

To Home from Rome

2007-02-17T06:51:00.000-05:00

I deeply regret that I have been too busy to post anything in the past month. Between traveling and settling-in in the Eternal-City, I have been quite busy. I will post something sweet soon.

I do, however, have some sweet pictures online from Slovenia and Rome. I even give a video tour of Rome from the Monument of Vittorio Emanuele II. It is pretty hardcore, I will not lie. Here is the link: theRomanSteve.

theSteveBlog and google.com

2007-01-15T15:45:00.000-05:00

You can now get to theSteveBlog by typing "theSteveBlog" at google.com and pressing "I'm feeling lucky," as it is your luck that will bring you back here, to theSteveBlog. Or, more precisely, it will bring you to a previous blog entry on theSteveBlog entitled "the new theSteveBlog." That is alright though, because with a click or two you can easily resolve the issue, and get on to the latest entry on theSteveBlog.

In the past 24hrs, I have driven to and from (or past) Hopkins Airport three times. One to deliver a Camera, the other to pick someone up, and the third I can't remember. I think I need to spend more time in my backyard.

In other news, my future roommate Andrew Summerson has departed for Rome, Italy, where he will be staying at some Ukrainian Byzantine Seminary or something for a couple weeks. I am leaving 17 days from today for Ljubljana, Slovenia to visit relatives, then I will be in the Eternal City on February 7th!

I think I will paint my Grandma's kitchen this week.

Visa and Other Madness

2007-01-08T16:19:00.000-05:00

My visa came in the mail yesterday, and that made me very happy. I had a few nightmares last week about how it did not come in time for me to go to Rome. They were stupid.

Today I met up with some people I went on this Theology of the Body week-long course with a couple summers ago run by Christopher West. It was pretty cool, because it was at Jen Ricard's house. She has six kids.

In other news, this Friday Jan. 12th is the JPII Night of the Arts! Here is how to get there: GoogleMaps, Mapquest. It is going to be totally awesome. I am running sound, and it is going to be totally sweet, because Father Damian will be playing in a band with some guys from his parish, and Andrew Summerson (one of my brothers from the seminary, I will be rooming with him in Rome) will play with the band formally known as "The Sam Adams Compromise." According to the flyer I have, it will be:

a night dedicated to
Catholic culture

featuring the music of
Iron Kordas & Parker’s Back

and artwork by seminarians
Pat Anderson & Terry Grachanin

It is at an abandoned Russian Orthodox Church. We may have found some sweet books in the choir loft that apparently no one wanted when we checked the place out. It will be incredible. Get there. Or alternatively, get square.

P.S. Bring money (suggested donation $5) because Andrew's poor, and he's the one putting it on.

Retreat and Bottling Homemade Wine

2007-01-04T00:21:00.000-05:00

I chose the retreat, and it was not so far off from what I look for in a retreat after all. As a matter of fact, it was excellent; there was much time for prayer, and many people I have not seen in a long time. It should also be noted that on the first night of the retreat, a young man with dreadlocks named "Slug," host to "The Dance Party of the Century" (which, sadly, I was too fatigued to attend), danced much to silly dance music. Others joined in, but he was clearly the protagonist. It humored me much. Rumor has it, he is receiving pressure from the clergy to go to Steubenville or CUA or something and get a B.A. in Philosophy.

In other news, New Years at Pickwick & Frolic was the most exciting thing I have done in my entire life aside from countless exceptions. It was also very sad though; I realized most of my friends will be back off to college within in a week or so, and I do not fly out to Europe for my semester abroad until February 1st. Boo to people who go to college far away. Except for me. But only for a semester.

I spent most of today trying to fix a laptop to bring to Rome (or rather, watching my older brother try), splitting wood, reading a Travelers guide to Western Europe on a budget, and making preparations to take in a few thousand Italian Vocab words in under a month (which actually will not be difficult at all). Tomorrow I will start seriously cramming in some Italian, study a road map of Rome, London and Paris, and maybe look into some stuff on Slovenia.

On Winemaking:
So Eric the Sukalac and I made Wine last August, and gave away many bottles for Christmas. We were supposed to bottle them in September, but we ended up bottling them a few weeks ago, because we did not have enough wine bottles. And we were lazy.

Anyways, corking wine bottles requires the following materials:

Corks
Bottles (update 1/6/2007 - the size of the corks and bottles are probably to scale)
A cheap plastic corker
A very large pipe clamp
Two tall glasses of Scotch (each containing .25L - 1/3 of bottle containing a fifth)
Two professional winemakers
A Top-Secret Wine Cellar

Step 1. Use half a tall glass of scotch per person to figure out how to siphon the wine into the bottles.

Step 2. Use another quarter glass of scotch per person to attempt unsuccessfully to cork a bottle using the cheap plastic corker.

Step 3. Call your older brother and use the rest of the glass of scotch along with a glass of the wine while watching him rig up the cheap plastic corker to the the very large pipe clamp and laugh as a 1.75in cork is shoved into a 1.25in hole.

Anyways, today, as I was moving the extra empty wine bottles, I discovered that in our altered state we forgot to cork a bottle of wine. I guess we made 21 full bottles.

Ski -or- Retreat?

2006-12-28T01:14:00.000-05:00

I am trying to decide whether to go to a young adult retreat or on a ski trip which I do not have to pay for (because my siblings are rich and charitable). The problem with the young adult retreat is that it is not even close to being designed for someone who lives in a seminary (I am going on the seminary's annual whole house retreat in a couple of weeks down in Columbus). However, I want to see people on the retreat who I have not seen in a long time. Skiing would be fun, but sleep is much easier. I think I will go on the retreat.

O the Christmas Cheer

2006-12-24T01:34:00.000-05:00

I was at a fabulous Christmas party last night. The host's Father was quite the Scotch connoisseur, and when he saw me with my glass of Scotch (I love my Scotch), he said something like, "Drop your Dewars and come follow me."

Needless to say, we tasted several different single malts whose flavors I would feel confident resting all apologetics for Christianity upon. The poets...

I was going to post a paper I wrote on Hamlet (well, I mentioned Hamlet), but I am waiting to receive my comments back from my professor to see if he thinks it publish-worthy. In short, I am not going to post it, because that would be illegal if it ever gets published.

Merry Christmas Eve! Blessed be the Christ who pursued us even by being born in a cave surrounded by sheep dung.

Christmas Break

2006-12-20T13:01:00.000-05:00

Christmas break is officially here, and I have been cited! Here's the link: Modernity in a nutshell.

My room is a horrible mess (O horrible, O horrible, most horrible), it has not yet recovered from moving in. I am free now until February 1, when I fly to Ljubljana, Slovenia (the capital), where I apparently have relatives that are all jacked up to meet me. I am quite jacked up about it myself to be honest. I will stay in Ljubljana until the 6th, when I must be in Rome to start my semester. I am done with that thing on June 6, then I will spend a week in France with one of my brothers, and fly back to the U.S. via Paris, France.

Jealous? Me too. The one thing I have learned so far planning for this trip is that you never need to do anything on time, so I never do and I never will unless I am forced (have you noticed I still have yet to reply to Matt? I am such a bum...).

I think I will head up to the adoration chapel at St. Helen's today and spend some time with the Jesus, maybe do a little reading.

I am excited about Dappled Things. I am going to submit at least one article and perhaps one poem to them. Check them out, they accept Catholic writers from 18-35 with university education, and they are all about the 20th century Catholic Literary revival (which is my number one interest); they love G.K. Chesterton, Flannery O'Connor, Evelyn Waugh, G.M. Hopkins, and other great dead Catholic writers.

P.S. I am excited because my sister is getting married in June! Lou Ann Tracer... Wow, I have not seen that written until just now...

O heart, lose not thy nature, let not
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;

Err.. wait... here's what I meant:

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!

('Tis new to thee..)
(Just kidding:)

Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

2006-12-15T11:16:00.000-05:00

I have one more exam in a couple of hours, on Shakespeare. Then I am done.

Shakespeare was definitely my favorite class this semester. My prof was a Jesuit named Fr. Francis Ryan. He smokes, drinks too much, and espouses to heresy, but he is one of the best professors I have ever had. Here is a line from one of my papers I wrote for him:

"Even the strict Jesuit moralist must imagine for a moment that like Judah's hatred of Assyria where “even her little ones were dashed to pieces / at the corner of every street” (Nahum 3:10), Hamlet's revenge for the death of his father is an act charged by God Himself."

Now, truth be told, I would not call him a strict Jesuit moralist, but it is fun to pretend.

Tonight is a night of celebration; the Seminary hosts the greatest Christmas party on the entire planet. I am just hoping they have Glenlivet.

On Grades

2006-12-12T23:17:00.000-05:00

So I turned in this paper in paper the other day, and my prof. said that it was not an academic philosophy paper. Turns out I read Chesterton and other British authors too much, and am not interested enough in the worst writers on the face of the planet, namely, those who have written primary sources in Epistemology. So, I told him, "I thought my topic was far more interesting than the one you gave."

Needless to say, he did not really grade it because I did not write about what he wanted me to write about, and it is the first time since my first year of college that I received a paper back with anything lower than a B+ (of which I have had two). I am not too concerned though, because worst case scenario: I get a B in the course.

He said he liked the paper and a lot of the things I had to say, but it is better suited for a newspaper column. That excited me a little, because I have wanted to have a newspaper column for a long time. Unfortunately, I would be too controversial an author for the Seminary to allow me to publish stuff in something like the Carroll News (provided I could get a column, which is not likely at this point).

At any rate, as far as I am concerned 95% of Epistemology comes down to explaining what a eight year old already knows.

Exam Week

2006-12-11T09:31:00.000-05:00

Allow me to express my sentiments for exams in a few words: I do not like them.

Over Christmas break, ask me how my articles are coming. If my response resembles an excuse, please respond in turn with reprimanding words, because I need to get some stuff published (and I could use the $$). I have had two doctorates (one a priest) tell me I am morally obligated to publish some stuff I have been working on, and if I fail to live up to this moral obligation, I might go to hell.

A New Paper

2006-12-02T20:41:00.000-05:00

I just posted a paper I stayed up all night writing a couple of days ago, the one I mentioned earlier about Kant and Phenomenology. It is entitled Phenomenology and Faith in Ordinary People. If you have no philosophical background, then please read it, because I wrote it about you. Well, kind of. There are just a few terms here and there that may cause some confusion.

I just reread it, and it should not have any typos (which is good, because I never proof-read or have anyone proof-read for me as a rule), but there are a few places where if I were making corrections I would have reworded things or clarified thoughts. It is a little disorganized, but not incomprehensable. As usual, about 10% of the paper addresses the prompt, but I write what I want.

In other news, I just got back from a John Paul II Phenomenology conference in Pittsburgh at Dequesne University. I will post about it later. It was boring. I will make it funny.

I Am Both Lazy and Busy

2006-11-28T23:27:00.000-05:00

I have not responded yet to Matt Jensen, and if the statement about my name being dirt if I did not respond within 24hrs is true, then it is in fact the case that my name is dirt. I probably will not be able to get to it until the end of the week because I have about 15 pages in papers to write. In one, I will be comparing and contrasting Kantian Epistemology and a Realist Phenomenological Epistemology as presented by Robert Sokolowski. That paper is due Thursday, and I still need to do about four hours of reading and it needs to be 7 pages. My other paper, due Friday, is for my Shakespeare class. In this I will address Hamlet, and I am writing about whatever the heck I want, and it will be as long as I want it to be (and that, my friends, is the more appropriate attitude to have when writing papers). I have spent about thirty seconds on both papers combined at this point, and that thirty seconds ended about ten seconds ago.

In other news, the brakes went out on my car a couple of weeks ago (by "out" I mean no brakes). So, on Tuesday after classes, me and Max Cole went down to the auto parts store and picked up a chunk of brake line to try to do a quick fix so I could at least get home. Well, we patched the leak, and then a hundred other leaks started, leaving me with enough brake fluid to use the breaks for maybe two complete stops before it all leaked out. So, I decided this would be a good time to drive home. Needless to say, first gear and the emergency break came in handy.

As mentioned in a previous post, I am all jacked up about the incarnation. The conception of God in the infinite sense before Christ had been God as totally outside the world, some infinite being that we seek. Whether it was Plato referring to the form of all forms, Aristotle referring to the Prime Mover, the pagans referring to (almost as though it were in secret, something in the back of their mind brought up with a certain mood of fear) the God who made the gods, or whoever, it was always at best a God who we seek but do not really know.

It all changed when that infinite God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible, He who created ex nihilo (out of nothing) and whose creation added nothing to His greatness, became a little child in the middle of the night in a cave out in the desert. As Chesterton once said, "It is profoundly true to say that after that moment there could be no slaves." Christ had not fallen out of the sky, but come from under the earth in a cave in a manger. We did not call Him down from on high, rather, He called us coming from the lowest place we could ever be. In the womb of our Blessed Mother, Infinity was once smaller than the eye of a needle.

This is also why the we must be poor. You can not be in "the Little Jesus" as St. Therese of Liseaux calls Him, if you are rich because the rich make themselves large. The Christian must always seek to make himself small, because a camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle.

And that, my dear brothers and sisters, is why there can be no more slaves.

For more on that, read G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man. It is perhaps the greatest book written in the 20th century. It is certainly the greatest work written in the first half of the 20th century.

"I know that the most modern manufacture has been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally large needle. I know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very small camel." -Chesterton, Orthodoxy

I really should not have spent half an hour writing this post. It is now 11:47pm, and the amount of homework I have to do is beyond belief.

Thanksgiving break.. home..

2006-11-22T01:08:00.001-05:00

I am finally home for thanksgiving break. I used to hate coming home from the seminary because even just a couple of days away would make formation seem disoriented for like a whole week; but since I was not at home last summer, home has really become more like a vacation. Parkman is like an oasis in the desert. The grass is always greener here, and that's not just how I perceive it; last summer I used to come home on a hot Friday night from a thirsty and dead Cleveland and be shocked by how green, healthy, and overgrown everything was. It felt like going from a desert to the tropics.

A few weeks ago I was excited and decided that instead of going to any of my classes next fall, I will read the Harvard Classics. I did the math, I think that I could finish the whole five-foot-shelf reading a little less than 200 pages a day. I will, of course, skip some of the readings and replace them with others (I tend to side a little closer to Encyclopedia Britannica than the Harvard Classics in determining what a classic is). If any professor dares to claim they have more to offer than a semester of reading the greatest classics man has to offer, he may try.

now I find myself singing
all the songs you used to sing

"Christ, higher than the Cheribum, when you took our lowly nature you transformed the world." -St. Athanasius.

"I believe, O Lord, and confess that You are indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God, Who came into the world to save sinners, of Whom I am the first. Of Your mystical supper, make me a partaker this day, O Son of God, for I will not speak of Your mysteries to Your enemies, nor like Judas will I give You a kiss, but like the good thief will I confess to You. Remember me, O Lord, when You shall come into Your kingdom. Remember me, O Master, when You shall come into Your kingdom. Remember me, O Holy One, when You shall come into Your kingdom. Not for judgment, nor for condemnation be for me the partaking of these Your Holy Mysteries O Lord, but for the healing of my body and soul. O God be merciful to me a sinner. God, cleanse my sins and have mercy on me. Innumerably have I sinned, forgive me, O Lord." -prayer everyone prays aloud before receiving the Precious Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in Divine Liturgy (Byzantine Rite).

HiStory

2006-11-21T09:25:00.000-05:00

I apologize for not posting this past week; I have had a lot of things going on at the seminary. Really I have just been busy procrastinating. I definitely owe Matt a response, and I will have that for him in the next 24 hours or my name is dirt. Well, not really. I just have not felt like thinking about Phenomenology (which is what I will use in response).

At any rate, the latest news is that Thanksgiving break starts for me at 2pm today! I have no clue what I am going to do, but hopefully it involves scotch and Great Lakes' Christmas Ale (which, by the way, is incredible). Actually, I would much to prefer to see old friends. And besides, what good is a little spirit without other people?

I also have some reading to do on celibacy that my FA (formation advisor) gave me. I have a feeling I am going to have some strong disagreements with the author though. I hate bad theology; since when does all that existential stuff satisfy the deepest yearnings of the human heart anyways? Now that is theology.

I was reflecting on the integration between my academic education and my spiritual life a few days ago, and I realized that I never really understood how absolutely incredible the incarnation is until this semester. This semester I have spent more time with literature (and probably even more time with literary criticism) and I finally have a vague idea of what a narrative is all about (now I can graduate from grade school). I can not fathom having any clue what the incarnation means without understanding the reason behind mythology. J.R.R. Tolkien says that all scripture is one great myth that is exactly the same as every other myth, except with the enormous difference that the Christ-myth actually happened; it is a narrative written in history (if I may be corny: His-Story), only instead of using words He used facts; instead of characters He used people; instead of a merely human author, He was Himself the Divine Author. In this sense, he actually wrote himself into history. This is why we men write stories even though it is terribly impractical (it does not put food on the table), because we are in the image and likeness of God, and God Himself is an author.

G.K. Chesterton wrote an entire play that I saw performed this summer in Minnesota entitled "The Surprise" that strongly emphasized the above point. It is an incredible play, absolutely fantastic.

Sheesh.

No poems quite yet, although it is now 3 minutes until astronomy... boo ya. This entry was written far too hastily.

Praised be the name of Jesus now and forever Amen.

Come away with me, and I will write you a song

2006-11-10T14:39:00.000-05:00

I am broke. And I have no money.

Yesterday was Bishop Amos' big goodbye liturgy at the Cathedral downtown. It was quite pleasant, and there was some nice food afterwards.

I grabbed some old stuff out of my closet when I went home to vote that I have not looked at in years. It got me thinking a lot, and I realized that I was quite frankly "a piece of work," as the saying goes, in high school. Miserere Nobis.

This weekend I think I am going to finish a couple of articles that I have been working on and get permission to try to get one of them published. The better of the two is an attempt to approach the problem of the mistreatment of women from a Chestertonian and John Paul the Greatean angle.

I am going to respond to Matt tomorrow because I have had a wild week, but right now I have another short silly rhyming poem from Astronomy class. I may change the name or make it longer; it is about suffering and the greatest desire of the human heart.

The Mysterious Other

**Nov. 8, 2007 This poem has been removed for posthumous publication. I will add a link to the text later if it is possible.

On Being Poor

2006-11-09T12:17:00.000-05:00

I have just made my flight arrangements for Rome next semester ($914.35), and after the transaction goes through (as well as a check for a $160 traffic violation), I will have $50.23 in my name. I really hope someone gives me a lot of money so I can eat food next semester.

In other news, Matt Jensen, a fellow student of philosophy from College of Wooster objected to some of my bad arguments against the even worse argument in favor (which I am tempted to spell favour; all those English writers are starting to rub off on me) of relativism. He made some wonderfully brilliant objections, but unfortunately none of them are true. I will respond to him in the comment section of the previous post plus tard. But now, I am off to class.

Now that I am poor, I can more fully unite myself with Christ who came to earth from infinity to be the poorest of all. Praised be the name of Jesus now and forever.

"The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it." -G.K. Chesterton

theSteveBlog: Papers Edition

2006-11-08T22:27:00.000-05:00

There is a new blog I put up specifically for posting papers that I have written. Do not even think of stealing them to turn in for a grade (although you would probably be less embarrassed turning in nothing at all). I just put up a very short paper on relativism (three pages or so). Even though it is filled with numerous intolerable errors, it is sure to give you a laugh; even if it is only at my foolishness. I may also put up a bad literary criticism of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure posthumously once I get over how silly it is. To get to this blog, click on that silly looking picture of me at the top of the page, and then click on "theSteveBlog: Papers." Enjoy!

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
-Shakespeare The Tempest

Lamb, Lamb

2006-11-08T14:37:00.000-05:00

I have not put anything on here in quite some time now, but I decided that I would try to start again, because it's good to write a little (I'm having a light semester as far as writing goes). I'm almost done with the first semester of my third year at Borromeo, and I am getting ready to head off to Rome from Febuary until June. I have yet to buy my plane ticket, and things are a bit hectic because I am a big fan of not meeting deadlines because deadlines make me anxious, and I guess anxiety is unhealthy; so I avoid it by not doing things on time.

This past weekend was ordination to the Transitional Diaconate for four of my older brothers. It was pretty wild because I know two of them quite well. After the Rev. Mr. Michael Denk made his vows, he was looking to his right where I was seated (the seminary chapel is shaped like a cross, so it has three different sections, I was seated in the one off to the right of the sanctuary), I assume for his family or something, and then we met eyes for like, more than five seconds (I would say about six and a half) and he gave a little grin, and I smiled back at him, and then he stopped looking to the side, and just looked straight ahead toward the main section, and it was really cool because Deacon Mike and I are close. Like best friends or something.

Anyways, I've been writing a little poetry during my Astronomy class a little because "a thing worth doing is worth doing badly." Here is little thing I wrote about a shepherd who became a lamb. It is kinda funny for a second, then it is not. But if you want to laugh at the rest of it, please do, I like it when people laugh.

Lamb, Lamb

**Nov. 8, 2007 (exactly one year later) This poem has been removed for posthumous publication. I will add a link to the text later if it is possible.

the new theSteveBlog

2005-12-20T08:22:00.000-05:00

This is the new and improved theSteveBlog. I'm switching here for a number of reasons; I created it not long after the creation of the old location of theSteveBlog, but I got excited so I kept the old one. The thing that prompted my change was spam, I received about 800 spam comments in the course of three days, and since the blogger I had set up on that site was full of dumbness, I decided to just pull the switch to blogspot because it's both run by google, and sweet (not that there's a difference). So, Welcome to the new and improved theSteveBlog!

A Few Words on the Previous Post

2005-12-20T00:39:00.000-05:00

The topic for the paper I posted a few days ago (Update 12/9/2006: the previous post has been moved to theSteveblog: Papers edition) written for my independent study on Theology of the Body was the mistreatment of women. Such an approach to Theology of the Body is not what I am best learned in; in fact, my decision to write it on women was a rather rash one. At one point, I had considered adding to the paper my reasons for picking a topic I would not ordinarily choose, but for a number of reasons I decided against it.

At any rate, the reason I chose such an unlikely topic has to do with a beautiful young lady whom I was once very close with. She had been involved in unchaste and even abusive relationships for a long time. She was convinced that if there is such a thing as love (even erotic love) that it has nothing to do with chastity and purity. One day, she met someone who proved that all wrong and showed her that there is more out there for her than hurt and lustful indulgence that ultimately leaves only emptiness. Eventually, however, they went their separate ways, and even though she had seen that there was fulfillment in what love truly is, she chose to return to the emptiness.

If you haven't figured it out already in reading my paper, I am quite fond of G.K. Chesterton. He wrote a series of detective stories in his day, the great detective being a priest named Father Brown. In Chesterton's words, "Father Brown’s talent is not his ability to identify the telltale cigar ash or to interpret the peculiar footprints. It is his ability to understand the human heart." In one of these detective stories, Father Brown says of a criminal, "I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread." Just as Father Brown's twitch upon the thread is enough for him to capture his criminal, if God has touched someone's heart once, all they need is a twitch upon the thread to bring them back to the center. Evelyn Waugh's novel, Brideshead Revisited, is all about this "twitch on the thread," so much so that Book Three is entitled "A Twitch Upon the Thread." For an in depth analysis of this theme, read the first chapter of Father Robert Barron's "The Strangest Way."

My essay, "On the Mistreatment of Women," was a prayer of sorts; it was a prayer for that "twitch upon the thread" that will bring an old friend back to the center. It was a prayer of trust that "God calls his children back to the center - even those who have drifted to the furthest edge" (The Strangest Way 36). Christ only twitches the thread, he would never yank on it - if we insist on living apart from Him, he will let us. However, he will never let those who have found Him before to be lost completely, the thread is always there. My prayer is that the twitch never goes away, that she will never be allowed to forget that there was something more, something infinitely greater back in the center, back to Him.