miniZibaldone

From First Things

From  http://www.ilsussidiario.net/News/English-Spoken-Here/ BREXIT/Italy to the collapse: It's all in the Asian '97-98 crisis? Francesco Sisi June 30, 2016 The largely dreaded Brexit has arrived, and the consequences are apparently so immense and unpredictable that they were neither seen nor anticipated. Neither the EU nor the Britons had prepared a plan B, that is, what they would’ve effectively done if the referendum had chosen to leave the Union . Such is clear from the first frantic reactions of the European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker, who, in substance, said to the British: “and now get the hell off of the EU ASAP” and from the British themselves, who, in the few hours following the results, garnered two million signatures to vote again, while the Scottish formally announced they would stay with the EU and leave the UK instead. However, many in the world don’t worry as much about the destruction of the Kingdom, which, through many diffi...

Apart from some visible walls, other invisible walls are being strengthened which tend to divide our continent. These walls are being built in people’s hearts. They are walls made of fear and aggression, a failure to understand people of different backgrounds or faith. They are walls of political and economic selfishness, without respect for the life and dignity of every person. From the video message Europe finds itself in a complex and highly mobile world, which is ever more globalised and therefore ever less Eurocentric.  If we are aware of these momentous issues, then we must have the courage to say: we need change! Europe is called to reflect and to ask itself whether its immense heritage, so permeated with Christianity, belongs in a museum or is still able to inspire culture and to offer its treasures to the whole of humankind.  You are meeting so as to look together at these challenges facing Europe and to highlight testimonies of life in society which enable netw...

From Notes Towards the Definition of Culture I said at the end of my second talk that I should want to make a little clearer what I mean when I use the term culture. Like "democracy," this is a term which needs to be, not only defined, but illustrated, almost every time we use it. And it is necessary to be clear about what we mean by "culture," so that we may be clear about the distinction between the material organisation of Europe, and the spiritual organism of Europe. If the latter dies, then what you organise will not be Europe, but merely a mass of human beings speaking several different languages. And there will be no longer any justification for their continuing to speak different languages, for they will no longer have anything to say which cannot be said equally well in any language: they will, in short, have no longer anything to say in poetry. I have already affirmed that there can be no "European" culture if the several countries are isolat...

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What has happened to you, the Europe of humanism, the champion of human rights, democracy and freedom? What has happened to you, Europe, the home of poets,  philosophers, artists, musicians, and men and women of letters? What has happened to you, Europe, the mother of peoples and nations, the mother of great men and women  who upheld, and even sacrificed their lives for, the dignity of their brothers and sisters? From the address We need to “remember”, to take a step back from the present to listen to the voice of our forebears. Remembering will help us not to repeat our past mistakes (cf. Evangelii Gaudium , 108), but also to re-appropriate those experiences that enabled our peoples to surmount the crises of the past. A memory transfusion can free us from today’s temptation to build hastily on the shifting sands of immediate results, which may produce “quick and easy short-term political gains, but do not enhance human fulfilment” (ibid., 224). [...]  Forms of reduc...

From Oasis journal The fate of Schengen and the Endurance of the European Pact The migration crisis put the EU to the test. In order to hold out, the Union must not be perceived as a service provider, but as a dimension of existence of its  citizens and residents Andrea Pin | 21 March 2016 The scenario that seems to be solidifying for some time now in the Mediterranean is disheartening. Hundreds of thousands of people literally adrift at sea; European  states are caught in a dilemma between financial sustainability, social stability and the need to save the human beings presenting themselves at their borders; the  added difficulty of distinguishing the crowds of desperate people leaving countries in the throes of civil war from economic migrants, while seeking to deter  economic migrants from making their way to Europe as every entryway and border have fallen. The European and international regulations distinguish the statuses of  those who reach the...

Sarajevo Rose: A Balkan Jewish Notebook by Stephen Schwartz Name-Dropping from FDR On by John Kenneth Glabraith The Haunted Land by Tina Rosenberg From Bondage to Liberation by Faith Berry The Rise and Fall of Athens by Plutarch  The Negro in the Making of America by Benjamin Quarles  South: The Endurance Expedition by Ernest Shackleton  A Study of History 1 by Arnold Toynbee 

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value by William Poundstone The Haunted Land by Tina Rosenberg Red, White, and Blue: Men, Books, and Ideas in American Culture Ward by John William

Looking at the ISIS reality with the help of Oasis Journal [complete text] [complete text]