Bill Huber

Seeking knowledge and wisdom, and enjoying the wonder of God's creation for half a century. Art, Music, Literature, History, Travel, Politics, Theology...

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@roccopalmo cut off comments on this one. Meanwhile also in Washington…https://t.co/7AhCYjm4py

[Rocco Palmo @roccopalmo]

While the Cardinals join the Holy Father in Leo XIV’s 2nd Extraordinary Consistory, +Barron’s with his Daddy again….

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@USCCB Improper immigration controls and lax screening also created a huge moral crisis, and also increased crime levels and threats to safety. Sometime we need to take a step back to move forward.

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@CardinalDolan @thegnewsroom Checking to make sure?

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@zacdayvis Hmmm…. You feel uncomfortable?

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

Shenandoah River (main stem): Approximately 20 miles (about 32 km) in West Virginia out of a total main stem length of ~56–57 miles (90 km).0172
•This represents roughly 35% of the main stem in West Virginia (the final stretch in Jefferson County, with meanders before joining the Potomac at Harpers Ferry).70
•The North and South Forks (each ~100–105 miles long) are almost entirely in Virginia, so over 90% of the full river system (including forks and tributaries) is in Virginia.0
•Sources vary slightly on exact figures (e.g., one notes ~35 miles in Virginia and ~22 in West Virginia for the main stem), but ~20 miles in WV is the most commonly cited value for the post-Virginia portion.78
The river forms at the confluence of its forks near Front Royal, Virginia, flows northeast, and crosses into WV’s Eastern Panhandle for its final segment.4
Blue Ridge Mountains: A very small portion is in West Virginia—essentially just the easternmost tip in Jefferson County.58
•The full range extends ~550 miles (885 km) from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and farther south to Georgia.15
•In West Virginia, the Blue Ridge crest forms (or lies near) the border with Virginia (e.g., between Jefferson County, WV, and Loudoun County, VA). Elevations there are modest (~1,700 feet max in WV vs. much higher farther south in Virginia).58
•Miles in WV: No precise “length” figure is commonly given because the WV segment is minimal (a short stretch of the northern end of the range, not a long traverse). It is far less than 1% of the total range length. The range primarily lies in Virginia and states to the south; WV has only a tiny sliver in its Eastern Panhandle.58
In summary, nearly all of the Shenandoah River system is in Virginia (with a notable but minority final stretch in WV), while the Blue Ridge has only a negligible presence in WV at its far northern end. These features are famously linked in John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which poetically associates them with West Virginia.

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@spencer0794 @FreddyLA7 Mt Mitchell, NC, 6,684 ft.; Clingman’s Dome, NC, 6,643 ft; Mt Washington, NH, 6,288 feet, 3rd highest on the East Coast.

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@Hersheypark @FreddyLA7 You’ve never had German (or Swiss, or Belgian, or even English) Chocolate, have you? Compare the ingredients. There are lots of great things about the USA. Our chocolate is not currently among them.

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@icebergz99 @FreddyLA7 Love the Roscoe Diner!

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@FreddyLA7 @FreddyLA7 This is a must see and right on your route. The history of the 18th -19th century American whaling industry is absolutely fascinating. https://t.co/iv0wtV6IBI

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@HollywoodRpi69 @FreddyLA7 I think you need to recommend a stop at @StewLeonards if @Freddy is passing through Southern CT. It’s as unique and memorable as @RealBuccees, and most of the fare is quite a bit healthier!

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@Sachinettiyil Can you sell them Cardinal Cupich instead? Then you’d be able to fill the pews and build more churches instead of selling them off.

[Carl Hendrick @C_Hendrick]

Kurt Vonnegut...damn

[Bishop Robert Barron @BishopBarron]

In a recent interview, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, former grand chancellor of the John Paul II Institute on Marriage and Family Life, confirmed the worst suspicions that many of us had.

He admitted that the changes he made at the Institute during the Pope Francis years were designed to initiate a "very profound" reform of the idea of the natural law.

Instead of absolute moral norms grounded in a keen understanding of the basic goods, he and his colleagues were proposing a moral theory rooted in historical discernment of subjective and cultural experience--not an "armchair theology" but one operating "within history and within people's lives."

This, of course, is the language of trendy postmodernism, and it is dangerous indeed.

Allow me to illustrate the principle with one example. Is slavery wrong?

Intrinsically wrong? Wrong no matter what public opinion polls say about it, no matter what the current consensus on it might be? I imagine any decent person would say yes.

But that yes is predicated upon precisely what the tradition calls the natural law and the basic goods. There are some values so fundamental that acts repugnant to them are by their very nature wicked.

If you want a highly articulate presentation of this idea, go to St. John Paul II's Veritatis Splendor.

If we say that this is just "armchair theologizing" and that morality is a function of ever-shifting cultural and experiential data, then why couldn't slavery be justified?

One of the very smartest persons that ever lived, the philosopher Aristotle, thought it was; extremely bright and morally upright persons in our country, well into the 19th century, thought it was permissible.

Who is to say whether the consensus might shift back again? Who is to say that "lived experience" might come to justify it?

What any truly coherent moral program requires is the very thing that Archbishop Paglia and his colleagues were endeavoring to eliminate, namely, absolute moral norms.

Ridding ourselves of these in the name of freedom or pastoral sensitivity actually renders moral discourse dysfunctional, just as relativizing the basic principle of logic would render any rational conversation impossible.

The Archbishop's interview, frankly, reminded me of the discussions I had at the Synod on Synodality with some of my German colleagues. Under the rubric of the development of doctrine, they were eager to relativize or radically change the principles undergirding classical morality. If this was and is truly the game, we have ventured onto perilous seas.

Link to the article below.

[Bishop Robert Barron @BishopBarron]

https://t.co/ZWHOMP2IqB

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

Intrinsically this appears to be a reasonable and appropriate post. However, the issue is the lack of similar posts and statements from Starmer when the violence comes from a different group. (If Starmer is in fact taking a consistently strong stand in the latter cases, I’m happy to be corrected by evidence of his doing so on a consistent basis, however I don’t expect that to be the case.)

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@Kiradavis I’ve simply never heard the word “classy” associated with Hillary Clinton.

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@Irina_exh Of course. There’s math involved in retirement planning!

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@michaeljknowles What can we do to retard such uncouth usage?

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

@SenWarren @SenWarren If you and your ilk left America and moved to Cuba, American single income families could live luxuriously with excellent healthcare, superb education, and ample leisure time. @elonmusk

[Bill Huber @BlueRidgeYankee]

1. You assume that college is essentially trade school. That’s not a classical view of the purpose of education
2. Have you looked up the divorce rates for women of different religions, or lack of religion, and also by frequency of religious attendance? There are considerable differences, but your 50% figure is higher even than the highest groups (no religion = 45%, Catholics = 30%)