Something for the Season

 Will be scarce for a couple days, but I'll leave us with a couple clips of Poe's most famous, from two decidedly different takes:

Go Bucks School boards

So Ohio's School Boards Association has cut ties with the national brand of the same, the National School Boards Association.  This over the despicable letter sent by the NSBA that labeled, rather broadly I might add, concerned parents as national terrorists. 

Beyond the conflict of interests charges that arose with the DOJ, or the growing idea that opponents of the Left and enemies of the state are one and the same, the bigger problem was the underlying message of the letter.  That message was articulated by such political gurus as Terry McAuliffe.  That is, after over half a century of parents being told to be involve in their kids' education and school systems, we now say shut up and get out of our way. So extreme was the reversal of that generation's long mantra that it caused whiplash for those hearing it. 

Literally.  Actual whiplash.  When I wrapped up my undergrad work, having moved from Political Science to Secondary Education, one of the main goals we were told to strive for was involving parents in the education process.  Get them into the meetings, get them to the hallways and byways of our schools.  But now, the latest example of 'you heard postwar liberals say thus, but the leftist state now says not thus.' 

Now, none of this is to say parents should be threatening board members, though I would like to see the actual evidence they were.  Charges of being threatened in the internet age are as common as actual threats.  A good way to avoid this, I should mention, is by not shutting parents out, shutting them down, and shooing them away when they're questioning school board policies and actions.  

One thing that began setting things off was schools forced to show what they were teaching during the lockdowns last year.  That caused parents to begin asking questions.  At that point, I remember local news stories earlier this year where parents said they were being shut down, told to shut up and deal with it when asking questions about their children's schooling.  That made them understandably angry. 

Again, not saying violence is right, it isn't.  But if the violence is defined as a parent trying to ask questions about raped girls in a school bathroom, and dragged out of a meeting for his efforts, that's not the same as a bomb threat. 

So a hot mess problem for the schools and their leftwing agendas.  Parents told to shut up and stay out of the schools' hair, parents being shouted down in board meetings as was happening earlier in the year, parents being labeled terrorists by a compromised DOJ,  and parents being told by high profile politicians to leave their kids' education alone, have conspired to make school board elections the hottest story in this year's election.  

Usually they're as interesting as the race for local dog catcher.  Not this time.  And that's not what the Left wants.  So expect to see more of this.  We call it damage control.  For their part, I appreciate the Ohio association's severing of ties with this egregious attack on parents and, as an extension, their students.  But it would have been nicer if they would have done this immediately, rather than wait to see where the backlash needle landed on the scale. 

Understanding 21st Century Catholicism in two easy images

Potentially good Catholics:

Most likely really bad Catholics:

Learn it, repeat it, remember it.  This is what will or won't make you a good Catholic for the foreseeable future.  At least in the eyes of some. 

After all, we have it on the highest of authorities that this is the new standard for all Catholics who would live life enthusiastically, which is what God apparently really wants (bonus 3rd Image):

Babylon was a gold cup in the hand of the LORD, making the whole earth drunk.  The nations drank her wine; therefore the nations have gone mad.   Jeremiah 51.7

They have sown the madness

And they shall reap the insanity:

The world we live in today is part Twilight Zone episode, part Saturday Night Live spoof, a whole lot of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and a spot of Nazi.   

The Left won't be deterred of course.  There is a strange power the Left has over its adherents.  It can betray them.  It can attack them.  It can watch them fall victim to its own tactics when those tactics are used against them.  And yet they remain eternally loyal.   

Nonetheless, there is something poetic about watching those on the Left get hit and hit hard by the same weapons they have so crassly developed over the years.  For how many years have we seen people eviscerated because some wacky leftist on the Internet declared the peace sign a secret Nazi symbol, only to see the media jump on board and engage in scrubbing endless movies and photos that display such vial symbolism as the former peace sign?

I'd say take that Leftists.  Maybe next time you'll be a little slow on the whole 'secret proof person is a Nazi' garbage that has served you so well.  

Pope Francis almost had me

 Until the end of the Twitter post:

Yep. The pastor's lament.  Getting people to give their all, or at least their best, or at least their better than the least.  Often it is better than nothing.  The old worn out television instead of a new one.  Just enough to cross off the donations list.  A used this or dilapidated that.   Sometimes it gets even worse. 

Some years ago when we were on the edge of collapse, our priest found a couple who said they would donate their car to us. That was wonderful.  They made us sign a waver saying we took it as is, which was odd. But we were desperate.  Two years and about $4,000.00 in repairs later, we figured out why.  It was a lemon they pawned off on us, while getting to declare it as a charitable gift on their taxes.

That's what Pope Francis is no doubt looking at, and I give him thumbs up.  I, too, can fall into the pit of giving a cup of cold water, but leaving it at that.  After all, we are called to do nothing less than pick up our cross and follow Jesus, so giving from the best of the fold, rather than the lame and crippled of the flock, is the right thing to do.

But then he ends it with God, asking us for enthusiasm in life?  It's as if he had to leave and let Oprah Winfrey step in and finish his thought.  There's nothing wrong with living life to the full, as that is something God wants us to realize about this gift that is life itself.

But that's not 'what God asks.'  Apart from loving God above all things, He asks that we give the cloak also, that we walk the extra mile, that we forgive those who persecute us, that we cloth the naked, feed the hungry, and bear testimony to the truth even before a hostile magistrate.  In short, as Bonhoeffer demonstrated by living it, when God calls us he bids us come and die.  

That's the message.  Not something about enthusiasm for life that I'd get watching The View or the Rachael Ray Show in the morning.  What is it with Pope Francis?  I don't hate the man.  There are things he says I think need said.  But he inevitably stops short just when it seems he's about to cast a Gospel net over the world and acts like he's bucking for a table at the next Oscars ceremony instead. 

How great was the pumpkin

When I was in 8th grade, my best friend and I went out soaping car windows on Halloween.  It happened to be a year that Halloween fell on a Friday.  So we made our way through the neighborhoods, soaping windows as we went, on our way to the high school football game.  

The stadium was a classic Midwestern football setting.  Tucked between the high school on one side, a housing development and a church on the opposite side, and corn fields and woods to the north, it's where all the kids hung out on Friday nights in the Fall.  On our way, however, we began being chased by a red Chevy Blazer we soaped earlier.  

In hindsight, my guess is the driver was just having fun.  Though he was tenacious in his fun, and waited for us to leave the game an hour or so later and followed us some more.  We knew it was him because he had dropped his muffler and you could hear his truck five miles away.  

Fun for him or not, for a couple of fourteen year olds, it was mighty exhilarating. While trying to outrun our pursuer, we ran through back yards, jumped fences, hid behind wood piles, got clotheslined on invisible balance wires, fell over retaining walls next to driveways - the usual.  

If it hadn't been soaping, it would have been TPing (that's toilet papering, or throwing toilet paper rolls into trees and other objects of those you know - often girls you liked).   Likewise, it just as easily could have been running through fields, hiding behind hay bales, sneaking around barns, TPing bridges over small creeks on dirt roads in the country, and other fun shenanigans that came with Autumnal life in a small Midwestern town. 

All of this came to my mind when pondering the Peanuts special It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.  Following fast on the footsteps of Schultz's magnum opus A Charlie Brown Christmas - which I have called the Citizen Kane of Christmas specials - the Great Pumpkin is only second best because of the brilliance of the first special. 

Some say Pumpkin was Schultz's apology for the heavy handed preaching of the Christmas special.  In that special, Linus - Charlie Brown's sage advisor - delivers one of the greatest readings of Luke 2 ever  He makes it clear to Charlie Brown that Christmas is about nothing other than Jesus Christ.  From there, Charlie Brown realizes the true meaning of Christmas and all is right with the world.

In Pumpkin, Linus becomes an almost half baked UFO cult conspiracy theorist.  Obsessed with the idea that the Great Pumpkin will come to his sincere pumpkin patch with toys and treats, he makes a spectacle of himself and Charlie Brown's sister Sally.  

Whether the old stories are true, or Schultz was already walking back Linus due to his own waning Christian faith, or he was apologizing to the TV execs who inexplicably still didn't like such an overt Christian message no matter how successful, I don't know.  I just know that no matter what the reasoning, Great Pumpkin still manages to smack it out of the ballpark, and remains - IMHO - behind only A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Boy Named Charlie Brown in the Peanuts catalogue.

A huge factor behind its ranking is the second reason that made the Christmas special so wonderful. Beyond the Christian message, the Christmas special hit every nostalgic image and icon of mid-20th Century Americana Christmas, for good or ill.  The commercialism and the secularism for sure.  But also the snowball fights, the skating on frozen ponds, the old school auditoriums complete with a pageant play based on the Gospel narratives, the tree lot (complete with spotlights), building snowmen - why the list goes on and on!

Same with Great Pumpkin.  More than the Thanksgiving special, and leaps and bounds beyond the broken Easter special, Pumpkin manages to pull on those old nostalgia chords in a way few specials ever do.  From the tricks or treating under a bright autumn moon, to the Halloween party complete with cardboard decorations, to the homemade costumes, to the pumpkin patch, to bobbing for apples, to that wonderful season of football, to the autumn leaves in a pile before Linus (again) unwisely jumps in with a wet sucker, it just reeks with old Halloweens of bygone years. 

And, of course, the instalment of Snoopy and the Red Baron.  The key part there is Snoopy's imagined trek through the French countryside of WWI.  As any child of mid-century rural Midwestern town living could relate, the fun is trudging through fields, behind barns, through brooks, around haystacks, and generally getting into no end of mischief in an age before the mischief became all too serious. 

Each year we watch this as part of the annual traditions  And each time I can instantly remember tricks or treating as a ghost when I was in elementary school, or going to Halloween parties at friends' houses or at the school, or playing in the leaves, or running through the French Midwestern countryside on our way to yet another seasonal adventure.  

Any special that can release so many good memories and feelings of pleasant nostalgia is going to rank high on any list.  Though Schultz's brilliance would wane over the years, in those few years in the 1960s, he was firing on all pistons in terms of awesomeness.  And one of his best contributions was this delightful little charm from an age long past. 

Four images of what Halloween in a rural Midwest town felt like

Why we homeschool in one easy image

 

Yep.  From Broward County public schools.  Taking kids to a field trip at a local gay bar, for gay bar is what it is.  

Life would be infinitely better for us if we didn't homeschool.  Since becoming Catholic, we've been jumping from one frying pan to the next, with occasional dips into the fire.  In most worlds, we wouldn't homeschool because, if for no other reason, we are hardly set up to do so financially.

Nonetheless, the above is not the exception, but simply an extreme example of the rule today.  And this doesn't count the 'hate yourself white people' race hate, the anti-Americanism, the pro-Marxism (my sons' World History textbook gave kudos to such luminaries as Marx, Lenin and Mao, as opposed to our own racist and imperialist presidents), the secular template for religion, and the various leftwing indoctrination tactics that have kept us homeschooling.

I've said before that class content wasn't why we chose to homeschool.  Even a decade ago, things weren't this bad.  But when the bureaucracy steamrolled one of our sons, in the absence of a local Catholic school or even private school, we went radical.

Back then, one of Mark Shea's most celebrated post subjects was his 'why we homeschool' threads. When I emailed him for advice on a homeschool curriculum, he posted that and the readers posted multiple suggestions in the comments section.  We settled on the Kolbe Academy, based in California, accredited, and able to bestow an actual high school diploma on the students.  It's also a classical based education curriculum. 

For that post and advice at CAEI, I'm forever grateful.  It helps keep the boys grounded and able to see past the bilge, lies and ruinous values promoted by our schools - and society - today.  But such is life in a country whose faith is a godless paganism.  So whatever the cost, in the foreseeable future, it will be homeschool all the way.   It beats my son being taught to hate his skin color while being shuttled over to the nearest gay bar.  

Fauci's dealings and the art of deflection

Deflection is a favorite tactic for our ministry of lies sometimes known as the news media.  It's about to happen with Dr. Fauci.  

Remember former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo?  If we but journey back to those ancient days of 2020, we were repeatedly told that then President Donald Trump had killed 500K with Covid.  This was said every day while free voting ballots were mailed out to every citizen in the country.  Just slap on a stamp (and news stations will have experts on hand for Millennials who are stressed about the stamp thing - really, I saw a story), and vote for one of the two fellows, one of which has killed 500K with Covid.

But then a nasty story broke that a monstrous number of seniors in New York had died in nursing homes because of botched policies within the state.  That's seniors dying of Covid because of botched policies under a democratic governorship.  

True, the most perfect election in history was over and despite attempts to overthrow it by the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11, Biden was now president.  Nonetheless, this was still a bad look.  Worse for the "press", it muddies the waters.  People will start asking questions and looking at details, and we can't have that.

We must realize that today the propaganda organs rely on a simplistic bumper sticker depth level of reporting.  Group A is good, Group B is evil.  Solution A will save the planet, opponents of solution A hate black people.  Person A is our only hope.  People opposing person A want babies to die.  Simple stuff.

But when something happens that challenges those easy and slick templates, things can get ugly. For the propagandists, it means having to answer questions and unpack information to buttress challenges to the prevailing narrative.  Worst than all things, it might lead people to conclude the narrative was wrong or was known to be false to begin with.  And we sure can't have that.

So among the many tricks up the journalistic sleeve is 'the deflect.'  In Cuomo's case, almost immediately after the ugly revelation of nursing home deaths, he was blindsided by explosive accusations of sexual assault.  That became the story.  The only story.  The final story.  Which was the point.

Now Dr. Fauci, the savior of America, is in trouble.  News has broken that Rand Paul may have been onto something about Fauci's connections to the Wuhan Lab.  Such a news story may or many not be true.  But the horrible result could be people asking questions, wanting more information, seeking answers beyond the 'Fauci as Savior' narrative.  And we can't have that. 

So it's now breaking that Fauci is in hot water because of experimentation on beagle puppies.  I mean, if he was somehow involved with torturing beagles, I'd say that's not good.  Heck, if he violated some rule or allowable practice in medical research, then seek justice. 

But this is not, repeat Not, I'll say it again NOT the big story.  The big story is the single man we've been told to listen to more than Jesus is now suspect.  He might be innocent.  Rand Paul may still prove to be wrong.  But now we have reason to look into something that, if true, could call into question the efficacy and infallibility of The Fauc, and potentially everything he has said.  

Again, that is what the propagandists hate more than if he was personally creating the Covid virus in a Wuhan lab for money.  If that were proven tomorrow, the Left would merely throw Fauci under the bus like Cuomo, nominate a transgender Muslim lesbian  in his place, and spend months celebrating another leap forward for the new diversity.  Story over.

But as long as it's a question, it begs for details, for more questions, for more information, and that more than anything is hated by the "press" and, by extension, the Left as a whole. If that's the case, then hopefully we can make it about torturing puppies.  Because thankfully torturing puppies is bad, is simple, and is an easy way to deflect unhappy attention away from the real story. 

All of this will be true if the main tactic, simply ignore the story, doesn't work and the media is unable to make it go away.  We'll have to see.  

Most conservative Catholics I know do not believe Scott Hahn is the fourth member of the Holy Trinity

I needed to point that out since this blog post, by Scott Eric Alt, defends a fellow who makes the claim that, for conservative American Catholics, the line between Scott Hahn and the real pope is a fine one.  For the record, that sort of thing, a title proclaiming that 'Conservatives think it's good to rape teddy bears' followed by a book on why conservatives are wrong about the environment and school vouchers, has never impressed me. 

I have no doubt the actual book will be more nuanced than the click bait title suggests, or that Alt's click bait defense suggests.  Alt, who considers himself  a conservative Catholic, defends the inflammatory title with 'gee, isn't anyone allowed to disagree with Scott Hahn?'  Sure, but when a book begins with a calumnious accusation, one can react and probably should react. 

I find that sort of duplicity and slick rhetorical sleight of hand to be of the Devil.  The 'let your yes by maybe, just in case' approach to discourse is antithetical to what we should be as Christians. He knows darn well why people would object to a title like that.  He knows that sort of title is an attack.  I know this because he doesn't come off as the level of idiot needed to miss the obvious. Just say you don't like Hahn or American  conservative Catholic anymore, and be done with it.  Stop with the adolescent rhetorical parlor games that boys in middle  school lockers rooms think are so awesome.  

For the record, am I surprised that Hahn, like EWTN, once beloved shining lights for orthodox Catholics and Catholic converts, would now have a crosshairs on his back?  No. Discarding and attacking that which you once cherished is as sure of a sign of loyalty to the modern Left as any leftwing pledge pin on your uniform could ever be.  But that's for another post. 

The Internet Age in one simple quote

Yep, from a frequent guest of the ol'blog:

if you get a bunch of people who are pretty sure they're smart together where the real world can't intervene, shit's going to get dumb really fast

There's a reason I don't ban or block or delete unless it's someone absolutely representing the worst of online discourse.  Believe it or not, while I do appreciate being told I'm onto something or made a good point, I also appreciate those who call me out for being wrong or mistaken.  Or even 'what the hell are you talking about' since I can ramble at times.  

That comes from my pastor days.  One of my professors gave a piece of advice I never forgot.  If called into pastoral ministry, you'll be inclined to favor the people who are nice to you and like you.  Fear them.  Instead cherish those pesky trouble makers who will be in every church in the history of ever.  For they will keep you humble.  

And they did.  Sometimes they frustrated the snot out of me.  Sometimes I could see why a pastor would want to take a large wooden club or 14th century mace to a business meeting.  But in hindsight, while some could be so bad for the worst of reasons as to achieve nothing positive with their problems, it was those pesky trouble makers that kept ministry from becoming easy, and hence unimportant (as most easy things are in life).  

So that's why I ban and block very seldom.  It has to be bad for me to do so.  After all, I've seen what happens to those who ban and block anyone who disagrees with them and their little cabals, the madness, the evil, the denial and lies, and it makes me glad for those who tell me I'm wrong.  Well, as long as it's not too often. :) 

Answering the great lie of pro-abortion actvists

Quick answer: Yes.  Not all of course. Bad apples and all.  But on the whole, we have and, in all likelihood, most have over the years when the opportunity presents itself. See Laura Klassen, who is all about helping expectant and new mothers, for just one example among many.  

That's not to say they don't argue about not doing things that encourage out of wedlock childbirth.  But most I know will have personally, or through various means, supported mothers, the poor, what have you.

One of the great lies of the pro-abortion movement is that men are only against abortion because they want to control women, and care neither for the mothers or the babies once they are born.  It's such a demonstrably false lie that I don't know where to begin.  Women who oppose abortion, like all unpeople who slip out of easy leftwing templates, don't exist for the purposes of this lie. 

Granted, some of this no doubt stems from the Left's insistence that even God can't solve a problem better than liberal political policies, so to oppose those policies is to hate black babies.  With that sort of piercing logic, one can assume any deviation from a select political agenda must equal letting babies starve.

But even stepping aside from that level of 'Jesus cares not for feeding the hungry, he cares about which policies of the Roman Empire you support', it's simply a lie meant to derail the bigger objections to the great age of gratuitous slaughter for debauchery in which we live. After all, we know full well why we have unrestricted abortions: so women can have anything they want, and jump on any Tom or Harry's you know what, and not be accountable for their choices.  After all, promising a consequence-free world has been an unwritten platform for secular liberalism for generations.  Sexed up men and women both approve this message. 

But try to point this out, and you're informed that it's only by embracing a leftwing political economy that will give women more money that we can stop abortions since abortions are only about lack of money.  Any attempt to say otherwise must mean you don't care about moms, or their babies, so we'll just say you don't matter in the debate.  If you give money or charity or help it doesn't count.  It only counts to embrace a socialist economy and allow women the choice to define human life as they see fit, or you obviously want them to starve. 

Thus are the arguments of pro-abortion activists, and New Prolife Catholics who are among their staunchest allies. To me, that alone speaks volumes. 

The MSM bravely addresses Loudoun County, Virginia

 Yessir, right here:

Winery to be focal point for new Loudoun County, Va., development

Yep.  Because that's the big news coming out of Loudoun County, Virginia.  Or at least I assume, since that's the one MSM headline I found addressing the county.  Credit to WaPo, at least they did some story about Loudoun County.  I Googled the news for Loudoun County and got the usual conservative outlets, and some local and relational outlets.  

But from the national press?  From major news outlets?  Nope.  I tried Googling a couple different ways.  Perhaps I could be more exact with my wording, like typing in 'two teenage girls sexually assaulted in Loudoun County, Va., school bathroom cover up allegations' and it might get a result.

But I shouldn't have to try multiple times in a million different ways to get results.  Type in Ferguson a few years ago, or Floyd last year, and the search results lit up with a million news stories from the largest news agencies on the planet.  One word only needed. 

But the story that a school has covered up the rape of two teenage girls, possibly the result of its current transgender bathroom policies and even tried to shut down a concerned parent?  Why, I think what we need there is to focus on winery developments in the county.  After all, priorities people.  

Oh, and those stupid right wing outlets?  Look what they chose to focus on here:

Dozens of Loudoun County students stage walkout over sexual assault by boy in girls' bathroom

UPDATE: Apparently an email has surfaced calling into question the superintendent's claim that there was no knowledge of such assaults in the bathrooms.  Again, the reason this has been suppressed by the school board and is being ignored by the media is the same for any stat, fact or reality that calls into question a leftwing agenda.  Always remember, we have no news media.  There is a vast world of reality that is routinely ignored because it doesn't fit the narrative.  

The problem with anti-racism

As promoted by the political Left today is that it is fighting old racism using new racism.  That's it.  The whole mantra of white privilege, systemic racism, white supremacy has come to mean anyone not Leftist with white skin in the way Jim Crow would have meant blacks.  

To that end it is encouraging kids and students today to embrace a racism I've not found in any American history textbook I've collected.  And I collect history textbooks.  My oldest is a copy of an American history textbook published in 1933.  

Would I call that textbook the most racially sensitive book in history?  No.  But we must remember that if its attitude toward slavery was 'America is awesome because we used to own slaves but we don't now', it was in the context of a world where slavery - including the African salve trade - was still running strong. 

Nonetheless, despite its approach to issues like segregation, Jim Crow laws (non-existent apparently), American Indians and other minorities, there is nothing in it suggesting white American students should spit on blacks (negroes in that textbook), or 'Red' Indians or anyone.  It gives a vague impression that America is doing a great job trying to work things out for people on the fringes and leaves it at that.

Compare that to our textbooks today where students of all stripes - including, but not limited to, white students - are told to all but trounce whiteness, white people, or anything white as the racist Nazi scum they are.  They are literally being told, as my wife was in her company's diversity training, that all whites are ethnically guilty of the sin of all whites ever, should immediately repent and hang their heads in shame, and help invoke the banning and eradication of anything offensive by way of its white origins. 

I thought of this as I saw several references to this story pop up over the Internet.   For me, it is what it is.  Those students are merely being racist because they're taught to be. To punish them comes off as disingenuous at best. 

Sure there was certainly racism in schools when I was in school.  Though students often pushed racist ideas and speech because it was part of the all important rebellion against the establishment.  And if the establishment said it's wrong to call blacks ethnic slurs, the students were happy to rebel.  Just as they were crapping on Christianity, or flipping the bird to America in general.  Rebellion was, after all, the highest virtue. 

By rebelling in that way against blacks and other minorities, however, they got in trouble for their efforts.  The difference here is that this school is going to punish these students for taking to its logical conclusion what the schools and school systems are teaching them. If kids still acted racist in my day, it came with punishment because it was against what the schools by then were teaching. Today, these kids are getting the hammer dropped on them for doing what the schools are doing themselves. 

And I have a problem with that, beyond the clear and naked racism behind it all.  If you are going to say it's wrong to spit on white people, whiteness, white heritage and culture, then by all means punish students when they do so.  But if that's all they hear from one coast to another, including in our fine institutions of secondary education, then take a long look at where they came up with these ideas and perhaps punish the ones who really deserve it. 

My second son comments on the White House disconnect with current problems in America

"There hasn't been anything this out of touch since Hall and Oates."  

So, with that said:

Max Boot gets it

At the Washington Post, Boot lays out the same case we heard for eight years during the Obama Administration.  That is, everything is Trump's fault. In Obama's case, everything for the full eight years of the Obama presidency was Bush's fault.  Now, everything for the foreseeable future will  be Trump's fault.

It's' mostly about the Covid pandemic and policies surrounding it.  The premise is based on the clear and obvious fact that the Covid vaccines are entirely efficacious and without blemish.  They work.  They simply work. Any problems must be the result of anything else.  Therefore, because all Covid deaths were Trump's fault, it stands to reason anything wrong is still Trump's fault.  It could be nothing other than that. 

It's beyond parody and a signpost toward the totalitarianism we're all seeing.  The piece by Boot is, of course, most concerned with supporting the Mandates.  The Mandates are the key.  Naturally it has poop to do with Covid or life or death.  It has to do with the Mandates.  That's why that big, bold news that a couple companies have found a possible Covid treatment have gone the way of 8-track tapes.  My guess is that you can't mandate treatments.  You can mandate vaccines.  

And that's what this is about.  I don't know if Boot believes this partisan bilge or not, but it isn't important. He's at The Washington Post. What do we expect?  The problem is, many partisan hacks and fools will believe it, and will go a long way toward showing why our days as a free nation of life, liberty and equality are numbered. 

Dr. Larry Chapp looks at Pope Francis

By looking at the actions toward the John Paul II Institute in Rome. I was going to add a few thoughts, but that would be like asking to add a ditty to the Amadeus soundtrack.  It's a good read, and I disagree with little of it.  But I'll leave others to read through and make their own decisions.  Enjoy. 

As apologies go I'll take it

Apparently the National School Boards Association has apologized for a letter to the Biden Administration that likened concerned parents to potential terrorists.  Granted, the language of the letter only meant those parents threatening violence and death against school board members.  The problem was, no clear examples were given and the 'what constitutes threats and terrorism' seemed a matter of opinion.

Even the national press jumped on the story, though emphasizing the hellish terror that school board members were enduring at the hands of anti-vaxxers and opponents of fighting racism.  It goes without saying that the Internet lit up among leftwing sites and activists who cheered the move and were happy to label any parents bucking the vaccine or Critical Race Theory mandates as the terrorists they were.

The first chink came when questions arose about conflicts of interest for Attorney General Merrick Garland.  It was reported that he might have a vested interest in seeing CRT theory taught in schools. So ol'Garland will use the power of the federal government to hunt down parents who stand in the way of family book sales?   That was certainly the image presented. 

Whatever the actual facts and details, it was a bad look.  And the press hates it when it must break from bumper sticker news reporting and delve into details.  When that happens, then you get people asking for other details and facts, like just how many threats have there been, who made them, and so on. 

It also didn't have the desired effect.  For one of the first times in recent memory, it galvanized opponents of leftwing totalitarianism being hoisted on our nation.  Conservatives have done a lot of grumbling over the last few years, but often without teeth in their bite.  

This time there was an explosion of outrage.  So bad was it that I saw parents interviewed by local news outlets  who actually support the mask mandates and CRT, but who opposed parents being labeled so loosely as potential terrorists. I know in our neck of the woods, among the most passionate races in the upcoming election are those for school boards around the area.

So apologies given.  I'll take them.  But I'm also leery.  This is a popular trick, to make a statement or claim, and if it doesn't work, back off.  But the claim has been made and I'm sure many will run with 'uncooperative parents as terrorists' narrative no matter what.  It's been said, it can't be unsaid.  Like Pope Francis joking that everyone will be saved, but then taking it back.  It's been said, it can't be unsaid, even if you technically take it back.  I notice that trick a lot.

I wonder if that's the case here.  I don't know.   But watching this unfold, I'm pretty sure the apology comes because of the hot mess problems that came for the side making the claim.  More resistance than expected met with a jumbled tangle of questions and problems for those associated with making the claim were likely why we have this.  But we have it, so we can take it for what it's worth. 

Jackie Calmes comes out of the closet

And says it's time to officially and openly do what journalists have been doing for years.  That is, throw laughable notions of fairness and objectivity out the window and use any means necessary to destroy conservatives and the Republican Party.  

I've seen this pop up on multiple outlets.  Most responses have been negative.  Me?  I welcome it.  Honesty is in short supply nowadays, and she's merely being honest.  I've said before that there are only three types of people in the world: Liars, dupes and everyone else who knows the press has never been objective and sure as hell isn't now. 

The idea that the press just examines the information and data and then lays it out for us to make our own decisions should be right up there with believing the Earth is flat.  I hope nobody who reads this blog thinks otherwise. 

If Republicans can't win against this

Then they deserve to lose.  

It's almost vomit inducing to see leftwing Democrats all but piss on suffering Americans, knowing full well the media and cultural corps are firmly in their pockets (or they're in the corporate pockets, not sure which). I was shocked I found the few national stories I found calling this out (most were decidedly conservative or anti-left outlets). 

Fact is, most Americans aren't upset they aren't getting their treadmills since most in 2021 can't afford treadmills.  That's for the upper 1/3 of the country.  Most are seeing their ability to feed their families and afford basic needs for living severally compromised. 

But our elites don't care, any more than they give two swinging damns or a hell about blacks, women, Asians, Hispanics, or anyone for that matter (except the LGBTQ community, which is ever and always sacred, with exception).  When convenient, they care.  When the suffering can't be exploited, let them rot.  

Exactly what New Prolife Catholics will do to fight this snobbery and contempt for the suffering of the least of these - for it is the least of these who are suffering in this - I don't know. I'd like to think this would push them over and force them to call out such flagrant disregard for human needs.  We'll see. 

The right way and the wrong way for Christians to approach race

 The wrong way:

The whole 'black Jesus cares about skin color' is hardly unique to Fr. Martin.  It's actually not fair to pick on this, since many Christian leaders appear to embrace the idea that white Christianity is bad Christianity, versus black Christianity or other non-white Christianity that will always be the good kind.

It's wrong.  In fact, it's awfully 'protestant' in its 'white Babylonian captivity' mentality.  And it's racist to merely take the racist attitudes Christians may have had in the past regarding non-whites and apply them to whites today.

Compared to that, there's this:

Note the comments if you go to the Youtube channel.  Multiple people, including self-proclaimed atheists (take it for what it's worth, it's the internet) are stunned and appreciate the candor and honesty of his point in the sermon. 

I won't quibble about how black or not Jesus was.  The point is to cut through the 'he's my Jesus, no he's mine' mentality today and remind us that Jesus belongs to the world - including to blacks as well as whites, who God saw fit to move the Church through in its many centuries of growth in the world.  

The Church is at its best when it proclaims truth to the world.  When it changes the truth in order to get along with the world, it seldom makes an impact.  

For generations the Church has been following the world around like a yap dog waiting for the master to toss a few scraps from the table.  I think it's time the Church get back in the driver's seat and not care what the world thinks of us, but simply proclaim Truth.  I think we'd be surprised at the results. 

The way my boys work

As good as any at the fair - and in those little holder bowls too!

I would say we're not a fuzzy, cuddly modern family.  That is, if you look on Facebook, you won't see a lot of posts from anyone - but me - singing each others' praises.  Only two of my sons even have an account (our youngest is too young), and they don't post 'super dad' or 'awesome mom' or even 'fantastic brother' type posts.  When they bother posting anything.  

I see some I know whose children will laud each other with endless posts telling of how much they adore their siblings, or their parents, or anything like that in the family.  My sons?  Nope.  

Not that they aren't affectionate.  After my dad's heart attack, he dropped some of that old Depression era distancing and became a bit more loose with his emotions.  I passed that onto my sons who, in their daily actions, will display words of affection in ways that would have made my pre-heart attack dad a bit unconformable.

But beyond that, there's not much in the way of 'social media era' fuzziness.  What they do, however, is this.  

Right now, two of my sons are in a 'being single' stretch in life.  Our third oldest, at the tender age of 21, is already a store manager eying an area manager position.  His goal is not to work in the food industry forever, but to learn the ins and outs of business, amass enough money so that if he must get a college degree it will be a side expense he can afford, and eventually move into entrepreneurship.  My oldest son is busy finishing college with an eye toward graduate school.  His studies and scholarships occupy his time.  Our fourth son being too young for that sort of thing.  But that's where their time goes. 

Our second son, on the other hand, is now graduated, and working to move up the corporate ladder as he contemplates continuing school or just moving more up the ladder. And his extra time he has now?  It has been filled by his relationship with a delightful young lady who is everything a Christian dad could hope for his son.  

They began dating earlier in the year, and it's been tough owing to the Covid pandemic.  Because of my mom and now my wife, we must be extra cautious.  We haven't gotten the vaccines, for reasons I have already discussed.  But we balance that by continuing to be more or less in lockdown/quarantine mode.  As I've said before, the years that led up to Covid with their endless trials and injuries and health crises more than prepared us as a family to be anchored to the homestead.  

But for him and his girlfriend, they've found creative ways to go out and about nonetheless, without putting themselves into large crowd situations.  Because of the uptick in the Covid cases, they chose not to go to our county fair this year.  They had hoped to, and I know my son was wanting to take her to where he went so many times as a child.  But they decided it wouldn't be a good idea.  She was as understanding as our son. 

So - and this is the point - my other sons decided to put on a fair for them.  The intent was to set up games and fun around the house and in the yard - complete with prizes - but weather did not cooperate.  Still, with the help of our oldest chef son, and money from our third oldest (who makes more than I made when the family moved to Ohio back in 2000) we also built a menu of homemade fair food:  Funnel cakes, fries and malt vinegar, corndogs, gyros, baklava, and sausage sandwiches.  The type of vittles we always got when we took the boys to the fair when they were little.

We then watched the old 1973 animated version of Charlotte's Web, since our youngest hadn't seen that yet. He read the book some time back, but we thought that would work because of the country fair emphasis at the end.  

That's how my boys do it.  They aren't the #Awesome Family types.  They simply - do things. When one needs something, the others are there with little fanfare or noise.  When one is in trouble, the others drop what they're doing and step up to the plate.  Even when there is some major crisis - like when my mom had hear near fatal health scare - they come together and display an amazing amount of instinctive teamwork.  

No, they don't rush off to social media to talk about it.  But they show it, and that's just fine with me.  I'm the one that does the lauding. 

From L-R: Son #1,#3,#4,#2

I don't know the answer

We were discussing things with the boys as we often do.  We were talking about my son's college classes that are fully immersed in Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project approach to history.  Fair enough.  That's college.  They can teach what they will.  He doesn't have to go there. 

But it is pure leftwing wing pro-communism anti-American and anti-Western propaganda.  The West is altogether evil.  Whites are all racist per their skin color, and privileged too.  America is a four hundred year old racist state based purely on genocide and slavery.   Today we live in one of the worst nations in history as minorities, blacks, women, and others live in constant terror and oppression by, well, those who are running the system and advocating for CRT and anti-racist education (well, they don't say that last part, that's me).

Anyway, during our talk and him showing us some of what they read that buttresses this narrative, one of my sons asked something I don't know.  He asked who, in the years when schools were segregated, taught the black children.  I mean, black children went to black schools, but who taught them?

Did white teachers teach them?  Or were they taught by black teachers? I told him I believe they were generally taught by black teachers, since I know the teaching profession was a big profession for blacks in the pre-desegregation days.  

He then asked what they taught.  By that he meant did they teach the black students in their black schools that blacks are a bunch of inferior reprobates?  That they are inferior to the white man?  That slavery is the black man's natural state of affairs? That blacks are mentally inferior?  And on and on.  Is that what they taught the black kids in all black schools? 

He wondered that because, as he said, white children are all but taught to renounce their heritage and their ancestors.  They're taught to be ashamed of their country, their religion, their civilization.  They're taught that no matter what their state in the world, they have privilege and should be ashamed of their role in systemic racism.  They're taught that whites are worth nothing but evil for the most part, and everything they have is because of the evil of their forebears.  And as often as not, they're taught this by white teachers and white professors in predominantly white schools. 

He wondered if blacks were hit with similar lessons in their  schools.  If so, then it's good desegregation came along.  Because how horrible would it be to tell an entire generation of children that they are reprobates who should be ashamed of everything they are and have due to their skin color and ethnicity.  He'd hate to think black kids ever went through such a thing in their schools.  

Donald Trump as savior of the world

In that, no matter what we do wrong in this life, we can always invoke the unprecedented evils of Trump as a deflection that taketh away the sins of the world.  

Case in point. Apparently President Biden's press secretary is being accused of violating ethics laws by speaking to Biden's support for Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor's race.  I can't see that being a problem, but CNBC says it is.  The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington group says it is. 

But here's the point that got me.  The story then says this:

But the group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, also said that Psaki’s alleged breach of the Hatch Act was nowhere near as egregious as the mountain of similar ethics complaints that piled up during former President Donald Trump’s administration.

Wait. What?  Who cares?  That's like saying Derek Chauvin may have killed George Floyd, but that's nothing compared to how many people Ted Bundy killed.  Or Charles Manson.  Or Jeffery Dahmer.  Or Hitler.  Or Mao.  Or, well, you get the point.  

The point is, who cares what Trump did?  This is the story now.  CNBC didn't need to add that since it adds nothing to the point of the story.  If the CREW said it, there was no point in saying it.  So what?  Are you that sorry for having to call out a democrat?  Did you think there was some surge of partisans insisting no individual had ever violated ethics before, and therefore you needed to point this out?  

Sorry, but that was a gratuitous swipe that says to me you - both CNBC and CREW - hate, and I mean hate, having to call out the Biden White House on anything.  So you did your job, and now feel the need to inject a gratuitous and pointless swipe to somehow mitigate the impact.  Which, to me, would have been mitigated without the swipe since I see it as a minor and trivial gripe to begin with.  

But now?  Now I don't.  Now because you've done this, it has my radar up and I'm wondering how trivial such an ethics breach actually is.  And is there more to the story?  And is that why the need to deflect my attention to Trump was so important?

That's what I think about.  Especially since I notice that Trump allowed the full evils and designs of the Left to explode upon the world since 2016.  And always, no matter how false, how evil, how destructive, how wrong, the Left ever and always invokes 'But Trump!' as the incantation that balances all things.  

So thanks CREW and CNBC.  Now I have every reason to be suspicious about this. I certainly doubt your objectivity and non-partisanship.  Had you just mentioned the case?  I wouldn't have cared.  Now I care, because I've seen what 'just focus on Orange Man! and pay no attention to anyone else' has gotten us. 

Teaching our students to praise the Holocaust

Is what you would think is happening if you read this "news" story on NBC.  It's continuing the hysterics and panic kicked off when a school administrator in Texas told teachers they would have to present "opposing views" on the Holocaust.  I mentioned that here, and noted it was already having the desired effect.

The desired effect is to fight any restrictions on the teaching (or, depending on who you ask, not teaching) of Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, and other leftwing anti-American  initiatives in our school systems.  Why the administrator said what she said is beyond me.  Even now, I've not seen details or exactly what was meant by opposing views or the context of those views.

It was simply thrown out as a panic phrase meant to achieve what it is achieving.  Like beating a jack-ass with a whip, it's had the desired effect on parents, pundits, activists, and journalists running around with hair on fire, wailing over the assumption that our kids will have to sing praise songs to Hitler.  

This is how you do it, and why the modern news media is one of the greatest forces of evil, lies and oppression in the world today.  With few exceptions, it exists to defend the Left at all cost, and hunt down and silence or eradicate any opposition to the Left by any means possible.  I would believe the world is flat before I'd believe something the national press says today, especially if it's framed as a media firestorm of panic and fear. 

Again, why the administrator did what she did is beyond me.  Was she that ignorant?  Does she get all of her information from Twitter posts?  Does she know it's BS and she did this on purpose to gin up hysteria and opposition to limits on leftwing agendas in our schools?  

I don't know.  I just know the press has run with it and has had a field day.  And I've come to realize when I see the press run with anything and have such a field day, there's a 99% chance the story itself is as false as a Paul Bunyan sighting. 

Trying to make sense of leftwing punditry is often a waste of time

In keeping with my momentary purgatorial run through the horror of New Prolife Catholic Twitter posts, I found another gem:

I don't get it.  Well, I do get it, and that's the sad part.  The point is to make fun of the fact that the wife is in a different bedroom.  You know.  Some old puritan fundi hacks sleeping apart because crazy puritan fundi hacks are the only types who would celebrate Columbus Day!  Bwa ha ha ha ha!

But what of it?  First, maybe they sleep better apart.  Or there could be medical reasons.  That does happen.  My sister had to sleep in a different room than her late husband in the last years of his life.  Or there could be other reasons.  Maybe the wife has a separate bedroom while a newborn lays in a crib beside the bed because their master bedroom won't work. 

There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of reasons a wife might be in a different bedroom.  Some may be reasons they have no control over.  We don't know.  Even if it was their choice just because, who are we to care?  Dare I say, who are we to judge?  

Or is this the type of thing New Prolife Catholics love to judge in order to avoid judging things like the mass extermination of undesirables by the tens of millions in order to sustain a blasphemous sex and drugs culture during the AIDS pandemic?  Could be.  You never know.

Nonetheless, the thing more stupid than the stupid of the Twitter post is that those involved with posting and sharing it seem to think they just spotted that landing of rhetorical awesome.  The only thing worse than an arrogant person is an arrogant fool surrounded by like thinking fools.  And the above Twitter post demonstrates that nicely. 

Twitter is where Catholics go to dance with the Devil

Really.  So Dave Armstrong and Scott Eric Alt got into a spat.  I'll leave them to it.  But that made me look for more of Alt's take on Armstrong.  Exactly why Alt felt the need to unload on Armstrong is beyond me.  It could be that Armstrong, a passionate and supporter of Pope Francis, still isn't properly leftist enough.  For most on the Left, being 99.9% leftist is as good as being 100% white MAGA conservative racist Nazi deplorable after all.  But who knows. 

In any event, I did a Lenny and Squiggy's bathroom moment, held my nose, screamed, and went over to Alt's Twitter feed, which also had shares from other New Prolife Catholics.  I'll get to some of the other fantastically bad, ignorant, and downright apologetics for evil I found from others.  This is what leapt out at me on Alt's Twitter (again, I'll leave his clash with Armstrong to others to care about):

Wait.  What?  Please tell me just how Fr. Pavone is wrong.  I get that he's playing on words and I'm not sure emphasizing that abortion is killing a baby delivers much punch today. After all, the big pro-abortion tactic nowadays is to be pro-abortion, and not just pro-choice.  Admit it's killing a baby, boast in the fact, and rejoice in the fact that the divine vaginal does give you power over life or death, or those sexist men ain't getting any tonight (which appears to keep most men in their place where saving babies is concerned, ahem). 

But how is Fr. Pavone wrong?  I read that, read it again, read it a third time, and finally read it once more, and I can't see how he's wrong to the point of dumb.  So please dear readers, comment below and tell me what I'm missing. It might be so obvious I'm missing it.  Perhaps my deep suspicions about anything Alt writes is blinding me to the obvious.  But I would dearly like to know

Dr. Fauci explains the problem with people who don't like him

Yep.  The reason people don't like him is because he follows the science and is right.  We can't handle the truth he articulates, therefore we don't like him.  It isn't hard people.  Like all Science*, except for when he's wrong, he's always right.  And if we understood that, we'd like him because we would also be right.  It's our fear of the truth that messes with things.

BTW, I've seen variations of this over the decades and this is a liberal distinctive.  Whenever liberals don't get what they want from the electorate or population at large, it's because we're dumb or ill informed or misinformed or something.  It's never because we've done our homework, run the numbers, laid out the info, and concluded that the liberal in question is wrong. Nope.  It's always because of some deficiency on our part.  Always. 

*To clarify, when I capitalize Science like that, I usually mean science misused and abused in our society for reasons that have little to nothing to do with actual science. 

Pope Francis praises the George Floyd protesters as true Good Samaritans

Sure, apparently some bad players can get in and manipulate or exploit such a noble cause by political machinations.  But the racism of Floyd's death (made obvious by Derek Chauvin's skin color - Pope Francis approves this message) calls for radical and extreme measures to be celebrated by Catholics the world over.  

Like anyone beholden to the leftist state, when things done for the left go sour, it's always someone else's fault.  When bucking the Left, for even the best of reasons - like worried about feeding your family - it's because you're a selfish devil who likely doesn't care about starving people in the developing world.  Pope Francis can obviously tell the difference. 

Oh, and Pope Francis also says shorten work days.  With production and transportation grinding to a halt and even items of necessity becoming scarce, that's a bit like telling the Titanic to avoid the iceberg instead of hitting it head on.  

Nonetheless, he's the pope God has seen fit to allow for our time.  Rather than cheer him on blindly as the Catholic left will no doubt do, I prefer to wonder what the Church has done to warrant this period in its history. 

No, Pope Francis does not mean this is the Good Samaritan.  He simply means it's irrelevant  compared to the greater cause of rising up against racist macho cops killing black Americans.

We must invoke the glorious censorship for tolerance and diversity

So a Michigan University professor has been canned for showing 1965's Othello, starring Lawrence Olivier.  

The retaliation was swift and merciless, as befits the modern Leftist State in which we live.  Instead of rejoicing in the censorship of such offensive pieces of art or literature, he dared show the film in which Olivier uses makeup to portray an individual of non-Caucasian ethnicity.  Apparently the prof had never watched it before, possibly thinking since it stared the greatest actor of the 20th Century known for his celebrated work with Shakespeare, it was worth seeing.

Immediately following the showing, he groveled apologized for having shown such an outdated and offensive piece of art.  But his groveling fell on deaf ears, as those who fail to conform 100% to the Left 100% of the time often discover.  Our universities increasingly seem like leftwing tent revivals more than institutions of learning and education.  And that's almost an insult to tent revivals.  

Thus is the world in which we live.  It's not cancel culture.  It's not wokeness.  It's leftist fundamentalism with all the intolerance and self-righteous judgmentalism associated with the worst stereotypes of fundamentalism imaginable.  And in keeping with the stereotypes of fundamentalism, it can also include condemnation based on a host of intolerable factors, including ethnicity or religion. 

Thus, if you convince your society that all Jews are wretched and evil and the cause of the Fatherland's problems, it becomes nothing at all to declare anything done by Jews to be wretched and evil and all of your nation's problems a result of those rascally Jews.  Just scratch out Jew and replace with White and you've got modern Leftwing America in a nutshell.  If it's White, it's evil, and there is no tolerance for the existence of evil in the era of the new Leftist State. 

Anything done by Caucasians in any way considered racist or offensive is now subject to immediate censorship and eradication.  All such art, literature, music and film must be banned and eliminated.  Anyone caught even thinking of showing such unacceptable fare will immediately be punished to the fullest extent of possible retaliation. 

Again, we are not longer a free country.  We haven't been for some time, at least free as defined by post-war liberalism.  That ship has sailed.  We are now a secular pagan society able to change standards on a dime and retroactively eradicate dissenting thought accordingly.   And woe be to those deemed the unacceptable in the  last swivel by the powers that be.  I hope we enjoy the ride.  

Liars and the Left

Too honest for the modern Left

I'm sorry, but I'm throwing a Five Rotten Eggs Stink rating on this story.  It's an NBC story (right there a warning flag), in which a teacher in Texas claims to have been told to balance a book about the Holocaust with an 'opposing view.'  Of course, all because of that horrible anti-CRT legislation going on.

Now, I read the article, and it unpacks a somewhat rambling set of interviews and accounts that is clearly meant to suggest anything hindering the liberal agendas in our schools could lead to insisting any book that says raping children is bad will have to be balanced by 'opposing views.'  Which as sane people, we know to be false. 

In fairness, the article does interview proponents of the anti-liberal indoctrination legislation who make it clear such gibberish is just that, gibberish.  But in classic journalism form, you have to delve into the mid-section of the article to find the substance and the pertinent information from those who actually oppose CRT and other leftwing indoctrination moves in our schools.

The bookends of the article, however, are filled with 'we'll have to teach the Holocaust is good, and that's going to make wonderful teachers quite and we're all going to die!' hysterics.  Which, combined with the headline, is all NBC cares about.  After all, NBC knows the vast majority will read either the headline only, or the first couple paragraphs at best, with a few more reading the last couple paragraphs.

Again, it's the press's famous 'how to be honestly false' trick.  It's meant to gin up hysteria and panic and divisions.  And it taps into those people - in this case teachers - who are willing to shovel endless BS and lunacy, if not lies, for the cause.  The cause being turning our schools into leftwing indoctrination camps that bar and ban any opposing views.  And that's not hysterics.  That's a fact. And it's a fact demonstrated by the slick and duplicitous ways in which CRT and other measures are being supported and advanced by educators and the press. 

UPDATE: As if on cue, Deacon Greydanus jumps in with the requisite hysterics that our precious children will be forced to learn the Holocaust was good!

This is actually a copy from Mark Brumley's FB page, which seemed to join in the panic.  Several commenters jumped in and wailed in great mourning over this development where our wonderful teachers will be forced to teach the glories of the Holocaust.  

This is how it happens.  This is the power of the narrative the press wields.  Any sane, thinking person knows that nobody is going to demand the Holocaust be given equal time and consideration.  And yet an accusation can be made, the press runs with it (again, couching the details that minimize the story in the middle of the story), and hysterics commence, even among people I wouldn't expect it from.

Note Deacon Greydanus's invocation of 'not them', in that this is a school administrator who, apparently, would never lie or exaggerate.  Or the teacher wouldn't?  Just like no woman ever lied about being assaulted during #MeToo, now we can assume no school administrator would ever embellish on the truth for partisan gain?  See the amount of rubbish, dumb and stupid needed to keep up with modern times?  And again, not just from hardcore leftwing advocates.  We all can fall into the pit. If we think our large number of diploma wielding graduates protects us from the mob insanity of past ages, we need to think again. 

UPDATE II:  So I've done some digging, and as the news feeds begin to pile up with the hysterics inducing headlines, it's easier to find more information.  I discovered the administrator who sent out the message that we'll need to teach 'opposing views.'  Because of her position, she doesn't seem to be too political on Social Media one way or another.  I can't say she's some frothing at the mouth leftist, or righty.  She doesn't seem too critical of the latest educational agendas and strategies, but that's about it.  Did she send this out because she bought into the usual partisan handwringing?  I mean, I've heard those who support the 1619 Project or CRT say if you oppose those, you're as good as saying slavery was awesome and there's nothing better than the smell of genocide in the morning.  Did she merely run with that assumption?  Was she being purposeful in such a vague directive?  Did she do this to trigger the media firestorm that is commencing?  A stealth partisan perhaps?  Or was it naiveté or carelessness in wording?  Hard to say. 

After all, the phrase 'opposing views' is vague, perhaps purposefully so.  For instance, if the curriculum says the Holocaust happened because Germany was a Christian country and it was a very Christian directive, there are views that say otherwise.  There are some who suggest the Holocaust had bupkis to do with Christianity, and that it was in fact driven by other ideologies and agendas.  That would be one example of 'opposing views.'

But again, we have a vague phrase with nothing to go on but the vague phrase, and the clear desire by the press to frame this as a 'your kids will have to learn that raping teddy bears is good' narrative.  And as the good Deacon Greydanus demonstrates, that's already having the desired effect. 

Reflections: The deep need for haunted houses

In that school year in which we fulfilled our obligation of reading To Kill a Mockingbird, I remember a discussion about the Radley house.  Our English teacher mentioned the omnipresent haunted house that every town and village in the history of American towns and villages had to have.  In our rural county seat, the official 'haunted house' was this little gem:

This is a picture I took some years ago when I drove through my old stomping grounds.  When I was young it was abandoned, and remained empty until long after I graduated high school.  Being abandoned, the yard was overgrown with weeds and undergrowth.  An old iron fence surrounded the yard then, with cracked stone pillars on each corner of the grounds, each with a small gargoyle on top.  The iron gate was padlocked.  

It was a common 'dare' to get kids to do what every kid in every town with a haunted house ever did, and just what Scout and Jem did: find a way through the fence, run up and touch the front door.  Since we were perhaps more sophisticated, however, we didn't stop at touching the front door, since even in the 1970s we didn't imagine some spectral hand would reach out and grab us.  Instead we looked for some clue about why the house was empty.  For ease of access, we imagined that clue might have been in the cellar.  We would crawl about the weeds along the sides of the house, trying to see through the basement windows that were caked with dust or boarded up.

Nonetheless, despite such a prime haunted location, our county had houses aplenty that could qualify for haunted houses - some of them inhabited.  I've written before that when we first moved to that area, we lived in a house my dad built on 20 acres a half dozen miles outside of town.  Beyond the cornstalks and hay bales, you would see no end of houses in the area that could fall under the category 'haunted looking.' 

The setting was Northcentral Ohio farmlands.  Not the endless stretches of grain and corn you see in Nebraska or Kansas.  They are smaller, a few hundred acres at a time, separated by brooks and lines of unkempt trees and woods.  Also, back in the day, you would see no end of broken down machinery and abandoned buildings.  You don't see those as much now, so I'll assume the tax laws changed at some point. 

Sometimes the houses that were abandoned didn't look much different than the houses that were lived in.  Especially among older denizens, the houses could be almost Gothic.  This picture here looks like any one of a dozen houses that were scattered about the area we lived in back in the day:

Fix the windows, get the door patched up, a few minor repairs, and that's the house my mom had to go to the night our car broke down coming home in a midnight thunderstorm when I was four.  An added bonus to that story was the elderly woman who answered the door, with nothing but a single table lamp lighting a room decorated in early 20th Century Victorian.  According to my mom, she actually had a shawl on and everything.  How straight out of Adams Family Halloween can you get?

That's why my parents moved, by the way.  Given that was the style of neighboring households as often as not, my mom just couldn't take being home by herself when dad worked overnight.  She had spent her whole life in cities and towns, and that was a bit much.  So in to town we moved, and began a new phase among many phases of my childhood. 

And yet, it was also fun.  There was something about that feeling of 'haunted' I got as a kid.  It's the same feeling I likely looked for running around that old abandoned house in town, trying to peer in the basement.  I think it's the feeling we still try to get when we watch horror movies, or go into haunted houses around Halloween.  There's something about a place that looks haunted that strikes a primal chord in us, a chord too many have likely lost due to an age obsessed with STEM and all things digital and technological. 

With each passing day, I'm more convinced we've lost something in our modern age.  No matter how many angels we talk about on Sundays, or how much we kick around the hereafter, the easy relationship with the Invisible side of Creation and our five physical senses remains at arm's length, blocked by endless wires, processors and digital tech.  Not that it had to drive a wedge between a secular and a spiritual grasp of the world, but somehow it did. 

An abandoned schoolhouse just around the corner of our country home - still there, and still spooky

Could liberals stop comparing the January 6 protests to 9/11

Just saying.  There's a sudden spate of editorials screaming about people comparing Covid vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.  Now, in fairness, most I know are not saying it's the same as the Holocaust as much as this 'sit down, shut up, and obey the State or face punishment' is what leads to the Holocaust.  But point taken. Such comparisons can be a bit over the top. 

So could we stop hearing liberals compare anything and everything done by anything not-liberal to the worst evils in history?  Or to terrorism?  Or to genocide?  Could we stop hearing liberals say our nation is a 400 year old genocidal, racist Nazi state?  That our Constitution is a racist slave document?  That parents objecting to their children being indoctrinated in our schools and threatened with removal by the authorities are the same as terrorists?  That hundreds of protesters breaking into the Capital is as bad as the 9/11 attacks? 

Can the LGBTQ community stop saying they're living in a homophobic terror state even while my wife is told to glorify the gay rights agenda or face termination?  Where blacks insist they're living in the Holocaust redux despite the fact that a black student can try to mass murder his classmates and is let go to return home to a welcome home party, or wanted criminals are made millionaires because of their skin color?  Where women are increasingly overtaking men on almost every level and yet we act as if Saudi Arabia is a paradise for women compared to the brutal sexism of American Handmaid's Tale culture?  

Could liberals please stop doing that?  Then, and only then, I'll say conservatives should stop with the Holocaust comparisons.  They can still make a point that 'sit down, shut up and obey the State or else' can lead to things like loss of freedoms or worse if we're not careful.  But I'll be first in line to say dial back the rhetoric. 

If liberals won't stop, however, with their ages old 'be liberal or by Nazi' style discourse, then shut up and stop your hypocritical whining and try just once to have even the slightest inkling of consistency of principles and standards in your own discourse.  Just once.