You wouldn't think this needs to be said

Only if you aren't a student of human history.  A fellow who pops up in my feed every now and then, who seems to be about 3 or 4 hits to 1 miss, points out what should be obvious: Why you should judge people as individuals, not races.  

Of course societies and nations and empires, being made up of people, suffer that same tendency we all suffer as people.  That is, it's easier to descend into vice than to ascend to virtue.  Let's face it, when was the last time anyone said, "You know, all my life I wanted to be a lazy couch potato, but I just couldn't overcome the temptation to eat right and exercise."  Vice and bad and unhealthy are easier than virtue and good and healthy. Let's be honest.

Which is why civilizations and cultures, being made up of people, tend to suffer the same thing.  Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, freedom, equality and fraternity, of the people and by the people are tough.  Tyranny, oppression, conquest, bigotry and imperialism are easier.  As we're seeing now.  

Even now, we have journalists informing us that freedom of speech can be dangerous and sometimes we need a little of the old government censorship (kudos for that one 60 Minutes).  Barry Lynn once told Anderson Cooper in 2005 that the First Amendment clearly didn't mean religions that promote discrimination and prejudice (that is, that disagree with him).  And since BLM we've been informed that it's time to stop judging based on content of character and get back to judging based on the color of one's skin or any one of a thousand other demographic identities.  With the caveat, as Deacon Greydanus pointed out, that saying JD Vance is white has nothing to do with him being white.  It being postmodernity with its post-reality dogmas.  

At the end of the day, that post-WWII PTSD that the world slipped into in which we decided everything before must have been flawed and we were now going to get it right, has passed. Many of those lofty ideals of total and complete tolerance, respect, openness, freedom of expression, and most of all never judging based on group identity or accident of birth are dead Jim.  As any student of history should be able to predict.  If they ever really lived. 

Ken Burns is what we call White Noise

That is, just another annoying blip in the noisy static.  Apparently he produced a docuseries called The United States and the Holocaust.  If the interview in this article is any indicator, it is the same old same old for many, especially young, Americans.

That is, he's gracious enough to say the United States wasn't exactly responsible for the Holocaust per se, but then proceeds to explain how the United States and Nazi Germany were practically salt and pepper.  He trots out the Jim Crow era, genocide, Native Americans, slavery and antisemitism charges, applied to one country as easily as to the other.  

Apparently at least one episode focuses on the rift between FDR and antisemite Charles Lindberg.  I asked my son, who recently graduated college, about that.  He told me that those of his peers who even had heard of Lindberg, only knew him as some Nazi hero in our Nazi country, vaguely aware that he did something with flying. 

In keeping with our era of hyper-judgmentalism, the series seems wrapped in the context of 'sure we beat the Nazis, liberated the camps, and allowed thousands to come into our country ... but we didn't do it perfectly enough.'  Not like it would have been if our generation was there!  When you have the track record we have, I suppose arrogance is all that's left. 

The funny part of this interview is that one of the producers seems to think they've really blown the lid off of something.  The person talks about how 'uncomfortable' the real truth of our nation and its role in those events makes people in the audience feel, once they see the production. Really?  That's like saying people will be uncomfortable when they learn the secret that slavery existed in America's past.  That's as much a lack of awareness as you can get.

Years ago, when I used to comment on the Huffington Post, I ran into people who believed that the whole of the Holocaust was an American conspiracy, as was the entire war.  By then (c. 2004ish), it wasn't uncommon to run into people online who believed the Nazis were lifted up by the American Military Industrial complex for the sole purpose of inciting a war that the US could then exploit, and use to subjugate the world to our racist, imperialist ways. Compared to them, the saner ones back then dismissed such thinking, being content with the notion that America was no better than the Nazis, and didn't really lift them up as much as inspire them (the old 'the Nazis became racist when they studied the Confederacy' storyline).  

That was almost 20 years ago.  Does Mr. Burns really think people like that have gone away as opposed to multiplied exponentially?  Does he really believe they will be uncomfortable with his documentary?  About the only thing that will make them uncomfortable is his insistence that the US isn't solely responsible for the Holocaust.  That might bother them a bit. 

I don't think we realize just how post-Western, and by extension post-American, we already are.  Harkening back to my oldest son, he said a cool 1/3 of his classmates can barely distinguish between the Swastika and the Stars and Stripes.  Had I not seen examples myself of such thinking over the years, I'd almost be inclined to think he exaggerates.  But I have.  

And we have those useful fools like Burns, a historian I've traditionally enjoyed, to thank.  Because instead of seeing the bleeding obvious, they think they are bravely facing the fan club by exclusively focusing on the negative, endlessly criticizing, and so blurring the line between Nazis and America.  

BTW, all of this is made possible by the Left effectively elevating Western-based racism as the only, all defining, most evil, unpardonable sin in the world. And that goes for anything we thought we did well, like win the Second World War.  This is aided by the fact that by now, about 75% of our recollection of WWII is focused on the Holocaust, primarily as it effected Jewish (and sometimes homosexual) victims; about 10% focused on the Japanese interment camps* in the US, another 10% recalling the use of the Atomic Bombs, over 4% (but growing) the segregation in the US military in WWII, and a shrinking less than 1% on D-Day.   

For most youngsters today, that was WWII. The tens of millions of others killed barely make a drop in the bucket where focus is concerned.  The soldiers?  Except for some minority groups, they are barely mentioned at this point.  I subscribe the the National Veterans Memorial and Museum updates.  It's been many moons since a white male veteran was showcased.   You could be forgiven for not knowing white men ever served in our military if you got your info from that museum.  

But then, when mentioned at all, it's increasingly the fact that they were likely racists in their own white supremacist army.  Hence Burns can acknowledge 'a little heroism' from that time, but those were mere specks of light in the overall darkness that is, and always has been, America.  When that's your narrative, it's not hard for young people to conclude the Soviets might have been the good guys all along. 

*In December 2021, I saw on the news that some Asian American activists are wanting 'Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day' to be replaced by the anniversary of the Japanese Internment camps.  Sort of how Juneteenth will assuredly never be used to replace July 4th.  Again, we're seeing the utter destruction of the West and America, and it's likely a bit too late to stop it.  Thanks go brilliant thinkers like Burns. 

That might explain things

Deacon Steven Greydanus, who is also a film critic of some note, is now a contributor at RogerEbert.com.  Obviously it is a site born of the late, and often cantankerous, film critic. It has several film critics now who throw in their two cents where movies are concerned.  Here is Deacon Greydanus's debut article.  

When I see things like that, I think of things like this:

Remember him?  He was a young fellow who rose to prominence following the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.  He was one of the few such youth activists who didn't have to be swept under the carpet for embarrassing gun control advocates by going crazy extremist.  

If you recall, it was discovered his college exam scores were a bit sub-par, at least where Ivy League standards are concerned.  But in a surprising turn of events, it was off Harvard he went.  Now he's a Harvard graduate.  

Sometimes it's difficult to fathom how rational human beings could accept the madness being peddled by the modern Left.  But then sometimes it isn't. 

Our current American divisions in one Twitter Post

 Here:

There are two basic approaches to America.  Either America has always been a great country despite its sins.  Or America has yet to be a good country because of its sins.  

The Left has convinced a growing number of Americans, especially younger ones, that next to America, there have been few truly evil societies in history.  Ours  is a racist, genocidal, imperialist nation where the evils of racism, oppression, bigotry and genocide are as much in our national DNA as they were in the DNA of the Nazi Party.  

Part of this has been monlithing such sins a racism.  Was a time when we understood racial bigotry was bad.  More than one American had fought against racism since before America.  By the time I came along, racism was clearly a societal no-no.  You drop the N-Word in school and it would be off to the principle's office in no time.  Though you probably wouldn't have been expelled, had the cops called, or saw the media descend on your school like an armored division.  Probably just given a warning and a talking to.  

But racial bigotry was merely one of many such foibles.  And it was certainly varied.  It was understood that to tell a racially insensitive joke, while certainly evidence of the lingering effects of socially accepted racist thinking, was not the same as seizing control of a central European country and mass murdering ethnic minorities in gas chambers.  Perhaps you could argue it might lead there, but it wasn't the same. 

That is no longer the case.  Racism is simply the worst, all defining, unforgivable sin that even Jesus could never forgive. And there are no levels to it.  Seize that central European country or drop an N-Word in a 20 year old email, and you're now a racist.  Period. End of statement.  You could have cured cancer or rescued twenty kids from a burning building.  Now you're merely a racist, and that's all you'll ever be.  Not a human, an American, a father, or a sister.  Racist.  

To that end, and based heavily on the Left's push for a world of endless group identity, America is nothing but racist and, therefore, nothing but irredeemable.  It's history is one of racism, where every black American lived in the equivalent of an America shaped death camp, and every white American had privilege enjoyed from being racists 24/7.  End of template. 

Hence, there is no good in America's past.  There was only racism, or sexism, homophobia, or whatever you wish to focus on, depending on the group in question.   While Haley's is clearly a politically spun recollection, it isn't false.  Those were things more than one American would have valued across the demographic board, hence America worked to end such injustices on its own.  Nobody had to invade and conquer America to get the US to give women the right to vote, or pass the Civil Rights Act.  Yet Ms. King acknowledges none of that.  She could have said 'Yes, those things are missing and we could use them again, however there were also problems back then ...'.  Or something to that effect.

But nope. It's straight to the bad. Only the bad.  Not faith, not country, not family, only racism in our racist nation filled with American racists. 

Note also that nothing Nikki Haley said prevents one from acknowledging the sins and failings of the past.  Which is a good thing.  Goodness knows we are the generation that defines itself by eternal finger pointing at those who came before.  But Ms. King's response all but wipes those virtues aside, as if to say yearning for those cannot happen but that we focus exclusively on the sins of our nation.  It's either acknowledging sins, or ignoring them by embracing the best.  Almost as if the purpose of continually focusing on the sins of the past is specifically for the purpose of getting us to forget the best of the past.  

David Carlin at The Catholic Thing goes crazy

And wonders if prayers might actually be effective.  In fact, he doth blaspheme our Secular age by suggesting the problem with mass shootings isn't too many guns, but too few prayers.  

Wow.  I feel like Carlin said he just saw Elvis working on a road crew in Houston.  It's amazing when you see something like that, which is A-B-C level Christian believing, and realize how radical it is, even within our churches.  When so much basic level Christianity is rejected and condemned by so many believers today.  But then you realize something else.  Many believers today are effectively atheistic in all but name.  Save for an hour or two on most Sundays, they increasingly seem to accept perspectives from a decidedly secular/atheistic point of view.  

So much so, that when the godless condemn 'thoughts and prayers', how many religious believers (and, indeed, their leaders) join the chorus of condemnation and mockery?  If we wonder why young people are leaving the Faith, and not a few older ones are joining them, I think the answer is easier than we make it. 

Since so many who grace the doors of the local church today don't appear to believe in the historical Faith in any practical sense, why should anyone?  The constant attempt to reshape the Faith to fit the latest - when on any given day we can be hit with a hundred new latests - mixed with constantly condemning the first 2000 years of believers as the irredeemable reprobates they were, is no doubt a big part of the problem.  

But no less is what a youngster said at a youth group years ago.  When asked why young people are leaving the faith, the answer was to the point: because most adults in churches don't seem to believe it, why should they? When you consider how many 'believers' employ the atheistic contempt for prayer and our relationship to God as a solution to our nation's (and our world's) problems, that sentiment makes sense. It might be tragic, but it's honest and does answer a lot of questions.  

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as men do.”  Matthew 16.23

Russ Moore and religious clickbait

Distraction is the basis of illusion

So my old classmate Russ Moore stepped forward a while back to demonstrate just what a court prophet in our new era will look like.  Russ isn't like some who simply align blindly with the leftwing colossus of our time.  He continues to keep one foot in the old time religion while trying desperately to stay friends with those whose feet are firmly planted in the profane. 

That is, after all, one of his selling points for the modern Left.  He maintains a 'still a Bible believing Christian at heart' identity while continually assuring the Left that all its hatred and accusations against Christians, especially Evangelicals, are spot on.  One of the few times the Left will spot you some dissenting views is if you make sure to confirm its hatred and contempt for others in your hated demographic. 

But how do you balance that 'I could never attend a gay wedding, but I sure could party at your gay wedding reception' approach without losing the old timer side of the aisle?  Easy.  You get back to basics now and then and do what worked in the past.  A little trick called distraction. Pay no attention to this hand, just look at what this other hand is focusing on.  Magicians use it all the time. 

In Russ's case, this is accomplished by getting our attention away from his mounting allegiance with the modern Left and pointing out that a major threat to America today is - drum roll please - Dungeons and Dragons!  I can almost conjure images of Russ on the set of the 700 Club next to Pat Robertson on this one.  Fantasy Roleplaying is hurting America!

That's as much a costless slab of meat for the more traditional supporters of Russ - and he still has them - as anything.  In recent years, his pronouncements have begun to make some who have stood by him a bit uneasy.  His claim that Evangelicals, being the racists we know they are, never cared about the unborn but used abortion to attack Jimmy Carter for daring to oppose racism, raised more than a few eyebrows.   

Likewise, his ardent anti-Trump rhetoric, in which he insisted that almost all support for Trump was from hypocritical fascist sexist Christians, ruffled more than a couple feathers.  It's worth noting that his famous 'Evangelicals are now what they once warned us about' quote deftly ignores the glaring hypocrisy of the Left in its condemnation of Trump over sexual behavior.  But that's a court prophet for you.

Just like this swipe at Dungeons and Dragons. He assuages fears of being a fundamentalist stereotype by snickering at the old 'it's of the devil!' concerns.  Instead, he says it's truly of the devil because of the terrible ways it portrays things like violence and heroism and fighting for a cause that stinks more of ancient pagan virtues than Christian ones.  

Which is likely fair.  But what he doesn't mention is that this is simply a small part of a broad pop culture attitude that can be found every bit as much in the latest Marvel movie or Disney outing as any D&D book on the dinner table. 

Why not throw all of the modern pop media culture offerings onto the fire?  Why pick on D&D?  That's what Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell would do. Like them or not, they didn't just stop with screaming at D&D, but would launch full form against Hollywood, the whole of the entertainment industry, vast corporate interests, or anything they saw as a threat to their Christian values and understanding of the world.  

But why doesn't Russ do that?  Why single out D&D?   Because regarding D&D, even in 'the age of the Geek' when geekdom and nerdiness are mainstream and even powerful, the old stereotypes that emerged from media brainwashing in the 80s still apply.  So it's an easy target.  It's what old timers called 'shooting cripples.'  Attack something that will cost nothing in return. 

But Marvel Studios?  Disney?  Modern Hollywood?  The general media culture of our day?  That's where the money is.  Buck such outlets and you might just loose those cushy dinner parties and media events hobnobbing with the beautiful people.  And we can't have that.

So just throw out a little slab of meat to the uneasy in your more traditional camps.  And make darn sure to ignore the donkey in the living room, since that might jeopardize your next media dinner party.  Look at the D&D in my hand, not the cozy relationship with vast powers opposed to the Faith in the other.   A little sleight of hand, a bit of the old distraction, but that's how it needs to be done.  For now at least.     

I'm not surprised

As I said here, this is why I have only passing allegiance to the GOP.  Much of the GOP operates on the same trajectory as the Democrats.  Wealth, power, worldly pleasure - that's the motivation.  I would never say they all go this way.  But enough do as to make the GOP a very unreliable ally in any fight, much less the important fights. 

The problem isn't sanctioning the gay marriage branch of the post-Christian sexual revolution.  Hey, last year the lion's share of new HIV cases was once again homosexual men.  No biggie.  The press will barely mention it.  Try to bring that into the discussion and watch how fast you are targeted and attacked.  We continue plodding along as suicides spike, STDs are on the rise, and millions continue to get infected or die from AIDS while millions of more lives are ruined from our age of Sodom and Gomorrah debauchery.  But those are small beans since the World has made these problems small beans compared to an unrestrained sex life.  

The real story here is that the Mormon Church buckled and caved.  When the Left is becoming more naked in its designs, and more appalling in its agendas, more and more defenders of the virtues and heritage of the Christian Faith are surrendering.  Years ago when it was just 'gee, can't we agree that homosexuality is completely normal', these people were willing to hit the beaches to resist.

Now they're caving before the idea that standing in the way of unlimited abortion must mean homosexual marriages is next.  And we can't have that!  This is the same movement that is pushing the mutilation of teenager's bodies over a crackpot psych agenda that insists anyone should be celebrated for their personal versions of truth, but we really need counseling to get us through the terror of Cicada Stress Syndrome.  As a former supporter of, and worker within, the mental health arenas of society, I freely admit it's gone off the rails and has become a major player behind the darkness we're seeing.  

Of course this legislation is less about protection gay or interracial messaging as much as reinforcing the narrative that pure evil is resisting any dogma of the Left.  Remember, this legislation came about after Roe was struck down by the Supreme Court. The premise being that if you let liberalism fail even once, then it's national lynchings and sanctioned rape cultures and gas chambers and Matthew Shepherds on a daily basis.  You are either 100% to the Left, or you are guilty of, and desire, all evils imaginable.  Each GOP senator, and the Mormon Church, approves this message.  That is, if they've even bothered to think it through beyond simply caving. 

When I was growing up, we watched those old black and white news reels of Nazi Germany and wonder how the German people could be swept up in such madness.  We used to watch and wonder why Germans who knew better didn't stand up to the clear and obvious evils sweeping their nation.  Well, now we know.  As my son has said that with each passing day it becomes easier to sympathize with those Germans who lived through the 1930s.  

Expressing your individuality like everyone else

Is the mantra of our modern age.  It's worth noting that true non-conformity has never been vogue.  True non-conformists will always be outcasts.  It happens.  Societies have that which is acceptable, and that which is not.  Nonetheless, during the counter-culture revolution of the 1960s, the flower children of that age managed to systematize non-conformity in a way never really seen.  Presenting themselves as freethinking rebels with a cause, there are probably few cases of more like-thinking conformity in history than the entire 60s hippy movement.  I mean, you could see a free thinking flower child hippy rebel ten miles away because they all looked and acted the same.  

Since then, and with help from the good people at Madisen Avenue, non-conformity has become big business.  There's money to be made in convincing people that the best way to be a non-conformist is to get in line and do what all the other non-conformists are doing. 

I thought of this when I saw a story about some local police department changing its policy where tattoos are concerned.  I mean, how much of a rebel are you when the symbol of the oppressive machine is on your side?  More to the point, when the symbol of the oppressive machine is groveling at your feet and willing to change policy in the desperate hope that you apply for a job!  Perhaps that's why so many celebrities and rock stars grovel before the State Machine today instead of boldly rebelling against it - if they ever really did rebel against it. 

I have to say, based on the evidence around us, I'd call my sons about the most rebellious non-conformists I know.  And generally it was with little prompting from us parents. In most cases they were free to pursue their appearances and interests as they saw fit.  Long hair I would tolerate, though I wouldn't recommend it.  That's a battle I wasn't going to fight.  But I drew the line at piercing and tattoos.  Anything that could cause an infection would not be allowed as long as they were on my insurance.  They more or less accepted those  boundaries, and thus far, none of them have gotten the body art or piercing or goth this or dyed hair that is embraced by about 97% of their free thinking peers.  Which makes you wonder just who is the bold non-conforming rebel.

One of my favorite scenes

 From a movie that would never be made today:

How far we've come and how low we've sunk.  Remember, it won't be us who pay the price.  It will be the grandchildren of our grandchildren who will receive the full brunt of everything we deserve.  

Still here

Just an update to say I've not fallen off the edge of the world.  I said here that I was going to lay low over the Easter season.  Technically that season, Eastertide for sticklers, lasts until Pentecost.  I didn't really mean for that long. But I've been thinking on things.  I said here that life itself was beginning to push me in new ways as I also wonder about the effectiveness of fussing about things on Social Media. Especially because things appear to have entered a new era.  

Yes, I've watched with some humor the apocalyptic hysterics regarding Elon Musk and Twitter.  It's not surprising.  The problem everyone has isn't that he's some hard right MAGA Trump Conservative Religious Right fanatic.  For all I know, he's Lenny the leftist  and might be as bad for Twitter as anything we've seen.

Then why the outrage?  Because they can't control him.  That's why. He's outside the cabal and the control now demanded, and that has them going unhinged.  Which shows how much and how many are now controlled, that one single out of control individual sets off so much unilateral outrage.   And how many are already thralls of this new order?  Observe:

Note well, Fr. James is pro-LGBTQ and embraces the liberal framework of all minorities against the White Western Majority.  That's typically where his advocacy is aimed.  Deacon Greydanus is among the 'not wanting to align with the Left, but the horrifying MAGA Trump racist sexist Alt-Right types make me do it' clan.  If they're taking to Social Media, it's typically to attack on behalf of this or that minority group, or attack the Trump/MAGA/Right.

Yet Musk is none of these things.  For all I know, he is nothing but liberal about most LGBTQ issues.   He's not a Trump person from what I can tell.  I could be wrong on that.  But MAGA and Musk are not terms I've heard linked.  So why the rush to Social Media by these two in order to lob barbs at Mr. Musk?  I don't see them fuss about money spent by Soros, or Hollywood, or various Social Media moguls.  I don't recall them being worried about Free Speech one way or another regarding what Social Media outlets have been doing to dissenting voices for several years.  So what gives? 

Because the Machine has said so, that's why.  They're simply charging forth because the hysterics demand it. The whip was cracked, they moved into action.  Not because Musk is pro this or that in anything.  But because he is now a threat to the established order.  Yes, Fr. Martin uses the old ploy of 'bad use of money' first floated by Judas all those years ago.  That's a common trick, almost always reserved for people on the opposite side of an issue.  But the reason can be nothing other than the Left has gone into hysterics, and these two Catholic voices have charged forth in complete obedience to the bugle call.  It's no longer about embracing this or that template, or promoting this or that cause. It's about responding when the machine says so.  I find that development very significant. 

It shows just how far things have gotten. It also shows how far we've sunk.  We have long ceased to be the nation, and even culture, we grew up with. That ship has sailed.  This shows how long ago and far away that ship is. 

So during this Eastertide, I'm still sitting back and thinking.  Praying.  Pondering.  Reflecting.  If something catches my eye, or some special prayer request.  I may just post dribble or fun things as always.  

It isn't racism, it's winning

Winning for the ever creeping post-reality narrative of transgender normality.  At the end of the day, the entire transgender revolution is nothing other than O'Brien insisting he's holding up five fingers.  And how glad is the State to see so many - politicians, journalists, scientists, intellectuals, celebrities, and religious leaders - stumble over each other to declare that gender is one of those mysteriously complicated subjects at best, an abstract unreality based on our latest version of the latest at worst.

The article is supposedly about the head medical official in NYC slighting white women by only referring to white mothers as 'birthing people', while calling minorities the classic term for people who have babies: mothers.  The article on Fox stirs the outrage by referencing a Twitter post or two and suggesting there is some global backlash.  

But it's all wrapped up in the idea that what made this bad was that she discriminated in her terminology based on skin color.  No.  What makes it bad is that she is a medical expert proclaiming that O'Brien was always holding up five fingers, and it's time all who would serve the rising Power confess the same.  That is the story.  Because once you have men giving birth, going back to Jim Crow levels of hate and bigotry is the easiest step you'll ever take, even if it's directed against a whole new ethnic group this time around. 

What strikes me about this US Government post?

Is the emphasis on discourse, especially online: 

I've underlined the sentences that leapt out at me.  False and misleading narratives?  Narratives?  I found that choice of words interesting, but I can't quite put my finger on why. 

Also undermining trust in Government institutions is somehow a fast track to being a terrorist threat.  All my life I've heard nothing but challenges to faith in our government.  But now it's a potential threat? 

I love the inclusion of conspiracy theories as terrorist threat.  I notice that's a big thing now.  Any challenge of an official narrative - Covid measures, BLM, voting legislation, or what have you - is dismissed as racist, bigoted, or similar.  If you provide some amount of data or facts, you're told it's all part of a vast conspiracy.  Naturally the conspiracy is driven by racism, bigotry, or similar. 

It almost sounds like we're being told to sit down and shut up.  Any questions or challenges to the official narrative will mark you as an enemy of Caesar. 

And suddenly nobody cares about Martin Luther King

Or so you'd think.  I'd forgotten that this weekend was MLK weekend until it was mentioned on the local weather report.  It's been a long time since I've heard MLK mentioned or quoted.  I know President Biden referenced him in his 'enemies of the state' speech.  But that's one of the few times I've noticed him mentioned in recent months.  Ten years ago I knew three months in advance how many days it was until MLK Day. 

This is quite a development.  It was the late 1970s that schools were compelled to give the day off, even before it became an observed federal holiday.  I remember that well.  States that didn't go along with recognizing the day were protested and boycotted.  Economic boycotts in some cases.  Walk outs by black students.  Until they agreed and recognized it.  

In our school district, they handled it by making us go on Presidents Day and giving MLK off for a couple years until they could adjust the calendars.  My mom, a former Civil Rights Movement supporter, was upset about that, as were others.  But it was part of the movement to make MLK into America's default hero.

By the 1990s, I began to call him our proxy Jesus.  Since by then mentioning Jesus in mixed company was no longer proper, MLK became a fine alternative.  Plus by then you had several books and documentaries lifting him up to almost godlike saint status. 

I remember an episode of The Cosby Show that touched on the holiday.  I forget the storyline.  But the climax of the show centered on the Huxtables watching The Speech on television.  The whole family gathered to watch.  Suddenly halos appeared and a divine light emerged from the television screen as angels gathered to sing holy praises.  I exaggerate of course, but it was that level of hagiographic adoration and worship of the event that was emerging across our country.  The Speech was quickly becoming the single great moment in our nation's history. 

When I entered ministry, it was nothing to hear MLK be the most quoted individual in a given sermon.  That was especially true among my African American colleagues.  But even white ministers could be heard quoting and referencing MLK more than anyone else, save perhaps Jesus.  

When my sons went to public school in the 00s, MLK season was that, a season.  Before the Winter Break, they would begin preparing for the really big celebration of MLK Day.  January was the crescendo, but it extended through February owing to Black History Month.  Plays and programs, special assignments, movies and specials - it was ten times more than Christmas ever was when I was in school.

By the time I was moving to become Catholic, I remember saying not a week went by that I wouldn't hear MLK referenced at least a half dozen times.  You couldn't encounter a news article or editorial, or a sermon or an interview, or a documentary or speech, without hearing MLK both referenced and quoted.  When I was still part of a ministry conference, I said I didn't get into the whole MLK day brouhaha.  You'd think I denied God's existence.  

And then suddenly, BAM!  It started before 2020, but since 2020 he's almost fallen off the edge of the world.  I literally go months now and never hear MLK mentioned.  In fact, the only real mention I've seen of him before last week was when Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the laughably anti-American 1609 Project, insisted MLK never wanted a nation where we didn't judge based on skin color. 

Which might be the problem. What the Left is doing in its move to destroy the West and America is to reinstate racism and racial discrimination and segregation.  White Privilege, Systemic Racism, BLM rely on the idea that you absolutely should judge based on skin color.  After all, how did we know racism had anything to do with George Floyd but by racially profiling the police officer in question, and judging based on his skin color?  How do we know someone has White Privilege but by judging their skin color? 

The whole trick is to use whiteness the same way Germans in the 1930s used Jewishness.  The idea that the white race is a pox on humanity, and anything you don't like or want can be blamed on white racism and dispensed with accordingly (including such laughable ideas as equality, liberty, freedom, sanctity of life, and even democracy), is predicated upon judging and condemning based on skin color and ethnicity.  

And when racial discrimination and prejudice are so essential, you can't be lifting up some crazy looney adulterer (which has been pointed out quite frequently I've noticed) running around saying we need to judge content of character and stop judging based on color of the skin.  Hence why I had forgotten about this weekend until our dear weather person dropped the name.  I've seen a few things mentioned since.  But nothing - not a damn thing close - to what it used to be.  

Welcome to Orwellian America.  Another unperson for your lost files. 

What our doctor's office said

When I was in 8th grade, I had my 'BB Gun' Christmas when I received my much asked for Atari game system with Space Invaders.  My best friend came over, as he did every Christmas until I moved to Florida, to spend hours zapping pixels on a new color television set.  

Shortly before he left, I began to feel a bit off.  Soon I felt hot, and my body was aching.  When he went home, I began to cough and feel sick.  By that Christmas evening, my fever had passed 104 degrees.  All I could do was lay on the couch and hope to die.  My parents, Depression Era though they were, nonetheless felt something should be done.

So my dad called our family doctor.  His call went to the doctor's home since the offices were closed for Christmas - the biggest home in town (a gorgeous Tudor on about a dozen acres of beautiful landscaping).  He answered, and said he would call in a special prescription to our local pharmacy.  Ol'Tom, who owned the pharmacy, would go into the store and fill it for him, and he could  pick it up in about an hour.  Which he did.  Dad got the meds that night and apparently it worked because here I am telling the tale.

I write this to contrast our medical care experience then with what we have experienced since getting hit with Covid.  Like so many things, it's a tale from a world and a nation long since passed.  Here is what has happened to us now.

For two weeks we've not heard back from our doctor.  Our actual doctor is a new dad, and is basking in the light of our modern month long maternity leave for both parents.  Apparently there were no contingencies for the possible loss of one of the doctors in the office.  The office is with OhioHealth.    

The big problem we still have is a lingering cough, which is annoying for those who have it, but worrisome for my mom.  At 91, we don't want a lingering cough to go into bronchitis or worse.  But we can't give her most cough medicines because they appear to cause her blood pressure to spike.  The weaker ones the pharmacist recommended don't seem to help. 

We have messaged and called for almost two weeks asking for advice and if there is possibly a prescription medication that could help her beat this cough, keep it from worsening, but not cause her blood pressure to skyrocket.  After about the seventh call in a week and a half, I received the below message and an explanation from the receptionist that the doctors just don't have time in the day to deal with all the requests.   

Apparently the doctors practice medicine during banking hours.  Five o'clock, time to go.  We'll see if we'll get around to you in the morning.  Or not.  I pointed out to the receptionist that the benefit of being a doctor is living a life of luxury and wealth, living in nice homes, sending your kids to the best universities, taking trips to Europe for fun.  The pay back is that doctors are supposed to be there 24/7 for our health's sake, since most people don't have the good sense to only need medical care M-F, 9-5.  If they haven't gotten to all the urgent health concerns of their patients by 5:00, then they need to stay until 5:30, 6:00, 9:00 or whenever is needed.   

Well, it's been two more days and still nothing.  No televisit options, prescription advice, or anything.   FWIW, below is the message we were sent in response to our pleas for guidance and assistance.  For our part we're improvising the best we can with lots of prayer.  Thank goodness our country isn't what it was when I had the flu in 1980.  

"We can't do this without you.

Our staff works hard to make sure you and your family receive the quality care you've

come to expect from OhioHealth. But COVID-19 makes that mission a lot more difficult,

and we need your support.

We are caring for more people and have more staff shortages than ever before. Please

be patient and understand that you will experience longer wait times, delays with

prescription requests and responding to messages. Calling multiple times or sending

multiple messages on the same request increases delays.

Please help prevent the spread of any illness and do not come into our office with any

cold-like symptoms. Our staff and providers are being exposed and out sick for several

days making our delays even longer. We offer telehealth and e-visits so we can

continue to care for you virtually.

If you are having significant or acute symptoms, please call our office and do not send a

MyChart message as we may not be able to address that message right away.

If you are scheduled for a physical or wellness visit, we may be contacting you to

reschedule to a later date to provide appointments for our sickest patients to be seen as

soon as possible.

We know you are frustrated, and we are too. But with your cooperation, we can protect

the health of our patients and the well-being of our staff.

Thank you for your understanding during this challenging time."

I take no pleasure in this

When I did my time at Patheos, in response to the Trump impeachment mob, I pointed out that during the Watergate scandal, my parents were upset at the idea of Nixon being removed from office.  Despite being lifelong Democrats (at least up to that point), they took no pleasure in seeing the president driven out in scandal.  They knew that would be bad for the country as a whole, and so it was.  I won't bother with the reaction from the good readers at Patheos.

I thought of that when I read this rather gleeful story at FOX News, that President Biden was met with jeers as he toured the devastation in Kentucky.  I'm old enough to remember, on the whole, that partisanship happened after tragedies or disasters or other grievous loss of life events.  But it usually took some time.  Give it a week or two.  Sometimes a month or more, before the partisan sharks started swimming.

I won't cast blame.  It isn't as if FOX is doing something uniquely repulsive, or those jeering are in some way breaking from modern tradition.  Immediately rushing in to put a partisan spin while even the bodies haven't been gathered up has become as American as apple pie and racism used to be.  And the last thing I could ever say is that it's those rascally right winger types who are behind it all.  I couldn't say who first decided political exploitation should be our first response.  But if I was a betting man - and I'm not - I'd put it firmly on some progressive activism, like guns and gun violence and rushing to make it about gun control before facts are known or bodies are covered.  

In any event, it shows have far we've sunk as a nation.  The divisions are so deep now I wonder at what point we'll stop, or if we've passed a point of no return.  In any event, I admit that President Biden is on the fast track to being one of our worst presidents ever.  And that's from someone who remembers President Carter, President Obama and President George W. Bush.  Nonetheless, there are times and places, and this is certainly neither.  Not for a nation that has its priorities straight. 

Memorial Day and two Americas

 On one hand, those who remember this:

What Memorial Day is all about

On the other, those who reflect this:

Not a Freudian Slip, but a core value of the Left

Yes, I know.  Call them out and they'll be indignant that we suggest they no longer care.  They'll then insist they do.  I've noticed that's a tactic when calling out the modern Left.  Often their lack of concern is demonstrated by their general lack of concern.  But calling that out never does any good since they can then insist, for the umpteenth time, that they obviously do care, pay tribute, etc. 

I'm old enough to remember when across St. Blogs, Memorial Day was a time when so many Catholics I followed remembered the fallen, paid tribute to our nation and its heroes, and called upon us to reflect on our blessings as Americans.  This year I decided to look around at some old blogs and bloggers I've followed, or used to follow, over the years.  Not ones I started following over the last couple years, but ones that are still around who were around when I first visited the Catholic blogosphere, and in the first few years of my life as a Catholic.

Of those I checked, only this at The American Catholic had any clear reference to the holiday.  There were actually some other posts on TAC as well paying tribute at this time of year.  And this, of all places at Mark Shea's new blog.  But that was it.  Of the Catholic blogs I discovered in my early day, of those still running in some form or another, that was the only one to mention or reference Memorial Day.

I even found some Catholics on Twitter.  I don't do Twitter myself, but I see people keep up with Twitter and can access it that way.  Of those Catholics I know of from the olden days who Tweet, I found not a single reference to Memorial Day.

That is not a coincidence.  The country that those we remember at  this time of year is under assault and, quite frankly, losing.  The move to destroy the US and the Western Tradition is well under way.  Those Catholics who would stand with Ms. Harris are the ones happy to join in the destruction of America and the West, including traditional, historic orthodox Christianity.  They will accept any loony BS and sanctify it, turning a blind eye to the problems, using any trick in the book to deflect from the obvious. 

If you call them out, sure they'll say they weep with those in the top picture.  But at this point, you'd have to call them out.  Say nothing, and I can almost guarantee you'll hear nothing from them at all.  No support for Ms. Harris's picture of course.  But nothing at all if possible.  Thus is America, 2021.  For our part, the boys went out together again and helped my mom pay respects at the local cemetery:

Count us with the top picture. 

The Left is tyranny's wildest dreams come true

Exhibit A:

Fresh off of his outrage that it happened to one on his side, Mark once more cheers Tech giants for doing to others what he was outraged about when it happened to him and his.

Now, there is a an added factor we need to consider.  As we see here, Mark immediately assumed that Sam was the victim of MAGA types doing it to Sam since Sam is Mexican?  So it wasn't because of the Tech corporations at all.  Likewise, some time ago I remember people saying Mark had been banned by either Facebook or Twitter, but he was apparently sure it was some algorithm glitch and nobody's fault.

That is the stuff that tyrant's dreams are made of. Beyond the all important 'do unto others as long as you don't do unto me' morality, you have an added layer of protection for those who would crush liberty and equality for all.  

When the companies do ban him, or one of his own, he simply blames - anyone else, preferably his favorite boogiemen, the white MAGA conservative Republican racist with white skin.  Doesn't have to be true.  There can be no facts or evidence at all.  It's simply important for the oligarchs who would rule over us to know that Mark will fully support them as they crush the rights of  'those types' over there, and when they finally turn their attention to crushing Mark's rights, he will still blame 'those types' over there.  

Such slavish devotion to a movement by so many who have seen that movement turn on its own on any given day, makes me think of nothing so much as the girl in this scene from the 1982 movie Conan the Barbarian:

Somehow I get the feeling there are some dictators from the last century rolling over in their graves wondering why they couldn't have lived today. For a bonus, next time we'll delve into the Left's longstanding defense of private businesses in the free market who wish not to be compelled to violate their religious beliefs regarding gay marriage.  Since apparently it's all about the freedom of the free market.  I'm sure the consistency will astound us. 

First they came for the socialists MAGA types, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist MAGA type.  Then they came for the trade unionists conservatives, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist conservative.  Then they came for the Jews Christians and I did not speak out - even though I was a Christian.  Then they logically came for me because I was a Christian - and I still blamed MAGA types and conservatives.  

This is why I advised my sons not to join the military

This is what our military has been reduced to.  At a time of increased fatalities through accidents, cases in which servicemen have proven ill-prepared for combat, and mounting cases of criminal assault and unexplained murders, our military focuses on - all things gay sex. Because that's what the leftwing says to focus on. 

So what if as many Americans have died of AIDS - with the majority being homosexual men - as have been killed in all of America's wars combined?     If anyone doubts the 'cold civil war' or 'culture war' or whatever you prefer has been lost by those who would preserve the Christian Western tradition, I give you this. 

I try to imagine what future history will say about us. I don't think it will be pretty. 'So dad, you're saying that in a world of pandemic and mounting crisis, the thing they care about the most was who those in their military units wanted to have sex with?' 'Yes son, that explains a lot.'

Meanwhile, from the chronicles of America's demise

A former football coach is still trying to get his job back.  

Why?  Because he committed the unpardonable sin of wanting to pray openly, rather than in a duly designated closet where the school told him to go.  Had he worn a dress or advocated gay sex or celebrated the extermination of tens of millions of pregnancies to sustain our porn culture through the AIDS pandemic, no doubt he would be athletic director by now.  Had he embraced the new Jim Crow and told his white students to grovel for mercy and beg forgiveness for their skin color, as my wife has had to do in her workplace, perhaps even principal.  If he had championed the a post-American global oligarchy driven by socialism and dreams of a communist paradise, I'm thinking superintendent, though that might be a bit much. 

Alas for him, he thought to freely exercise his religion by praying openly, and that was his big mistake.  Surely 1947 will go down in the history books as one of the most important years on the journey to America's death.  Given so many other failures and losses, that's quite an achievement.  Well done SCOTUS. 

Ouch

"A century ago they taught Latin and Greek in high school; today they teach remedial English in college."

Karl Keating