Why orthodox Christians putting their hope in the GOP is a profitless endeavor.

Exhibit A.

Of course the problem isn't the bill, which goes out of its way to enshrine gay marriage as a core American value.  It's that it accepts the premise that once you let those rascally conservative republicans do something like limit abortion rights, the next thing you'll have is lynchings and gas chambers and women dying in back allies and tortured homosexuals.  That's what this bill was all about, riding that wave of media hysteria that claimed with Roe overturned, the next thing they'll do is go after gays, interracial marriages, and other nasty things. 

The idea that 'once a conservative wins, the universe is that much closer to exploding' is an oft invoked media narrative.  Time and again whenever the press reports on a conservative proposal, it's framed as either an immediate threat to various groups, or a stepping stone toward Jim Crow, swastikas and pogroms.

The Republicans who voted for this are either too thick to know this, or they don't care because they are no more conservative than Bernie Sanders.  Or, like many conservatives, they operate on the idea that if we just insist we're not like those nasty racist sexist bigot conservatives over there, they'll like us - they'll really, really like us!  Foolishness of the highest order.

In any event, the GOP is all there is for those who don't want to support a party beholden to the secular paganism of the global Left.  Those who don't want to crawl into a cell and let the world burn that is.  Because the Left is a movement increasingly clear in its designs to destroy liberty, freedom, equality and the sanctity of life.  

Nonetheless, never forget how flawed this alliance is for those who seek the right means to the right ends.  At best it is the least of the evils.  At worst it's a terrible and ultimately fruitless waste of time. 

The City of Truth versus the City of Bigotry

This is what I want us to look at.   It's an article from the Zanesville Time Recorder. I'm sure we're all subscribers. 

The TR is the paper for Zanesville.  If you're not a Buckeye, that name might not mean anything to you.  Zanesville is a city named for Ebenezer Zane, the man who carved Zane's Trail through modern day Ohio.  He gave his son a plot of land that eventually became Zanesville. 

What caught my eye was the opening sentence in the article:

"Had Sarah McIntire lived "in this day of woman's rights, she would not have been relegated to obscurity," wrote Helene Louisa Sullivan in 1892."

You see that/?  It's because of sexism, short version, that Mrs. McIntire was 'relegated to obscurity."  Who was Sarah McIntyre?  She was Ebenezer Zane's daughter.  She married John McIntire.  It was John who received the land that eventually became Zanesville. 

What did Sarah do?  According to  the article, she was a heck of a homemaker.  She was generous and kind. She did charitable work, which was hardly uncommon.  A nasty rumor over the years is that Protestant Christians in America laughed at charity.  Reality suggests otherwise of course.  She  also helped lay the groundwork for different projects and helped start a Methodist church in the region.  

In fact, here is a nice summary of her at the end of the article:

 Sarah "was a notable housewife, and a splendid cook," Sullivan wrote, and "having established themselves in their forest home, they dispensed hospitality with a liberal hand, all being welcome to their dinner table within the sound of their dinner horn."

After John died, Sarah remarried David Young, a minister, and later helped establish the first Methodist church in Zanesville. She funded the construction of both the Second Street and South Street M.E. churches in the city. "Sarah McIntire was truly an extraordinary woman," 

So what am I getting at?  My point is, I'm sure Ms. Sarah was a fine person.  And like so many in this world, a remarkable one in her own right.  But why would she be remembered beyond any one of a million men or women who did similar things?  Why assume it's only because of sexism (the backhanded assumption behind the statement 'in this day of woman's rights' is supposed to suggest) that she faded into obscurity? And then it dawned on me.

I don't think we realize just how Bigotry is the uber-narrative of history in our modern mindset.  That is, Bigotry is the great mortal sin.  It is the unforgivable, all defining sin. Bigotry is the template through which everything in history is explained.  Bigotry is why everything we think is right can actually be wrong.  This is because all of history is somehow the ones in charge who are necessarily bigoted corrupting the real truth and oppressing the ones who should be listened to. 

We see it in - everything.  The idea that all of history was corrupted by a global patriarchy dominated by men.  We see it in America, where anything and everything is the result of colonialism and imperialism and racism.  We see it in the gay rights movement, where the only reason we didn't realize how true homosexual normality is comes from ages of homophobic bigotry. 

In fact, it's sort of an ideological 'get out of jail free' card for progressivism.  Don't like something?  Want something new?  Want to change things?  Just say they're the result of some form of bigotry.  Sexism works since men and women have been around for ages.  But any form of 'this group v. that group' of bigoted oppression will work.  

There is no reason to think Ms. Sarah wouldn't have been obscure had things happened a hundred or two hundred years later.   Typically we don't know about the spouse of people who accomplish notable things.  Sometimes we do, based on circumstances. I learned about Martha Washington, Abigale Adams, and Eleanor Roosevelt.   On the other hand I know little of Teddy Roosevelt's wife.  I have little information about Catherine the Great's or Amelia Earhart's relationships because the focus is on what those women accomplished. 

It reminds me of the movie Hidden Figures.  I recall one of the morning news shows talking about the movie.  One of the anchors said when she was in school she never heard of the black women portrayed in the movie.  Cleary, the others on the broadcast concluded, this was due to our sexism and racism as a country.

No, it had nothing to do with sexism or racism.  When I was in school and learned about the space program, I learned about the astronauts.  The guys in the rockets.  That's because if something went wrong, they died.  So it was a brave thing to do.  And on that level, the level of basic information that schools give, that was enough.  I was only vaguely aware that anyone worked on the ground.  Until the movie Apollo 13, in fact, I didn't think much of the ground crews since they were never the focus.  And most of them were men.  It had nothing to do with sexism or racism.

Yet that is how we frame things today, isn't it?  That is the default template, the 'City of God' template, for our modern age.  If Augustine's The City of God attempted to frame history as the history of the Earthly City and the City of God, the modern version frames it as the history of the long silent Oppressed finally overcoming the bigotry of past Oppressors.  We can assume anything and everything was the result of oppressive bigotry.  Therefore anything and everything can likely be wrong.  

And it isn't new.  Look at that date in the quote from the article.  1892.  That's 130 years ago and already a woman was framing things  as 'clearly the problem was male dominated sexism' before we even entered the 20th Century.  Even if it had nothing to do with sexism, but merely the way the world works.  That's a long time to believe anything and everything in the past is likely the result of the wrong people oppressing right-people.  

As we see, it's a very powerful narrative.  By default, anything we assume to be true might only be the result of some oppressive group corrupting everything and keeping the real truth down.  Hence the speed with which people are willing to go to the mattresses over the cisgender bigoted idea that men or women exist or men can't have babies.  Why would we ever think there were men and women and women had the babies?  Why - Bigotry! 

See how darn easy that is?  Remember, not a few Christian scholars will readily concede latent sexism, patriarchal oppression, even racism and homophobic bigotry in the truth claims of the Bible (at which point logic suggests they can no longer be called the 'Holy' Scriptures).  That's not just a Catholic thing.  I've read scholars from all three major branches, to some degree or another, accept the premise.  Nor is it some radical leftwing thing.  Even conservatives will be caught shuffling feet or explaining away biblical teachings that run afoul of progressive dogmas, appealing to some 'they didn't know any better because ancient bigotry' version of the past. 

What a powerful premise this is.  If you don't think that model of history is a powerful force, just think about how quickly we're now fighting for the right to perform sex change procedures on minors since obviously everyone in the past was wrong about gender - because Bigotry!.  And all this in barley over a decade.  That's because for over a hundred years we have assumed anything we think is true might not be, because bigotry and oppression.   Think on that. 

Now this was awesome

 Seeing one of the most recognizable movie themes in the history of movies performed live:

Our official Christmas kickoff theme

Back on this post, Nate Winchester commented that it's funny what kids sometimes remember from their parents. He's right.  

For example, as many of you know, we've always tried to build traditions in our family.  Many were based on what memories my wife and I could scrape together from our younger days.  Some just happened and grew over the years.  Some were things we would do for this or that reason without thinking, but suddenly took on special meaning - at least for the boys.

So when my wife and I lived in Kentucky, we would visit my family for Thanksgiving since they were closest.  Because we wouldn't be back over Christmas (after the first couple years, we stayed to our own home on Christmas), we would inject any Christmas tradition we remembered from times with my parents and family. 

One was always listening to Christmas music on Thanksgiving.  That was part of my mom saying she would never, ever decorate for Christmas or even acknowledge Christmas until Thanksgiving.  When my dad received a CD of the Carpenter's wonderful A Christmas Portrait album, we started playing that while we vested them.  We used to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade when the boys came along.  After it was over, we would turn on the music.  As often as not, it was the Carpenters.  

One year, when the boys were still young to early teen, we were still going to my parents' house for Thanksgiving.  We went through the same old same olds.  For whatever reason I put some other CD in and hit play after the parade.  FOUL!, my sons cried.  That's not the right CD!  It's the Carpenters we play first!

They were serious.  My second oldest then explained that I didn't understand.  He said in their minds, hearing those first notes of Happy Holidays by the Carpenters is as much the kickoff to Christmas in their minds as Santa in the parade or Black Friday news.  As soon as those chords are struck, in an almost Pavlovian way, they begin getting giddy over the great season of their year.  They said as long as they live, when they hear those chords, they will think of our Thanksgivings and the beginning of Christmas with the family. 

I loved that.  Over the years, I've learned there are other things they associate with special times of the year, even now.  Sure, it's more a formality now.  As they boys traverse their own paths in life, I'm sure they'll develop their own traditions.  Or at least I hope they will.  But I've always cherished that moment when my boys reminded me that many things I took for granted were quite important to them.  Important because they combined the feeling of the season with what our family did to celebrate.  

So with that, enjoy the sounds that, for my boys, were the the sounds that said Christmastime is here!

A Thanksgiving post

A nice article recapping that famous story of the pilgrims. It focuses on Edward Winslow, whose account of the Plymouth Colony's first year is an eyewitness source for that famous dinner story. 

I was going to write about all the different takes, attacks, celebrations and musings on this holiday.  I thought of pointing out how this is the way modernity wins against tradition every time.  But I decided to leave it go. 

I've tried this week to focus on what I'm thankful for.  To that end, I've avoided almost everything beyond books and family and church and home.  I have kept up with a few worthwhile websites.  But I've attempted to keep focused upwards.  

There will be time to take note of things down the road.  And we are called to be in the world, not remove ourselves from it.  Nonetheless, if the first pilgrims and friends could celebrate after their dumpster fire experiences of the previous year, I certainly can.  In fact, it reminds us that the best level of gratitude happens when our thankfulness is not bound by temporary circumstances.  Happy Thanksgiving. 

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.  1 Thessalonians 5:16-19

Heh

 If you play certain computer games, you get this:

It took me a few, since I haven't played such games for many moons.  But once I got it, I had to chuckle.  I especially liked the deadpan newsy talk of the anchor.  

About time!

I understand the Covid pandemic was an unmitigated disaster on many fronts.  I get that there has been tremendous suffering.  I quipped that 2020 was the best year we had for some time, not counting Covid.  I was right.  Compared to previous years, we came through 2020 at a net positive.  That's what the previous five or six years were like.  

Nonetheless, it wasn't without casualties.  And yes, while we breezed through in 2020, it came back and caught us in 2021.  Still, despite it all, there was one thing about the entire 2020 Covid period that gnawed me as much as anything.  It might seem trivial to many, but it bugged me until, well, last Saturday.

When I was eleven years old, my dad took me to my first Ohio State Football game. It was November 11, 1978 and we played Illinois.  Little did I know I was watching one of the last games to be coached by the legendary Woody Hayes.  The tickets came to us courtesy of our local realtor, who was my dad's biggest fan.  That's because Dad was always itchy about moving on, even if for no particular reason.  He would buy a house, fix it up, sell it, and buy another to do the same thing.  Seldom were we in the same house or neighborhood for more than a few years.  Sometimes no more than one.  Obviously the realtor did his best to stay on Dad's good side.  Hence the tickets.

I remember that fondly.  I remember parking in the open fields where now sits St. John Arena.  I remember the very, very good seats (near the 50 yard line, lowest deck, Buckeye side).  I remember the fall drive home, and the chili dinner awaiting us as family from Akron was down visiting.  

Because of this, and because it seemed as good an age as any, I decided when my sons were eleven, they could go with me to their first Buckeye game.  Up until then, my wife and I went together for our annual big date outing.  But she handed over the seat to our oldest in 2006, and from then on it was the boys.  Each would take turns to make sure they got the same chances to go with ol'dad to his alma mater.  

That's how it worked, and it usually went pretty smoothly.  We diverged from the rotation a couple times.  One year my second oldest bowed out so that I could take his oldest brother - and biggest OSU fan - to a game on his 18th birthday.  But it usually worked - until 2020.

That was the year our youngest turned eleven.  He had been looking forward to it for over a  year.  He tried to bargain to go in 2019, but we held firm and told him just one more year, and it would be his turn.  That's been that poor kid's life as often as not I'm sad to say. 

As things would have it, he grew in a different direction and, to be honest, I don't think he would have cared to go or not to go by the time this year rolled around. I guess you can get burned so many times before you develop a natural stoicism about things.  But he went ahead and agreed to go if I could swing the tickets this year.  With my wife's meteoric rise in her company and this year's whopping promotion, and despite jaw dropping prices for tickets, we went.  

Through much of October and into November, the weather was stunningly fine.  Except for  Halloween, it was dry, warmer than usual, and a good time to be out and about.  Some days we joked about going to the beach it was so nice.  Until, of course, the Friday before the game when the temperatures plunged and snow fell, and freezing temperatures swept the state.  Again, our youngest's general life experience.

Despite it all, however, we had fun.  He was a trooper.  He's known to complain about things, often to the chagrin of his older brothers.  Their answer is that they endured years in the trenches of the public school system, so he has no room to complain.  But he didn't complain Saturday.  

He doesn't care for crowds.  And overly loud noises bother him.  He doesn't mind the cold - when you get used to it.  But when the weather has been late spring until the day you spend six hours out in freezing weather it isn't exactly a thrill a minute.  Hemmed in between tens of thousands of fans and ear splitting cheering, sitting in freezing temperatures, he didn't say a peep.  He smiled, occupied himself (he's not necessarily the big sports fan of the day), and kept whatever misgivings he had about the situation to himself. 

The closest to complaints came during the walk to the car.  As Ohio expands, its parking moves farther and farther away from the stadium.  That's a several mile walk for us, because he didn't want to take the shuttles crammed full with people that you have to stand in line for a half hour for anyway. 

Other than that, however, it went off without a hitch.  We did all the 'traditions'.  Breakfast at Bob Evans, wander the campus, allow me to point out the places I remember, go to the new Student Union, listen to the chimes, then off to the Shoe.  From there, it's really about the pre-game traditions.  After that, the game is usually an afterthought.  After all, I could see the game comfy at home on the telly.  But he soldiered through, seemed to enjoy the experience, and we had a wonderful time together. If there was nothing else but that last part of the sentence, it all would have been worth it. 

Enjoying some warmth in the Student Union

We tarried outside Orton Hall in order to hear those famous chimes

As if to ask what did they do with Mirror Lake

Experts at work: These marshlands were once among the most
beautiful spots on American college campuses.  More on that later

Not bad seats for a forgone conclusion of a game (Indiana, FYI)

For him that's a big smile.  Cold and all.  We call that a fine time.

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.  

Where Peter Is reminds me of The Friendly Atheist

The Friendly Atheist is a blog that, as the name suggests, purports to be a happy place where nice atheists are all warm and fuzzy and friendly. Utilizing a good cop/bad cop tactic, however, the FA was typically radical leftwing atheism that spent most of its time attacking anything remotely center-right, and all things religious, especially Christianity. While most of the main contributors did so on the slick, in the comments sections atheists were given carte blanche to spew any hate and even violent wishes on religious freaks and conservatives who they clearly hated. 

Where Peter Is reminds me of that.  It suggests a site dedicated to the importance of the pope in Catholicism.  But it doesn't take long to see the ideological leanings of its contributors.  Most posts follow a decidedly leftwing template where political liberalism's stereotypes of conservatives can be assumed, but to the left is nothing but beautiful people usually being correct about everything. 

It also demonstrates a trend among the 'former Christian conservative' movement we've seen over the last decade.  Some contributors claim to be 'former right wing Christens'.  Nonetheless, it isn't difficult to see that they have simply taken the problems with fusing the Faith and Right Wing Politics and now apply the same to Left Wing Politics.  They're still the same politically partisan Christians, but with an ass on their hats rather than an elephant. 

To me that is a big problem with those who tack Left.  Conservatives, if they have nothing else going for them, typically admit - even celebrate - their identity as conservatives.  Liberalism has forever shrank away from such self-identification.  Those on the Left prefer simply being correct about everything and without guile; advocates of truth and fact and nothing else.  Therefore the injection of politics into the Faith must always be the fault of those other types who aren't them.  

That forthrightness among conservatives, BTW, is why I tend to identify more with conservative Christians, even if I don't always agree.  There's something about honesty over duplicity that gets me every time. 

Veterans Day

This, Charlie Brown, is what Veterans Day is all about:  

1944: A French couple puts flowers on the body of a US soldier killed in front of their home.

Mark Shea and that vaunted whole life ethic

 On full display here:

Heh.  I know. It's Mark Shea.  Still, you have to love Mr. Seamless Garment New Prolife Catholic.  He basically tells the GOP to stop cheering.  Because they won Florida and Texas, which are friendly toward retirees.  That means their gains were among the elderly, who are old and will die soon.  

Maybe it's me, but that just doesn't strike the old 'What would Jesus say?' tone.   But then it is the New Prolife Catholic ethic, and I think we're all clever enough to know what that euphemistic label actually means.

It's Election Day!

Me on Election Day

Woohoo.  I'm not one who cares much for the GOP.  I figure most Republicans wish they could go back to the good old days of a strong military to help our financial fortunes, with everything else 'who cares?'.  Not that all Republicans are like that.  But the 'GOP' as a whole seems interested in being just enough 'not Democrat' to curry favor with voters every couple years, but not enough 'Republican' to do much else.  

Donald Trump disrupted that of course. Not that he's my cup of tea either.  As I've said before, I was so ahead of the curve that I didn't like Trump when liberal Democrats and Hollywood superstars loved the guy. Before he committed the unforgivable sin of putting an 'R' in front of his name.  I still don't care for him.  Though he did a service by drawing out the professional class of 'not conservatives unless the cameras are rolling' pundits who made the GOP everything worthless (I'm looking at you Bill Kristol).

The Democrats' problem is that they put their eggs in the secular progressive basket.  The "Left', we'll call it, is a movement that smells strongly of Bolshevism, and increasingly makes its goals clear: the utter destruction of the Christian Western tradition. Almost every day the Left finds some virtue, truth or principle to destroy, the suffering and misery that subsequently arises being small beans.  

That the Left enjoys an alliance with the Western institutions of power not seen since WWII makes it tough to resist.  It's a testimony to the awfulness of the Left's platform that with such an overwhelming monopoly of social messaging, there are still so many who question its dogmas.  Yet every day it makes strides. 

Because of that, I find myself thinking that no matter what, I don't dare take a chance on giving the Left any more power than it has.  Since the Democrats, on the whole, appear fully invested in following the Left blindly wherever it goes, that means giving Democrats more power and influence is akin taking the flag out and burning it along with my children's freedoms. 

Exactly what will happen today, I don't know.  I'm sure there will be some runoffs.  History favors the party not in the White House during midterm elections.  And that's if things are chugging along.  We are living in a dumpster fire as a civilization right now, and the one hanging his hat in the Oval Office will typically get the blame. 

My guess is that polling favors the Republicans.  That's because I've seen about a week or so of news stories warning poll workers of violence and worrying that the election could be compromised by election deniers and voter oppression.  If the Democrats were ahead, I bet the stories would strike a different tone.  

I'm sure if the GOP wins anything beyond the House (which most have conceded for some time), we'll hear endless news stories of angry white men, sexists, voter oppression and voting rights violations galore.  It won't be like 2020, when the USA popped off an election that was almost too perfect for heaven.  It will be more like 2016, or 2000, or even 2004.  You know, when elections were corrupt, stolen, compromised or illegal.  You know, when Republicans won.  

Beyond the assurance of Mike DeWine getting a second term, however, I have no clue about outcomes.  After all, the last time I made a prediction was before the 2016 election, when I conceded the inevitable victory of Hillary Clinton.  So obviously my ability to predict elections isn't worth much.  Therefore, I'll leave history to do what it does, and find out the results tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever we finally know.  

Transgenderism and Eugenics: History doing what it does repetition-wise

If you've ever wondered where you would have stood a hundred years ago when Eugenics was the horrifying crackpot scientific fad theory of the day, just look at where you stand today. Transgenderism is the Eugenics of the 21st Century.  Based on warped ideologies and activism, with virtually no debate or discussion, it has zilch to do with science.  Brought to the stage by an increasingly bloated mental health industry drunk on its place of privilege in our culture, it said if you think you're Napoleon it's fine.  Who's to say Napoleon is an objective reality? 

There is no scientific consensus at all behind it. It is only settled science if you accept the premise that all scientists agree, because those who don't are transphobic hater fascist types who don't count and deserve to lose their jobs anyway. 

Of course this movement has already dug itself into the global mindset that would push to eradicate the Christian Western heritage by deconstructing anything that can be labeled Western or biblical.  To that end, power player think tanks have converged to celebrate the mutilation of adolescents and teenage minors, while sexing up the youngest of these, all in the name of this crackpot shamanism. 

Think on it.  A month or two ago, news broke that a children's hospital in Boston was preforming gender surgeries on underage minors.  Not so! the hospital responded.  Local media outlets circled the wagons.  National press outlets did their part by burying the story altogether.  Fact checkers rushed forth to prove this was a lie - there were no 'transformative' surgeries being done on minors.  It was a viscous, transphobic, right wing fascist lie.  There were preliminary procedures being administered in order to prepare the teens to receive double mastectomies and hysterectomies once they turn eighteen.  But no surgeries on underage kids!

Yet within a couple months we have the President of the United States calling immoral any attempts by states to keep minors from being so 'treated'.  We have a CBS article praising the practice that only a month or so earlier was denied.  That's quite a turn around.  And that shows that the powers behind this are far more established than the powers in the early 1900s who would bring the logical fruits of Eugenics to their most horrific conclusions at Auschwitz and Dachau and Treblinka.  

There's not much we can do of course.  You can raise your kids otherwise, but imagine trying to tell Rolf that Herr Zeller is wrong.  It isn't as easy as it looks.  Not when every major national institution, and a fair number of global institutions, now sing the praises of Herr Zeller and his obviously infallible perspectives.  Especially when the most we're getting from our brave religious leaders is silence, or assurances that we all just love everyone.  

Again, if's fun to imagine that if we lived in the olden days, we would have been the brave heroes standing up to the evil of the age.  Today, we spend all our time condemning the evils of the past and anyone in the past for failing to do as well as we clearly would have done in the same position.  But how are we doing now?  If we're standing by this affront to children and life itself, not to mention common sense and truth, chances are I know exactly where we would have stood when rumor came along about those strange camps in the German woods. 

The Devil's children

 At CBS.  Remember things like this from back in the ancient days:

See that?  Age appropriate only.  Nobody does transgender surgery on minors.  That's what news outlets said when a story broke that a children's hospital in Boston was doing just that.  Local media circled the wagons (national media did it's part and largely ignored the story).  Fact checkers assured us nobody performs surgeries on minors.  Ever!

Well, read that CBS article praising hospitals for doing just that.  See this quote:

True, can anyone really know what a kid is?  I mean, fourteen might just be an old geezer at this point.  You never know with the modern Left.  Anything could be true, or false, or both or neither. It's that easy.  So easy, this passes as an argument worth quoting in a major US news outlet:

When I see the horrors of this unfolding, the absolute lack of resistance by any institution or leaders, and the lies and duplicity needed to advance it, I remember a few things.  One that leaps to mind is this:

You belong to your father, the devil, and you wan to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  John 8.44

Gloria Purvis works to keep the legend alive

That is, the legend of America and the West as exclusively a racist, genocidal slave culture filled to the brim with racist, genocidal slavers, and only the rarest of saints standing firm against it.  She has certainly embraced the BLM narrative.  The piece is, not surprisingly, on the very Jesuit American Magazine podcost. 

Of course as a high profile Catholic representative, she could labor to help the American black community overcome its staggering levels of violence, homicides, domestic violence, broken families, drug use, gangs, and abortion rates.  Heck, she might even call out racism within the black community against non-blacks and against other blacks sometimes deemed not black enough. 

But that might force issues that so many are unwilling to confront.  Heck, it might even challenge a dominant leftwing narrative.  Best to keep dragging America's sins out and stomping on them, especially as they pertain to Caucasians of European descent.  We call that dodging by deflection. 

By the way, in light of yet another story of a rap star being shot and killed, are there other musical genres with the same body count?  I mean, is there the same level of murders and shootings and drug deaths in, say, polka music?  Classical?  Bluegrass?  I don't know, I'm asking. Because it seems nary a month goes by without some form of killing, overdose or similar happening within the world of multi-millionaire rap stars.  Is it just that I miss all those cello players and ukulele aficionados and their endless parade of homicides and drug violence?  Or could something else be the matter?  

It's official!

 After months of wrangling my son and his fiancée finally have an actual sign over their business:

It wasn't easy, and they seriously had to go forth and part the red tape.  It wasn't just the government, but the landlord who seemed to have endless reams of specifications and limitations.  Despite it all, it's here and it's not bad at all.

So far they have exceeded expectations for their first two months, which is nice.  Of course that leaves about 540 more months, but it's not a bad start.  

Speaking of starting a business while planning a wedding, working full time and opening their own business, I've said my son decided to join a local community theater production this fall.  Because those extra couple of hours a day that were empty had no business existing. 

Well, that has come and gone, and it was quite enjoyable.  Our town went without a community theater for many years.  Just as it went without many things.  You might say it's one of the more poorly planned towns I've ever seen.  

In the 1990s, it became one of the fastest growing cities in the nation.  So what did the city planners do?  Build - housing developments.  And housing developments.  And more housing developments.  We almost tripled our population, and are larger than many cities around us.  Yet our infrastructure, commercial and industrial sectors are smaller than some of the small towns I grew up near.  My sons have often asked if any of the city officials ever played Sim City. 

Nonetheless, there have been improvements over the last few years. There have been attempts to get this well populated town onto the same level as other similarly populated towns.  Which is why the sudden appearance of a bookstore after a decade or more without has been met with such enthusiasm.  Same with the theater.  Started a decade ago, it began performing in local churches or even once in a court room (fittingly, a production of Twelve Angry Men).

Now it's moved to the theater in one of the city schools.  This summer they had a production of The Sound of Music.  Our parish, which has contributed large numbers of individuals to the theater group, is also a great source of advertising.  Since we have about 2000 families, that ensures a large crowd every time.

This performance didn't disappoint.  In fact, it's their highest attended non-musical production to date.  It was a theatrical production of the old 1985 movie Clue.  When released, the movie was a flop, as the 'gimmick' of separate endings depending on which movie you went to turned out to be a dud.  Yet like Amadeus, it was also a first fruit of this new thing call VCRs.  By late college, Clue was required watching, with whole parties gathered around, learning and repeating the lines almost like Curry's other film Rocky Horror ("I had to...stop her...from screaming!"). 

Naturally this version has changed some things.  Times being what they are, not all of the humor could be included.  Plus scenes, like the bumbling Mr. Green smacking Mrs. Peacock to get her to stop screaming, and then meekly explaining himself, had to be altered.  It had to be Miss Scarlet doing the slapping since, let's face it, no play in the world today could have a man slap a woman for laughs.  

With that said, it was fun, and well done.  The lead, Watson the butler, is one of their main performers, a local judge and one of your 'men of the community' types.  One of our parish's musical gems was Mrs. White (talk about against type).  My son was the ill-fated Motorist.  Of all the 'victims', he enjoyed the most focus time, and his dialogue was actually expanded a bit from the movie.  Overall a good time. And that doesn't even include our annual Halloween spookfests (more on that later when I have the time)! 

Seeing this all over town didn't hurt attendance

The main cast, sitting down to dinner, wondering what's happening

My son, "the Motorist", makes his entrance and Col. Mustard has something to say 

The phone?  How about...no, perhaps the phone in...no

"There's a weird party going on, plus you know who is here....?"

The last moments of the Motorist

Miss Scarlet and Col. Mustard discover the Motorist's body

Like the film, the 'Recap' is the highlight of the play

Some hijinks during a well received and well deserved curtain call 

Making the Pathological Liar seem seem credible

Really.  Read and weep, laugh, gasp, whatever.  An actual attempt to say America has no violence problem, only Republicans do.  This is accomplished by simply ignoring the manifold examples of leftists who have engaged in violence, assaults, and destruction.  Nothing about Antifa.  Nothing about assaults on GOP pols.  Nothing about the 2020 riots.  Nothing. It's literally the old trick of saying 'well except for that, Germany was a great place for Jews to live in the 1940s'.  It's the type of lies in the service of pure falsehood that seems to define discourse among the modern Left.  Again, it's not to say no conservative or anyone else engages in such stupid duplicity.  But more and more it seems to be a necessity for those who wish to accept the narratives of the modern progressivism.  

A little Washington Irving if you please

Fox News, which like the proverbial broken clock can get it right about twice a day, does a nice job unpacking Washington  Irving.  At least on the brief.  I wouldn't say I read Sleepy Hollow every year, but probably every other year I try to catch up on the shenanigans of that itinerant schoolmaster and his rendezvous with destiny. 

There is no direct connection between Sleepy Hollow and Halloween of course.  But the bountiful nature of the autumnal harvest season oozes over the pages of that short story.  I mused before on the connection between abundance and fall that must have existed in the minds of our agrarian forebears.   Fall is fun for us, a nice season, even nostalgia.  But there must have been a time when fall was harvest and harvest was life itself.  At least if it was a good harvest.

Plus, already this fledgling nation was showing signs of prosperity and abundance rarely seen in the annals of human history.  Ichabod gets this.  As he wanders his way toward Katrina's homestead and his fabled night ride, he's more than aware of the wonderful abundance that Fall has bought to the countryside.  Sometimes I think an age in which the sight of fruit pies and apple orchards could invoke such pleasure and gladness would not have been a bad age indeed.  Not that I begrudge the advancements, but perhaps we could find ways to turn back to the important pleasures without having to jettison everything since the steam engine.  

A Halloween reflection: Vampire plagues and progressive Catholics

Early onset vampirism in Salem's Lot: Know the signs!

So for fun this year, I reread Salem’s Lot.  I’m not much of a Steve King fan.  Marcus Grodi once said he believed King to be the greatest American author.  I assumed he meant in modern times.  Since he was my boss at the time, I didn’t debate the statement.  Suffice to say I don't consider King to be near the top of American writers. 

But I do like a couple of his books. One is Salem’s Lot.  It strikes all those little chords: the haunted house, the small town secrets, the cemetery, the vampire hunter team.  Fun stuff.  It also does a neat ‘vampire plague’ spin, being what Dracula wanted to accomplish in London but didn't.

As the story unfolds and the plague of vampires grows, you can see the main characters grapple with reality as they come face to face with pure, legendary evil.  You feel them recoil as one after another, people in the town vanish or, worse, begin to show signs of becoming the latest victims of this plague of evil enveloping their home town.

I thought of that as I reflected on my last discourse with Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong.  I have followed Dave for years.  He did the heavy lifting with Catholic apologetics, often going after unfair or false accusations leveled against the Church.  His was never a blog to read with only two or three minutes to spare.  He would take his time and unpack some pretty hefty issues down to the nitty gritty.  That was more than worth the visits to his website.

For a long time, he also railed against other Catholics who were beginning to draw a line in the sand between good, GOP hating, Francis loving, new pro-life Catholics with stars on their bellies, versus stupid Francis hating Catholics who refuse to get in the progressive line.  More than once he posted long, almost tiresome attempts to reason with these Catholics who gave only one option, and that was to glorify them, the left, Pope Francis, and all that was pure Catholicism 21st Century style or pay the piper. 

Well, that was then.  Below is the discourse I had with him over a post dealing with Vatican II.  The whole of the post is here.  I have posted his end of the article summary, and my response.  My accounts of what happened are in bold, his answers and writings in italics.  The parts with no special font designs were my original posts in his actual comments section:

Brazilian Catholic writer Oliveira Leonardo has decided to start bashing and trashing Vatican II. I defend it and note that his oppositional zeal is utterly misplaced.

To which I responded with this comment:

I don't know, I think the discussion can be had.  I'm not sure the individual in question was claiming 100% of the problems in the Church are Vatican II.  There might be some who think that, but most I've read or listened to don't think that.  In fact, I've heard many not necessarily 'trashing or hashing' Vatican II, but who look at the state of the overall Church and wonder what went right, wrong and downright screwy after Vatican II.  I've heard more than one (including our priest) who clearly supports and celebrates Vatican II, but who also equally admits it was misused and abused by far too many Catholics to simply dismiss the subsequent decades as 'nothing to see here folks.'

I went back to see if there were any responses.  I noticed my comment was missing.  So I posted a question about what happened to it.  Seeing my question appear, I reposted my original comment.  Then I returned a day or so later and saw all of my comments were removed.  So I asked what’s up. And then Dave  answered:

I don't allow anti-Vatican II rhetoric on my pages unless I am in the mood for debating it (as I did in this exchange). Just take it somewhere else. I've had enough of it.

At that point, I responded:

Wait, was that my post? It couldn't have been, since it wasn't 'anti-Vatican II rhetoric' by any stretch of the phrase. All I said was the discussion about Vatican II can be had, and that most I know don't trash Vatican II as much as they try to figure what went wrong in the following decades. Which is true. So where did my comments go? I don't see them. Again, since again my posts were in no way close to 'anti-Vatican II rhetoric' I can't figure where they end up going.

Dave then responded:

That was my decision on my web page. If you don't like it, you can lump it.

With that pleasant little response, I answered thus:

You may do as you wish of course.  I wouldn't advise it since we've seen where others have ended up going with 'I have posted, now agree or be deleted.'  Mark Shea, of course, leaps to mind.  Best not to have comments at all if the only thing commenters are allowed to do is agree.   But again, despite seeing where others have gone with that approach, if that's where you wish to go, it is your blog.

Dave then responded once again:

If you bitch about it one more time, that'll be three strikes and you're out. What you are doing is universally agreed upon as trolling: continuing to strongly disagree on the policy of a site (how someone chooses to run his own pages), when the owner has made his view clear, that it crosses a line. Webmasters are benevolent dictators in their own domains. You don't like that? Get your own site and work for 29 years to build up name recognition, as I have.

You can pretend I am against free speech if you like. I guess that would be why I have 1,000+ dialogues, with my opponents' view (often, their complete article) on display for my readers. It's a standard lie when someone disagrees with me. Feel free to join the crowd there and make a fool of yourself.

I've dealt with THIS stuff for 25 years. St. Paul tells us to separate from contentious people. No one who is ever being contentious and divisive admits that he is.

This is my way of applying his command, while I still occasionally debate the issues, as I did in the OP.

With that, I then answered:

Well, there's not much I can say is there. Though I will say I had no intention of claiming you are against free speech. You might want to dial back the assumptions on that one. I would ask that you wait for me to do something before you begin piling on the problems with me if I do it. My only statement was questioning the wisdom of giving combox commenters no choice but to agree, given the track record of that approach to online discourse. Nonetheless, as you say, it is your blog and you may do with it as you wish. I'll respect your right to do so and drop the subject.

Dave then answered this way:

Wise choice. I just wrote elsewhere:

I have been totally banned for years at reactionary sites like The Remnant and Taylor Marshall's trash site. Peter Kwasniewski used to talk with me a bit. Now I am banned on his site, etc. One Peter Five banned me (under Skojec) when they had comments.

I only ban people who are persistently uncivil and hostile and won't follow my discussion rules: NOT because of what they believe. But I don't allow Vatican II-bashing or pope-bashing.

Certain folks call that "censorship." I call it Catholicism and Catholic unity.

"Best not to have comments at all if the only thing commenters are allowed to do is agree." If this lie from h e l l is NOT claiming I am against free speech on my blog, then we must have totally different brains, logic, and understandings of grammar and sentence meanings.

My final response, and my final comment on Dave’s social media platforms, was this:

With that, I'll leave you to it.

It’s worth noting this was not Dave Armstrong, c. 2006 when I first ran into him.  Or for that matter, it wasn’t him in 2016, ten years later.  It is, it should be pointed out, very similar to the likes of Mark Shea by 2016. 

I was informed it was becoming Dave Armstrong a couple years or so ago.  That was after Dave had a eureka moment, realized Pope Francis was absolutely right about banning the death penalty, came to realize the wonders of Pope Francis, and began banning people who hadn’t seen the light.  

I posted on this phenomenon of Catholics warming up to Pope Francis and growing in their intolerance of those who fail to agree, and how this was part of the war on EWTN waged by Pope Francis and his followers.  Not that those on the left, progressive Catholics or fans of Pope Francis are the only ones who do this.  But it seems an almost universal trait among those who are in those camps.

Because of that, I mentioned Dave was starting to sound strangely Sheaish in his dealings, which is never a good thing.  Dave visited my blog and protested that I had wrongly portrayed his approach to things.  He said this, despite the fact that I was going by people who he had banned for merely disagreeing with Pope Francis.  I accepted his perspective and figured fine, if he’s not going the direction that almost every Catholic who throws in with Pope Francis or progressive leanings seems to go, I’ll concede the point.

But now it’s this.  It’s like the feeling Ben Mears and Susan Norton have in Salem’s Lot as they begin to see more and more of the town show symptoms of being vampires.  As one after another shows the signs – bothered by sunlight, tired, sick feeling, strange dreams – they recoil all the more, for they know where this vermin plague of vampirism goes.

As I watch so many follow Pope Francis and inevitably end up going in the same direction in terms of intolerant behavior and vitriolic treatment of others; as I see so many jump in bed with the emerging Left, who inevitably follow the similar ‘I have spoken, celebrate or be banned’, I get the same feeling.  If it was just vampirism it wouldn't be so bad.  I fear it is much, much worse. 

I cheat

We actually stock up on about 50/50 ration of Cheaapy McCheapface, but then mix it with The Trusty Provider and a dose of The Old Timer (we liked those butterscotch chews).  It makes it look better and gives the impression of Trusty Provider without the cost.  

I should mention I always keep very soft, easily melts-in-your-mouth type candies for the youngest toddlers and infants.  Nothing like jawbreakers or chewy taffy for them.  Otherwise we typically have enough to grab a handful and dump it in the kids' bags.  

My boys say there were two houses of legend in our part of the neighborhood when they were growing up.  One house, cattycorner to our backyard and facing the street beside us, was the award winner.  It was The Legend.  Their house is the nicest around, and they handed out full size candy bars, Twix, Kit Kats, you name it. And they did it in handfuls.  And second was our house, because we literally would dump a cup worth of candy into each bag (two cups if the kid was alone - I have a soft spot).  Not bad if you think on it. 

Though if I had it to do over again, I'd definitely go for The Spaz.  Something about that made me laugh.