Observations

As I had said, I ditched most "social media" during Lent.  By that, I meant things like Facebook (which I do have an account for), as well as others like Twitter or Tik Tok or what have you.  And then, primarily the 'debate' sites. I reserved the right to access Facebook if a picture of the grandkids was posted, or our city government, which only posts updates on Facebook, mentioned some news I needed to check out.  Otherwise, I steered clear. 

When Lent was over, I decided to go back and see what I'd been missing. I'm sorry I did.  I even went back to sites I had stopped going to long before Lent.  Simply because of their toxic nature.  It was like being on a month long Mediterranean Diet with daily kale salad chasers and then suddenly going to the state fair and eating fair food all day. Enough to make you sick.

I said it's no wonder mental health problems, drug addiction and suicide are rampant across the board when it comes to our youth and children today.  Look how the adults are behaving.  We like to tell ourselves that everyone in the past was as bad as our various problems and failings today.  Which I've often thought has to be the worst defense ever.  I mean, how bad to you have to reek when your go to excuse about different failings, or evils, or problems is that they were always as bad as we are today. Think on that. 

I'm sure several folks out there watched the 60 Minutes interview with Senator Ben Sasse.  That was an eye opener.  Talk about facing the inevitable with grace and strength.  And, as so often happens in the face of the tragic, a deal of wisdom.  Yet it's amazing how many people heard what he said and reverted to 'But his politics!'.  

Does this mean this sort of thing only happens because of social media?  That's what Senator Sasse meant when he speaks of social media being a major problem?  No.  I think we're at that stage where we're realizing no matter what we come up with or how clean and sterile we can make things, we're just people.  People who will never learn. Mark Shea once said people are part angel, part alley cat.  I like that.  Whether it's in caves, castles, or on computers, we don't really change, do we?  And nothing we come up with can avoid the taint of a fallen world.  Be it democracy, equality, capitalism, you name it.  Pick the best thing in the world humanity has produced and stand back and wait. 

I think that hit me when I returned back to those social media sites.  But it wasn't just those pesky Twitter snipits.  Perhaps it's my old timer ways, but I allowed myself to visit blogs during Lent because, quite frankly, they still seem to be less toxic. Perhaps because the toxic people have moved on to other forums.  Or maybe they don't lend themselves to quick, pithy digs and zingers followed by more of the same.  I don't know.  I do know I'm almost done with the others.  Even after Lent, I see no Easter reprieve.  Quite the opposite.  Because of Easter, I think there are better ways to go about living and communicating. 

Just like the thing we used to call the news media.  I often think at this stage in the game the world would be a happier and more informed place if we didn't have the media.  Likewise, I can't help but see a net positive for moving on, at least from these late generation social media platforms that seem to draw out the worst in people like extracting puss from a wound. 

But it's not just the format or the outlet of course.  It's why and how we approach it.  Because I confined myself to blogs, I found myself looking about for different blogs to read.  Believe it or not, whether Catholic or topical or hobby, many blogs have sort of gone the way of the butter churn over the years.  I even decided to go back to Mark Shea's blog, which I haven't graced on my own in many a moon.  And I saw something that was telling, and a bit sad.

I know from years gone by, sometimes around the big holidays like Easter or Christmas, Mark would back off a bit.  He would dig into his archives and bring back older articles or sections of books he wrote when he was less political partisan.  He appears to have done it this year.  And from what I can tell, he's still doing it.  No MAGA Nazis!  No Trump Hitler! No lying death cult gun murder blah, blah blah.  It looks to be something from one of his books back in the day, basically his take on Catholic social teaching.  Not his later one, but from years ago.  Like most of what he wrote back in the day, it wasn't bad.  Not the highest level of scholarly insights, but nowadays that's not altogether a bad thing.

Yet do you know what I noticed?  There were no comments.  Now blogging itself has declined to be sure. Was a time that if a post about Harry Potter or the A-Bombs on Mark's old page that garnered only a hundred comments it was a slow day.  And his wasn't alone.  Blogs with comments in the dozens for even a trivial topic weren't uncommon.   That has obviously changed as other outlets and platforms have taken over.  Today even some of the more traveled blogs might only see a few dozen comments addressing the hottest button issues of the moment. 

But I noticed his had - none.  At all.  Day after day of scrolling back I couldn't find any comments.  I mean, I know his readership has dropped, but nothing for days on end?  I had read some links to his blogs in recent years when they were emailed to me, and I definitely recall seeing comments.  Maybe not many, but at least something.  After scrolling back several weeks I only saw an occasional comment here, or a few days earlier there, and that was all.

It wasn't until I got back to his pre-Lenten leftwing rage machine that guess what?  In came the comments. Not tons, and largely the same individuals.  But those same individuals, who commented almost daily whenever the post was a variation on Satan Hitler Trump and the MAGA Nazis, suddenly vanished throughout Lent and through Easter thus far.  And that was a sad, and disturbing thing.

After all, it doesn't take a game show host to figure out why.  Given the comments I did see, what they said, and what type of post they were responding to, it's pretty obvious that Mark, to many of them, is merely a tool.  He trashes what and who they hate, and they appreciate it.  But when he gets back to that Catholic and Christian teaching rubbish, not the kind that attacks conservatives, but actual Catholic teaching?  Eh.  Obviously no big deal.  That's not why they show up each day. They show up to have their partisanship, their hatred of anything right of center, of America, even of Christianity, affirmed.  Or at least affirmed in such a way that whatever they do or think, they are free to do so without concern for any forthcoming consequences.

I've thought about that a lot. Right now we're in some pretty big life changes, and that has sapped much of my time and energies.  Nonetheless, on coming back I think I'll start reframing how I approach things.  I'm thankful that I can post pretty much anything under the sun and various folks will still comment. Maybe not as much as some hot button topic, but again, that's nothing new, and not automatically bad.  

Nonetheless, I think I want to stray from harping on the same things that others are day after day. In the past, I announced I would either step away from, or at least alter, the blog and how I approach it.  The most noteworthy case being on the eve of the Kavanaugh hearings, which were quite the eye opener to say the least.  Prompting me to rush back in with observations about the obvious. 

But now, I'm wondering.  Not sure how I will approach things.  I think on those Catholic convert celebrities I've mentioned and always imagine there but by the grace and all.  Yes, I enjoy the blog, and I always enjoy the comments, even when they say I'm wrong.  Sometimes especially, because that can give me things to think about. 

Still, I realized with looking at Mark's blog and what it's been reduced to, that I don't want it to merely be 'look at those sinners over there!'.  I mean, it is what it is.  Most can see the problems today, and sometimes I think they need to be mentioned or called out.  But I do miss the older blogs that were certainly geared toward the issues du jour, but also dwelt on other topics as well.  Sometimes fun, sometimes trivial, sometimes personal interests.  I think there's a healthy mixture there that's too easy to forget as we rush in each day to say 'Oh no, did you see that!'.  That's why I still visit blogs, like The American Catholic, that do a good job mixing the headline take downs with various other topics, Catholic reflections, personal interests, or just plain fun. 

With all that said, not sure what things will be, and I don't want to make any predictions.  After all, there could be another Kavanaugh moment coming around the corner.  Nonetheless, as times and life changes make the daily post a thing of the past, I'll likely pull back and try to put more punch into fewer posts themselves, or at least topical ones.  Heck, I might even proof read something beyond hitting spellcheck!  Reserving the right, perhaps this time finally, of expending more energies on personal interests and frivolous matters that are easier to toss out, like the family or whatever tickles my fancy, yet are no less important when you think on it.  Especially if those interests coincide with family times and memories.  As Mr. Sosse articulates so well. 

It pains me

 Heh.  Still busy, but this made me laugh.  Ain't it the truth.  I've often wondered that myself!

Speaking of, from a local publication musing on a few headlines that we've had in the Buckeye State over the last few weeks:

I'm back

Now that was a marathon of madness at the worst possible time.  As I said, my computer crashed and burned after that March Windows 11 update.  I guess Windows is the ultimate argument against monopolies, because most of the people I've talked to agree it's a subpar system, but what are you going to do?  You have one other choice.  So Windows it is. 

After weeks of fighting and end runs, countless hours trying to fix it, and having enough techs access my PC trying to figure things out that we could start our own football franchise, it was concluded that no matter what - and nobody ever really figured what went wrong - my PC just had too little disk space.  It's an old one in computer years (which are a bit like dog years).  At the time when I bought it, I was told a whopping 260 Gigabytes was more than I'd ever need. Sort of like when I bought my first Windows PC in 1993, I was told 4 MBs of RAM was more than I'd ever need.

The techies explained at this point, even if they found the problem, there was a good chance the pittance of disk space I had left wouldn't be enough with which to sally forth.  And it likely would create more problems down the road with future updates which, shocking nobody, require a certain amount of space to work in the first place. Space I no longer had.

So we gave the PC up to the tech gurus who replaced the old drive with a new drive containing what will no doubt be an insufficient amount of space in the near future - 2 Terabytes of space.  Already, with getting things loaded up and bringing back things I had to delete as my old drive diminished and went into the West, it's down to 1.6 TBs.  But as I keep all files and downloads on external drives, the decline should slow down.  I should note I avoid the Cloud thing as a matter of course, being a private person skeptical about leaving my wallet and personal information in the middle of digital parking lots, no matter how secure they insist they are.  So there shouldn't be much more taken up since there's not much left to load. 

With that said, I'm still in the process of hunting some things down.  Not everything transferred over, and a few programs or apps seem to be lost in the techno ether.  And like all things modern tech, it's leaping through and into endless hoops, loops and frying pans when it comes to logging in here or finding stuff there. With everything else going on right now (more on that later, nothing bad, but very busy), it will continue to occupy me for a little bit more time. 

I know crazy things have happened out there in the world as they always do, but quite frankly, I've not had time to process much of it.  When things settle, and the PC is back to doing PC stuff, I'll be return at least more semi-regularly. Until then, TTFN, and God bless. 

A prayer request

I'm not one to post prayer requests often.  Just because I don't want to pick and choose: Why this and not that?  But in this case, I'll break my usual practice. My sister was diagnosed with cancer ages ago when she was in her late 20s.  It has been decades that she has fought it and kept it at bay.  But last week it looks like the cancer finally returned.  She goes over the next few weeks to figure out how to deal with it.  It appears that they caught it early, and we're praying it can be delt with accordingly.  Nonetheless, we've been praying for her and I told her I'd get the word out as I can.  So prayers would be appreciated.  

And a happy Easter to all

 

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. 

And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word. Matthew 28.1-8

The Easter Triduum

Therefore onto the most important of things. I'll be back after Easter.  Until then then, God's blessings on everyone, thanks for stopping by, and a blessed and happy Easter to all. 

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them.  Luke 24.28-29

Pray for the Nigerian victims of Palm Sunday

This went right by me.  Again, there are problems with turning away from most social media.  All you have left is the mainstream press, which is like having only half the answers in the back of a math book.  Fact is, Nigerian Christians being killed by Muslims doesn't help the narrative or agenda one scrap of a bit.  Hence I saw nothing.  It just came by randomly yesterday, like that strange story from Rhode Island.  Every now and then, when trying to find the news online, odd outlets or local news rooms will pop up.  

Not that social media is altogether reliable. It isn't.  But at least it might point to stories, no matter how big or important, that the press is clearly trying to avoid or sweep under the carpet.  So with only news to turn to, I'm mindful of the fact that there are endless stories out there of major importance I'm probably not hearing about.  Like this one.

Of course it isn't new.  One of my closest friends from my ministry days was a Nigerian Christian named Joseph.  If ever the joy of Christ manifested in someone, it was him.  But he could also be deadly serious.  Even in the 90s, this was going on.  And it's been a continual clash for decades because the Islamic presence, while expanding, is still meeting the substantial Christian presence that is in the country.  So we have a chance to witness Islamic expansion, at least as it is happening in Nigeria. 

Sadly, again, it doesn't fit the post-Western globalist narrative. So don't expect to hear of this.  I actually went to various news agencies and typed their names with this story.  To its credit, the NYT had the story.  And that was it.  Apart from Yahoo news, for what that's worth, but at least credit where it is due.  Otherwise, the only outlets covering it are right leaning, or religious, or other non-Western media outlets.  

So there you go.  A much belated prayer for those souls who were taken at the beginning of our holy week.  For us, it's easy to see and admit what is happening, even if for reasons many won't.  But for those on the front lines, pray for them.  They do not know if they will be there the following week, more than is normal for us mortals traveling this sod.  Something that occupies their prayers and has for decades.  As my dear friend Joseph made clear all those years ago.  

In case you were wondering

A mural to the slain Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska has been ordered to be removed.  Apparently the mural was painted on the side of a gay bar, and the owners quickly snapped into action as outraged erupted across Providence, RI.  As the mayor said, while tragic, such murals of single individuals slain like George Floyd Iryna Zaurtska cause more divisions than do good.  Plus, as mayoral candidate David Morales explained, such a memorial in no way reflects the values of Providence.  I'll leave the gentle reader to ponder just why this particular memorial to a young woman who was so brazenly murdered doesn't reflect the values of Providence, Rhode Island.  

With each passing day it becomes easier to avoid the Left like the soul plague that it is.  And I don't make statements like that lightly. Never in modern times has a movement yelled so loudly from the rooftops that it cares not one rip for the slaughter of a thousand innocents but that they can be exploited.  

Of course I could be wrong.  Perhaps they are merely standing on some longtime liberal position that murals are always bad because they could be divisive.  There's always that. 

I hope Pope Leo is wrong

Denied!

So the press, opponents of Israel and America and Trump, and all Catholics who swing left of center are no doubt dancing in the streets as Pope Leo has strongly and loudly proclaimed:

[Jesus] does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them

Yep.  Take that George Washington.  Take that Founding Fathers.  Take that FDR.  Take that Eisenhower. Take that Pope Urban II.  Take that Joan of Arc.  Take that - any leader who has ever waged war in or out of the Bible.  Apparently God has ignored every prayer by these and others because - of course He does.  

He's the God of Love and Peace.  Not right or wrong.  Not defending the innocent against evil. Not justice.  Not good or bad.  Not anything really.  Just the assurance that as long as we don't wage war against evil, whatever evil does is small beans. Barney the Dinosaur never said it so well. 

Of course I'm reading into this.  It was likely just a swipe against Trump and the war against Iran. Likely without much thought about the larger, yet entirely logical, ramifications of what he just said.  A lazy, sloppy, social media era postmodern dig. Like most of our postmodern leadership and scholarship. It's true now because it jabs Trump.  It tells us what we want and owns the other guy.  Later it will be revised for obvious reasons that a modicum of historical studies will reveal.  Such is post-Truth modernity.  We won't even get into the Protestant anti-Catholic talking point that Catholics believe popes and God merely swap nameplates.  Which is why, apparently, popes can always say just what prayers God is and isn't listening to.  

Like his predecessor, I'm getting the feeling that Pope Leo will speak the words beloved of modern post-Western globalism, whether or not it stands up to common sense scrutiny, much less historical Catholicism.  Like Pope Francis, he speaks the words the modern World wants to hear.  The impact it has on the faithful, the faithless, or the Faith in general, increasingly seeming to be of little concern.  

Gratuitous proud Grandpappy moment

 Just for the sheer glee of it:

Because of the stupidly stupid memory problems with my PC, I've been more off than on recently.  But I realized it's been far too long since I posted pics of the little'uns. Owing to life, it's tough getting pictures of all the boys when they're together.   This might sound crazy, but when we do get together the emphasis is more on time together than clicking pictures.  But getting pics of the ever growing grandkids never gets old.  Especially as Mr. grandson is fast approaching his six month mark and his older sister is nearing yet another birthday! 

The things you find on the Internet

This is from a 1960s TV special The Music of Lennon and McCartney.  It can't be overstated the massive impact that those two young armature musicians and songwriters had on the music industry both now and back then.  Not only in the world of pop music, but beyond. The great Leonard Bernstein once lauded their songwriting skills as being right up with the best of classical composers.  And in the above clip, the brilliant Henry Mancini, of all people, gives us a rendition of one of L&M's earliest compositions that wowed the critics in the day - If I Fell.  One of the songs written for their first film A Hard Day's Night. 

The fun bit is that Mancini was a major influence on the Beatles' own record producer George Martin.  The one most often called the Fifth Beatle, Martin was a WW2 vet who was classically trained in music and, by his own accounts, dreamed of having a career scoring music for movies.  And one of his heroes in that regard was Henry Mancini.  In an interview I saw some years ago, he spoke of Mancini's almost unnatural ability to produce the most memorable music with so little effort. The example he gave was the theme to The Pink Panther. I mean, not until John Williams took the music world by storm with two notes meant to herald the arrival of a shark has a composer accomplished so much with so few notes.  

Fun stuff. For a bonus, that wizardly brilliant Pink Panther theme that can't be unheard for a least a day once you hear it: 

Note what is happening

I have no real opinions about the late Chavez one way or another, but could we at least wait until we find out if he was guilty? 

Go here to read one of a tidal wave of stories all but cheering the same thing.

The same is true of Les Wexner, Ohio's biggest bad boy billionaire.  Founder of that Playboy Mansion version of Woolworth, Victoria's Secret, he shockingly has been implicated in the Jeffery Epstein case.  Granted, there could be more behind Wexner's alleged activity than the accusations behind Chavez.  Nonetheless, note what is happening.  Like Chavez, there has been a push - aided by local media that clearly loves the new messaging - to have Wexner erased from various locations bearing his name.    The biggest being the Wexner Medical Center.  And as far as I know, Wexner hasn't even been charged yet.

It makes me think of the Kavanaugh hearing.  Remember when that batch of inquisition loving Leftists openly declared that we have to get over our obsession with things like presumption of innocence, burden of proof, and all that due process rubbish?  Oh, in dusty old courtrooms those might work.  But in the real world, we'll have no more of it.  

The motto of the whole 'woke' era post-liberal left is 'we judge, we hate, we condemn, we eradicate.'  They almost seem proud to execute judgement and pass out punishments before we even know if anything happened.  We saw that during the Minnesota ICE deflection.  A story would break that something happened, someone was shot, or anything, and those on the Left swarmed social media demanding the ICE officials' heads before we even knew if anything happened, much less what. 

Even when I was in college, there was still a certain amount of 'hurray for the West and the American experiment' sentiments floating about. Even if we were focusing more and more of the sins thereof. And chief among these triumphs was not only our legal system for all its flaws, but the ideals behind it.  Especially such ideals as presumption of innocent (a big one). 

So much so that I recall a CNN broadcast ages ago in which Larry King interviewed John Walsh, of America's Most Wanted fame.  Walsh, whose son Adam was brutally murdered, never held back his anger and contempt for criminals.  Which led Mr. King to sort of chastise him.  King reminded him of the common view I had heard my whole life, the view I learned in school and our greater societal pool: That these things transcend the courts and should be the basis for how we conduct our very lives.  Just like censorship starts in the heart before it ever reaches the State, so it was with all the values we were supposed to embrace.  We embrace them on principle, because it's upon those principles that our blessed way of living is based. 

Well, sorry Mr. King.  That ship sailed years ago.  Kavanaugh was the first time I heard sitting politicians, journalists and other activists (including, but not limited to, Christians) openly and proudly lecture me on the need to get over this whole innocent until proven guilty rubbish.  Apparently your culpability is based upon what group is accusing who and why.  Now it's so engrained that people don't even pretend to pretend.  In fact, people increasingly appear to resent even having to judge.  Just point a finger and execute the sentence.  Yet think on it.  If one of the most universally celebrated values of our civilization - innocent until proven guilty - can be discarded in barely a decade, imagine what other ideals we imagined had passed the 'no turning back' point in history will go the same way.  

Again,  not saying Chavez wasn't guilty. or that Wexner wasn't part of the alleged Epstein sex slave ring.  I'm just saying that it would be nice if we could put the Left's lynch mob and media pitchfork brigade on pause until we at least take steps to determine if there was actual guilt.  But I fear not. 

One by one, we're seeing the post-Western Left dismantle and knock down the pillars and assumptions, values and core ideals of the Christian Western Democratic tradition. Things most of us imagined were locked in and etched in stone no matter how far off the rails we went.  Whatever crazy happened in our society, I think we believed these core values would keep certain pillars of the West intact. Well, not so much apparently.  The staggering thing to see is how many Christians seem to have jumped on this bandwagon of bypassing evidence to execute judgement. But then, it's been shocking to see how many Christians have warmed up to this whole 'boy did we get obsessing about forgiveness all wrong' development in these post-BLM years.  Nonetheless, that's the people of God for you.  Just roll out a golden calf and then grab some popcorn. 

An update

So I was able to stop the disk storage bleeding at least.  After trying everything I found online and doing it to no avail, I just deleted the browsing history back a month.  That, at least, stopped the disk space from just draining out before my eyes and forcing me to reboot 48 times a day.

Nonetheless, it's still left me with barely 5 GBs left on the hard drive.  And that's after I deleted some long unused programs.  Now I'm to about 2 or 3 reboots a day.   Because, of course, as you use it even the meager free space must decrease so my frustrations can increase. 

Not sure where to go with it.  But at least it is semi-usable.  It appears you can add a hard drive, but that seems wonky.  There doesn't appear to be a way to make the hard drive itself (purchased with a hundred GBs seemed more than enough to fly space shuttles with) increase its space.  

But a lot it going on in life and this has already chewed up precious minutes, hours, days.  So I'll leave it for now unless anything crazy happens.  

I will note that a couple of times after rebooting, it did shoot up to almost normal free space.  But then promptly dropped over the next hour or so.  The big difference being it isn't dropping now down to zero space, at least not for a day or two.  

So there you go.  The ongoing saga of Dave' computer. Thanks for the input in the last post BTW.  It was appreciated. 

Telescoping cultural history

Internet age style.  One of the odd quirks I've noticed over the last decade or so is how so much of older culture is being forgotten, or at least devalued.  Outside of certain fanboy circles, what once was held with reverence and revered is today almost entirely irrelevant.  It isn't that I'm shocked that the 80s are now as far away as the 50s were when I was growing up.  But I'm shocked at how aware we were of the 50s culture versus how little awareness there seems to be regarding the 80s, 40s, or any other decade today.

Let me explain.  The reason why Back to the Future worked for my generation is not that we were stunned by the cultural differences that Marty McFly discovers on his way back to his parents' teen years.  It's that we knew the references very well.  We knew the music, the TV, the fashion.  We were aware of those things.  We knew who the biggies were.  We even admired some of those old icons.  We knew the movies, the stars, Elvis and the other early rock stars.  We also knew the older stars they were replacing: Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, even older Bing Crosby. We knew the TV shows, the movies.  We knew how people dressed.  And we sometimes admired and even liked their craft.

Today, when I read sites dedicated to culture, like movies, it's as if there really wasn't a film industry before 1992.  Oh sure, some will have the obligatory Chaplin movie, or Duck Soup, or The Seven Samurai.  But on the whole, you'd think if it wasn't laden with CGI or featuring the latest, hippest, it just didn't exist.  And if older movies are mentioned, there is almost an apology for the lack of sophistication, or old standard styles that existed at the time.

Which brings me to Steve Graydanus.  He's every Catholic's favorite movie critic.  And yet?  He exemplifies what I mean.  Set aside the fact that when it comes to movies influenced by American Protestantism, you can expect at least a finger wagging, if not a drop of a letter grade.  That's just the Catholic coming out.

But go to his site here, and see what he praises, what he doesn't, and what he doesn't even mention, which to me represents everything I'm noticing.  Movies like The Godfather, Gone With the Wind*, Cool Hand Luke, Cape Fear, Psycho, and The Sting - movies considered revolutionary, influential, or among the greatest ever made, aren't even mentioned.  You might say it's because his is a family guide site, and those aren't family.  Yet he has R rated movies (see The Silence of the Lambs).  Why not these?

When he does rate classics, such as Snow White or Stage Coach, he often injects slights at them for various era based distinctives, or seems to say 'nothing special, but an A for reputation', even if he ends up praising  the overall films for reasons his review doesn't reflect.  Or he dismisses them outright.  Yet he gives a B- to The Phantom Menace.  A B+ to The Lego Movie!  Are you kidding me?  Sure it was cute, but Lawrence of Arabia gets an A-, while the Lego Movie gets a B+?

It's as if the Internet age has changed things.  Changed what we accept as good, quality, acceptable, unacceptable, classic, legend.  Sometimes it's as if things that once were the "Essentials" have suddenly been tossed on the trash heap.  What was once legend is now antique at best.  Once the medal standard is now a forgotten footnote.  I don't know why. I don't even have a theory.

I just know that when my friends and I watched 1933 King Kong, in the post-Star Wars era, we thought it was awesome.  We got that it was old, the special effect weren't up to Star Wars.  We got that the acting was different than modern acting.  We hadn't been influenced by Multi-cultural PC enough to look for racism and bigotry in every frame of every movie, but we got that it was of its time.  Unlike modern movie review sites, we wouldn't lament the special effects, acting, racism, or anything else.  We took it for its time and praised it accordingly.  And any young, budding movie critic would also have to grapple with such films, even if they didn't care for them, because they were part of the whole cinematic package.  It's noteworthy that Decent Films doesn't even review the original Kong, mentioning it only in the review of Jackson's 2005 remake, and then more or less dismissing it as uninteresting and not worth much more acknowledgement than setting up the basis for Jackson's B Graded remake. A movie that once garnered praise and adoration from critics, movie buffs, film historians, and youngsters of every generation, reduced to an afterthought.  Such is the fruits of the Internet Age.

Mr. Graydanus is not alone.  Like so many modern film critics, he seems to have little to say about anything old, unless it tickles his fancy for this or that reason.  Likewise, fanboy that he is, his respect is reserved for the latest fantasy/comic book laden stories with copious amounts of CGI.  Sure, he gives bad reviews to movies, often when they flagrantly assault a major part of the Catholic ethos.  This isn't to pick on Mr. Graydanus.  In fact, I enjoy reading his reviews, even if I disagree with many of his conclusions.  But he represents a trend that is far more common, even among older critics trying to appeal to the Internet age, than it is the exception.  Just look at the IMBD top movies list for examples.

It's post-modern, mixed with the Internet cubicles of a fragmenting generation. I owe nothing to anything greater than myself or the particular clique to which I belong. If I'm a movie reviewer, and don't care about or want to look at a given movie, then so be it. And woe betide anything other than a small handful of old offerings that fail to measure up to the awesomeness of Now (compare his C rating for the delightful 1977 The Hobbit animated movie with his B level rating for Jackson's 2012 cinematic version - what was better in Jackson's other than the use of CGI?).  Back in the day, a movie critic who didn't include The Godfather would be like a Revolutionary War historian who had nothing to say about Washington.  But not today.  What that says about the greater trends of our post-modern Internet age, I don't know.  But I'm 100% convinced it says something, and eventually will say it loudly.

*It's worth noting that Decent Films has few reviews of the greatest movies from 1939, considered for almost all time as the Greatest Year in Movies.  Including Gone With the Wind.  Again, it says much, IMHO.

NOTE:  This is an old post from about a decade or so ago.  This was well before Deacon Greydanus banned me the first time, when we used to get on well even when we disagreed.  So this was not some slap at him over his clear swing to the Left of center.  This was when we got along, and he sometimes would admit I made a good point or two, even when we disagreed.  It just came up with a slew of visits, and I found it interesting.  Especially as I pondered how he did exemplify many of those old 'postmodern' traits, well before his shift left. I wondered if there might be a connection, somehow postmodernity being a gateway drug to the left of center so to speak.  Perhaps that's the loud statement I was expecting.  

A little difficulty responding

Or posting or doing anything on my PC for now.  Windows updated earlier this week, and we all know what that means.  Something is bound to go goofy.   In this case, almost all disk storage is kaput.  Well, not at first.  At first when the PC reboots, it has about a GB of storage left.  Then it goes back to normal.  And then, like my savings account, you can watch it drop within about a handful of minutes until the inevitable warning sign of 'not enough memory' pops up.  At which point I reboot and, if fast enough, check a few things and emails and get a post like this out before it all starts over.  Hopefully something will fix it soon, but that's about it.  Already I can see the GBs have dropped since I started this post, so again, when it's back to normal (sooner the better), I'll be able to get caught up with comments.  In the meantime, take care and thanks for visiting. 

So what was that Corporatism post about

What more and more young people see

It came to mind this last Christmas when we realized we were out of tags for last minute wrapping.  So I went out to the stores, knowing it was a long shot.  No doubt this happened to us late Christmas eve, right?  No.  It was a few days before Christmas Eve.  So why the trouble?  Because, just as stores begin putting up the first Christmas paraphernalia before football season properly begins each year, so they begin taking down their Christmas paraphernalia sooner and sooner just the same.

The first time I saw this was way back in the late 90s when we were still living in Louisville.  Being me, I had a few last minute things to get.  It was 1998 I believe, when our second son had been born.  I went out to buy what I needed and noticed that the stores were already packing up.  As one who had made a life long habit of shopping late on Christmas Eve, that was the first time I recalled seeing the decorations being removed in force before Christmas proper.

Over the years, it has crept slowly on. Sometimes there might be a rebound.  Some years it might seem closer to Christmas Eve that they are removing things, only to see the following year be even earlier. Of course putting up Christmas decorations ridiculously early isn't anything new.  The 1974 It's the Easter Beagle Charlie Brown addresses that very thing. 

But the symbolism of tearing things down, even as - from a traditional Christian perspective - the holiday has yet to formally begin, seems to me symbolic of the problem with our modern corporate structure.  In the days of consumerism or commercialism, corporations at least had to pretend they cared.  Oh your average person of even limited intelligence could guess it was always about the money.  But commercial enterprises had to put on a good show.  They had to entice.  To sell.  To put up a good front. To occasionally pander to the wishes of the all important consumer. 

But today?  Not really.  They don't even pretend to care.  In the old days, they had to put on a good face and act like it was important to appease the consumer.  The customer, as they used to say, was always right.  But today?  Nowhere close.  And I fear it isn't just the trappings of a Christmas holiday that is on the block.  It's anything really, and not even apologizing or trying to excuse. It's just 'we do it to make billions, so suck on it.'  Whether it be the consumers, the employees, the national well-being, the common weal, it matters not.  

I had to go to a local auto parts store recently.  I stood in line for over half an hour because there was only one guy working in the whole store.  He apologized to everyone as we made our way to the register.  Then someone in front of me asked him why he was alone.  Apparently they just cut staff and hours.  Not that they're hurting.  I looked it up and nothing about the company tanking or anything.  In fact, it has had a financial turnaround.  Apparently, that includes closing stores and cutting staff and hours to save money, at least for the uppers.   Does it hurt the customer experience?  Sure.  Does it decrease the quality of service? You bet. Does the corporation appear to care?  No more than it does putting on airs about Christmas time any longer than financially needed, no matter what people might want. You might say it obviously is no big deal.  The company in question has seen a financial turnaround, so apparently the consumer isn't bothered.  Or in our neck of the woods, there aren't many alternatives.   

Yet that's the big thing I see.  On the short term, it does appear corporations can almost flip everyone the bird today and people just keep coming back for more.  But what of longer term consequences?  Conservatives are running around with their hair on fire as poll after survey after study finds more and more youngsters up and coming are at least open to the possibility of socialism, Marxism or even by name communism!  How can this be?  How can they be so stupid?

Because of this.  Somewhere along the line corporations found a way to game the system; an out from the old 'it leads to competition and innovation and creates wealth' paradigm.  Giving less for more, lowering quality, slashing quantity, and all while shellacking the consumer and frequently screwing over their own employees willy-nilly makes it somewhat easy to explain the average younger person's skepticism about the bountiful blessings of the private sector and that all important Capitalism experience.  

In fact, I also hear a lot of people harp on your Gen-Z types as being lazy and entitled and having no loyalty to their employers. But that door swings both ways.  As I said here, what used to be the season for Christmas bonuses and office parties has become, in many sectors, when employees cower down with targets on their backs.  And seniority doesn't cut it.  A fellow I talked to a few years ago said that in many companies today, seniority and experience make you feel like a prime target. After all, ditch you and a couple others, consolidate your positions, and hire some newbie for a fraction of the cost.  But doesn't that cause a glitch in quality and harm the potential consumer?  See 'pack up Jingle Bells whatever the shmuck consumer base thinks' above. 

One of the reasons we have Trump is best described by my oldest son:  Trump is the wrong answer to all the right questions.  And those questions involve a growing segment of the population feeling that things are getting worse, not better; that more and more are being left behind; that fewer in our younger generations have hope for the future - and worse than anything, our leadership and institutions including, but not limited to, corporate America don't seem to care.  In fact, until 2016, it increasingly appeared that they didn't even have to pretend to care.  Which is why, as my one son likes to say, the biggest booster for communism today is corporate America.  Will it change since the era of Donald Trump?  Perhaps.  But it better change, or the unthinkable for so many of us older folks will become the acceptable option going forth for the younger ones. 

An armchair quarterback generation

Captain Hunnicutt.  Note the red suspenders

I can't find a video of it.  Appearing in the final season (which some call MASH's Repentance Tour), the episode  I'll be referring to has a two-fold story line.  One, a light hearted story, is how a false rumor that Marilyn Monroe will visit the 4077th MASH gets out of hand.  

The other storyline, much more serious, involves BJ Hunnicutt.  His character was a replacement for the character Trapper John when actor Wayne Rogers left the show.  Over the course of the series, BJ changed from a light hearted, witty, family friendly companion of  Alan Alda's Hawkeye Pierce, to a more dour, cynical and at times caustic character.   

In this episode, he and a chopper pilot abscond with a helicopter to find the best fishing in the area.  On the way, they see a hapless American soldier on the ground, being set upon by the enemy.  They try to go down to rescue him, but the enemy is near.  BJ insists they try again, so they fly low and throw him a rope.  The soldier grabs it and begins to climb.  Just then, gunfire rings out and hits the helicopter.  The pilot yells to cut the rope, they're hit, the engine is damaged, and the soldier is too heavy.  Being a doctor back then and sworn to protect life, BJ objects, but has to cut it, watching in horror as the young solder plunges back down into the enemy surrounded countryside. 

Through the rest of the episode, intermixed with the lighter Monroe storyline, BJ frantically calls and searches everywhere to find out what might have happened to the solider in question.  He calls aid stations, evac hospitals, other MASH units.  He even travels to one when he is told a patient there matches the description, only to be shattered when he finds out it isn't him.  To make matters worse, he finds out he has been nominated for a medal for what he is torn up about doing. 

Toward the end of the episode, Hawkeye tries to console him.  He tells BJ he did what he had to do.  Had he not cut that rope, he might have gotten that medal posthumously.  BJ fires back that thanks to his own selfish decision, someone is going to get a medal posthumously.  Hawkeye then admits he would have cut the rope had he been in BJ's situation.  At that point BJ snaps  He tells Hawkeye that he doesn't have a damn clue what he would or wouldn't do, and he hopes to God he never finds out.  And then he says this: 

“We sit around here in our Hawaiian shirts and red suspenders thumbing our noses at the Army, drinking home-brewed gin and flouting authority at every turn, and feeling oh-so-superior to those military fools who kill each other, and oh-so-self-righteous when we clean up after them. Well, good luck to you, pal. I hope you can keep it up. The minute I cut that rope, that made me a soldier."

In that one speech, he defines the entire modern era and its approach to - everything.  An era defined, let's be honest, by spending most of our time sitting in the comfort our forebears built for us, criticizing, complaining, condemning, mocking, and spitting on anyone and everyone, anything and everything, and especially the heroes - especially old dead sinful heroes who built what we are letting be destroyed.  A generation, I'm afraid, that would rather tear down the heroes than confront the villains of today.  

This all came to my mind when I saw this some time ago:

Now, I'll admit I've cooled to Karl Keating's musings over the years. As a Protestant Clergy Convert (PCC), he loomed large in the writings I was pointed to, and I was often glad of that.  But in recent years, I can't put my finger on why, I find him less edifying than in the olden crazy days of our entrance into the Church.

Victor David Hanson is a historian I sometimes enjoy, though I admit he can go historian shock jock, especially on social media.  Nonetheless he obviously has noticed something I've been observing for some time.  It's something my oldest noticed way back in his undergrad days.  He noticed that many called young conservative today would embrace things and accept things, ideals and values and lifestyles that would make a Woodstock hippy blush.  And that includes accepting many leftwing appraisals about the West and its unique evils in the world, including the evils of the good old USA. 

What Hanson is doing is heading off at the pass the growing tendency of even conservatives to accept these premises.  Including the conspiracy theory that the allies orchestrated the war – which is becoming more common to the Left of center.  Remember, even Pope Francis alluded to the old ‘We could have bombed a few rail lines and ended the Holocaust, but of course we didn’t’ canard.  Which is but a part of the whole ‘WW2 as Western Capitalist Conspiracy’ theory.  You know, we could have stopped the war at any time but our lust for global conquest and big bucks from our military industrial establishment would have none of it.  That’s what Hanson is aiming at.  That we bombed civilians is old news to this up and coming generation.  Of course we did.  We orchestrated the whole war and supported the Holocaust.  Why not bomb civilians for grins and giggles? 

From that POV, there was nothing but evil in WW2 (I forget which news outlet got in trouble back in 2022 for posting that meme showing the D-Day landings photo and then saying ‘Celebrating an army of white supremacists wading ashore to fight and army of white supremacists!’).  That is what more people are learning and saying, with even some conservatives apparently joining in (see David Brooks’ rise of the Conservative Nihilism).  Yet despite Hanson's desire to address this developing problem, what does Keating do?  Sweeps in and says not so fast buster, it's the bombings and nothing but the vile bombings.  We must ever and always address the bombings.  Be gone with your noble crusade gibberish.  

But that's us I'm afraid.  Even the thought that we should see the noble crusade element of WW2 seemed to set Keating off.  No way.  No heroes to honor, no sacrifices to remember. We zero in on the bad, the failings, the scandal, the controversy, anything other than just say 'we salute them.'  Or should I say, we sit around here in our Hawaiian shirts and red suspenders thumbing our noses at anyone in history, drinking home-brewed gin and flouting their legacy at every turn, and feeling oh-so-superior to those fools of the past, and oh-so-self-righteous when we perpetually turn from every noble cause to target their failure at being as awesome as we are on the Internet. 

I've often said that if all we do is find ways to criticize or tear down our heroes, don't be shocked when we end up with so few of them.  Which might go a long way in explaining what we see today. 

Hopefully some day, as large of a task as it would be, we'll have enough people finally stand up and say what BJ said. Hopefully some day we will realize just how shallow and self-righteous and basically valueless we've become. When all we can do is compare ourselves favorably to anyone who has accomplished great things by insisting we could have done better, yet with so little evidence to show for our claims. 

Episode 6, Season 11 "Bombshells":  He can be taught

If I can break from my normal rules of online living

I’m not one to post too much about my private life on social media, other than the justifiable nods to my sons and of course bragging rights as a grandpa.  The occasional tribute or update will usually suffice otherwise, beyond trivial and fun things.  But I thought I would take this time to let folks know it’s not from a lack of appreciation that I don’t do things like give more shout outs to those I love, especially my cherished wife.  

So I figured I would  give a shout out on this, our 33^rd wedding anniversary.  More than that, it now marks 35 years since we met.  A nice round number.  I got to thinking on it because, with the crazy of getting ready to move into a new chapter in our lives, I stumbled across this photo in an old photo album (remember those).  

It is, I believe, from her birthday party later on that day we first met.  It would be weeks before I saw her again, but that day is etched in my mind for good. It was her birthday, 1991.  I just moved to Florida, and my sister invited me to her church since I didn’t know anyone.  I recall noticing several college age girls walk in and sit down across the nave from where I was.  And then I saw her as she looked above, but in a blue and white dress with a white bow in her hair, and the others sort of faded into a blur.

During the greeting, as folks were shaking my hand and giving a friendly welcome, I noticed with some anticipation that she was making her way through the crowd toward me.  She then shyly shook my hand and welcomed me as well.  After we were engaged, I told her – and have never wavered on this over the 35 years since – that the second she shook my hand and said hello, I knew she was the one I was going to marry.  I’ve run that moment through my mind many times over the decades we’ve been together, and it never ceases to make me glad.  I certainly came out on the winning side of that deal, that’s for sure.  

So thanks for everything, you mean every bit of the world to me.  Happy anniversary.        

And yes, she occasionally visits the old blog here, so I'm assuming she'll see this. :)             

I hope this if fake news

It's a story that Vice President Vance formally invited Pope Leo to attend America's 250th Birthday party, but Pope Leo declined.  Some versions have Pope Leo instead going to stand with immigrants on July 4th.  I don't know.  Most places I've seen this are merely social media outlets, or other sites that don't seem entirely credible, like this one.  

I've not found it in the MSM, Vatican or other official Catholic outlets. I don't know if Catholics on either side of the pope debates have mentioned it.  Again, blacking out on Lent over these things does make it tough to get to the bottom of things, since you'll sometimes find links you don't when following the modern press.  

I hope it's not true.  In my protestant days, one of the endearing stereotypes was that Catholic clergy prefer a world where God makes kings and popes and peasants to grovel before them.  That's why the Church has always chafed at this new American Experiment hoopla.   

So imagine my delight when I encountered such places as The American Catholic, or Mark Shea, or countless others who assured me that being Catholic does not mean having to say you're sorry about being an American.  Imagine how nice it was to learn that was a stereotype, and the Church has not always preferred any other reign of terror to God Bless America.   Of course that has changed on many fronts, especially within the vaunted Protestant Converts to Catholicism club.  

Nonetheless, I'd like to think that as an American, Pope Leo will demonstrate the same pride in his own country as we saw with Pope Francis and Argentina, or Pope John Paul II and his native Poland.   I'm still holding out hope for Pope Leo, and that this is just some partisan hackery.  After all, we almost have to. This is the twentieth anniversary of our entering the Church.  A few weeks back, one of our sons made the poignant, and devastating, observation that we entered the Church twenty years ago this year.  In that time, however, we have yet to hear a sitting pope suggest there was a pressing need for us to do so.

Given what our family went through over the years, that's tough. I think if anything else was a problem, it would be easier to swallow.  But the idea that we could have happily stayed where we were (and me, subsequently, getting close to a nice retirement), and simply supported the proper political and ideological narratives and agendas, makes it go down rather bitter, I must admit.  And Pope Leo living up to everything you expect from that approach to the modern world - better anything but the West - will go a long way toward convincing the gang that my son's observation continues to be affirmed.  

It was 46 years ago

To the day that the US won the gold this year, that the legendary Miracle on Ice took place.  I was in 7th grade when that miracle happened, and only vaguely aware that a sport called hockey existed.  This is football country after all, with the occasional nod to college basketball or baseball (see the Big Red Machine from a few years earlier).  But in February of 1980, on the 22nd, I became very aware of hockey.  

It was the Cold War.  And though you already had a significant portion of the American Left working overtime to turn as many Americans against our own country as it could, they were still a minority. Even if they enjoyed a disproportionate representation in many of our nation's elite institutions, the main gist seemed to be a desire for God Bless America to continue.  So needless to say, that underdog victory against the Soviets came as quite a patriotic boost.  Especially in the doldrums of Carter's last year as president.  

Fast forward to today.  We always try to watch the Olympics.  The first one I was aware of was the 1976 Montreal Olympics, when young Nadia Comaneci wowed the world in gymnastics.  Others would follow.  In most years it's a mix of astonishing victories and crushing disappointments.  

Perhaps the most enjoyable games as a spectacle were the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan in 1998.  Beyond the famous Hermanator's crash of the ages (He'll be back!):

it was probably the most interesting, for the media did wonders unpacking life in Japan, its history, its culture - you felt like you were there visiting in person.  

For my older boys, there will never be one like the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  You had Usain Bolt absolutely stunning the world in a track record that has yet to be beat.  Quite simply, he is bult like a distance runner but has the speed of a sprinter.  And of course, you had the aquatic phenom Michael Phelps becoming the record breaking gold medal winner in one of the most thrilling photo finishes in Olympics history: 

Phelps and Bolt would be back to do it again in the troubled, yet exciting, 2016 Rio Olympics, that also saw the rise of swimming superstar Katie Ledecky.  When the broadcast showed an animated map demonstrating how many miles she has swam and how many times that would circle the globe, the boys still chuckle thinking of it. 

So not only are there always thrill a minute moments, there's just a certain pride in seeing one's own country do well.  I know, there have been protests over the years.  In fact, my sons asked me this year if any Olympic athletes outside of the US have ever protested their own country at the Olympics like we've had happen. I told them I'm sure I don't know.  

But those are usually the exception to the rule.  And we saw it this time, as Americans couldn't help but be proud on the anniversary of the Miracle on Ice (and Washington's birthday to boot!), when the (once again) underdog USA hockey team pulled a stunner in yet another nail biter for the record books. 

We got home from Mass just in time to see the last seconds of regulation time before they went into overtime with a 1 to 1 score.  Knowing very little of hockey, I get the gist - get puck in goal.  And apparently the US goalie is legend, because through the entire Olympics I believe he allowed only two goals.  Without knowing much, I can tell that's impressive. 

But it was an exciting, nail-biting win.  And it was a good feeling, and a little bit of a return to Proud to be an American thinking.  Not a bad thing in these crazy times. 

From the man who made the winning goal