Attention Christians: Be like the squirrel

This is making the rounds.  I admit it's pretty awesome (according to the cameraman, the squirrel survived):

That's one brave squirrel.  A bravery it would be nice to see among the world of Christianity. 

I've said post-Christian era secularism has had its winning streak of sowing seeds of doubt and largely running roughshod over the Christian Faith for generations, if not centuries.  Partly because it forever seized on the idea that there are problems in the world needing fixed, which is true.  But then it always made sure those problems were hung around the neck of the Christian Faith, religion, and eventually all of Western culture.  

Likewise, the solutions were almost always wrapped up in the need to admit how wrong the Faith, the Bible, religion in general, the miraculous, and values and heritage of the West always were.  And nothing takes the fight out of the fighter more than doubting the legitimacy, much less the reality, of the cause at hand. 

Which is likely why it worked so well.  Just think how much godlessness, debauchery, decadence, blaspheme and assault on almost every cherished virtue or moral standards were able to be hoisted up and imposed our our society, our children, our Faith, one decade after another.  Sometimes it boggles the mind. 

Only now, you are beginning to see some pushback.  Perhaps too late for the matters of this age.  But at least where the spiritual side of the tracks is concerned, there is never too late as long as we have breath to take. 

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. 

Sad but true

 This has been around for several years:

But it continues to be true.  The problems we see today are the result of endless causes.  Figuring out which are the key factors to what we've become is a task unto itself.  Admitting that something went seriously wrong, on the other hand, is simple.  

The enemy of the Christian West is their friend

Thus: 

I'm old enough to remember when it was offensive that Western women, like journalists, had to don such apparel when visiting a Muslim nation.  Heck, I can remember when the very appearance of such apparel was seen as an affront to women's universal equality.  But I do believe that if that the Left, or some ally committed to the demise of the Christian West, said here wear this:

that liberal women would fall over themselves to do just that.  And not just feminists. For instance: 

Yep. Because we know that nowhere in the Muslim world do those within the LGBTQ lifestyle enjoy anything close to equality, if not the ability to survive.  But the enemy of the West is the Left's friend.  Better the Muslim world thrive even as it crushes gay rights than the country that panders to gay rights not be destroyed.   

Oh, and I'm not stupid.  I know one of the Left's talking points is that if anyone not Euro-American does something bad, like oppress homosexuals, browbeat women, murder Jews - it's because they learned it from the West.  That is not only a common retort, but an increasingly accepted one. But that sort of BS that only an intellectual could believe is for another time. 

A reminder

If you sound like this when someone on the other side does something wrong:

But sound like this when someone on your side does the same thing or worse:

Then yeah, you're a big part of the problem.  I thought of that when I saw this:

Pretty rough condemnation.  And not unwarranted.  I know little of the reporter in question who was murdered.  I recall it from back in the day.  But I think that, unless the guy was Himmler redux, he deserves a little more than a shrug and 'things happen'.  Especially from our president.  And I'll stand by that.  But I don't think Trump's response is anywhere near what we have seen regarding some activists' and prominent professionals' reaction to transgender shooters in schools, or women who cross transgender activism, or heck, the Charlie Kirk murder.  Yet regarding such things as the Charlie Kirk murder, the good deacon's response was:

Now, maybe it's me, but I see a definite tonal difference in how the actual murder of Kirk was addressed versus responding to President Trump's statement.  Again, I think, as usual, President Trump's response was lousy.  It goes a long way toward conveying a disregard for human life and suffering at a time when we need just the opposite.

But so did the murder of Charlie Kirk, only a million times more!  And that includes those who defended and celebrated it.   But what did you get from Deacon Greydanus the day Kirk was murdered?  A platitude. Something that would fit on a bumper sticker.  And not even his own.  He had to quote others, saying he was too busy to address Kirk's murder.  I note he wasn't too busy to comment on President Trump's statement.   As for condemning such things as, say, the horrifying attacks on JK Rowling from transgender activists, I've asked for examples from him doing so but as of now have not received any. 

That sort of morals by partisan plot point has no place in the Church, or decent society.  If we want to bemoan President Trump or the society we've built that saw Trump's ascent, by all means.  But that is only worth anything if we look at the broader culture and society we've built, even if the evidence for that declines points sharply back to the side with which we clearly sympathize. 

The war on alcohol continues to intensify

As yet another study shows that no alcohol is safe, now where dementia is concerned.  This being among an apparent growing number of ailments driven by booze.  Pretty soon alcohol will be why Adam and Eve really rebelled and Napoleon lost at Waterloo.  

Now, something is definitely wrong in the dementia world, that I admit.  More and more people are being diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer's than ever before.  And these diagnoses are happening at ever younger ages.  My grandma - born in the late 1800s - had a stroke and became confused and, based on what we know, stricken by some form of what we now call dementia.  Of her siblings, however, she was the only one.  The rest of her generation passed, many at very old ages, as sharp as tacks.  Her brother Earl was well known for being completely together mentally until he passed (he was a consummate story teller).

The next generation, my parents' generation, have had only a couple who didn't end up with some form of dementia or Alzheimer's.  Including both my parents.  And while my dad drank like a fish when he was young, he gave it up after an accident involving my sister.  Though it had nothing to do with him drinking, he was playing cards and drinking with his brothers when it happened.  He felt his reaction time to her injury was compromised, so he never drank again. And that was when he was still young.  Except for a few parties and wedding receptions when they were young, I don't believe my mom drank at all.  Yet they, like their siblings, were struck with dementia, albeit at very old ages. 

Now we have an increasing number of people having these elderly ailments at younger and younger ages.  And unlike some things, perhaps cancer or some diseases which we could argue are simply easier to detect now, you can't miss dementia.  Long before the diagnoses, you begin seeing the signs.  As we did in both my parents' cases.  Yet suddenly, it's alcohol!  You know, that thing people have been doing for thousands of years before dementia began spreading like wild fire among younger and younger people.  The thing that, per the same stories going after alcohol, fewer and fewer people are indulging in today.

Yet the assault continues.  So as I said last time, my cynical historian's mind asks - why?  Why out of the blue, over the last year or so, has the medical community (and the media) suddenly come out and said burn beer burn! Do not drink wine nor strong drink thou, whether ye go into the corner tabernacle or not! What's up? 

First up?  The conspiracy explanation.  Why do people drink?  Apart from alcoholism, to enjoy, to relax, to unwind.  To indulge in the giddy side effects of the product in a troubled and difficult world.  Also, just because they like a cold beer on a summer day or a nice wine with a fine meal.  Sometimes they take Paul's advice when perhaps having stomach problems or other difficulties like sleeping.  

But if we don't have alcohol, then what to do about all of those reason?  Well, apart from the enjoyment around meals and for culinary peasures, we have - drugs.  The media push for legalized recreational drugs continues apace with some pretty impressive wins.  And in terms of other problems, such as difficulty sleeping or stomach issues or any such things, we have - drugs.  Prescription drugs.  The cynic in me has a hard time thinking there isn't some connection there.  

Others have suggested it's a way to deflect from the increasing health problems plaguing more and more people.  I mean, it's almost normal now to see at least one or two celebrities or well known persons die of cancer, heart disease, suicide or unknown reasons in a given week.  Things that decades ago would have made the news for weeks because it was so rare.  The deaths of celebrities were typically reserved back then for the elderly celebrities whose days had passed.  Exceptions to that rule being exceptions to that rule.  But today?  I can't think of a week where I haven't seen someone, often well under 50 or even 40, dying in such a way.  It seems connected to the observation that we are becoming less and less healthy overall.  Why? Nobody seems to know, or dwell on the details much, but blaming alcohol could certainly work.

Some have suggested it deflects from the catastrophic results of our Covid measures, including questions about vaccines and the overall response from our medical communities.  It isn't hard to see that things have definitely spiraled in some areas of life in recent years, and over a host of issues. If already we've seen alcohol linked to cancer, dementia, anything you want - why not anything else? 

But one thing I'm sure of, it isn't an accident.  It's not some bizarre coincidence out of the blue.  There is a reason that alcohol is being targeted and fast becoming the latest cause du jour of all problems in the world.  And whatever the reason - and it can obviously be more than one - it's those reasons being deflected from that we should likely be focused on. 

Also, I'll add that this is not an advertisement to drink.  If you don't, great.  I'm not being paid by Paul Masson or Budweiser.  I just see things like this in our day and age and have a very difficult time believing it's just good old medical science discovering the truths of the world that we need to know in order to thrive.  As I've said before, sometimes it takes far more naivete and credulity to disbelieve a conspiracy theory than to believe in one. 

Yes it is good news

AKA Hitler, at least to the left of center

Apparently President Trump has brought back Columbus Day, much to the chagrin of the Left.  I've written about the assault on Columbus Day many times.  It represents the rampant presentism that defines the Left's approach to history.  It often rests heavily on our modern pick and choose approach to facts and reality.  Its replacement rests on that multi-cultural deifying of any civilization not west of the Urals.  And it certainly shows that side of out country that wants our country burned to the ground.  Since obviously, as President Trump said a decade ago, it didn't stop with Columbus or Robert E. Lee.  

Nonetheless, it will be a short-lived victory.  The minute - the second - the Democrats get a president in the Oval Office it will be stricken just the same.  As will many things President Trump has done in such a manner.  The problems are deeply rooted.  It's been said we're in a Cold Civil War.  That is likely true, though it has been getting hot in recent years.  

Of course take the win while we can.  We've never stopped referring to Columbus Day in our home, and despite having a significant line of American Indian in us, never bought into the indigenous people worship endorsed by the Left (and, sadly, no small part of the modern Church). We even still give the day off from school to our youngest. But again, a short lived victory no doubt, unless things take a radical turn from where the Left would have them go. 

The wizard of Ozz

At least according to this article's rather positive spin on the legacy of Ozzy Osbourne.

Here's the thing, and I've reflected on this for some time.  In Robert Altman's film MASH, there is a scene that pretty much summed up where the postwar liberal revolution was going.  The arch-villain Frank Burns (an early Robert Duvall role), was sitting in the surgeons' tent.  Hawkeye, and his companion who would not transfer to the TV series, Duke Forrest, first arrive and bring in their belongings and meet their new tentmate.  

When they arrive, they see Frank overseeing reading lessons for a young Korean boy named Ho-Jon.  Ho-Jon is being taught to read from the Bible.  Duke and Hawkeye share a glance, and Duke points out the obvious. Duke mentions that he's learning to read from the Bible, then somewhat sardonically states 'that's nice.'  

Then, the next moment, Duke goes up and leans over Ho-John and, pulling the Bible away, says 'you might like this instead.'  The 'this' is an adult magazine - likely Penthouse or Playboy.  At that point, seeing the bare chested girl on the cover, Ho-Jon eagerly looks at Frank and asks if he may be excused.  Frank, apparently not noticing what went on, says yes.  

At that point - at that one moment in our history - Christians in America and anywhere the movie was released should have risen up and in one voice said, "OH NO YOU DON'T!!!  We see what you're up to and you're not going to lure our children and their children away from God and Christ and into a Sodom and Gomorrah orgy of debauchery and decadence, of catastrophic levels of misery and hopelessness.  This scene is practically a commercial for everything you have in store for our little ones!" 

But they didn't.

Somehow or another, no matter what this postwar revolution against the Christian West did, there was always the feeling that 'someday they're going to go too far!', and yet that day still hasn't come.  Oh, we vote sometimes and we'll fuss online.  But now those same forces are carving up the bodies of children.  The Left's pushing of drugs and sex is as common in our modern schools as the Golden Rule was in early 20th Century American schools.  Abortion by the millions.  Mass killings in schools.  Cataclysmic violence, suicide, drug addiction and basic hopelessness define the generation of our modern youth.  And the biggest religious news is the unprecedented numbers that are abandoning religion and religious living altogether.  

I thought of all this when I read the Word on Fire's tribute to Ozzy Osbourne.  Quite a guy, that Ozzy.  Some mention of his drugs and all, but he worked to get over that, didn't he.  Not that I think shortly after someone's death is the time to trash and hash them.  But must we make him so - honorable?   

In thinking of Ozzy's life, and the world in which he lived, think of the damage done.  Think of the millions of lives - mainly of young people - that have been ruined, weaned away from God and Christ, plunged into despair, AIDS, overdoses and ruined existences, not despite our pop culture for the last 70 years, but because that is exactly what our pop culture has been telling them to do.  And all while we have stood by and let them. I mean, the message that religion is for losers, there's probably no God anyway, so get high, get laid, and someday drop dead was aimed at the last half century of children like a Death Star laser beam. 

But no real solid or concerted effort to stop it.  Or, to be honest, at times we stepped in and helped out by buying the songs, seeing the movies, watching the shows, while making endless excuses for doing so.  I stand accused.  I thought of my series on the Beatles from some time back. I acknowledged then that their staggering influence on Western culture was far from universally positive.  But think on that. Think on the symbolism of intent from that scene in MASH.  Think of Ozzy's 'bout' with drugs, which the article itself merely calls mythological. 

And think of the children, the teens.  I mean, we have spent decades wondering why kids leave Church when they grow up, and now why so many are officially renouncing their belief in God and religion altogether.  Should we be surprised?  I'm shocked the numbers doing so are as low as they are.  The targets have been youth and children all along since, let's face it, if you want to own the future you seize the little ones as fast as possible.  Because like the wise man once said:

Perhaps that is why Christ Himself said this:

Jesus called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And He said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.  But if anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!  Matthew 18.2-7

Think on that.  You hear that Duke?  Next time an itch to watch Animal House, or listen to Black Sabbath, or even She Said, She Said, or anything on television today, or make excuses or shrug our shoulders, think on that passage in Matthew.  It seems the Almighty takes a dim view of those who would corrupt and lead to apostasy the least of these who, within the context of this passage, are the little children. I imagine God's opinion of those who stand by and allow it to be done is only slightly better.    

Oh, I'm not saying go burn your books and movies and DVDs and damned Beatles albums.  That's a dangerous path in its own right. Even if the movement (post-war liberalism) that once screamed fascism the minute anyone thought of challenging a scene like the one in MASH is now more intolerant and destructive to free speech than a witch council in Salem.  

No, it's to say we should have stood our ground more then, since the whole 'but all morality is relative, everyone should tolerate all things in an enlightened democratic society' was always more fertilizer than fact.  After all, the ones who championed such scenes and wanted more, think nothing of dropping the hammer on the Bible, love of country, resistance to mass abortion, or any other sacred cow of that modern movement of tolerance. And for all of it, look at the results all around us. 

As a side thought, some years ago when we still had cable, MASH was shown on TCM.  This was shortly after Ben Mankiewicz replaced the late Robert Osbourn as host.  Usually, before each film, the host would give a brief history and some fun tidbits about the movie in question.  The same happened that night.  In a sign of the times, however, Mankiewicz also did what I never saw Osbourn do, and that was apologize for the movie.  Specifically, apologize for the way in which women in the movie were portrayed and treated.  The odd part is, I'm sure it wasn't seen as good back when it came out.  I know my parents were never fans of the show, much less the movie.  Given the reputation of being controversial in its day, I'll bet people then didn't like much of that either.  They also, I'd like to think, would have been just as outraged at the other parts - like the vulgarities, the drugs and sexing up a young boy just the same.  Things Mankiewicz notably did not apologize for.  Thus 'woke' defined, even in its earliest days. 

We call this revealing

 One of these things is not like the other: 

Did you notice?  Look again.

That's right, the 'Tomatometer' score, that is the compilation and average of individual, professional critics, is missing on The Chosen.  I looked it up, and that means for a production already released, that not enough such critics have bothered to review the show or movie in question.  Despite its mammoth, global success or that it's been out now for almost eight years, still not enough have bothered.  

Let's review: 

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’"

That's from the Gospel of St. John, chapter 15. 18-25.  Now, liberal and leftwing Christians often make a mess of this passage.  Not infrequently they'll claim the reason why the world hates Christianity, Jesus or the Church today is that there are Christians who still refuse to vote Democrat or support the latest leftwing activism or talking points.  Perhaps they confuse their politics with God or the Faith.  Or they really think the Left to be so infallible that to not support it is akin to rejecting God, despite the Left's increasingly open advocacy for the most egregious evils and mortal sins.  I don't know.

I just know that's not what the passage means.  It's not really about where one falls on the political spectrum, be it left or right or center. 

No, I'm not equating The Chosen with God or Jesus. But let's face it, whatever you think of it, it's clearly trying to promote the Christian Faith and the Gospel.  And despite being a global phenomenon of staggering levels, with worldwide audience views in the hundreds (not tens) of millions each episode - it's crickets from the critics.  That's what all those thousands and thousands of professional critics around the world have to say.  

The other shows?  Just random ones.  I searched popular shows and movies on Rotten Tomatoes and grabbed a few.  One of them actually had a story about how they've gone from 1.5 million to 3 million viewers!  Huzzah!  As opposed to those hundreds of millions watching The Chosen that critics haven't appeared to notice. 

Again, the Church always believed it must have some impact on the world.  Perhaps we didn't know what to do when the world decided it no longer wanted what the Church was selling. But a perusal of the Bible or Christian history should demonstrate that however much God loves us and reaches out, we will forever smack His hand and tell Him to take a hike.  As we're seeing now. 

Oh, it's different now, as Rod Dreher pointed out.  For centuries and eons, the Gospel moved into new lands that had never heard it, and then made inroads.  Not all was accomplished at the end of a sword or gun, despite what the modern narrative says.  Sometimes the message came and was eagerly accepted by those living in the darkness of paganism and heathen gods.  

But today, the World that once heard the Gospel is now tired of it, and wants to go back to that world of paganism and heathen gods, at least from a secular angle.  An angle that has a vague religious underpinning that says I'll either die and become worm food or perhaps, if not, there'll be some happy light place we all go when we die because of course we do.  Otherwise, the trappings of old paganism are becoming popular among our best and  brightest.  And they are increasingly willing to demand conversion to the cause by rhetorical sword and figurative gunpoint.  Because that's what the World does.  See John's Gospel above. 

Does this seem a lot to hang on a single show, however popular, that is missing reviews on Rotten Tomatoes?  If this was the only thing I could point to, then perhaps.  But you know as well as I do that this is only one of a million examples of the World's increasingly open hatred for God, Christ and His Church.  Those who say the problem is that Christians don't vote the way I do, one way or another, are worthless in confronting this development.  

Because even if we did everything the modern World wanted - bring back race based hatred, dabble with broadening the mass extermination of undesirables, porn sex younger and younger children, embrace Marxism outright and end national identities and tear down principles of equality, freedom, forgiveness, and religious liberty (or fully embrace a Free Market for that matter) - the World simply would find other reasons to continue the hatred of Christ while openly embracing the rulers of darkness of this world.  Because we know from our Bible studies, that's what the World does.  And I'm sure I don't know how much more the modern world could do to make that clear.  

Those who don't follow the ways of the World are about one of four.  If the Parable of the Sower has anything to say about statistics.  And if we work to remain in that group and avoid making excuses for the World by changing the Gospel to conform to the World, we can take heart.  Because John continues:

“Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  John 16.31-33

Maranatha 

*Brief Note: I mentioned to one of my sons that I was posting this.  He said there is a possibility that critics have reviewed the series, but RT has chosen not to link to them.  I suppose.  But that seems almost more purposefully corrupt.  It's easier, and perhaps more charitable, to assume they are simply blinded by their own biases - biases which today are clear as day - than that there is some purposeful conspiracy to suppress those critics.  Plus, I searched myself for reviews and have only seen a couple beyond some religious outlets and publications.  So I'm going with a notable lack of reviews from critics as the reason.  It seems, kinder.  

A sign of the times

2025 University of Maryland commencement speaker

Now, I'm fine with Kermit.  Grew up with him.  Before the dark days, The Muppet Show was a cultural watering hole in which everyone at school talked about last night's guests and mimicked the old geezers in the balcony box.  But Kermit?  And I know, that's Henson's alma mater.  Nonetheless, Kermit? 

Remember when this is what was considered a newsworthy commencement speech back in the day:

Solzhenitsyn's legendary 1978 Harvard commencement speech

Even high schools tried.  I recall one of our graduations (not mine, but a grade or two ahead) featured a young, starting out state politician named John Kasich.  Even in a small, rural high school, that's what we shot for.  But Kermit?  Oh, and flash - it's not Kermit.  It's a puppeteer and performer who delivered, and possibly wrote, the message.  Just saying since the news coverage this morning failed to point out that most obvious fact. 

Lowering standards, lowering expectations, discarding historically grounded values and common sense has been a goal of our ruling institutions for generations.  The result?  I think it speaks for itself. 

BTW, to show I'm not anti-Muppet, a little song from my kiddo days.  I've liked it since I first heard it on an old Sesame Street record I was given to cheer me up when we moved to a new home.  It wasn't Kermit, but it's a reminder that pop culture has it's place, as long as it stays in its place: 

What I've been saying for years

John C. Wright, who sometimes can be a bit gruff for my tastes, nonetheless hits the nail on the head:  

The Left will support whatever causes the most harm to Christian civilization and likewise will oppose whatever most is needed to help it: whatever most degrades the social fabric, whatever spreads vulgarity and ugliness, whatever promotes vice and crime

Because: 

They hate the West and seek to dismantle it, because and solely because the West is Christendom.

Not that he's alone, or that I'm the first to say such a thing.  It's just something I've been saying for years now, especially in the last few years where it takes more blind ignorance to deny the fact than admit it.  

The Left is about the utter destruction of the Christian, Western democratic tradition.  The values, heritage, heroes, principles, manners, attitudes, beliefs, virtues, decency, common sense and base morals of anything vaguely connected to the Western Tradition are at best suspect, at worst in dire need of eradication.  And that includes apparently timeworn assumptions such as liberty, equality, the value of life and the abhorrence of violence.  All thrown upside down, changed or tossed in the trash.  Anything, anywhere or anyone that aids in that mission will be tolerated at worst, lionized at best.  

Whether it can be stopped or we're merely witnessing that next stage in history that moves into a dark age after a period of development and striving for the better remains to be seen.  After all, a growing number of Christian leaders today seem to begin every statement with an explanation that Christianity is best seen through a post-Western set of glasses.  

Nonetheless, know thine enemy, as the old saying goes.  And it's almost impossible to think of the manifold blessings and benefits that the Christian West brought to the world and not see the ones trying to undo it all as the enemy. 

"We are told to love our enemies, but Jesus never once said that in doing so they would cease to be our enemies."  A quote from an old Presbyterian colleague and friend from my ministry days. 

Some old reflections on Columbus Day

Here, here, here and here.  It's barely mentioned now.  In fact, here in Buckeye land, this is the time when different outlets point out the effort by some to change the name of our state's capital.  One network - our local CBS affiliate - now refers to the city and city news as 'C-Bus.'  In fact its morning news magazine that was Wake up Columbus is now Wake Up C-Bus.  That's long been an informal nickname in these parts, but usually not for official use.  

Today Columbus is all but gone, and increasingly if the day is mentioned at all, it's Indigenous Peoples Day, or similar.  Of course now we're seeing challenges against everything from Washington and Jefferson, to the Constitution itself (earlier editorial from the New Yorker).

Things are happening fast.  Vichy Conservatives have long hidden behind the idea that bellyaching about such trivial things is just sissy stuff.  They'll wait until the gulags or the gas chambers are in full swing, then they'll start to worry.  Never a great strategy.  And looking at where things are and where they are going, and how quickly they are getting there, should be all the evidence you need for that appraisal. 

As for the Left venerating cultures who did what Columbus is accused of doing or worse?  Need I prattle on about that?  I think by now the reasons for that strange hypocrisy should be clear. 

A nation led by Sodom

 And taught by Gomorrah 

Enough said. 

Mr. Kimmel gets it

It turns out Jimmy Kimmel thinks America (and Europe) is a pretty filthy place.  At least compared to the always awesome Japan. 

You have to have a sense of pride in yourself to strive for the best.  You have to have the same for your country.  The same country Mr. Kimmel and his compatriots have spent years - decades perhaps - trashing, and hashing, and bashing. The same country young ones for three generation have been told is one of the worst ever in history.  The same country filled with people that young ones have been told are, and always have been, the worst: the most stupid, boorish, vulgar, bigoted, arrogant, violent and useless in the world. 

Everything around you sucks.  Everything around you has always sucked.  Perhaps you are a true god who should be worshipped and if you say you're Napoleon then the definition of Napoleon should be changed.  But the fact that it doesn't work that way just shows how bad everything around you does, and always has sucked. 

Loyalty?  Duty? Honor?  Patriotism?  Gold Rule?  Bah.  Insert copious F-Bombs here.  By the time I came along, those were punchlines, not principles.  Everything is subjective, except for everything that objectively sucks.  You owe nothing to anyone, everything owes all to you.  And if you aren't Einstein or the Beatles, it's because everything sucks.  

Oddly, this constant thrice-daily repeated mantra hasn't build back a better country.  Though it hasn't  always been this way, it should be noted.  In high school and early college, I took karate.  The fellow who taught me was pushing for karate to be an Olympic sport, so he couldn't accept fees (we paid for the facilities instead).  He traveled much, however.  He had a love for Japan.  But even then, he admitted traveling abroad was tough because it could be so dirty.  Even in Europe and Japan (we won't discuss what he said about the Middle East).  

I knew students in my graduate days who were from other countries, including the former USSR.  One thing they complained about was America's cleanliness fetish. They said we were almost psychotic about being clean and having everything clean.  That was the 1990s.

So Mr. Kimmel, what you are lamenting is what America has become under your watch.  You can't be a willing partner with a media culture that has promoted the worst, the ugliest, the dirtiest, the most judgmental and most critical of everything that was ever seen as good and then be shocked with the results.  You can't tell kids for generations that their society is garbage and then be shocked when things begin to smell.  

It takes effort to be good, never bad.  When was the last time anyone said 'You know, all my life I wanted to be a lazy couch potato, but I couldn't overcome the temptation to eat right and exercise'?  Probably never.  In this world, goodness, virtue, beauty and maturity take effort.  They have to be practiced and worked for. But we went on the cheap and aimed lower than dirt, and now we're seeing the results.  Thank you Mr. Kimmel for admitting the obvious.  Now, if you could admit why it is.  

Ken Burns is what we call White Noise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A vacant and hollow nation

Ours has become a sad, sad country.  We don't even care.  At least about anything that matters.  Youth are taught to hang their righteousness on vast, sweeping ideological crusades that cost them little in terms of self-sacrifice.  Like global warming.  Actual character or values barely make the grade at this point. 

I thought of this as my eldest - our resident sports guru - was commenting on the upcoming Super Bowl.  Before Sunday night's game, he said the real betting was over which narrative would come out on top.  Would it be the Detroit Lions, everyone's favorite worst NFL team, finally winning the Super Bowl?  Or would it be the corporate media's insistence on the Chiefs, with the lucrative tie-in of Taylor Swift Incorporated, that would win out?  Apparently that has dominated much of the chatter on sports sites and other outlets. 

And I though on that.  I mean, we realize what this means don't we?  It means people are discussing this with the assumption that the fix is in.  That it isn't a case of 'which team will be the best.'  It's which narrative will be sustained for the benefit of whoever benefits from it.  That is - it's rigged.  And more to the point, nobody cares. 

This has already been demonstrated by the cheating accusations against Michigan's football program.  If you don't know, Michigan University football has been accused of cheating for the last couple years.  It's being investigated, and I'm the first to say innocent until proven guilty.  But the evidence does look damning.  After all, Michigan's football program struggled up until Covid.  Then, suddenly, it flipped and became a powerhouse, this year making it to a victorious national championship.  The worst part is that the accusations of cheating match the turnaround for the program. 

Now, as I said, innocent until proven guilty. But what has shocked me is the Michigan fans who have said they don't care.  If it's true, so what?  A meteorologist who used to work here but moved back to her Michigan hometown said as much.  If Michigan cheated, it's on the dopes who were cheated - not on Michigan.   They won and they won.  That's what matters.  Even the press and sports media seem to have swept it under the rug, mentioning it only as an afterthought.  If it's mentioned at all.  I compare this to the outrage that arose when the New England Patriots were found to have cheated, and how that one scandal sort of tarnished the entire program no matter what they accomplished. 

Yet today?  Nah. Just like the discussions about which narrative will win the day at the Super Bowl.  It's as if we just accept corruption and corporate manipulation.  That people are talking about it like discussing the weather suggests a beat, lost, done nation.  Granted, this is only the internet and social media.  But I have always subscribed to the idea that where one example is found, hundreds of others haven't been.  And there were enough my son pointed to that suggests this is not some fluke from one site or another.  

I just thought on that.  Is it only football?  Yeah.  Is it life ending?  No.  Are there bigger things to worry about?  Sure.  And yet there seems to be a connection.  'Say it ain't so, Joe', became a veritable proverb and was often repeated in my youth even if I didn't understand the context.  So devastating was the news of corruption from that earlier period in time that the phrase passed down to my years as part of our national lexicon.  Yet today?  We seem to take it in stride. 

Isaiah says woe to those who call evil good evil and good evil.  Beyond the clash of good and evil, we have right and wrong.  We seem to have lost the ability to care, much less discern, the difference.  And I can't help but think that isn't a good thing.  Because if we no longer care about right and wrong, not caring about good and evil can't be far down the road - if it's not already here. 

Reflections on the Worst Generation

We've all heard the phrase 'The Greatest Generation'.  That was popularized by Tom Brokaw by way of his book titled The Greatest Generation.  It applied to the generation that fought in World War II.  It specifically applied to the men in the trenches, more than the older generations who were the high ranking officers, commanders and world leaders of the war.  Though I don't recall actual WW2 veterans referring to themselves that way, the phrase took off and was elevated by Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers and that brief wave of patriotism following the 9/11 attacks. 

But I'd like us to consider the Worst Generation.  If we have the greatest, then we must have the worst.  And I don't mean those rascally Baby Boomers who get blamed for everything.  Or Generation X, Y, Z, or whatever.   

By Worst Generation I mean - you probably guessed it - the WW2 Generation.  Yep, the same one labeled the Greatest and cheered by many, including most to the right of center, has some explaining to do, as far as I'm concerned.  Oh sure, they won the battle of WW2.  Even the most sympathetic appraisal, however, suggests they turned right around and lost the war for the civilization that they fought WW2 to preserve. 

Why?  What went wrong?  How could such a storied, celebrated, successful, courageous, and beloved generation fail so miserably after winning so decisively?  I don't know.  I'm sure it would take more than a blog post or even entire blog to unpack what went so horribly wrong.  But it is impossible not to see that, within their lifetime and under their watch, the civilization they inherited is well on its way to oblivion, thanks in part to the time under their watch. 

Again, I have my hunches.  But it would take a book at least, not merely a post or two.  Nonetheless, it's time to be honest.  They failed and failed miserably at the main task of any generation, and that's preserving their inheritance to be passed on to their posterity.  Long before those eager Boomers took over in the 80s (and have yet to let go), you could see the foundations crumbling and the barbarians climbing the gates. 

I'm certainly open to suggestion about how and why they dropped the ball.  But it's time to admit these problems didn't just begin with Vatican II, or the arrival of The Beatles, or even those rascally Marxist Communists  In the latter case, their goals were merely aided by what developed in the years and decades following the WWII generation's greatest, yet brief, accomplishment. 

So what did last week teach us?

First, that I'm obviously a Beatles fan.  I know.  Given the rot in our society it seems odd to be a fan of something that many consider instrumental in furthering that rot.  But as long as other Christians eat their slice of the worldly pie, and justify it with copious appeals to Romans 14, I'll still like the Beatles (and other musical offerings from the whole sex, drugs and rock and roll era - tens of millions dead from AIDS and drugs being something we apparently have learned to live with rather than give up our playlists).

Second, I'm clearly growing tired of 'Issue Blogging.'  Let's face it, the blogosphere of 20 years ago is dead and gone. Twitter and other similar platforms that distill complex issues into sitcom level one liners are now the rage for Internet discourse.  Many Catholic  bloggers, especially to the left of center, have moved to sites behind digital walls that keep dissenting views from troubling them (I kid you not, find more than a couple leftwing Catholic sites that still have open comments sections).  Meanwhile the shadow grows and the suicide of the West continues apace. 

My boys and I were talking some months ago, as you know we're wont to do.  While discussing America's willingness to let the Marxist assault on our nation win out, we were pondering how these things happen.  Perhaps because we abandoned God?  Let godlessness win out? Were cowards and wimps who looked for slick excuses to avoid actually defending virtue and truth?  Or, as one of my sons suggested, perhaps the whole reason America and the entire era of democracy existed at all was merely to thwart the Nazis in their goal of exterminating the Jewish people.  You know, a lifting up Cyrus sort of thing. 

I thought that was an interesting take.  It certainly isn't non-biblical.  God's ways aren't ours.  Which might be why, at this point, it looks like God has given our nation up to its lusts and impurities.  After all, whatever good the nation had is mostly fading from the historical stage.  The nation so many are desperately trying to save died many years ago.  Young people have been told to believe that the United States and all the West are defined by their unforgivable and unique sins and need only be eliminated.  Cue the Jews now linked with Israel which is seen by the Left as part of the West that has to go. 

In the face of this, continuing to prattle on about the same old same old gets a bit tiresome.  Stress for the sake of stress.  A growing number of Christians are surrendering and giving in.  Many church leaders are making it clear that there is nothing the world can throw at us that we won't find a way to compromise the Faith in order to accommodate.  The media is a propaganda organ that is less concerned about slaughtered Jews than it is pinning a single crime on anything associated with the West.  And young fanatics are getting worse on a daily basis because they are encouraged to do so by the powers that be. 

Therefore, constantly posting on the same thing over and over again is just posting on the same thing over and over again.  It would be like having a blog in WW2 and spending every day fussing about the violence in the news.  I do think we are heading where we are heading: a post-Western, post-democratic world in a post-Christian era.  Back to the old paganism, secular version.  No particular God of worth, guaranteed eternal paradise if that's your thing, physical worldly priorities otherwise. If we have to crush someone, we promise it won't be you. Because what matters most is you, and the World promises to accommodate you accordingly. 

It won't end with that of course.  That's the 'we promise, all animals will be equal' part.  Already we are seeing that modified to some animals being more equal than others.  Which seems fine for so many today.  Even now, Jewish liberals in the face of 'death to the Israeli Jews' chants are trying to twist their concern about being exterminated with their fealty to this post-religious, post  Christian Western movement and utter hatred for its defenders.  All while the alliance to throw down the West that includes, but is not limited to, Muslims, Chinese Communists, and anyone from any group disenfranchised by the West, continues to make significant strides.

Therefore, I'm once again going to back down.  I can't say I won't mention anything in the news.  I've declared that intention before, only to find myself drawn back in when we took another crazy step toward the end (remember me ducking out on the eve of the Kavanaugh circus?).  Same with last week.  Our state made it clear that sex and drugs and the right to abort anything hindering our libidos is our core value.  The typically lame and impotent GOP continued to lose, and even liberal school board candidates seemed to dominate the win column as schools become more open about sex for kids, gender change for teens, and post-Western Marxist propaganda in the curriculums.  What to make of that?  See the paragraphs above.  

In the end, empires rise, and empires fall.  Our is falling.  The Church is floundering because it's not difficult to believe that a substantial number of our leaders just don't believe it anymore.  In Europe and America, except for those rascally Pentecostals, the churches are dwindling along with the civilization they helped build.  In Asia the Faith is strong, and God bless those African Christians.  But like all things, our own progressive fellows have made it clear they'll heap no end of scorn and contempt on those swarthy and dark skinned types when they dare challenge a leftwing dogma.  Just like those slaughtered Israeli Jews who are barely mentioned now in the news or on leftwing sites (compare that to endless weeks and months condemning Kanye West over his statements about Jewish people). 

So now what?  Well, I like the blog.  But sometimes I miss the early days, when it was one part fun and frivolity, about two parts issue and news or commentary just to comment.  Sometimes I added reflections on the Faith or life, like this:

Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.

They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.

The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things:  

Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us? 

For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.

The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.

Which came to mind in light of the crushing defeats of virtue and goodness we saw last week.  At the end of the day, the majority of us who inherited the West, including our leaders and religious guides, accepted the gospel of the World and have stood by amidst failure after failure to defend our inheritance.  Well, when that's the norm, blogging about it every day won't change things.

So I'll try to go back to the early days.  I won't not comment on the egregious, even as the egregious becomes more and more the norm. I'll try to reference funner things, family things, and just things in general. It may not be what people want (I discovered there is a stunning lack of Beatles fans among my readers), but it will be what I want.  

If I post on issues, I'll try to avoid being shaped by the latest news stories.  My sons often ask why I bother watching or reading the news at this point.  We know it isn't telling us the whole story, and sometimes verges on outright falsehood.  Why take anything the press says as any type of a launching pad for a thought, whether good or bad?  They have a point.  Not that all stories are false or missing important context.  But you never know which, do you?  As the late Michael Crichton explained with his Gell-Mann Amnesia principle: if you know the press got this story so horribly wrong because you know the topic at hand, why assume the next one dealing with a topic you don't know will be any better? 

Again, back in the early days of the blog the point was to sharpen my claws at writing.  I've always been a better public speaker (in certain settings) than writer.  A priest friend suggested the blog for that reason. And though I did reference the odd stupid or wrong or concerning thing coming from the world, I also posted on reflections, fun things, family outings, personal interests or similar topics much more often.  It may not have ginned up the readership, but it didn't feel like running up a down escalator every day either. 

So that is what I plan to do again.  As I said, I won't promise no more issue blogging.  When it finally hits the fan, I want my objections to be on record beyond just family and friends.  When future generations look back at this era and ask why, I don't mind my allegiances being on the public record, no matter how obscure.  I realize God knows, but it's nice to know that those future generations who will suffer for our folly will know who to blame and who not to blame.  But I'll try to find things to blog about that are more fun, light hearted, meaningful to me (and hopefully others) or just plain goofy.  That can only help at this stage in the game.  Goodness knows. obsessing about the latest has done nothing to stop the latest.  So why affirm the age old definition of insanity?

Dawn Eden gets schooled

About something I wrote on many moons ago.  That is, the idea that for the Left there is no humanity, only demographic groups.  And your value, your believability, your suffering, your place on the pyramid depends on if your demographic group is the group du jour or not.  Which means is it the one, at this moment, most able to shoot holes in the heritage of the Western Tradition?  I wrote about this little development within the Left some years ago.  You can read it here. 

Ms. Eden appears shocked that so many would accuse Israel of the hospital bombing.  Heck, I'm shocked so few did.  Jews are important for trotting out endless stories of antisemitism and Jewish hate throughout Western and American history.  Ms. Eden herself has embarked on a crusade to focus on antisemitism in the Church, in our leaders, in our forebears, in anyone White, Christian, preferably male.  To the Left, people like Ms. Eden, who are willing to keep the focus the West's sins, are the good Jews.  Just like blacks who go all BLM or radical anti-patriarchal feminists.  Anyone who helps tear down the foundations of the Christian Western Democratic tradition is A-OK. 

Ah, but sticky point.  Israel is seen as a love child of that vile imperialistic, colonizing West.  In the minds of a growing number on the Left, the State of Israel is as bad as the Nazi Confederacy.  Plus, being not Western means innocent, pure, virtuous, victim.  Hence even our president is careful to say 'Bad boys you Hamas people' and insist Palestinians are not the problem.  Despite Palestinian protests at best fully supporting and sanctioning what Hamas has done.  At worst, they have made it clear they want to see more of it, with at least a couple such protests sporting signs along the lines of 'gas the Jews.'  How many times that happened I don't know.  The press has quickly stopped mentioning such things. Compare that to Charlottesville, which is still trotted out by the press at least every couple months as proof that defenders of America's heritage equal White Nationalist. 

Of course it isn't as easy as 'bad Hamas, bad Israel, beautiful Palestinians'.  A sane non-21st Century thinker would realize this taps into that ages old rift between Arabs and Jews that saw its own brand of bigotry and racism long before Bismarck decided to make Germany a thing.  Instead, it's an inconvenient challenge to the narrative that, as bad as Hamas is, Israel and everyone in it is worse  because of the evil West. 

That is part of the overall narrative that Ms. Eden clearly accepts.  If not about Israel, then about the unique and singular evils of anything west of the Urals.  Despite accepting these narratives, she appears shocked that they are applied even when you think they shouldn't be.  Like when more Jews were killed in a single day than any time since the Holocaust, yet let's just have a polite discussion and not jump to conclusions.  Unless it's assuming Israel is the bad guy of course.  If you live by the leftwing sword, be prepared to die by it when you or what you cherish is no longer convenient. 

BTW, I was going to post a photo from one of the protests where the horrible 'gas the Jews' signs were held up.  You know what?  I searched hundreds of images in various news outlets and on Google, and could find none.  The closest I came to anything suggesting it happened at all was this:

I should have copied the pictures when I saw them.  Our ministry of censorship and propaganda at work.  

Again Ms. Eden, get used to it.  You matter when your various group identities can bring down the Western tradition, including its democratic and Judeo-Christian roots.  As long as you do that, you're good.  Most valuable player and all.  But the minute you don't, as we see here, people who are about aiding in the destruction of the West will be given carte blanche over your interests in a fast heartbeat.  If they chant 'gas the Jews', we'll do our best to  insist to cover our ears and just move on.  And we'll do it because you have no more worth for the Left as a Jewish woman than you would as a woman opposing sharing the bathroom with Trans men, or if you were black, being a black conservative.  It's the side you've chosen.  Get used to it. 

UPDATE: 

Wow.  So I was informed that the comments at the link to Mark's blog tell the tale:

Note that.  Nothing at all about the Palestinians who chanted support for Hamas, or called for more of what Hamas gave.  We won't even discuss the explicit calls in pro-Palestine rallies for more slaughter because the victims were Jewish.  Just ignore the slaughter and the hatred of Jews, and attack Trump/MAGA.  All of this is as good as saying it's not the slaughter of Jews we mind so much, but that their slaughter can be exploited to attack our hated political enemies.  

This is the result of that evil tendency of only caring about human misery when it can be exploited that I've been pounding the pulpit about all these years.  And it isn't just at Mark's site.  Send me examples of politicians, pundits, journalists or even Christian leaders who have called out those Palestinians who cheered on the slaughter and demonstrated hatred of Jews, as opposed to simply framing it as 'bad Israel/bad Hamas/beautiful Palestinians.'  The narrative is already that deep. 

BTW, the video Mark links to is an Al Jazeera affiliated video that explains it's only MAGA Trump supporters who are a threat to Jews.  In a sane world that is the last thing I'd link to after the horrific slaughter of innocent Israeli Jews.  But sanity is one of the first casualties of the anti-Western Left. 

When I see the world lead the modern Church around on a leash

 It brings to mind this old Looney Tunes cartoon from back in the day:

I'll leave you to figure which dog reminds me of the world, and which one reminds me of the Christian Church today. 

Was a time when the Church was about converting the world to Christ.  But for too long the world has been converting the Church to secularism, and I'm not sure we realized it.