The president can assassinate Americans

Says so right here.  In a headline that would have made me fall into the aisle with laughter had it not been so terrible, we're assured that Obama is moving from the Scandals by focusing on his Drone policy.  I absolutely love it.  As if his Drone policy isn't one of the biggest scandals in presidential history.  Yes, yes.  I blame the Bush administration for its role in this.  And I blame the Clinton administration for teaching America that as long as the current president is fulfilling our primary needs, who cares about morality and character and truth.

But it's now in Obama's hands, and unlike Bush whose every blunder and moral breach was front page news and 24/7 coverage, Obama is taking great strides toward obliterating the Constitution in order to grasp power for the Progressive Juggernaut  while giving himself the right to take down Americans if he suspects they're up to something. All with the blessings of the ever supportive media establishment.  And according to the story, that's to get away from the other scandals that suggest Obama's hands could be too close to the Orwellian cookie jar.  This in a country that only a few decades ago ran a president out of town on a rail over wire tapping political opponents.  Talk about lazy and dumb.  Just the type of thing that post-Christian progressives and secularists seem to crave from a populace.

Boy Scouts succumb to Liberal Tolerance

Part of me wants to shun the scouts from now on.  Part of me sympathizes.  After all, pro-gay and liberal groups have been hammering them for decades, filing lawsuits, digging up any dirt they could find with the help of the media establishment, pressing companies to boycott them, cutting off financial help, running them off of public lands.  It wasn't easy being a Capitalist in the former Soviet Union.  It's not easy standing up to traditional values in the modern progressive Soviet.  The big difference is that people then understood they were in the cross-hairs of a terribly oppressive government.  Because too many Americans confuse liberal sexual values with tolerance and enlightened administration of government, this flagrant assault on others for failing to conform in a way that would shame a 17th century puritan is completely overlooked.  So perhaps I'll still buy the popcorn.  Maybe I won't.  But my heart goes out to one more relic of a pre-Progressive world that fell under the crushing boot of liberalism's dogmatic definitions of diversity.

Because our media cares

About keeping liberal Democrats in power, we're constantly told how wonderful the economy is.  Oh sure, gas prices may be hovering near 4 dollars a gallon,  cost of living prices continue to climb, health care and insurance prices are just now beginning to go up thanks to the healthcare reform package.  Not to mention wages continue to lag, and the number of people underemployed, underpaid, or forced to take temp or part time jobs continues to grow.  This doesn't count inconsistent economic reports, struggling private sector returns or the fact that the government continues to outpace just about everyone in the employment field.  And it totally ignores the number of people who have given up or just fallen off the unemployment charts because of being unemployed for so long.  Nope.  This is a liberal president, the press's dude, and they don't give a damn about the well being of the country.  Just like Sandra Fluke/Rush Limbaugh vs. Bill Maher/Sarah Palin showed the press doesn't give a damn about calling women vulgar names.  Or anything really.  They care about the power of the progressive revolution.  And if telling the iPad generation that all is well, in the hopes that the iPad generation is too stupid or lazy to care, will get the job done, so be it.  As was said many times in 2012, if a Republican was elected, at least then we'd find out just how bad off our country is, maybe before it's too late.  As it is, nope.  Thankfully, if the comments sections are to be believed,  there are some who aren't buying into the pro-Obama media rallies.

For the children of Moore

It's strange, but I'm not seeing the gut wrenching nausea that accompanied Sandy Hook.  I remember after that, with breaking news and round the clock coverage, people couldn't even function.  They spoke of losing sleep, being unable to blog, weeping for an entire weekend.  Well yeah.  Who didn't?  And yet, while the tornado disasters yesterday were devastating  while the damage and carnage is unbelievable, things seem to be going on pretty much normal.  

Nonetheless, as many children were killed yesterday in their school, horribly (so horribly I can't bring myself to think on it), as died at Sandy Hook.  Nature's Sandy Hook you might say.  Anti-religious cranks might go so far as to say 'God's Sandy Hook'.  But there's not that same, I don't know, horror.  That same 'I'm so grieved I feel sick' that you heard so much about on the day and in the days after Sandy Hook.  Why?  

I don't know.  Is this always the case?  Do humans instinctively react to human evil rather than natural disaster?  Was it that gut feeling that Sandy Hook proved evil as some reality?  Is it something more sinister? I don't really know.  I'm just up, mind racing and thinking on things, and having a hard time sleeping because of it, noticing that on most sites I visit the tornadoes were news, prayers have been given, thoughts have been tossed out, but life goes on.  A stark contrast to months ago.  But for me, both have left a bad feeling in the heart, and my thoughts and prayers go out for the parents, the families, the children, and all who have been so devastated by this senseless tragedy.  

"A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning.  Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." 

Prayers for the victims of the tornado outbreaks

Those who lost loved ones or whose lives have been turned upside down, please dear God give them strength, resolve, and the peace that surpasses all understanding.  Protect those rescuers, police, emergency workers, and all good souls inspired by that divine spark to risk their lives to find and help those affected by these terrible storms.  Help them, nurture them, and draw all near to you as they seek to rebuild their lives, their homes, and their understanding of the world in which we live.

But then who doesn't have time for this?

If you haven't seen this already, you need to wake up.  Awesomeness for the sake of awesomeness.  I almost feel bad posting it here instead of just posting from his own site.  But since I'm tech-deficient, this will have to do.  Well done sir, way to make everything seem cool, poetic, and brilliant all at the same time.  Looking for a modern Renaissance man?  Steer away from Gates and Hawking.  This fellow comes closest.

Blogging and me

That's reality.  Or, that's wishful thinking right now.  Regulars should note there has been a sudden drop in posts.  The reason is simple.  Time.  My new job with its cumbersome schedule is a temporary fix.  It won't sustain us forever.  But it stops the bleeding.  We were losing money and losing it fast.  We still have a massive dose of debt from when we first became Catholic that we've never been able to pay off.

Long and short, as I've said before, the number of real, bona fide Protestant Clergy who become Catholic is minuscule   Now, there are folks who have held various levels of positions within ministry who become Catholic.  Youth pastors, part time pastors, professors in religious institutions, lawyers who help our religious institutions.  But your full time, 'only a pastor and nothing more' who becomes Catholic is actually a rare breed, despite what some ministries dedicated to the subject might suggest.

I know this because I worked for one for a while, and noticed that most of the testimonies we tried to get from people were of the 'I did some ministry/I was a part time minister/I went to seminary but was never a minister/I did youth ministry' variety. That means, the financial hit that everyone thinks about doesn't usually happen.  Even when they are full time ministers, I've talked to some who had spouses who were well set (one a wife who's a nurse, no small income there, another with a wife whose family was of independent means).

And that's the kick I usually don't mention.  My wife worked within our denominational framework as well.  She made her living from our denomination just as I did, as a teacher in a Christian school.  And it was losing her job when we became Catholic that really threw us for a tailspin.  Being me, I try to plan ahead.  When we left my pastoral ministry to enter the Church, I though I had my ducks in a row.  We knew it would be tough, and the usual problems with starting life over at 40, no real marketable skills, etc.  But we had it planned out and then BAM!  My wife went to the school that August to start getting ready for school and couldn't find her mailbox in the office.  It went down from there.

So we took what is probably a nearly unparalleled hit to become Catholic, at least in America.  Not to whine or fuss or pat ourselves on the back, but let's face it, how many people give up both incomes and literally all their savings and benefits for the Faith, at least in our country? Not many.  And so there's not really an official branch of the Church to help us out.

There have been phenomenally generous Catholics in our parishes that, through our parishes, have helped us at critical times.  That's kept us alive.  Help from the family as well.  But neither of us come from families rolling in dough.  So it's been us, some generous Catholics, and God.  And through it all, we've kept our little starter home that's become the homestead, we've kept our beat up ten year old cars, and we've kept food on the table, if not lost most of what we had saved.

All this is to say, beggars can't be choosers.  The job I have I needed.  It's in the financial sector, which is about as far from what I'd prefer as you can imagine.  And it's far from what we need, incomes having stagnated and if you do the math backward, it's barely what a kid bagging groceries would have been paid when I was in high school.  Benefits aren't the best either.  But we had to stop the gushing of funds.  The debt was, ironically, making it impossible to move forward and we were sinking month by month.

So I've taken this job, praying for some miracle that will help us back on our feet, and getting by with the usual 'entry level schedule.'  That means, as inconvenient as imaginable.  Since our Eighth grader has his confirmation today, and since we're still trying to keep our boys in homeschool, time has just been limited.  Given the usual obligations that come from life, as well as those considerations I just mentioned, I've just not had time to blog.  Or at least, time to organize my thoughts.  Rather than post things that don't make sense or have more holes in their logic than Swiss cheese, I've chosen not to post.  And rather than it just be one long string of pictures of the boys (which we haven't had time to take), I've opted to remain silent.

I'll try to post some.  I will.  Readership was picking up and going through the ceiling, I actually found my blog referenced on some other blogs recently!  So I'm not giving up.  But probably until summer, or more likely, until a better schedule comes by - one way or another - things will be slim.  The posts may be quick snippets rather than actual thoughts.  But I'll do what I can.  I appreciate all who've come by, those who have commented, and hopefully folks will touch base until I'm back up and able to trip the blog fantastic once more.

Star Wars was for grown ups

Words can't describe how this image
captured my imagination back in the day

We watched Star Wars last night.  Not the 'New Hope' garbage.  The real thing, the version that came out in theaters back in the height of the Disco era.  Not the one with the deplorable CGI, or where Han waits to ignore a small explosion next to his head before he shoots.  The version that actually knocked our socks off some 35 years ago.  Yes, because of Lucas's strange arrogance and blindness to his own diminished talents, it was not the top of the line release.  When he released the originals on DVD, he made it clear to his fans that out of punishment for not celebrating his eternal creative perfection, the original releases would be without tweaks to make the quality images better, no HD, no Dolby, no nothing.  Basic VHS quality on DVD.

And yet it was a million times better than the re-released New Hope versions, and numbers don't exist to illustrate how many times better it was than the Prequels.  Even with my boys gibbering through the thing, asking questions and giving commentary, it was a flight back to the olden days.   Nostalgia can be fun.  I could almost remember what each scene was like.  Back in the day, when I worked an entire summer to afford every screening I could get, each scene was like a movie unto itself: the opening battle, the introduction of Vader, the introduction of Luke, the Cantina, the Death Star, the duel, the dogfight, the ceremony.  Each one was as monumental for my young mind as the scenes of Citizen Kane to a film student.

But something hit me.  We were watching some recent CGI laden blockbuster later, after the kids went to bed.  Too tired and worn out to do much else.  I don't know what it was.  It had sword fights, and CGI effects, and strange monsters (mostly CGI), and it was pretty stupid. I only watched a little before deciding my dreams would suffice for better entertainment.  Then it dawned on me.  Star Wars was not a "Kid's Movie".  In fact, in those days, there were not kids movies, except that Disney studios produced (like The Apple Dumpling Gang, Gus the Field Goal Kicking Mule, The Love Bug, etc.).  Movies were for adults only (R rated fare such as The Exorcist  The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, Saturday Night Fever), or they were for everyone (Rocky, Smokey and the Bandit (eh), Jaws, and Star Wars).  If it was determined that kids shouldn't see something - like my Mom not letting me see Jaws for fear I would use it as an excuse to dodge bath time - then kids didn't go.

But movies weren't made for kids or even adolescents.  They were for adults or for everybody.  As was Star Wars.  Fast forward to today.  Movies today, especially "blockbuster fare" like the one we watched last night, are made specifically for a young adult to even childish audience   And it didn't become that way overnight.  Somewhere, after Star Wars and before that CGI one we saw last night, filmmakers found out what music makers did in the wake of young Sinatra: that due to kids' impressionable minds, there are boundless dollars to be had.  Rock and Roll lives and breaths on that premise.

It took movies like Star Wars, and later E.T., to realize that there is a gold mine to be had in making movies not for adult sensibilities, but aimed squarely at those who are still struggling with pubescent hormones.  This change must have already been in full swing by the time Return of the Jedi arrived, because Lucas was certainly dumbing down the story and the gags and the general production to a more childish level.  

Of course with the advent of PG-13, there is a new category, that summer blockbuster supposedly too intense for younger kids, but just in line with that all important adolescent young teen male.  And the humor, the story lines  the basic production all speak to that.  The CGI movie we watched last night wouldn't have rated a TV movie of the week when I was growing up, if for no other reason than the childish and laughably immature stunts, gags and bathroom humor.   Some might be PG-13 because they strive for better, more adult level intensity and complexity, like any one of a boatload of Christopher Nolan movies.  But on the whole, most are movies that could say 'nobody over 18 admitted, because Lord knows they shouldn't want to be.'

Books have gone the same way.  Starting with the Goosebumps series, and finding perfection in the Harry Potter phenomenon, publishers learned that with kids, the profits can be endless, no matter what the quality.  In fact, the strange thing is, as our movies and our blockbuster output focuses on appealing exclusively to the youngest, I can't help but notice that our adult audiences are increasingly settling for childish things.  Not just enjoying a movie that's young at heart (like Star Wars), but actually lowering our expectations to movies, music and books that are young in content.

I can't tell how many adults lifted Harry Potter up as some lost Gospel of Christ.  And Lord help you if you disagreed.  All over a book series written, marketed and published for kids.  Same with the Comic book movies, or action movies, or remake movies.  I fear that was a problem with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings series, that he needed to appeal to the childish, the teen mindset with a book that was anything but a child's book or teenage schlock.

But it also seems that adults are going that direction as well.  Perhaps it's a combination.  Rush Limbaugh once said something I've never forgotten, some years ago.  On his birthday, he pointed out that he didn't feel as old as he was.  Not just in the usual sense.  He looked around and noticed that most people his age didn't look or act his age.  Not as he remembered it.  In fact, he noticed that his generation (Boomers) were the first generation in history that didn't have to grow up.  For the first time, people could fight to stay kids, to enjoy kid things, to obsess with kid hobbies and games.  Basically, adults could continue on acting like kids. Today there are adults who play with Legos.  There are adults who read kid books and go to the mattresses over what those books are, like kids used to in school over things like baseball cards or action heroes in comics.  Today, it's the adults.

So maybe the "kiddifying" of movies today is the result of the audience. Maybe the audience has become that way as producers of our cultural relics have decided to market to younger minds for the quick buck.  Maybe, like most things, it's a combination.

All of this came after a discussion at Mark Shea's blog over whether Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are pundits or just comedians.  Clearly they are pundits.  Obviously their shows are there to advance agendas with the same zeal as an episode of Limbaugh.  But yet, there were people arguing as if the two can never be reconciled; that to be a comedian must necessarily preclude you from being a pundit.  As if things can never change, and boundaries can never be crossed.  Why do they believe it?  Well, mostly, because Stewart and Colbert say that's all they are.  So it must be true.  Just like those Rock Stars of old insisted they really weren't singing about sex or drugs.  The lyrics really meant other, purer things.  So it must have been true.  Even as kids we knew better (and giggled behind parents' backs because of it).

Today, perhaps we know it's bunk just the same.  Or maybe, as adults, we've become so immersed in a culture that has completely turned itself over to the kiddy mindset, that we've lost that common sense discernment that comes with age.  Maybe people actually believe that since they say they are comedians, they must be right.  Maybe they just want to believe it, like I wanted to believe C-3PO was a real robot.  Perhaps instead of helping kids become adults, endless marketing to kids is causing adults to remain perpetually kids. I don't know.  But it's a thought I had after watching that story from a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

Sometimes I think it wasn't for no reason that Paul said there came a time when he put away childish things.  Not that good childish that can retain that spark of child like marvel at the world, but childish, like the inability to deal with reality in a way that reality demands.

Fans line up to see the latest movie phenomenon called Star Wars, c. 1977

Fans line up to see the latest Star Wars installment, Attack of the Clones, c. 2002

Rest in Peace Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen died today.  What kid my age didn't jump for joy when the local station played a Harryhausen movie?  Ours was Superhost's Mad Theater out of WUAB, Channel 43 Lorain and Cleveland.    Sometimes Fritz the Night Owl would have a horror double feature and it just might include something from Mr. Harryhausen's repertoire   But usually it was Mad Theater, a staple of the Saturday Morning ritual that started at noon after the cartoons were done, included two movies with a Three Stooges or Harold Lloyd short, and sometimes goofy cornball skits. 

Most of the time these movies were the B to F- type of 50s and 60s sci-fi schlock.  They were never the classic Universal Monster films, though they sometimes tapped into the later Hammer films to add quality.  But every now and then, an odd Movie of the Week or Superhost episode would bring out a Harryhausen, if we were really lucky, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, or Jason and the Argonauts, with its peerless battle against the skeletons.  

Those were candy to our eyes.  And even after Lucas unleashed his vision of Star Wars on an unsuspecting public, we never lost our love or admiration for Harryhausen.  True, when Clash of the Titans came out we could see it was time to turn a page on movie production.  Still, several of the creatures there retain more depth than many in a CGI blockbuster today.  Does anyone really think the slick animated monsters of the modern remakes hold a candle to the physical menace of Harryhausen's Medusa, or the towering Talos?  I don't think so.

A lot of fond memories there.  Just thinking of it whisks me back to more innocent times, when heroes were good, monsters were bad, and there was simply no reason to loot the fabled and forbidden treasures of the gods, but you knew full well Hercules couldn't resist.  So for all the memories, the fun times, the inspiring tales and unforgettable images, I lift one up and say Rest in Peace, may the Perpetual Light Shine upon you, and last but not least, we thank you.  

A night at the concert

So things continue to be hectic.  Last night I had to take my sister to the emergency room because of chest pains.  Thankfully, there doesn't appear to be anything major, but they did find a few abnormalities regarding one of her ventricles.  

Tonight, a good event on top of everything, our eighth grader had his last jazz band concert.  His last one. Sigh.  Them being home schooled, it marks the end of an era.  Our other middle schooler is going to play football through our parish school.  But that won't be connected with our city schools. Our oldest  has reserved himself to not going through any graduation ceremonies next year.  So it looks like a chapter - a big chapter - is getting ready to close.  Or, perhaps, closed tonight.  Due to copyrights and promises to the school, I can't post their performance.  But I can post him, looking a bit John Lennonish in his glasses he decided to wear since it was his last hurrah,  and post one of the songs they did play, respectfully well if not a carbon copy of the original.  Soon, very soon, I'll be able to get caught up and get some thoughts down.  Until then, enjoy the great one himself as he demonstrates just what coolness can look like:

Not Louis Prima or John Lennon, but no less cool in his own right

A momentary delay owing to the deluge

After my boast of tending to some much needed blogging, I'm reminded of the old saying about the best laid plans of mice and men.  Or, as James would so eloquently say in warning us about being too boastful about our plans, I am but a mist that appears for a little while and then will vanish.  But in the meantime, mist that I am, we've got a dishwasher flooding on us, and that must take priority.  Just enough time to update and explain.  Keep letting folks know, I shall be back.

It's been a long time

Now I'm coming back home.  It's been a while to get to the blog.  Things have been topsy turvy these last few weeks.  As my schedule at work shifted to weekdays late into the evening, and yet because of the deplorable parking (a parking lot big enough for 8000 people!...for a building that employees about 9500), I have to leave early enough that mornings aren't much easier than before.  Still, it's a job, and no other complaints but less time with the family in the evenings, fewer sit down family dinners, and of course, less blogging.

Nonetheless, I'm glad to see some faithful still stopping by, and the general readership continuing apace.  So I feel I must sit when I can and try, in my own cumbersome way, to toss out a few things that have been on my mind.  Chief among these have been my thoughts on what the Boston Bombings showed about where we've come as a society.

I've also had to take notice on this little story, which involves my very own diocese.  It's making national headlines now, and of course, from the media POV, there's only one obvious solution.  It will be interesting to see how this case unfolds.  As usual, I'm of about three minds on this, so when I can sort it out and not say things in the wrong way, since I know some folks from around here who read my blog, I'll put down what I'm thinking.

Tonight, of course, we watched the Kentucky Derby.  That's from those years we lived in Louisville.  Oddly enough, I never went to the Derby while we lived there, and seldom watched it, unless we attended some local church Derby party.  Now, we try to watch it every year.  That's part of our strategy of making as many days special as we can.  Being of limited means, we can't afford the Mediterranean cruise or the three week African safari for our kids.  But if we take the smallest things and add just a tad of special, we hope it makes up for the bigger things.

We also had to cram in our Cinco de Mayo today, because tomorrow our eighth grader, who is approaching confirmation, is having a special world study day in which my wife volunteered to help him unpack those rascally Irish Catholics for the Ireland segment.  She'll me making Irish food, and helping set up a display jam-packed with all things green.  Because of that, we moved the usual Mexican fare to today, and added a little Derby pie to the mix to keep it official (a combination not for the fainthearted).

There are other things, of course.  The blogosphere has been mostly quiet, and I'm starting to get a fix on a couple things that have bothered me in recent years.  Figuring things out, if you would.  I've also been thinking on the Catholic Church in this crazy, wild period in which we find ourselves as a country and as a world.  What it means to obey the Church, what it's meant in the past, and where it looks like the Church is trying to go today.  That might come sometime down the road.  For now, I've got to get back to the family and finish our other annual addition to the Derby festivities (and I don't mean Mint Juleps) : our viewing of the Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races.  Natch.  Be back soon, until then, well done Orb, and of course, as Mark Shea reminds us on yet another important aspect of today (Star Wars Day) - May the Fourth Be With You!

And for your viewing pleasure, the incomparable Chico Marx, making the sheer act of playing the piano fun to watch as well as hear:

Some interesting stories by way of Thomas McDonald

Looks like archaeologists are busy.  In one story, they've unearthed a medieval cookbook.  FWIW, medieval cooking was not altogether bad.  A medievalist myself, we have our own versions of middle ages cooking, and sometimes the taste can be pretty memorable.  Nonetheless, this is the real deal.  And I should mention I have several cookbooks from the monastic calendar year as well. Yummy.

The second deals with finding remains of a ship from - get this - the First Punic War.  That's the First Punic War.  Amazing.  The wars that brought Rome in its assent headlong against ancient Carthage (the Roman name for that being Punici, which is where we get the names of the wars), is on oft forgotten, but immensely important, historical crisis that changed the course of human history.  They established Rome as the power of the Mediterranean, and changed the relationship of North Africa in a way that would have repercussions up to the present day.

This isn't history, of course.  This is archaeology.   It's up to us historians to look at the rocks and pots and ships' bows and make a story of it.  At our best, we do it as faithfully to the sources as possible.  But sometimes, it's nice to step back and look.  A cookbook, a ship's ram.  One a source of bettering the fare of a restrictive diet.  The other, a weapon of war that met its end, probably with hundreds of hapless slaves chained to the decks, dying one of the most agonizing ways a human can die, as their ship slipped below the waves.

Remember kids, history through the window brightly.  Look out your window, and that's what the world looked like to them, with a few architectural  and engineering differences.  They weren't just waiting to be topics for archaeology or stats in a war book.  They lived.  Just like we live today.

Fr. Barron and the arguments for Gay Marriage

He's not really arguing against it, but he is pointing to a problem with modern discourse.  Alas, the style of argument is not confined to the realm of gay marriage, or any particular topic for that matter.  Truth be told, nowadays, we'll go to the mattresses over the type of Spock ears that look the best.  Don't know why, perhaps it's because we have higher levels of education, and therefore assume that because we took two semesters of Western Civ. 100 and 101 we're therefore the undisputed champs of historical insight, and anyone who disagrees must be idiots or evil.  Perhaps it's an excuse.  Maybe we know this level of 'anyone who sees things different is evil' is bogus, and it's just a lazy, easy way to shut down debate.  But it comes so natural, about so many things, it's easy to believe we've actually come to a point where it won't be long before the government is called in to formally punish wrong-thinkers as defined by me.  I wish Fr. Barron spent more time on that part of it, but overall, a good primer for some of the weaker arguments behind gay marriage advocacy.

So it made me laugh

Plus my kids like it.  After a week without much chance to blog, and what little time I had being spent getting throttled over at CAEI by pointing out that we should have come together and tried to unite behind the victims of the Boston Bombing rather than unleash our agenda driven complaining from day one, this is a welcome respite.  The funny thing?  I then pointed out that as Americans, we've become too critical of our country, seeing the worst in everything and being divided over everything, and I am then smacked again for apparently worshiping America and insisting it's perfect and flawless.  I tried, but I just couldn't get my mind around it.  Once our fascist police state was dutifully accused, and the cops who arrested the suspects and risked their lives were reduced to worthless doughnut eating butchers in blue by my fellow Catholics, I figured it was time to come back to the light.  I've received some wonderful emails from a couple readers, and plan on commenting on some of them soon.  But for now, after being bludgeoned for pointing out that people who call  our cops worthless butchers and our government a fascist police state isn't accurate, and then told that I'm the problem for not seeing the sins of our country, I thought some fun was needed.  I think my boys like it because they can see it happening to me.

Sometimes a fair point

Part of being religious is striking that balance.  Go too far in either direction, and you get abuses at best, heresy at worst.  So in Christianity, we have a Just and Merciful God.  A Loving and Powerful God.  We are to rely on God' grace and mercy, but we are to be sanctified and  strive for holiness.  Begin going in one way to the exclusion of others, and you've got problems.

I was right!

If National Geographic Channel can be believed   So it's been running a series on the 80s.  That's the 1980s.  The decade that formed me.  I was in 8th grade in 1980, and graduated college in 1990 (the extra year due to changing majors). So I'm somewhat familiar with the 80s.  I haven't watched the show, since shows like that are usually more flash than substance.  But I've seen a few clips here and there.

Last night, I caught the part where they talked of the TV movie The Day After.  For those who don't remember, that was a little Hollywood love letter to Ronald Reagan, explaining in dramatic form that his policies would lead to nuclear annihilation   It wasn't presented that way by Nat Geo.  Though the impact it had on Reagan was mentioned.  That made me wonder what impact it might have if we had Hollywood productions that directly attacked the policies of Obama or Clinton.  Might it jar them?  Not that Reagan was jarred the way the producers wanted.  It only encouraged him to step up his resolve to economically break the floundering Soviet Union.

But it did impress upon Reagan the need to step up, since each day we were at a nuclear standoff was a day someone could flinch.  Again, the Nat Geo show didn't mention that the movie itself was part of the grand 'we're all going to die because Reagan's president' mantra that we heard from the day Reagan took office.  Pushed by the emerging Left as the Boomer liberals began to seize control of our cultural institutions  the difference between 1980s and the 1950s was twofold: first, unlike the 50s where everyone knew there could be a nuclear war, in the early 80s, we were told there would be a nuclear war.  Big difference.  And unlike the 50s, where it was those rascally Ruskies who were the baddies and the reason why, if there's ever a war, it will be due to their godless evil, in the 80s, courtesy of the emergent Left, the reason for our inevitable doom was, well, us.  The US.   The warmongering Right and old Imperialist Washington.  We had met the enemies, and it was us.

Ronald Reagan as seen in the anti-Reagan video
for Genesis' song "Land of Confusion"

What Nat Geo did do was link this to an observation I've made for years.  For more than 20 years I've told people, including my parents, that this generation of instant gratification may not have started in the 80s, but it was given high octane gas in the 80s and put into hyper-drive.   This drumbeat of inevitable doom couldn't help but impress on a certain generation of young people the idea that saving and planning long term were exercises in futility.  Why worry about tomorrow when tomorrow won't be there?  While not the only reason, as no thing ever has only one reason, I've long maintained that the rather purposeful pounding on the desk that Reagan was going to kill Earth had a profound impact on an entire generation, even if we didn't realize it at the time.

Of course, again, Nat Geo doesn't link this to a politically motivated stunt or anything.  But it does say that the feeling of inevitable destruction may have had an impact on the decline of savings and preparing for later years in life that we see today (dropping interest rates are probably another reason, but that's for some other time).  Not that those of us alive couldn't see that by late 1983 when the movie aired, Reagan may not have been so keen to nuke the world as we'd been told.  It was clear by late 83 and early 84 that he wasn't planning on nuking everyone, that the economy was improving  and that America seemed strong again.  Which is why he was reelected.  But Hollywood tried its best to scare the bejesus out of us, and it did have an impact, even on Reagan himself.  For good or ill.  What impact might a Hollywood assault on the HHS mandate have I wonder.  But far easier was it to imagine a nuclear holocaust in 1983 than a 2013 Hollywood production that would ever challenge a liberal Democrat president.

Why the Catholic Blogosphere matters

Being busy right now, I've not had that chance to keep up with things, though I appreciate the steadily increased traffic, and some new folks commenting.  Keep up the good work, reading my stuff can't be easy! Anyway, I was thinking on the post about 'three types of Catholics', and the comment that I needed to get out more.

Here's the thing about the blogosphere.  And any communication for that matter.  The post itself was an afterthought.  Basically it was setting up for a discussion on the rise in prominence of the Catholic blogosphere, and the ascension of Catholic bloggers into positions of instruction and leadership within the American Catholic community (can't speak for other countries).  The 'below the waistline/above the waistline' was just supposed to be a humorous way of saying conservative/liberal.  The Church, like Protestants and any others in Western culture, is divided by this new revolutionary approach to the universe.

My point wasn't that all Catholics fit neatly into one of these scientifically established categories   My point was that while you have the two big divisions that everyone knows, there is a new approach emerging, obviously common across the blogosphere.  That approach seems to see fealty to the Vatican as above all whenever convenient,  is often willing to play fast and loose with how Church teaching is interpreted, and tends to fall into that Internet pit of basing morality on lofty issues not connected with ourselves, not on how we as individuals should act in our own personal lives (including how we treat others on the Internet).

Certain trends seem to emerge: I could be a sexually active homosexual and who's to say?  But take the wrong position on what our policy should be in Iran and poof!, it's off to Hell I go (assuming Hell still exists, another debate on the Internet).  Voting?  Just because it appears the Bishops go with a 'you should vote' perspective, clever bloggers have been able to show that we shouldn't vote for either major party, or vote at all, because that jeopardizes our souls (that's what the Bishops really secretly meant to mean).  And so on.

The reaction across some Catholic blogs to the Boston bombings is a good example.   Of course a strong anti-Americanism has emerged in some of the Catholic blogosphere.  Sad to say, there have always been Catholics who see opposition to America as a fundamental Catholic teaching.  The blogosphere, gathering bad ideas like a locker room gathers fungus, has become a breeding ground for encouraging this.  Just watching some of the conversations shows what hollow, almost deathly rotten, spiritual and ethical life this blogosphere can encourage.  From focusing on the bombers to the detriment of the victims, to ensuring it's all a vast government conspiracy, to mocking the methods used to apprehend the perpetrators, to boldly declaring our righteousness for a willingness to forgive the bombers when they never did anything to most bloggers anyway, all show very, very dangerous forms of Christian morality and spirituality.

It's not unlike what one gets in little isolated churches in the back hills of Kentucky.  As I've said before, the Internet, far from broadening our horizons, can actually isolate us if we're not careful, and can become exclusive communities of incestuous thinking.

Now, all of this matters because, over the past couple years, there has been an effort by Catholic leaders to point Catholics to the glories of social media and the Internet, including the blogosphere.  Many of these bloggers have become little celebrities in their own rights.  And they are being endorsed by Catholic leaders. From Pope Benedict to the USCCB, there have been moves to get the Church up with the times.  This includes bringing many bloggers in as bona fide experts on Catholic Faith.  I've seen pictures, and read accounts, of these bloggers being given the high five by Bishops, Archbishops, even a Cardinal or two.  The UCCSB has included discussing ways to open up Catholics to the blogosphere in particular  and the Internet in general.

Either this means that the leaders are unaware of what these bloggers teach.  Which is a possibility  since sometimes various bloggers are quite different when they speak to a parish, conference or meeting with Church leaders.  Or they know exactly what they teach, and the Church is moving into a phase of spiritual living whereby the above qualities are exactly what the Church leaders advocate.  I hope not.  I hope it's the former.  But in any event, as Catholics are encouraged to go to the Internet, Social Media, the Blogosphere, and other forums, it's worth taking a long look at what is out there.  Not all are this way of course.  There are many great blogs that are inspiring and hit that balanced path that seems to reflect what the Church has actually taught.  But the bad are hardly the rare exception.  And sadly, not all were that way to begin with, but have become that way due to the increase of fans who cheer them on, encourage them to judge and declare Raca, and assure them that this 'let it happen to others as long as it doesn't happen to us' ethic is just what Jesus would have done.

Looks like the second Boston Bomber has been caught

Kudos and high fives to our law enforcement agencies, who put it out on the line to apprehend a dangerous felon, a multiple murderer who may well have killed again.  Prayers continue to be with the victims, their families and loved ones, and all who have been directly affected by this carnage.

And for a look into the bleak future

I pass along a post that was passed to me. Read it at your own risk.  You've been warned. As I say many times, I have no idea what the next genocidal mass slaughter of humanity will look like, or how bad it will be.  But I'm almost positive of exactly why it will happen.