Yep. Every day I'm more and more convinced that I have no more clue about what's going on in the world than a villager living 2000 years ago would have known. The ease with which the media makes mountains out of molehills, makes molehills out of mountains, or simply refuses to mention molehills or mountains when convenient, has convinced me that Madagascar could sink into the ocean and I'd never know it but that it benefited the various news outlets of the world to tell me.
Therefore, everything they say, and the way the say it, must be filtered through the question 'why do they want me to know this, know it this way, and not know what they're not telling me?'. I'd say when a relationship comes to this level of distrust, it's time to end the relationship.
If anyone ever defined bulldog tenacity, it is Cleveland Browns fans. One of the most storied and celebrated sports franchises ever, sporting some of the greatest athletes to ever play the game of football, the Browns ran into, shall we say, rough times. Well, rough years. OK, rough decades. Over more than a half century of rough. In fact, my wife wasn't born the last time they looked this good.
That's been tough for some of the craziest fans this side of Liverpool. True, there have been times when the Browns almost looked like they might recaptures some of their ancient glories. Nonetheless, the Browns had an almost divine ability to make sow's ears out of silk purses. From unimaginable fumbles to blown leads, losing became as much a tradition for Cleveland as tailgating.
This culminated in the great sell out in 1995, in which Art Modell became the most hated man in Cleveland by selling the franchise to Baltimore. Normally, that's that. If the city gets another franchise to replace a lost one, it usually gets another franchise. But the fans would have none of it. Against all odds, they pushed, pulled, prodded, bit, scratched and kicked to not only get another football franchise in the city, but to make sure it was the Cleveland Browns, part deux.
I won't kid and pretend it has been wonderful. In fact, Cleveland Browns and hopeless losers had almost become synonymous in the sports world. If you wanted an analogy for someone destined to lose because they wouldn't do what it took to win, you used Cleveland. Season after season the owners, staff and coaches almost seemed hell-bent on losing. Fans began to wonder if there wasn't money under the table or some desire to pack up and leave. Nobody could be this bad.
And then they pulled the Baker Mayfield card. Mayfield was a hotshot, and I won't say he's the most personable figure in sports. He is, after all, the one who arrogantly planted a flag in the middle of OSU's famed Horseshoe Stadium after a stunning victory over the Buckeyes. But he's good. He's clever, quick and commands a certain level of leadership that has been missing in Cleveland for many years.
Then Cleveland fired its coach, Hue Jackson - a regular occurrence. Despite charges of racism, it likely had more to do with his 3 and 36 record. That Mayfield was rumored to be behind the push to get a more capable coach might have caused enough controversy to derail his career. But that hasn't happened. Stacking the team with even more offensive talent, particularly running back phenom Nick Chubb, the Browns have done what nobody imagined possible only a few years ago.
Remember, just a couple years back before Mayfield, many were saying it was time to put the franchise out of tis misery. Talk was circulating of the Browns leaving Cleveland for good. One more failed season, and locals felt it was inevitable that their beloved team would finally be a thing of the past. So that we now sit in the playoffs, heading into the second round, is as unlikely as, well, 2020. We know Cleveland, and we know our ability to squander the greatest chances, but we're still hoping.
So in tribute to the many times Cleveland looked like it might be on the move, only to pull a Browns and lose it all, here's one of the all time best novelty songs from back in the day. It was written by a songwriter who did little novelty songs, often parodies of songs before Weird Al did it better. But in the Christmas season of 1980, when the Brown's earned the moniker 'the Kardiac Kids' due to a string of last second, impossible wins, it was the song everyone was requesting.
May these things bring us a little happiness and togetherness in these troubled times. After all, pundits were assuring us in December of 1980 that America's great blunder in electing a half-baked, monkey movie, war mongering cowboy was going to plunge us into nuclear annihilation as sure as Norman Lear was liberal, so it was a breath of fresh air back then, too:
So last night was the inevitable close to a crazy season for the Ohio State Buckeyes football team. We knew we were going to lose. Alabama's coach Nick Saban, already one of the most successful coaches in sporting history, had fielded one of his best teams ever. Unlike so many other programs, his team made it through 2020 largely unscathed.
While other teams had games cancelled, practices cancelled, and a constant upheaval on their starting lineups, Alabama played together and stayed together and grew through the complete season. Many teams had practices cut short, resulting in a lack of toning, conditioning and growing as a team. Injuries were off the scale as the players weren't prepared for the rigors of football. Teams had trouble hitting their stride since, on any given week, the same players might not be present to jell as a cohesive unit. But Alabama made it through almost entirely intact.
This helped them even more since most teams Alabama played were already weakened due to faltering and floundering. Typically with college football, there is a sort of bell curve in efficiency. You start each season with a new lineup. At first things are rocky as players learn to depend on each other and find the best way to be a well oiled machine. By mid-season, they're hitting their peak and doing their best. By the end, however, injuries, hits and players gone for the season begin to take a toll and it becomes almost a matter or attrition. For Alabama this year, since so many opponents were struggling on one leg at best, its already crack team had all the benefits of a full season together, while not getting hit nearly as hard by opponents and therefore not suffering the same losses one might otherwise expect by end of season playoffs.
OSU, on the other hand, was a dumpster fire from the beginning. Since the Big 10 initially decided to cancel fall sports, OSU missed the crucial pre-season practices and conditioning that lays the groundwork for the season. When the seasons was brought back, all Big 10 teams were already at a deficit. Then because of strict Covid regulations, OSU (like so many others) had several games cancelled, including one it had to cancel. This made it so a special dispensation had to be given by the NCAA just for OSU to get into the playoffs - something that was controversial. After all, we were undefeated but didn't have enough victories to qualify for playoffs! In the meantime, the lack of training and conditioning took its toll as OSU, again like most teams, suffered unusually high levels of injuries with each game. Therefore, at no point was the same OSU team on the field more than once, with each game seeing different lineups forced to fumble about to find a stride.
Add to this a relatively new (though surprising clever and effective) coach, and the controversies surrounding us just being in the playoffs, and it didn't look good. Especially when we found out we first would be put against our old nemeses Clemson. Clemson was that Achilles' Heel for us. We had never beaten Clemson before. Clemson cost us our legendary coach Woody Hayes. Clemson served us one of our most - one of the most - humiliating defeats in college football only a few years ago. Clemson was definitely in our heads. Though Clemson had also struggling due to 2020 issues, we were sure we were the underdogs going against them in the first round.
But something happened last year that changed things. Last year, we played Clemson in the same playoff round. Fielding a powerhouse team along with a rookie coach that shocked all of football, we had mopped the floor with every team sent our way. Despite that, we were still the underdogs against Clemson when we met them in early 2020.
What happened next has become the stuff of infamy in Ohio. We played Clemson that night as well as any game we had played. We held them off, kept them from pulling ahead, and heading into late fourth quarter, it looked like we might just pull off a stunning upset victory. And then - one of the worst calls in the history of any sport ever. Even detractors of OSU later admitted it was horrible.
If you don't know football, I won't go into the history of replays and overturned calls. Suffice it to say it stunned everyone. Clemson fumbled the ball and OSU recovered the fumble and ran it down for what could have been a game winning touchdown. But the play was challenged by the officials. Slow motion replay confirmed the Clemson player had complete control of the ball, had fumbled, and the OSU player had recovered. And then, for reasons nobody understands, the officials reversed the play, removing OSU's touchdown with only moments left in the game. It would be like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and saying, "Sure, but I don't see a hole in the ground."
Granted, the old rule is that if you lose because of one bad call, you deserve to lose. That's typically the case. But there have been some calls so awful that even skeptics have had to admit the game was lost because of that single call. This was one of those cases. Months later and few denied that had it not been for that clearly wrong call, OSU would have won.
That went down hard, and was a motivating factor for us taking the field this year against Clemson, once again as the underdogs. But we were driven this time. Why? Because we felt cheated. The whole program felt cheated. That Clemson's coach decided to dig at us and mock us, rather than being contrite, only made it easier to want a pound of flesh. And a pound is what we got. In a shocking upset, we beat Clemson and beat them badly. If nothing else happened this year, we got what we wanted and that was giving Clemson its comeuppance for having won through such dubious means the year earlier. That, to most, made it a winning season if nothing else did.
Of course that meant we were then up against the beast that is Alabama in the championship game. Sporting one of the best defenses in college football, the best offense, one of the best receiving squads in college football, and a Heisman trophy winning wide receiver considered one of the best to have played in many a year, Alabama was a juggernaut. We knew we had little hope.
Alabama arrived last night almost refreshed. It had barely been touched all season. Its team had been together from the beginning. They were tight, efficient, like that proverbial well oiled machine. Compared to them, OSU was a mess. Half of our few remaining defensive starters were out from injury or Covid. We had lost some of our best offensive players. Our quarterback had received a massive hit to his ribs last week and was clearly not up to par. And on the first play, we lost the running back who had emerged in the last weeks of the season and who had been the major reason for our previous two victories. It went down from there.
Despite it all, we put up a decent fight. In fact, our score - three touchdowns and a field goal - from such a broken and shattered team shows how pro-offense the game of football has become (hence the staggering stats attributed to players like Tom Brady). That's the result of so many safeguards and limitations placed on defenders over the years. But our attempts simply couldn't match Alabama's talent and near flawless execution. It looked every bit the team with everything going for it, and we looked every bit the team with all cards stacked against us.
But you know what? That's OK. We lost. Most fans this morning tipped a hat to Saban, who pulled his foot off the gas by the fourth quarter, not wanting to humiliate us or our coach. People do that when they respect each other. Alabama had at least three more touchdowns in its arsenal, but that wouldn't do. Saban was as good as pulling his punches, and we all knew it. And we admire Saban and Alabama all the more for it.
So you see, it's not that people can't lose, or are always pissed when they lose, or get outraged at losing or not getting what they want. I'm sure there are a few crazies out there this morning in Buckeye land with the conspiracy theories. But everyone I've seen, from news to online to friends and acquaintances, are content. Sad of course. Nobody likes to lose. But it isn't the rage and blood boiling of last year when we felt we had been cheated. People being cheated will eventually find a way to retaliate because nobody likes to be cheated. We prefer to win of course, but if we lose fair and square, we'll take that, too.
I just thought I'd throw that out there. People don't always get mad just because they're not getting their way. They may resolve to work harder, play harder and practice harder next time. But people often can accept defeat and even admire those who defeat them for a job well done - when it's fair and square. It's when they feel cheated, when they feel they were playing a rigged system, that sets them off. Especially if they feel cheated all the time, and feel those who could do something to change the system and make it fairer are refusing to do so.
On Wednesday, thousands gathered to protest an election they believe to
be fraudulent.At some point, hundreds
decided to break into the Capital Building, with dozens vandalizing, breaking
windows and trespassing, and about four people died, though the connection between their deaths and the actual events is still pending.This was called a coup, an insurrection, a civil war, a threat to our very democracy, and the worst evil Washington has ever seen.They were universally condemned by politicians on both sides,
religious leaders and media outlets.Police
and National Guard were called, tear gas was used, and at least one protester
shot and killed.Medical experts are
saying it could lead to a super-spreader for Covid.
Last summer, tens upon tens of thousands of people
gathered for weeks across multiple cities to protest the killing of George
Floyd. During that time thousands of rioters destroyed property,
burned buildings, looted and robbed, ruined livelihoods, assaulted media
outlets, Federal buildings and burned churches, killed and assaulted dozens of innocent
people, and it was called ‘mostly peaceful protesters’ time and again, as
politicians on both sides, religious leaders, and media outlets lent their full support to the
protests.Police and National Guard were
called in, tear gas was used, and protesters were shot, with some
fatalities.Oh, and medical experts
assured us none of these protests could lead to a super-spreader for Covid.
As an aside, a growing list of pundits, celebrities,
religious leaders, politicians and journalists insist the stark difference in
how law enforcement handled these two events proves systemic racism. In addition, various tech corporations and media giants, at times with the support of Democrats, began banning Republican politicians, pundits, activists and others in any way linked to the Wednesday protests from modern media and communication platforms.
If people want to know why there is a seething rage
among half the US population, this is it.
Why? Because it's the greatest threat to humanity since Satan? Because it's the worst demonstration of evil since the Holocaust? No. That's how the press/Left/mainstream conservative leaders are framing it. No, it's the day America died because mainstream conservative leaders, Republicans, religious figures, and those we imagined would stand firm have buckled and accepted carte blanche the left's narratives and demands.
None of this is to say I support the worst of what happened. It is to say I can recognize propaganda, lies, falsehoods and appeals to idiocy when I see it. When I see on the morning news that "health experts" are concerned the Wednesday "riots" could be a super-spreader for Covid, and yet remember the same deny BLM "protests" could be a super-spreader for Covid, I know we are sinking into Pravda levels of brainwashing.
The problem is, those who know what's happening, and sometimes even bemoan what's happening, nonetheless continue to cave, surrender, compromise, grovel, or join the very things they lament when the manure hits the fan.
Right now a growing number of right leaning figures are toying with supporting the forcible removal of Trump from office with only days left in his presidency. That whole maneuver is merely a ploy to incite more radical Trump supporters to do what they did on Wednesday. The Left needs Trump/MAGA to fame as Hitler incarnate, therefore tearing down all standards, principles, values, morals, rights and freedoms in order that they should be defeated.
The worst thing on Wednesday wasn't what happened. For the Left, the worst thing was that it was over in a few hours. They need that sort of thing, but they need it to be more than it was. They need those film clips and photos. They need death and destruction. They know that the same ones who dismissed the carnage and destruction last summer can call this the worst evil since the Holocaust and will be supported by a growing number of - everyone.
But they need it to happen, and they're betting they'll get just enough of those in the opposition to sign on. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer of the Left's opposition will stand firm. That is the most important takeaway. It isn't burning cities or breached capitals. It isn't riots and racism. It isn't storming senate hearings or anything. It's creating photo ops to use to crush the opposition, and rejoicing that with each passing day, fewer and fewer of the Left's opposition are willing to fight.
I'm sure, like anything in history except the American Civil War, there were many factors and causes behind what happened yesterday. But let's face it, the GOP has forever been the party of 'snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.'
The odds were already stacked in the Democrats' favor. You had two sub-par GOP candidates to begin with, plus one with a fair share of ethical 'indiscretion' charges buzzing about. You also had a Democrat juggernaut and leftists superstar in Stacy Abrams (who the Left/Press would obviously love to see in the Oval Office someday), pulling the strings. Then you had 2020, Covid, and the idea that all rules and standards are now out the window, and out of dumb, blind luck, the changes all go to the advantage of Democrats.
Even with political acumen that would shame Metternich, the GOP would have had an uphill climb. So it should come as no surprise that, with this high of deck stacked against it, the GOP was all but torpedoed when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stepped in and did one of the lamest, stupidest, and most disastrous political maneuvers I've ever witnessed.
Now I've watched conservatives and Republicans (not always the same) do this sort of thing for most of my life. Once Reagan left, conservatives lost their last political party. No small number of Republicans would gladly see those Jesus freaks and other social traditionalist wackos head for the hills. Since then it's been a battle for who gets the Republican compass, often seeing the worst extremes of various sides having the loudest say - and often aided by the media always trying to play up the bad press for the GOP.
So I get that those of more libertarian leanings wouldn't support a massive government bailout with no clear way of paying for itself. I understand that it's key in conservative circles to pine for a smaller, less intrusive government. I know conservatives fancy themselves as the ones advocating personal responsibility and accountability in life; to roll up the sleeves, grab the boot straps, and overcome whatever comes our way.
And there is nothing wrong with these things. I support them too, at least to a point. But here's the thing. When fighting on philosophical or principled grounds, do the fighting up front. Especially where the government is concerned. If you don't want the government interfering, then take the slings and arrows of a hostile news media and stand your ground months ago and prevent the government from swooping in and wrecking the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of Americans. That's when you fight, at whatever cost to your reputation, your political career, or your ability to attend the best parties with the Washington elite.
You do not - repeat, not, that is not, ever not - decide that the time to take the stand is after you've been defeated, after you acquiesced, after you went ahead and pushed through legislation that stands against your values, after you've conceded one loss after another, and then demonstrate your resolve by torpedoing the one part of a bloated government overreach that could actually help individual Americans hurt by your inability to keep the government from hurting them. Bad optics doesn't begin to describe it.
This is when you stand up and say something along the following:
"We labor continuously to prevent America from slipping into yet another failed socialist state of the kind we've witnessed all too often. To that end, we did attempt to find more constructive, targeted and beneficial ways to fight the onslaught of the Coronavirus while minimizing the harm done to millions of Americans in the process. Nonetheless, we were unable to stop some of the worst examples of government intrusion and oppression we've witnessed in our lifetime. While we continue to stand firm on the principles of small government and the freedom of Americans to pursue their own ends, we realize our failure resulted in a massive government driven overreach that has devastated the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong other than live in our country during such a time as this. Despite such a measure cutting against our core values as this legislation, we understand our failure should not be resolved on the backs of those who were harmed by our government's lack of control or vision. Therefore, we will stop any unnecessary spending, exploitation or agendas in the form of massive bailouts for international or corporate interests, but will ensure that the spending we do endorse at this point goes directly to those businesses, institutions and families who have been harmed by our inability to stand firm when we should have done so."
Or something along those lines. Not 'We'll go ahead and push through whatever spending there is, but by golly, now we will take a stand that will only devastate the lives of millions of schmucks who didn't have the good sense of becoming millionaires, since that's the type of bold sacrifice we crave!' As long as Republicans act as if there is no limit to the lives of other dolts they're willing to sacrifice so they don't have to take the big stands that might compromise their popularity inside the Beltway, expect more of what we saw in Georgia yesterday.
An unusual pic including yours truly. I've never cared to get my picture taken, much less have it put out there in the world for all to see. But I couldn't resist having myself with my boys and my Mom at the dawn of her 90th birthday. My wonderful wife is the photographer. From what I can tell, and all things considered, it was a nice 90th birthday yesterday. May God bless her and grant her many years.
Oh, and I might be biased, but given how well the four young fellows surrounding her turned out, she must have done something right.
Here's another case of what I wrote about here, though I have no clue who the individual tweeting is. I doubt it matters to most. The point is, those going after EWTN are echoing the modern leftist notion that there are no rights to exist or be free but by fealty to leftist dogmas.
As I said, if Ms. Pervis was removed because she merely tried to open up dialogue regarding Black Lives Matter or other issues of racism, then that would be a problem. Especially if she was willing to do things like looking at the Left's insistence that we must forever lower standards and expectations where African Americans are concerned and that such an approach might well be behind the staggering crime and homicide, drug and abortion rates in the black community.
If, however, she sanctified BLM in all its glory, and accepted carte blanche all of its manifold doctrines, including doctrines at odds with basic common decency, much less Catholic doctrine, or furthermore accepted the racist ethnic hate behind the BLM and the Left's exploitation of it for political gain, then yeah. Maybe it wasn't a brilliant move, but I'd stand behind removing someone advocating white supremacy, therefore I would stand behind removing someone doing the same for other ethnic supremacy ideologies. And no, I don't define such things as merely disagree with me. I mean actually endorsing the notion that people should be judged, exonerated or condemned based on skin color or other ethnic characteristics.
So we'll see. I'm not seeing much in terms of defending EWTN. Most seem rather silent about this. Perhaps it's a tempest in a teapot. Maybe ETWN was wrong. But with the media+twitter age, we've learned that a single person with a tweet can cause the entire course of human civilization to turn on a dime, and suddenly moms and dads don't exist, and truth is a bygone notion under threat of retaliation. And with this has emerged a new era of digital witch hunts and lunch mobs that would have mad McCarthy drool. The kind that this backlash against EWTN is beginning to sound like.
OK, 2020 is over and in the history books. In most ways, 2020 sucked. It just did. But here's the dirty little secret, at least from our house. Compared to previous years, 2020 wasn't so bad. In fact, in some ways we actually came out ahead for the first time in many years.
How? It's too involved and convoluted to explain everything. Let's just say that it isn't so much that we did better than previous years as much as the laundry list of hits we took over the last half dozen years sort of dried up. Not that we were without problems. We had them. We had the usual life events, a flooded basement here, a busted appliance there, dealing with Sears over here. We had some ailments. We had the ups and downs of life. And we had 2020.
But I noticed something. We suffered from Covid era issues like anyone else. We had plans that were dashed. This was supposed to be our youngest son's 'big year.' Traditionally, it was when the boys were eleven that they were able to do all the fun stuff, like go with Dad to an OSU football game. He had looked forward to this year since more than a year ago. And poof! Nothing. It's the same across the board. Just like it is for everyone.
We had things we wanted that were taken. We had goals completely derailed. The boys had to scramble to figure out college in this new environment. We worried about the health of loved ones, especially my Mom who lives with us. And we hoped and prayed that the virus would go away without harming any more than possible.
But we were in it with everyone. Everyone was on the same page. Not just in America, but the world. There were billions waking up to the same thing as we were. As bad as it was, it was a shared experience. And there is a difference between that, and struggling and floundering when everyone else is on a different trajectory.
You see, for the previous years it wasn't shared. Like him or not, Trump presided over quite a robust recovery, one that was easy to see in sold houses and new cars on the road. Easy to hear in the uptick in teachers talking about going to Disney World again, or which cruise their families will take. Easy to see in just the fact that the 'new normal' of monthly Islamic terror attacks suddenly dried up.
But while so many were reaping the benefits of this, our family was dodging one thing after another. It was like that scene at the end of The Empire Strike Back when Vader uses some telekinesis ability to hurtle one piece of machinery after another at Luke until Luke, battered and beaten, is knocked out of a window and into a vast pit. That was us.
For year after year we were hit, and hit, and hit. While we watched so many others begin to recoup and climb out of the post-08 pit and get going again in life, we seemed forever stuck back, clinging to the edges and barely able to hold on.
Through blessings from Church, fellow Christians, friends and wonderful folks on the Internet I've met, we were given just the plank needed to keep dry for another month. But it was always a temp affair, until the next punch came. And sometimes they were big punches. Sometimes death was tugging at someone's shoulders in our home, or auto accidents, or life changing health crises, or year ending injuries, or major damage to our home, or, well, you get the point.
In fact, in a very bad theological manner, that was one thing that began pushing us away from the Orthodox Church and back into Catholic arms. The whole string of 'bad' began the year we met the local Orthodox priest. It kicked into full steam by the time we all moved over and became part of the Orthodox church down the road. And it kept going. Week after week it seemed something happened to keep some, most or even all of us from attending the Divine Liturgy.
Soon we began having a hard time connecting with the church at all. There were problems with Orthodoxy to be sure, and I felt had we been able to get rooted in the tradition, we might have been able to overcome them. But it just seemed as though it wasn't meant to be. Month after month, sometimes week after week, we were hit with something that hamstrung us and sent us back to square one - if we were lucky.
As I've written before, we lost much of what we had when we became Catholic. We entered in the early 00s, and by then it was no longer Scott Hahn's conversion story. For reasons nobody knows, our former bishop acted as if he would rather see the Church sink into the 8th Circle of Hell than see a former Protestant clergy even clean toilets in the diocese. Because of that, when the big crash of 2008 hit, we were pretty much swinging in the breeze. It was by God's grace acting through those around us that we avoided homelessness and starvation.
But it's forever been running on one near-tripping foot ever since. You know, how you step forward and get off balance and just can't get yourself going without stumbling. Or you start a video game and you know from the beginning that you're shafted and you might as well reload and start from scratch. Same here. We were one step from going over the cliff for the next decade, setting us up for the five year journey into hell that we went through until - guess when - 2020!
Again, we didn't have any massive boon, but we received many blessings from family, Christians on the Internet and our local churches - including our old stomping grounds at the local Catholic church (complete with new gift from God priest from Nigeria). And yes, from the State. We were actually able to take a breath and take a step forward. Money from my son's accident (which wasn't his fault) actually gave us a boost, though much of it went to pay off massive medical bills from him and others the previous couple years. See, we have medical insurance and that means massive out of pocket expenses. My Mom seemed to be improving, or at least stabilizing. And by February, we were starting to whisper about taking an actual vacation this year.
Then Covid hit. Much of it, however, hit us like everyone else. But here's the thing. Many of the things people have been hit with, many things they've struggled with, many things they've had to sacrifice due to Covid are where we have been for years. As my boys said, it's not that we are better off, but we were ahead of the curve. We've already been stripped down to bare bones living and facing the loss of many things on a yearly or even monthly basis. We already homeschooled and my sons have been living at home while going to college to avoid debt.
So when the Covid hit, and the measures to fight it threw everyone upside down, we were already there, so to speak. We were already where others had been thrown into. As others struggled to get their heads around not eating out or having to watch the kids every day or watching important goals wrecked, we had been there for years. As we heard people lament their lost plans or upside down existence, we sympathized because that's where we've been for at least a half dozen years.
Our prayer, therefore, is that people catch up with us. We certainly did our best Thoreau and simplified over the years, by necessity. But in so doing, when 2020 hit, we were actually prepared. Financially we have been on the limb, but that's nothing new. Many of the other things, however, were simply par for the course in our lives, and therefore we've gone through 2020 more or less unscathed. I hesitate to say it's the best year we've had for some time. But I'll say it's not been bad, and in many ways, the previous years are what we have to thank for having prepared us for what caught so many others by surprise.
I wrote a few weeks ago about a birthday present in the form of the 1980's Magnum P.I. DVD series. That was good timing, since I found on the news that Tom Selleck, star of the series, is currently starring in some other new police/detective show. Apparently he caused a stir by saying he wasn't going to approach the BLM issue from the 'Cops as mass murdering psycho Nazi killers' perspective. If it was approached it would be balanced, and not anti-cop/anti-American propaganda.
That alone was enough to make Mr. Selleck go up one notch on my respect meter. Beyond that, it turns out he's also a professed Christian. Granted, I know little about him. In the 80s, during the majority of Magnum's run, Selleck was the global sex symbol against which all sex symbols were measured. He had replaced Burt Reynolds, who had dominated the late 1970s as America's big heartthrob. If anything, Selleck appeared even bigger, and during the mid-80s, it seemed like he was everywhere.
Naturally, being a sex symbol, one assumed his lifestyle and moral groundings were not exactly Bible camp informed. I don't know if he converted later in life, fell away as an adult, or anything really. I just saw this article in which he openly credits Jesus Christ for the blessings of his life. In this day and age, that would be like openly crediting Stalin back in the 1950s.
Of course this doesn't mean he's my hero now, or I assume he's perfect, or I take him as the fourth member of the Holy Trinity. It's just nice to see someone who has already taken a moral stance against the prevailing winds of evil in our modern age come out and drop the J-Word.
FWIW, I don't get EWTN in our viewing area. We've never had access to it. That always bothered Marcus when I worked at CHNI. Though I don't know why. It isn't as if I had anything to do about it. But nonetheless, I have never had access to ETWN on a regular basis.
So there might be things about it I don't like or agree with. There might be people I don't care for. I'm sure it's probably changed over the years as most things change. But I know one thing. In an age where I find out that war games - of which I'm fond - are starting to be attacked and banned when they simulate anything to do with Europe or America in the last 400 years because Racism!(TM), I'm going to be mighty sensitive about a sudden uprising of Catholics saying EWTN must be attacked and brought low because Racism!(TM).
If, however, she fully endorsed BLM and all its glorious manifold evils, I can also sympathize with the network. After all, BLM has been a major player in the post-human agenda whereby we return to a world of discrimination, privilege and condemnation based on, among other things, skin color. Consider that black Americans can, apparently, say All Lives Matter while non-blacks or non-leftists say All Lives Matter and reveal their racism as a result. Just like the N-Word for rappers vs. white college girls.
I'm still looking for more information on this. It's really not something I'm altogether invested in, other than opposing the growing McCarthy-like Orwellian '30s Germany dream world of the modern Left and its joys in destroying, banning, oppressing, attacking, or any other assault on those who dare challenge the dogmas of the leftist state and its own brand of ethnic cleansing, race hate and totalitarianism.
That Catholics, including those who once came out against such tactics, are behind this just goes to show you. If I find out more, I may adjust my initial thoughts accordingly. Meanwhile, only one of a group of Catholics going after EWTN at this point:
For the record, I've never been brainwashed. Or at least I assume I haven't been brainwashed. Or let me put it this way. Up until now I've always assumed I never have been brainwashed.
I realize the term is a loaded one, and conjurers up images of Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey waiting for Angela Lansbury to play the Queen of Diamonds. That sort of brainwashing that we always associated with radical totalitarian states, communist regimes, and Nazi reigns of terror. Or, for my generation, the evil Big Brother government in the good old US of A during the Reagan years.
Nonetheless, I don't think it has to be that sort of Hollywood type of shenanigan to rate as brainwashing, if you think about it. Perhaps brainwashing is a little more subtle than just being trained to become a mindless monkey who picks up a pistol and shoots an innocent carton of milk with a politician behind it. Maybe, just maybe, it can be more clever, more slick and almost unrecognizable even as you recognize it.
I thought of that as my wife and I continue our little skip through 80s nostalgia courtesy of the Magnum P.I set our boys got us for our birthdays. We were watching the show and laughing and musing on how things were and how they changed. Some of it was obviously the radical social justice movement we see scourging our nation today that has brought about the changes. But something else caught my attention as we compared life c. 1980 and life today.
As we watched the show, we noticed no end of scenes that took part around the beach, or were centered around sporting events (to display the prodigious athleticism of the stars), or in various gatherings that demonstrated the cultural trappings of the illustrious estate in which T. Magnum lived. When we saw those, we quipped 'they're not social distancing!' or pointed out 'hey, they're not wearing masks!' Sometimes we would see a fight scene and comment 'that's not a safe distance!' Of course it was all joking. It was all in good fun. But I notice something.
Each time we see things like that, and it hasn't just been with Magnum P.I. DVDs, we say the same thing. If we don't say it, we think it. I know I do. I almost instinctively see some old movie or show and say to myself 'not social distancing!' It's funny. And yet, it's there. I can barely watch or see anything that this doesn't come to my mind. An old sitcom, some epic from the 1950s, even The Empire Strikes Back. We watched that in tribute to the Star Wars actors who passed this year and my sons wondered how they could social distance on the Millennium Falcon.
After all, we hear 'Covid' at least five hundred times a day. On the news we'll hear references to the pandemic at every turn. Whatever the story, Covid is injected into the segment. If it's a kid's play in school, the distancing will be mentioned due to Covid. If a sporting event, Covid. If a political story, Covid. If the weather or traffic is mentioned, somehow the pandemic is slipped into the discussion. Probably half to two thirds of every newscast is about Covid, sometimes with heartbreaking (and scary) stories about the toll it has taken on its victims.
And it's not just the news. At the grocery store, every ten minutes or so there is a special announcement reminding us to help fight Covid. I hear it on the radio. I see it on signs driving. They have commercials that are minute long scare stories, warning of Covid and the need to do all that we're told to do to combat the virus. It's everywhere.
So I thought about that. I thought about the fact that almost any time we see a gathering, on the news, in sports, driving down the street, or in old movies, our reaction is the same. And it's not just the family. Others have said the same thing. Friends my wife works with have noticed the same tendency. I've also seen individuals on the Internet comment about having the same reactions. We just see a crowd, even in an old painting or a photo from a hundred years ago, and we automatically think 'Ah, there you go, no social distancing; no masks!' It's all in fun. Right?
They say we all make an impact on people whose lives we enter and leave; we all leave legacies with those whose paths we cross. Far be it from me to challenge traditional wisdom. Besides, I think it's true. For instance:
I'm glad to see at least one thing I had to offer has remained in Mr. Shea's collective memory. He may not remember it was me, but it was. Shortly after I began following his blog, I - who still remembered the Star Wars Holiday Special with horror - emailed him a link to the Special on Youtube right around November. He responded that he had forgotten all about that - which was good news for him!
He then posted the link on his blog under the humorous intro 'From the decade that taste forgot.' I can't remember if he attributed it to me, or even a generic reader. But when I met him at EWTN studios a year or so later, I went up to him and introduced myself as 'the guy who sent you the Star Wars Holiday Special link.' He immediately knew who I was with that intro, and we had a rather pleasant visit.
Since then, of course, one of us has gone off the rails. Who did so depends on who you speak to. By early this year, I gave his new blog a chance, but felt the only thing about it was that it was worse than his old blog, if that was possible. With the exception of a few who still link to his Twitter or similar Facebook posts, and who sometimes email me or others an image, I never go near Mark's online postings. I have to admit, the sun shines the brighter for it.
But it's nice to see that something I sent him continues to bring a little levity to him and his followers each year, no matter what they stand for. It almost seems to be a yearly tradition. I doubt he remembers now who first sent him that. For that matter, I doubt he remembers I'm the one who introduced him to Sam Harris's works. But I did. That's probably how it is. When we impact others, or they impact us, we may not know it or remember it, but that's how it happens in this world.
We don't always have white Christmases here in the Buckeye State. They are less common in recent years than when I was growing up. Nonetheless, this year - 2020 - saw one of the most beautiful and enjoyable white Christmases we can remember. It snowed all Christmas Eve, and since we were staying home to watch the Midnight Mass anyway, driving conditions didn't get in the way. Not like last year with the craziest and foggiest day I had ever seen. The next day, Christmas, it snowed throughout, with mostly a flurry of flakes drifting down the whole day. That was when these shots were snapped for Christmas. My Mom stayed dutifully inside where it was warm.
The family, Christmas Day 2020
The boys and me, Christmas Eve - It was cold out there!
For that time in our lives, the Monkees seemed ancient history, as did most things in the 1960s. This was despite the fact that by the 80s, the 1960s were being sanctified by our media culture as the decade when gods roamed the Earth. That was when all was right with the world; all was sex hope and drugs optimism for the future. At least until the dark days, until Reagan.
As superficial as their contribution to the decade of the infallible 60s were, the Monkees still had a part to play. And that was gobbled up by MTV over 1986, which was the 20th Anniversary of the Monkees' primetime premier. This culminated in a little Christmas skit featuring the Monkees who had agreed to tour together, and the one Monkee (Mike Nesmith) who didn't join the reunion appearing in a surprising cameo.
Ah, I looked back on that in 2011 and beheld the relative innocence of it all. This was MTV, the cutting edge of pop culture, of the 80s' decade of greed meets the lag over 70s and 60s porn culture of drugs and sex. This is the MTV that would eventually produce shows encouraging drug use, group sex and even accepting attitudes toward teen suicide. Yet it looks as family oriented and tame as anything Disney would show today, if it would even do so.
I commented on the post then about how things had changed. How, by 2011, the world had gone in directions we never imagined in 1986. For instance, we had elected our first black president, and the narrative was still about how this was a monumental leap forward in our country's troubled past regarding race relations. After all, as my son noted, if Obama lost reelection in 2012, they could pull the race card and say his reelection loss proves we're still a vile, racist Nazi state. When he was reelected, however, that card was gone. So it became incumbent upon the Left to find new ways to keep the 'America as Racist Nazi State' narrative going, hence the rise of BLM and the 1619 Project mentality only after 2012. Things I hadn't imagined when I posted the reflection of Christmases past in 2011.
So I got to thinking about what has happened since 2011 that is different. When I looked back in 2011 at the previous 25 years, and how much had changed, I also pondered the future. How much would change? What is different now? After all, I wondered what things would be like in ten years back when I posted that.
Below are a few observations of things that are completely off the scale from what I imagined would be in 2011, even then I knew they would be as different now as things were back then 25 years after the Monkees sang Christmas:
* No such thing as boys and girls? That's right kiddies. Beyond a doubt number one on my list of 'didn't see that coming.' Apparently the entire global scientific community was 100% wrong for the history of the global scientific community. All those little cartoons about DNA and genes and genitals and sexual reproduction were just a vast heterosexual Christian conspiracy. It turns out there is no objective gender, just like the mysterious connection between sex and procreation has yet to be solved. And more to the point, if you insist boys and girls do exist, you can be fired, fined and in some enlightened cultures, threatened with legal retaliation. In 2011 I did not see that coming by a long shot.
* Forgiveness, freedom and equality are simply tools of white supremacy and European colonialism. Apparently added to this list is a growing number of subjects including math, astronomy, history and almost anything under the sun. In fact, a song or movie or book by a white person can be assumed to be racist because it's by a white person. At that point, it can be edited, banned or labeled with disclaimers accordingly. Hence the dearth of commercials and advertisements featuring whites or white families. Watch TV for a day and you could count on one hand minus three fingers the number of Caucasians featured in ads. The above MTV clip would not happen today, if for no other reason the majority of whites featured in the performances. Remember, statues and pictures of Mary or Jesus done in a European manner were being destroyed simply because of skin color. I haven't seen such a purposeful purge of an ethnic group from mass media since Germany in the 1930s. I wouldn't have thought that could happen in 2011. Which leads to the next shocker:
* The only solution to racism is more racism. So apparently it's no longer vogue to strive for a colorblind society and put race behind us. The only hope for America is to keep racism alive and well, to judge and condemn or exonerate and reward based on ethnicity, skin color, and a variety of ethnic characteristics. In fact, so true is this that if you insist on judging based on content of character rather than the color of skin, you're a Nazi. So true is this, that a growing number of institutions are calling on their white employees to renounce and repent their white skin color and own up to the blood libel of all racism that belongs only to the white race, or you're fired. Everyone is in on it, including religious leaders, businesses and all things pop culture. Again, didn't see that coming either, even as late as 2011.
* President Donald Trump. Nope, would have thought you were joking in 2011. It's not an indictment of the MAGA Trumpers as much as a testimony to the deplorable impotence of those resisting the global Left that conservatives turned to someone like Trump. But see if any Never Trumpers admit that.
* No more nations. As my oldest said, when the most visible ambassador for nationalism is Hitler, you know nationalism is going to be a tough sell. This isn't new, and trashing nationalism has been going on since I was a wee one. But opponents and critics were usually quick to distinguish between trashing nationalism and affirming the right of nations to exist. Well, no more. In just the last couple years, a growing tide of commentators - including the pope - have come out and all but said nations have got to go, and it's time for a borderless world, most likely in the image of some global Socialist dreamland. Even by 2011, I didn't think there would be such open calls to put a bullet in the head of nations; especially first and foremost that American nation. But here we are.
*The cleansing blood of communism. Over just last year I read no fewer than a dozen pieces and editorials calling on us to consider communism, think on communism as our only hope, look at the blessings of communism, or see why communists and communist states were a damn sight better than our nation of racism and genocide. From Pope Francis trying to love the communist even if he doesn't love the communism, to full throated calls for communism as the hope of America, you could have told me this would happen in 2011 and I would have laughed. Not that I didn't know that there has always been a leftwing love affair with the Reds, but I didn't think it would happen this soon, within living memory of the Soviet Union and in sight of Communist China. Yet young people have been taught in pop culture, the media, and our schools to prefer the Hammer and Sickle over the Stars and Stripes (my boys' World History textbook had several overt sections singing the praise of Lenin, Mao and Marx, as opposed to our nation of bigotry, segregation and genocide). So what should we expect?
*The Beast that is corporatism. That is, the biggest threat to emerge in the destruction of Western Civilization in deference to a Marxist inspired global state is the Corporate juggernaut. Almost overnight, vast, multi-billion dollar corporate entities have found it in their best interest to destroy the heritage of America, the traditions and values of Christian Western civilization, and to turn as many into drugged up, sexed up thralls of the worldwide state as possible. Conservatives, having fought to protect corporate interests at all costs by eliminating any impediments to their growth, now find themselves looking around for protection and finding none. This isn't to say corporations haven't caved for years to this or that interest if that's where the money was. But we assumed that lust for profit wouldn't include the destruction of the Christian West, of America, of rights and freedoms and the Christian Faith as openly and nakedly as it has Corporate America has embraced. And yet, here we are.
*Homeschool ho! Even as late as 2011, when I posted the Monkees post, we weren't seriously considering homeschool. I would never say it hadn't crossed our minds. But it always seemed so out of reach. In only a year, however, that changed, as we marked what the schools had been doing. Long and short, they had been fluffing our kids' grades in a sort of hush-money fashion - giving them high grades, letting them retake tests, giving them passes on missed assignments, so that our sons and 80% of the schools could be on the As and Bs honor rolls. Why? What parent will complain to a school when your kids are getting all As? That allowed them to 'teach to the test' and, in hindsight, teach other things without parental interference. Again, who is going to plow into a school when the kids are passing with flying colors? That, as well as the bureaucratic nightmare that torpedoed our second son's love of science in deference to all important funding matrixes, sealed the deal. Almost ten years later, and I'm thrilled we took the plunge.
Those are only a few, but a few that are quite telling. They also go a long way toward making the future of Western Civilization and the United States up for grabs. I knew there had always been a desire to cut the US and the broader Western Civilization down to size. But it's one of those things you imagine, even if left unchecked, would take countless generations to unfold. I never imagined that ethnic cleansing, race hate, Inquisitorial intolerance and witch hunts, censorship and the full push to eradicate all culture and social norms based on ethnicity or civilizational roots would emerge and be embraced by almost everyone everywhere in the world.
In 2011 that seemed as unlikely as moon colonies. Now moon colonies still seem far away, but a post-Western world where so many assumptions of the West we figured were engrained in the human bloodstream forever now stand on the brink of eradication. And in that same time, we've seen legions of those individuals and institutions we imagined would stand firm all but cave, surrender and convert to the modern leftist agnosticism.
That's just nine years ago. What will it be in nine more years? What 'squares aren't round' fact will we be called upon to deny under threat of retaliation? How many who we assume will stand firm will cave, fold and surrender? Or, the bigger question, will being an orthodox Christian be illegal, will America exist, and will that dream of a global Marxist based totalitarian state finally come to fruition? Only time will tell.
Yep. It's that time of year again, when we can stop wasting time with that Jesus born in a manger rubbish and get on with the next consumer feeding frenzy.
I love the two shoppers looking at the paltry remnants on the shelves. It's as if the store is saying, "Sorry about your luck, but you should have given a damn about Jesus a week ago when it was good for the bottom line!"
Ages from now conservatism's blind, slavish devotion to corporate interests and board room priorities in the name of defending Capitalism and the Free Market will be seen as one of the great strategic blunders of human history. A free market is one thing. A soulless consumerism that becomes so jaded it can watch corporate interests piss all over the sacred and virtuous for a buck is a threat to our most cherished values. The result of ignoring this fact speaks for itself as we watch corporatism emerge as one of the single greatest threats to all we hold dear that we've ever encountered.
At least every day of the holidays. The original that started it all. I still remember seeing the fellow interviewed by Matt Lauer. It was just a little 'a lights display in Cincinnati has neighbors talking' story. Nothing big. The fellow worked with computers and just did it, IIRC, for his wife for something different.
Now it's the thing, and musical synched light displays are everywhere from neighborhood houses to sprawling city wide and corporate displays alike. Of course Tran Siberian Orchestra figures prominently among the music selection since it was their Wizards in Winter he used to set up the display. Up until then, Christmas Canon was their best known song.
So kudos to a fellow who thought outside the box and changed the way we do Christmas displays. Even if we don't remember his name. But then, we don't remember the name of the fellow who invented toilet paper, and you'd think he would have a global holiday celebrating him.
