Bwa ha ha ha ha!

CNN goes to bat for the Democratic Party

Which is not news.  What is news is the almost hilarious level of 'Donald Trump will destroy the world and we'll all die!' level of panic in the 'focus group.'

Including one who was willing to cut Trump some slack in 2016.  Ostensibly they're all Trump voters who have seen the light, and realize that we are minutes away from gas chambers and nuclear annihilation.  It's the over-the-top 'he's the doom of humanity' that we've heard for two years.  Its irony when set in juxtaposition to CNN's willingness to support then end to due process and presumption of innocence based on race, gender and political affiliation, makes it even more hilarious. What fool would actually believe any of this?

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales blasts Donald Trump's lies

I'll let the irony of that sink in.  The founder of Wikipedia, the existence of which is at the vanguard of the post-Truth era, has little room to speak. Wikipedia, whose very name is synonymous with bias, error and falsehoods, is the last place from which criticisms of Trump can be launched.  In fact, it's the popularity of this 'we're so tired of worrying about facts' resource that allowed many who voted for Trump to hold their noses to his myriad false statements.  If they were forced to live in a wikiworld sans truth, then they were at least going to get the inaccuracies and falsehoods to work for them.

Bonus: A little piece I penned a few years ago about the danger in trusting Wikipedia.  And seasonal, too.

Requiem for Sears and Roebuck

Rod Dreher has a nice, thoughtful piece musing on the twilight of this most American of all departments stores.  My Dad was a die hard DieHard man, and there was no option but Crafstman tools in his garage workstation.  Sears was where we went to shop, and during the Christmas season I loved to peruse the makeshift toy section that seemed more impressive before Toys R' Us became the norm.

I reflected here on that greatest of all moments of the year when the annual Christmas Catalogs arrived (from places including, but not limited to, Sears).  Next to hearing commercials for TimeLife's Christmas Song compilation (always advertised about two to three months early for obvious reasons*), the arrival of the Wishbooks was an annual cultural event.

Of course not all was peaches and Rockwell.  Sears was about money.  And it was one of many retailers that, at the time, proudly announced its willingness to shaft its employees by wrenching them from their families on Thanksgiving so Sears could increase its bottom line by an extra percentage point or two. 

In a 'history is poetic' sort of way, both Sears and Toys R' Us did the same thing, and both now have gone the way of the butter churn.  Or at least had to file for bankruptcy.  I guess that goes to show you.  I saw a news story where several major chains have actually decided to walk back on that, openly announcing they will close on Thanksgiving for the sake of their families.  If only Sears had held out, I might have more sympathy and nostalgia than I do.

*That would be the requisite 4-6 Weeks delivery time.

A full, rich week

One of the things about being a parent is that it's bittersweet.  At the end of the day, it's your job to take the people you love more than anyone else in the world, and prepare them to leave you.  With each passing year, they change.  The tiny infants you cradled, the toddlers you celebrated, the children you played with, all fade away and are replaced by a new stage of development; a new form of them so to speak.  As I look at my grown sons, I realize that, in some ways, they as infant or toddler are as gone from our life as if they had been kidnapped by gypsies.

And yet, they're still here.  They're doing what they should be doing, and that's moving on.  The older two are in college, while our youngest is looking for full time work to pay for his schooling, while waiting a year or two as he accumulates funds.  That is for avoiding going into debt and being able to pay their way through school.

Meanwhile our youngest is still homeschooled.  Though it's difficult to do, especially as my Mom needs constant 24/7 supervision, we've opted to continue given the hot mess that has become our public education system.  As his brothers have moved on, it's been tough on him.  The flip side of them having worked hard to include him in their reindeer games has been a certain withdrawal as each one moves on in life, leaving him behind.

To balance that, they all try to get back together at least one day or weekend a month and do things with him like we always did as a family when they were growing up. At different times, different ones are available for one on one fun or time together with him.  But they do try to set aside a together moment to help him still be part of their brotherhood, which is no easy task.  This October we may actually get a couple days, given how things worked out.

So over the last week, we had our annual 'full, rich week' that tend to happen around October.  As I've said before, Fall is to us what springtime is supposed to be: that time in which we come alive.  In ages past, we did much more and went more places throughout the fall.  Now, we do things with our youngest, but probably a little less than we did.  Nonetheless, this last week was planned ahead for something fun and centered on him.  My sister took my Mom to take care of her for this last weekend, and we made plans accordingly.

It all started a week ago, with tickets to the Ohio State v. Indiana game. My second son was slated to go with me this year.  This will likely continue as long as they're anywhere nearby, me going with them in turns.  As an alumnus, we get a chance to get a pair of tickets each year.  Given that universities are largely about making money, those who are alumni who don't give large amounts end up in the nosebleed seats.

Anyway, he switched with my third son because our soon to be police officer took quite a hit.  He had taken a job at a large, regional distribution center that's nearby.  It's a notoriously tough job with a colossal turnover rate (some say around 98%).  Nonetheless, it would pay very well, and he felt the money accumulated could get him to school faster.  So he took it, being the only 18 year old in the entire area in which he worked.  And he was there for six weeks before being let go. 

Why was he let go?  Because they told him, based on safety and security, to always report any incident, no matter how small.  Turns out he scraped a pallet against a pillar in the middle of the warehouse.  He didn't think it was a big deal.  He discovered it was.  I consoled him, and told him I was proud of him for being willing to work hard and try for the most he could, but also told him next time when someone says 'report anything', he'll know they mean 'anything', no matter how trivial.  So to help him get over things, my second boy switched with him and he came with me to the game.

The rest of the week was usual, with everyone going their way.  But then came the weekend and it was off on our mid-Ohio excursion.  After a slow start, we left on Saturday to drive through Amish Country, and stop by a town called Coshocton, where a 19th Century village is there, complete with shops, living history and canal boat rides (in which we indulged).

The next day we did an unusual thing, but given work schedules, it was our only hope.  We took our youngest back to the Ohio Renaissance Festival on a Sunday. We first went there when our eighteen year old was only a few months old.  We've gone back a few times over the years.  My boys decided they wanted to see The Swordsmen before they retire (likely coming soon), and just spend time with their youngest they way they used to hang out when we went all those years ago.

So all in all, a great time.  Pictures to come soon - as soon as I sort through them for optimum bragging and memories.  But that's been our focus, rather than the madness and crazy that we're seeing in the world.  It makes you wonder, in ages past, what the average schmuck was doing when all of the big events happened.  What was the Bavarian clock maker doing when the Nazis took over?  What was the young newlywed couple doing in the Russian countryside when the Bolsheviks took over?  Were they just going about their business?  Yeah.  Probably.

One book I like to peruse in October owing to the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings is David Horwarth's 1066: The Year of Conquest.  He does a wonderful job laying out the day-to-day living that Saxon English were engaged in on the first of January that year.  He then contrasts it with the fact that, by the end of the year, they were a subject people, their king dead, their armies broken, and now watching their lands ravaged by an invader and conqueror.

I wonder what people will think of years from now when they look back at this time.  Will they know that when we stood on the twilight of our own civilization, an Ohio family took time to indulge in the simple things?  Eh.  Anyway, will post pictures soon.

Bad news for the Democratic party

Much to the consternation of the Democrats, Hillary Clinton is out on tour promoting herself.  To that end, she holds that ol'Bill didn't do much more than commit a few indiscretions, and no need to consider the Leader of the Free World as a sexual assaulter when visiting his libido upon a young adult intern.

Given the recent 'all men are guilty' narratives of the #MeToo era and its attempt to destroy Kavanaugh, this presents a certain dilemma.  So the BBC steps in and tries to sift through the various ways in which the best spin can be put on this without hurting the already damaged brand.

Liberalism's 'here today, gone later today' approach to morals and ethics, while popular among leftist and millennial trolls at Patheos, seems to be wearing thin.  A growing number of people, at least by my hunch, seem to be figuring out that you can't have a society based on 'morality whenever convenient.'  It's been a staple for the Left for decades, but seems to be hitting a few bumps.  Whether the Left can recoup or not will remain to be seen.

New Prolife Christians comment on movie about Kermit Gosnell

Meanwhile, Don McClarey gives his take.  I typically don't see movies in the theater, so I'll wait for it.  I'm not expecting much coverage of it other than by those who can already see the story for what it is.  Like the NPL Christians, I've not seen it discussed once in the MSM. 

Fair enough

Mark Shea explains what he means by Christianist.  I said I was done with Mark, but this was waiting for me in my stuff this morning, and I thought it was a good summation of Mark's thinking.

Basically a Christianist, according to Mark, is one who resists elevating a uniquely liberal narrative and political agenda to holy dogma, while reducing intrinsic evils and sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance to mere opinions over which we can lovingly agree to disagree.  Note there is nothing at all about a person who would support abortion or gay sex or someone who would destroy an innocent man for political gain (or in order to maintain abortion) or someone who would reject key dogmas about the Faith yet call himself a Christian or Catholic.

Nope. A Christianist is a term Mark reserves for anyone who stands on the historical Christian Faith and disagrees with Mark on any one of a hundred topics regarding the Church's obvious slide toward acquiescing to the modern Left.  It's Mark essentially saying how Christianists are the stereotypes of non-liberals as explained by Left wing media outlets, and whose motives are obviously evil, and whose hearts and minds are obviously full of sin.

In typical Mark form, anyone and everyone he chooses can be thrown under that label as the need arises.  More than once, Mark has accused someone of being a 'Christianist', only to have that person object that they support the Church on almost everything he's said, but simply questioned a single issue.  Which, for Mark, is good enough for the accusation of 'Christianist!'.

In short, it's the type of thing a stereotypical fundamentalist would do to cut off debate and insist that his way and God's way are obviously the same, so no sense engaging.  Anyone who disagrees clearly 'doesn't believe the Bible is the Word of God.'  An excellent conversation stopper in Protestant circles.

Again, I'm through with Mark, but figured this was a nice reminder why.  You might as well go to a radical atheist site that explains an evil freak religious zealot is anyone who isn't an atheist.  No sense wasting time. Unless it's something earth shattering, don't bother sending me anymore things from his pages.  And if you must know why, you can't do much better than the link above.

UPDATE: to illustrate the point of Christianist being Markspeak for anyone Mark doesn't like who disagrees with Mark (sent by a kind soul who did the dirty work of linking to his site and copying the banality so I didn't have to):

Allies of the New Prolife Christian

Here:

Yep.  And that's not even extreme.  Today, in America, it's becoming mainstream.  Remember, the New York Times: Flagship of America's national press.

That we can assume someone is guilty because of skin color, gender (which suddenly is biological again), religion, political affiliation or national origin is as bigoted as Jim Crow. 

It's also a case study in how people embrace the evils of their age.  Those embracing a Jim Crow mentality against whites. just because the movers and shakers happen to be doing so. would likely have embraced the same against blacks a hundred years ago for the same reason.

Because the one thing Americans don't have is common sense

We don't.  Common sense is nowhere to be seen, and it's been gone for quite awhile.  Exhibit A.  When suicide among teens, along with drug use, depression and other mental illness is sweeping like a pandemic across America, some towns are taking evasive action.  They're banning teenagers from going out Trick or Treating.

WTF?  So kids going back and enjoying a little nostalgia, harmless fun and socializing without smartphones is a threat.  Nope.  Better they stay home on their smartphones, looking at porn, taking drugs, having sex, or just dying. 

This has been going on for decades, BTW.  When I was young you began having neighborhoods take down basketball hoops because they were eyesores, or closing up open lots to keep kids from hanging around and doing things like play baseball or kickball. 

This is what comes from people who have college educations and yet forget that intelligence gleaned from academics is only one part of what we call smart. 

But then, common sense says things like abstinence is a valid option for avoiding AIDS, there is such a thing as boys and girls, sex and childbirth are more than coincidentally related, and Socialism has failed miserably every time it's been tried.  It also teaches such things as 'don't support destruction of due process since it might come back to haunt you.' 

We certainly can't have that kind of thinking, so we settle for plowing into our current social problems among teens by taking the bold step of hauling kids dressed like ghosts or superheroes to jail for not staying home on their smartphones where they belong.  Dumb nation.  Our kids don't deserve what they are going to get as a result of the last several generations of idiot adults.

New Prolife Catholics lament the failure to destroy an innocent man

Here.  Yep.  I'll be wrapping up soon and reinstating my Fantastic Patheos Boycott.  I broke it when news came of Zippy Catholic's tragic death.  I then continued because of Mark linking to Deacon Steven Greydanus who, apparently, joined the Left in trying to destroy Brett Kavanaugh by citing Urban Dictionary interpretations of thirty-five year old notes in a high school yearbook.  Apparently a woman with no evidence, facts, details, or witnesses says she was assaulted, so Kavanaugh must have been a drunken bum.  History as rapist men assaulting women everywhere but bathrooms after all.

Stunned to see the good deacon join with the Left in destroying an innocent man so that abortion may continue to empower women, I realized the predictable zeal of Mark Shea in slavishly following the evil of the Left wasn't confined to Mark, or even Patheos Catholics.  As other Catholics, Catholic publications and Catholic institutions joined in the elevation of racism, sexism, and a police state mentality so that abortion could remain unchallenged, I continued to follow Mark as a sort of pulse for the move toward the Left among Catholics in general.

Now that Kavanaugh is confirmed, I expect Mark will continue to trickle out a few posts here or there, but that's all.  Still, I'm really tired of the whole move toward madness.  Clearly America is teetering on becoming the very type of totalitarian regime that it resisted during the last century.   And it will have plenty of help from Christians, including Catholics, who will grab the pitchforks and torches and help lead the way.  After all, without Catholics, we wouldn't have majority support for things like gay marriage and abortion in the first place.

As if to reinforce this, Mark also posts that he is once again invited to a Catholic parish as honorable speaker.  The problem with Mark isn't that he is some freakish exception to the Catholic rule.  The problem is, no matter how radical and extreme and even sinful are his devotions to the Left, he appears merely to be going with the mainstream.  A mainstream that has no qualms with heaping praise and adoration on Mark for the very thing Mark once would have condemned as ungodly and unchristian.

Oh, and one final post.  Here, in an almost surreal coda to the whole 'Kavanaugh as rapist because a woman says so' embarrassment that Mark so zealously embraced, Mark regales us of a story that just happened in his life.  Apparently while walking with his wife, they were attacked by dogs.  Thankfully nobody was hurt.  He was able to fend off the canines, and he and his wife made it home.  He then called to report the incident and demand that the pooches be exterminated for the safety of nearby children, even going so far as to say that if he owned a gun, he would have gladly shot the dogs on sight.

In what can only be seen as an almost parody of old time thinking, Mark celebrates his manliness, his ability to protect his helpless woman, and his pride in demanding the termination of the dogs in question.  In short, he lives out what the Left would insist was stereotypical toxic masculinity, sexist gender roles, and  anthropocentric disdain for the planet and its creatures.

That's what happens when you get out in the world.  You suddenly realize just how wrong and stupid the modern narratives are, and how in real life, the old time paradigms and teachings about reality actually fit with what happens on a day to day basis.  Given the comments, you actually begin to wonder if they even believe all the rubbish they impose on others.

If this incident will start Mark to thinking, or rethinking what he has come to, I can only guess.  But for now, I'll leave it to him.  Back to my planned hiatus from Patheos, and much of the crazy in our modern times.

USA Today swings and misses

At first, it appears to be an article trying reign back the 'Hate Columbus' movement.  But it isn't.  Basically it's just saying we shouldn't blame Columbus for everything, it was really all the other Europeans - especially those rascally English - who were the true cause of evil and suffering in the Americas.  It does mention that, in the case oft he Aztecs for instance, all might not have been peaches and cream with Native Americans.  But that shouldn't take away from those cultures' awesomeness!  Back to how horrible the Europeans were.

The author doesn't get it.  Columbus was a symbolic celebration, lobbied by Catholics to have a Catholic hero in America, who Americans decided was a good starting point for learning about this great country.  Those who would hate Columbus hate this country, and the Christian West - including all Europeans - from which it arose.  Simply trying to change the target of their wrath will accomplish nothing at all.

Defending injustice for the sake of keeping abortion legal

Mark Shea fires a parting shot, dredging up his eternal war with the pro-life movement by trotting out his usual 'damned if they do/damned if they don't' attacks.

Of course Mark leaves out the fact that many conservatives were unhappy with Kavanaugh's pick as SCOTUS nominee precisely because they feared he wouldn't be as strong on moral issues like abortion.  They understood that, in this day, no hard-line conservative would ever be allowed to replace a swing vote.  Nonetheless, many would have preferred someone else.  They rallied behind him this last week only because they could tell a slanderous character assassination when they saw it, and were defending the rule of law, due process and opposing bearing false witness.

Nonetheless, Mark's "because FDR isn't a saint, I'm with Hitler" approach to the abortion issue necessitates his ignoring that key piece of evidence.  Which makes sense.  After all, he joined the abortion Left in trying to destroy a likely innocent man and family in order to serve the Democrats, so sweating evidence is likely not a big priority at this point.

But unlike Mark, many who were not thrilled with Kavanaugh were nonetheless not ready to watch an innocent man destroyed so that abortion may be kept legal.  The same thing was true of Urban Meyer at Ohio State University.  With mobs of feminists and journalists calling for his termination because he didn't act properly when his wife founded that the ex-wife of an assistant coach was claiming domestic abuse, many Ohio State fans rallied around Meyer.  Not because they love him, contrary to press reports.  I can assure you, they don't.  Ohio State fans are not known for their loyalty to coaches.  But because if he's going to be canned, they want it due to his job performance, not because he fell victim to the Leftist witch hunt du jour.

But again, this is Mark Shea.  The rest of his screed is typical.  I continue this breaking of my ban on Patheos because, sadly, Mark is hardly alone among the Christian, including Catholic, spectrum.  If the Left says it's time to end due process and presumption of innocence, we've seen many believers more than willing to comply.  I fear if the Left declares an end to democracy and the establishment of a police state, we'll see far too many crosses and rosaries in the crowd that will be cheering it on.

BTW, compare to Rod Dreher.   Rod is definitely pro-life, and laments the fact that Kavanaugh wasn't the best choice from a conservative, pro-life point of view.  Yet he was willing to support Kavanaugh because of the sheer morality, justice and truth behind opposing the destruction of an innocent man.  Mark, on the other hand, joined in the assaults on a likely innocence man, floating whatever accusations no matter how ludicrous dating back to Kavanaugh's teens, that the party of abortion could be sustained.

You decide which is the better way.

Columbus wimps out on Columbus

Ohio is a sea of red with three blue icebergs floating around.  Columbus being one of them.  Here, the city of Columbus dodges the Columbus Day purge by insisting it was impossible to have both Columbus Day and Veterans Day honored.  So Columbus Day has to go.

Of course we know it's BS, as is much that comes from the Left.  It's also based on the anti-Western/anti-American purge that elevates any other culture, no matter what that culture actually did in its past, well beyond that of America. 

As we push for a police state that honors the destruction of innocent people to further abortion, debauchery, assisted suicide and euthanasia, it gets more and more difficult to say that Columbus, and the ensuing arrival of Christian civilization, did any good at all.  The fact that they set in motion the events that would lead to a nation of equality, democracy, dignity of the human person and the sanctity of life might just become the main reasons they want his name removed when all is said and done.

It was weird in the 1980s

It's still weird today

Defiling graves for liberal tolerance

Rod Dreher spells it out.

OK, anyone who thinks the Leftist Iconoclasm will ever end raise your hand.  I'm not even saying it will end once our nation's capital has been renamed and Mt. Rushmore thrown down.  Things like this simply never end.  It's like sharks and blood - once the feeding frenzy begins, it just won't stop.  They'll find something else to destroy, some other part of the world to consume.

Remember, Communism  - which is an unstated underpinning of what we're seeing - is like a plague of locusts.  It destroys.  Period.  It brings misery, suffering, starvation, oppression, tyranny, terror, and does so by destroying everything in the culture in which it emerges. 

It won't stop with anything really.  It feeds on itself, and plays on self-righteousness, arrogance, contempt, and a feeling of meaning for meaningless people.  As such, it won't stop until it is stopped.  Who knows?  In the Trump era, maybe opponents of the madness, intolerance and hate will finally take a stand.  But it will take decades to undo the damage that has been done by our schools, culture and press, the same institutions that will no doubt resist any resistance.

The Left vs. America

Here.  It's an entire article tracing the rantings and tantrums of the spoiled brats of the Left.  People dedicated to mass slaughter, narcissism, hedonism, pride, and violence.  Their threats?  Overturn the Constitution, abolish the Bill of Rights, destroy due process, thwart the Supreme Court - in short do what every Communist inspired revolution does: destroy.

So far, people have set aside differences and even downplayed bad character and morals to fight this assault of lies, evil, and oppression.  Will the fight continue?  The enemies are powerful: higher education, the press, popular culture, public education.  But it can be won, if for no other reasons than for our posterity.  We owe it to them to save them from the tyranny and bigotry and evil that the Left promises.

What celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day means

It means we celebrate cultures of warfare, conquest, human sacrifice, matricide, patricide, infanticide and even slavery - as long as it isn't white people. 

Yep.  That's a hallmark of multi-culturalism.  If it ain't white and ain't Christian, it ain't evil.  As the late Dr. Glenn Stassen* once explained in an ethics class, the Mongols were just doing their thing.  If the people they conquered hadn't resisted, they wouldn't have been slaughtered. Don't blame the Mongols.  The same is true for any non-Western/American culture.  There simply is no evil by virtue of being a non-Western/American culture.

That is the mentality of the Left.  Slavery and warfare and conquest can be wonderful, as long as Europeans and Americans didn't do it.  Consider where  that mentality will take us in the future.

Christians who endorse this madness do so at the risk of their souls.

*c. 1995.  I was quite the fan of Dr. Stassen, don't get me wrong.  But he exemplified the growing liberal multi-cultural attitude that evil only existed in the Christian West, with all other cultures not being morally culpable by virtue of being all other cultures.

Feminists against democracy

Read it here.  Like most branches of the Left, they are for a police state that resurrects old sexism and racism with new skin colors and genders.  They want justice wrenched from the courts and taken to the streets.  They are tired of due process, presumption of innocence and burden of proof.   In short, they want just the kind of world that the American Experiment was supposed to fix.  Consider that this November. 

If celebrating Columbus Day

Is celebrating warfare, slavery and conquest, then isn't celebrating an entire people who often indulged in those things still celebrating warfare, slavery and conquest?