There were several things I've come across the last week or so that I haven't written about, because they just won't make a whole post. So I've saved them up and will now just mention them, make a wise assed remark or two and move on. Move on, MoveOn.org.
Kieth Olbermann: Mr.Olbermann has announced that he and MSNBC are done, and that he will no longer be anchoring Countdown. There is some speculation about why he has been fired--he was told by MSNBC that he was done--to include the usual "it's all politics" and "journalistic ethics" takes. In reality, Mr. Olbermann ranked several hundred thousand viewers behind the lowest rating FoxNews talking head. The problem wasn't politics (his main selling point was his politics) or journalistic ethics (an endangered species in terminal decline). It was ratings. Mr. Olbermann couldn't bring in enough viewers to attract advertising--he was making no money for his masters.
What a lovely spanking: The Supreme Court overturned, by unanimous vote, a decision of the 9th US Circuit Court that itself turned over rulings by the California Supreme Court, the Federal District Court and a panel of the 9th Court. Not only was the reversal unanimous, it was accompanied by a rebuke in which the 9th Circuit Court was given a hiding for even taking up the matter which it had no jurisdiction over. The decision also pointed out that the 9th Circuits taking up the matter explicitly violated Federal Law and the rights of the State Courts. The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation issued a statement: For fourteen years the 9th Circuit has evaded the requirements of an important act of Congress. The Supreme court today took them to the woodshed, and deservedly so. The 9th Circuit has been the very image of an activist court, and is the one that ruled it was OK for San Francisco to pass a resolution branding the Catholic Church as a hate group.
University of Kentucky Vs Religion: In the past week, a lawsuit against the University of Kentucky has been settled out of court with the payment of a $125,000 settlement to Martin Gaskell, PhD. Dr. Gaskell was in the running, actually the top contender, for the job of directing the planned observatory that UK has in the works for Lexington. Then it came out that he believes that the Theory of Evolution is deeply flawed. (It is--but for some reason it can't be criticized!) This and the fact that he is a Christian came up in discussion, and three unnamed persons on the panel were adamant that he was unsuitable for a job in the sciences--despite the fact that his specialty is astronomy, not biology. He didn't get the job. Unfortunately, the nature of the objections to Dr. Gaskell got out--to include the fact that his religious beliefs were used as the basis of his rejection. It's also unfortunate that this didn't go to trial, because it smooths too many things over. The university is implementing new policies which, upon examination, do not protect against religious discrimination in the sciences, but instead make sure that the proceedings are not subject to scrutiny--so that bigoted antiest can keep Christians from working in a university setting, in the sciences.
"Fr" Geoff Farrow: You may remember this guy. He was the priest who was Chaplain at the St. Paul Newman Center for California State Univesrity at Fresno in 2008, who came out in the pullpit, cotradicted his bishops teaching and endorsed gay marriage. He was suspended. Well, he's still around, still suspended. A suspended priest isn't supposed to present himself as a priest. Well, on his blog he calls himself "Fr.Geoff". he also has a picture of himself in clericals. And a link to another site where he performs GLBTQ "weddings".
Someone needs to point this out to the Bishop of Fresno, because it looks like Schism and simulating sacraments. I think he needs to be publicly excommunicated, for the encouragement of others! To prevent them from continuing to confuse the faithful. He graduated, BTW, from St. Johns Seminary in Camarillo CA. The Seminary was a notorious "pink palace" with 10% of it's graduates accused of molestation. Even more interesting--the Seminary was "reformed" in 1985 (the year he graduated) and the of 155 men who graduated since only two have been accused. Do the math. Weep.
And I thought this blog was bad: There is a blog called 'Queering the Church', and right now they are busy smearing the Anglican Ordinariate. Good grief. And man, after reading around on that blog, one wonders what ever happened to teach people that there was no such thing as objective meaning and definitive moral norms.
More liberal and left Wing Civility: I saw a very interesting video--actually several, compiled. One of them has Sarah Palin's face morphing into that of Jared Lee Loughner. Another shows cross hairs on photos of Loughner's victims, then cuts away to a smiling Sarah Palin. The worst shows images of a bound, beaten, raped and murdered Sarah Palin. It carries the title 'Sarah Palin found Bloody, Beaten and Raped'. I has a song with it, singing about getting a Glock and coming for the whole Palin family. Where is the liberal outcry against this? Can they not specifically denounce the death threats? Finally, (language warning) why can liberals wear t-shirts that say "Sarah Palin is a Cunt", when no one else can even say the word, let alone call someone that? I'm sick of liberal haters who then turn around and accuse conservatives of being "H8ters".
A Quote: "Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on National Security"---Richard Danzig, foreign policy advisory to President Obama.
TRIUMPHALIST--YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Why They Hate Sarah Palin
Today is the 22 of January, and I think that the date makes it particularly fitting time to talk about the hatred of Sarah Palin that is so manifest in American discourse.
It can't be because of the policies she has set, she's not in any office and so doesn't set policies. The hatred of Sarah Palin is peculiar--she holds no office, and probably can't be elected to one. She isn't involved in the judiciary, so she doesn't affect legal rulings. She's not a powerful force in industry or commerce. Basically, she's an outspoken housewife. And there's the rub!
She's a housewife, but not a victim; she has accomplishments that, when examined, must be respected. And that violates the canons of the old line feminist credo. She has children, but she is able to hold her own on a national stage. She's married to a man who actually works with his hands, and together they have build a life, a business and they have done so the old way--they worked for it. The liberal elite and their feminist critique say she must be some sort of victim, but she isn't.
Most of all, she is not a victim of motherhood. She hasn't limited her family size to a politically correct one or two children, and when confronted by the reality of a child with Downs syndrome, she choose not to abort. When her teenage daughter became pregnant, she supported her and helped her to chose to bear the child, not to kill it. In doing this, she transgressed the biggest sacred cow of the Feminist Left. She didn't abort or promote abortion. I have often heard the words "stupid" or "moron" applied to Mrs. Palin. Most often by women, and most often followed by some reference to her daughters child and to her youngest child. For thirty-eight years, women have been told they can't have their own lives, their own accomplishments, without recourse to very small families and abortion, yet Sarah Palin proves this to be a lie, by being a woman of accomplishment, with a full life, while being a mother.
She has never complained of being held back by sexism, either. I think it can be objectivly postulated that most of the sexism she has experienced has been from the liberal establishment which sought to depict her as some sort of bimbo Barbi. This extended to making porno movies that featured an actress who was made to look as much like her as possible, photo shopped pictures of her in skimpy attire and computer generated video clops of people ejaculating on her. If anyone can complain of sexist attacks on her political campaign, it's Sarah Palin. Yet she doesn't whine and cry victim.
I have read statement after statement calling her "ugly". Almost invariably, these statements came from women or gay men. It's incredible, when you compare Mrs. Palin to the two leading liberal women (Hilliary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi). Compared Mrs. Clinton's pudgy and wrinkled visage, which is often set in lines of anger and aggressive bellicosity, calling Sarah Palin "ugly" just doesn't make sense. And compared to the skeletal look of Nancy Pelosi's surgically stretched face, one wonders what sort of aesthetic is at play here. What is actually in play is this--Sarah Palin is comfortable with being an attractive woman, who is attractive to men in a specifically heterosexual way. her beauty is linked to her motherhood--I will say she is reproductivly attractive. This should be a positive thing: She has comfortably embraced her sexuality as a woman, and is unapologetic for it. This was the supposedly what feminists wanted, but she is reviled for it. I goes back to being a mother--women are told that childbirth will degrade their figures, and that multiple children will render them formless sacks, and there she stands, tall, beautiful and surrounded by kids. It give the lie to one of the current narratives.
Then there is the question of her education. She went to State Universities, so the word goes that she must be a second rater. I have no idea why Mrs. Palin made the the educational choices she did, but they don't indicate a second rate mind. Harry Truman was one of America's great presidents, and he didn't go to college at all. At the same time, George Bush the younger went to Yale. And the left esteems him as an idiot. The true problem is that if one goes to the Ivy League and the top tier of Universities, one encounters a sort of academic group think, a consensus of what is really important and what is not. This consensus isn't shared by the bulk of the American people, and it's not shared by Sarah Palin. By not going to the "right" schools, it's a good bet that she isn't a member of the club. What's worse is the fact that she exposes, simply by the reaction to her educational credentials, the elitism of the left--that the schools and experiences of the bulk of American Citizens doesn't produce people worthy of influence and power. Her education highlights the American version of both egalitarianism--"I'm as good as anybody else, no matter what" and the American Version of Technocratic Classism. And she embraces the egalitarianism that for 150 years made this country unique.
There is the question of accomplishments. Sarah Palin is an accomplished woman. Unlike Nancy Pelosi, she has been elected to an executive position within the Government. Unlike Hilliary Clinton, she has been elected to any position. In doing this she took on an entrenched Republican Political Machine, defeated it, and largely destroyed it. After gaining office, she took on the major oil companies. She also defeated big oil, and won for the people of Alaska a fair deal, that brought them out of a position of being an economic colony of multinational corporations. Neither of the leading lights of liberal Womanhood has anything remotely comparable to place beside this. Moreover, she built with her husband a successful business without the taint of corruption, something that Hilliary Clinton has signally failed to do. Most of all, she has become a player on the national political stage on her own hook--Ms. Clinton got her political notoriety and career by dint of marrying a successful politician. Mrs. Palin again manages to fulfill the tenets of feminism better than the official feminists.
Sarah Palin contradicts the liberal narrative in virtually every aspect of her life. She has never complained of being a sexual victim, unlike Oprah. She has never been on welfare, unlike several in entertainment and the arts. Unlike Gloria Steinem and other feminist leaders, she's never had an abortion, choosing instead to accept responsibility for her sexuality. She has never let trying to fit an external ideal drive her into neurotic self punishment, as Jane Fonda did with eating disorders. She has never been a victim, or ashamed of who and what she was. She has never rejected conventional religion,instead embracing an orthodoxy, unlike Nancy Pelosi who tried to redefine the teachings of her religion to suit her politics. Even though her life and accomplishments embody what one would suppose the goal of feminism to be, she has no victim credits, which disprove the narrative that all women are victims.
As a living, breathing contradiction of the political dogma of the left, Sarah Palin--in or out of office, running or not running--constitutes a Fleet in Being, a threat not only to the power and influence of the feminist liberal elite, but the the philosophical structure which fuels their efforts, by placing inconvenient fact in the way of charging theory. But most of all, she didn't contrecept or abort her children, and didn't encourage her daughter to do so. That makes her the most dangerous thing they can imagine--a real mother who doesn't worship at the altars of Mammon, Moloch and Asmodeus.
It can't be because of the policies she has set, she's not in any office and so doesn't set policies. The hatred of Sarah Palin is peculiar--she holds no office, and probably can't be elected to one. She isn't involved in the judiciary, so she doesn't affect legal rulings. She's not a powerful force in industry or commerce. Basically, she's an outspoken housewife. And there's the rub!
She's a housewife, but not a victim; she has accomplishments that, when examined, must be respected. And that violates the canons of the old line feminist credo. She has children, but she is able to hold her own on a national stage. She's married to a man who actually works with his hands, and together they have build a life, a business and they have done so the old way--they worked for it. The liberal elite and their feminist critique say she must be some sort of victim, but she isn't.
Most of all, she is not a victim of motherhood. She hasn't limited her family size to a politically correct one or two children, and when confronted by the reality of a child with Downs syndrome, she choose not to abort. When her teenage daughter became pregnant, she supported her and helped her to chose to bear the child, not to kill it. In doing this, she transgressed the biggest sacred cow of the Feminist Left. She didn't abort or promote abortion. I have often heard the words "stupid" or "moron" applied to Mrs. Palin. Most often by women, and most often followed by some reference to her daughters child and to her youngest child. For thirty-eight years, women have been told they can't have their own lives, their own accomplishments, without recourse to very small families and abortion, yet Sarah Palin proves this to be a lie, by being a woman of accomplishment, with a full life, while being a mother.
She has never complained of being held back by sexism, either. I think it can be objectivly postulated that most of the sexism she has experienced has been from the liberal establishment which sought to depict her as some sort of bimbo Barbi. This extended to making porno movies that featured an actress who was made to look as much like her as possible, photo shopped pictures of her in skimpy attire and computer generated video clops of people ejaculating on her. If anyone can complain of sexist attacks on her political campaign, it's Sarah Palin. Yet she doesn't whine and cry victim.
I have read statement after statement calling her "ugly". Almost invariably, these statements came from women or gay men. It's incredible, when you compare Mrs. Palin to the two leading liberal women (Hilliary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi). Compared Mrs. Clinton's pudgy and wrinkled visage, which is often set in lines of anger and aggressive bellicosity, calling Sarah Palin "ugly" just doesn't make sense. And compared to the skeletal look of Nancy Pelosi's surgically stretched face, one wonders what sort of aesthetic is at play here. What is actually in play is this--Sarah Palin is comfortable with being an attractive woman, who is attractive to men in a specifically heterosexual way. her beauty is linked to her motherhood--I will say she is reproductivly attractive. This should be a positive thing: She has comfortably embraced her sexuality as a woman, and is unapologetic for it. This was the supposedly what feminists wanted, but she is reviled for it. I goes back to being a mother--women are told that childbirth will degrade their figures, and that multiple children will render them formless sacks, and there she stands, tall, beautiful and surrounded by kids. It give the lie to one of the current narratives.
Then there is the question of her education. She went to State Universities, so the word goes that she must be a second rater. I have no idea why Mrs. Palin made the the educational choices she did, but they don't indicate a second rate mind. Harry Truman was one of America's great presidents, and he didn't go to college at all. At the same time, George Bush the younger went to Yale. And the left esteems him as an idiot. The true problem is that if one goes to the Ivy League and the top tier of Universities, one encounters a sort of academic group think, a consensus of what is really important and what is not. This consensus isn't shared by the bulk of the American people, and it's not shared by Sarah Palin. By not going to the "right" schools, it's a good bet that she isn't a member of the club. What's worse is the fact that she exposes, simply by the reaction to her educational credentials, the elitism of the left--that the schools and experiences of the bulk of American Citizens doesn't produce people worthy of influence and power. Her education highlights the American version of both egalitarianism--"I'm as good as anybody else, no matter what" and the American Version of Technocratic Classism. And she embraces the egalitarianism that for 150 years made this country unique.
There is the question of accomplishments. Sarah Palin is an accomplished woman. Unlike Nancy Pelosi, she has been elected to an executive position within the Government. Unlike Hilliary Clinton, she has been elected to any position. In doing this she took on an entrenched Republican Political Machine, defeated it, and largely destroyed it. After gaining office, she took on the major oil companies. She also defeated big oil, and won for the people of Alaska a fair deal, that brought them out of a position of being an economic colony of multinational corporations. Neither of the leading lights of liberal Womanhood has anything remotely comparable to place beside this. Moreover, she built with her husband a successful business without the taint of corruption, something that Hilliary Clinton has signally failed to do. Most of all, she has become a player on the national political stage on her own hook--Ms. Clinton got her political notoriety and career by dint of marrying a successful politician. Mrs. Palin again manages to fulfill the tenets of feminism better than the official feminists.
Sarah Palin contradicts the liberal narrative in virtually every aspect of her life. She has never complained of being a sexual victim, unlike Oprah. She has never been on welfare, unlike several in entertainment and the arts. Unlike Gloria Steinem and other feminist leaders, she's never had an abortion, choosing instead to accept responsibility for her sexuality. She has never let trying to fit an external ideal drive her into neurotic self punishment, as Jane Fonda did with eating disorders. She has never been a victim, or ashamed of who and what she was. She has never rejected conventional religion,instead embracing an orthodoxy, unlike Nancy Pelosi who tried to redefine the teachings of her religion to suit her politics. Even though her life and accomplishments embody what one would suppose the goal of feminism to be, she has no victim credits, which disprove the narrative that all women are victims.
As a living, breathing contradiction of the political dogma of the left, Sarah Palin--in or out of office, running or not running--constitutes a Fleet in Being, a threat not only to the power and influence of the feminist liberal elite, but the the philosophical structure which fuels their efforts, by placing inconvenient fact in the way of charging theory. But most of all, she didn't contrecept or abort her children, and didn't encourage her daughter to do so. That makes her the most dangerous thing they can imagine--a real mother who doesn't worship at the altars of Mammon, Moloch and Asmodeus.
Friday, January 21, 2011
This Week in Death
I don't expect that you can write about the culture of death this week, or this month, without mentioning Kermit B. ("Baby Stabber") Gosnell. So I've mentioned him. Yeah he had a regular house of horrors going, and yeah more things are coming to light. But Doctor Gosnell isn't the worst part of the problem.
The worst part of the problem is the apparatchiks who make things like this possible. As it turns out, Gosnells little murder factory was enabled by the State of Pennsylvania. Tom Ridge, a Republican, was elected Governor of that state. He was "pro-choice" (which is political short hand for saying it's OK to murder people as long as they live inside a uterus) and under him, according to the grand jury report on the matter, health officials decided that "inspections would be putting a barrier up" to women seeking abortion. Flatly stated, Dr. Gosnell and his practice were free from effective scrutiny precisely because it was an abortion facility. This included having knowledge (on the part of state officials) that Gosnell was prescribing large amounts of pain relievers with street value, unsterile conditions, unlicensed workers providing medical care. But he was an abortion provider, so he got a pass from the state--a pass that included not inspecting the facility since 1993. An evaluator from the National Abortion Federation said that Gosnells place was the worst abortion clinic she had ever seen, but she didn't do a thing about it--even though the NAF is supposed to establish and uphold high standards of practice and legality.
And that's just part of the problem. The real problem lies in the fact that about 40% of Americans think abortion is the newest sacrament, and favor unfettered access. And people among that 40% are everywhere!
They're in the Church. I'm not talking about groups like "Catholics for a Free Choice" which has been declared officially Non-Catholic. I'm talking about people like Ralph McCloud, who used to head up the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. While he was head of the CCHD, he was also treasures for the political campaign of Wendy Davis. Davis was endorsed by Planned Parenthood and Annie's List--Annie's list is a pro abortion group that so enthusiastically endorsed Davis' campaign that they got into legal problems for over contributing--something that would be under the purview of the treasurer of the campaign. His name was on every campaign sign. So it's no surprise that the CCHD isn't exactly in step with the Churches stated goals. After all, it's head was very publicly working against Church teaching.
Likewise, when Abp. Timothy Dolan decried the phenomenal abortion rate in New York (39%) he said that he wanted abortion to become rare. "Rare". This was most likely pragmatism--at this point it would take a constitutional amendment to ban abortions! Yet immediately pro-abortion forces both within and without the Church took up the ball and ran with it. I read a column about how Archbishop Dolan was now on the side of the angels in thinking about abortion. This confuses Catholics, and we already have way, way to many people taking communion who think abortion is OK and shouldn't be against the Teachings we have Received from the Apostles.
This is not just an American thing--It turns out that in Mexico, the bishops are a bit miffed at the Canadian Bishops. (Who were embarrassed by a public denunciation of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, when the Bishops in South America pointed out it was financing Abortion Groups and groups that opposed the Church.) The CCODP has made a group in Mexico that is supporting the legalization and availability of abortion as a "partner group".
Stealth abortion advocates abound within the Church.
This situation is generated by the dissassembly of Catachesis in the 60s, 70s and 80s. People have no idea why the Church teaches anything, so those things that fly in the face of our modern culture--those things that are counter cultural--or are difficult are discarded. We, as the Church, have ceased to be one of the things we are called to be. You are the salt of the earth, but if that salt has become tasteless...it is no longer good for anything. ( Matt. 5:13) The whole world isn't, and will never be, Christian. But we are called to be salty, Have salt in yourselves... (Mk 9:50). Salt permeates a dish and flavors the whole thing. We, on the other hand, have become permeated with a worldly spirit and have failed to evangelize even ourselves. If we had effectively communicated our teachings to members of the Church, we would have 60 million pro-life Americans, and would most definitely flavor the dish with a savor of life. As it is, we don't even have our own brothers and sisters in Christ on board. Thanks in large part to the Modernists, and the Bernardin Machine, we have become ...no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. (Matt. 5:13). We are failing in part of the reason we exist, and I believe that's art of the reason we have so many difficulties as a Church. Unless we get salty, especially on this issue, we can only look forward to ruin.
As an aside, when looking things up for this post, I stumbled ona piece that maintained that guys who will not have sex with birth control devices or drugs involved, are by definition abusive. They were calling it "reproductive coercion". I guess feeling that you have the right not to contracept means you are an abuser. How strange we have become.
The worst part of the problem is the apparatchiks who make things like this possible. As it turns out, Gosnells little murder factory was enabled by the State of Pennsylvania. Tom Ridge, a Republican, was elected Governor of that state. He was "pro-choice" (which is political short hand for saying it's OK to murder people as long as they live inside a uterus) and under him, according to the grand jury report on the matter, health officials decided that "inspections would be putting a barrier up" to women seeking abortion. Flatly stated, Dr. Gosnell and his practice were free from effective scrutiny precisely because it was an abortion facility. This included having knowledge (on the part of state officials) that Gosnell was prescribing large amounts of pain relievers with street value, unsterile conditions, unlicensed workers providing medical care. But he was an abortion provider, so he got a pass from the state--a pass that included not inspecting the facility since 1993. An evaluator from the National Abortion Federation said that Gosnells place was the worst abortion clinic she had ever seen, but she didn't do a thing about it--even though the NAF is supposed to establish and uphold high standards of practice and legality.
And that's just part of the problem. The real problem lies in the fact that about 40% of Americans think abortion is the newest sacrament, and favor unfettered access. And people among that 40% are everywhere!
They're in the Church. I'm not talking about groups like "Catholics for a Free Choice" which has been declared officially Non-Catholic. I'm talking about people like Ralph McCloud, who used to head up the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. While he was head of the CCHD, he was also treasures for the political campaign of Wendy Davis. Davis was endorsed by Planned Parenthood and Annie's List--Annie's list is a pro abortion group that so enthusiastically endorsed Davis' campaign that they got into legal problems for over contributing--something that would be under the purview of the treasurer of the campaign. His name was on every campaign sign. So it's no surprise that the CCHD isn't exactly in step with the Churches stated goals. After all, it's head was very publicly working against Church teaching.
Likewise, when Abp. Timothy Dolan decried the phenomenal abortion rate in New York (39%) he said that he wanted abortion to become rare. "Rare". This was most likely pragmatism--at this point it would take a constitutional amendment to ban abortions! Yet immediately pro-abortion forces both within and without the Church took up the ball and ran with it. I read a column about how Archbishop Dolan was now on the side of the angels in thinking about abortion. This confuses Catholics, and we already have way, way to many people taking communion who think abortion is OK and shouldn't be against the Teachings we have Received from the Apostles.
This is not just an American thing--It turns out that in Mexico, the bishops are a bit miffed at the Canadian Bishops. (Who were embarrassed by a public denunciation of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, when the Bishops in South America pointed out it was financing Abortion Groups and groups that opposed the Church.) The CCODP has made a group in Mexico that is supporting the legalization and availability of abortion as a "partner group".
Stealth abortion advocates abound within the Church.
This situation is generated by the dissassembly of Catachesis in the 60s, 70s and 80s. People have no idea why the Church teaches anything, so those things that fly in the face of our modern culture--those things that are counter cultural--or are difficult are discarded. We, as the Church, have ceased to be one of the things we are called to be. You are the salt of the earth, but if that salt has become tasteless...it is no longer good for anything. ( Matt. 5:13) The whole world isn't, and will never be, Christian. But we are called to be salty, Have salt in yourselves... (Mk 9:50). Salt permeates a dish and flavors the whole thing. We, on the other hand, have become permeated with a worldly spirit and have failed to evangelize even ourselves. If we had effectively communicated our teachings to members of the Church, we would have 60 million pro-life Americans, and would most definitely flavor the dish with a savor of life. As it is, we don't even have our own brothers and sisters in Christ on board. Thanks in large part to the Modernists, and the Bernardin Machine, we have become ...no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. (Matt. 5:13). We are failing in part of the reason we exist, and I believe that's art of the reason we have so many difficulties as a Church. Unless we get salty, especially on this issue, we can only look forward to ruin.
As an aside, when looking things up for this post, I stumbled ona piece that maintained that guys who will not have sex with birth control devices or drugs involved, are by definition abusive. They were calling it "reproductive coercion". I guess feeling that you have the right not to contracept means you are an abuser. How strange we have become.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
An Occasion of Sadness
The 7:30 AM Mass at my parish is no more, it will cease to be a feature of our parish life on the 28th of January.
For several years it has been celebrated by retired priests of the Congregation of the Resurrection. however, these men are old! Fr. John has trouble standing and walking. He's in his 80s, and needs one of those fancy canes. When he celebrates Mass, the deacon or server has to help him move about and to stand. he just can't do it any longer. Fr. Ray is likewise in his 80s, and has problems as well, he is cutting his commitments by about half. Fr. Schoenbaechler is in his 90s--94 or 95 I think--and has simply told Fr. Klotter that he can't really negotiate the steps to the altar any longer with such frequency.
This means that our week day Masses in the Extraordinary Form--the TLM--will most likely cease. It's anticipated that the Sunday Missae Cantata according to the Extraordinary Form will continue.
The 7:30 Mass is being replaced by the Office of Lauds--Morning Prayer for those who hate the fact tht it's official name is still Lauds--led by Fr. Klotter, Dcn. Zoldak or Dcn. Bryant. I am relieved that it's not being replaced by a "communion service". (For one thing, if there is a Mass celebrated that day in a Church, a communion service is illicit. For another, they seem to attract those who do not accept the Churches teaching on the Eucharist and Holy Orders. Finally, I've noticed that they become a power base for people trying to build factions within the church, and the leaders of them can't resist vesting inappropriately, or offering "reflections" on the scripture readings.)
If you are in the Louisville area for some reason, morning prayer, Monday through Friday, In Accordance With the Church's Liturgical Tradition will be available. Please join us, if you can.
For several years it has been celebrated by retired priests of the Congregation of the Resurrection. however, these men are old! Fr. John has trouble standing and walking. He's in his 80s, and needs one of those fancy canes. When he celebrates Mass, the deacon or server has to help him move about and to stand. he just can't do it any longer. Fr. Ray is likewise in his 80s, and has problems as well, he is cutting his commitments by about half. Fr. Schoenbaechler is in his 90s--94 or 95 I think--and has simply told Fr. Klotter that he can't really negotiate the steps to the altar any longer with such frequency.
This means that our week day Masses in the Extraordinary Form--the TLM--will most likely cease. It's anticipated that the Sunday Missae Cantata according to the Extraordinary Form will continue.
The 7:30 Mass is being replaced by the Office of Lauds--Morning Prayer for those who hate the fact tht it's official name is still Lauds--led by Fr. Klotter, Dcn. Zoldak or Dcn. Bryant. I am relieved that it's not being replaced by a "communion service". (For one thing, if there is a Mass celebrated that day in a Church, a communion service is illicit. For another, they seem to attract those who do not accept the Churches teaching on the Eucharist and Holy Orders. Finally, I've noticed that they become a power base for people trying to build factions within the church, and the leaders of them can't resist vesting inappropriately, or offering "reflections" on the scripture readings.)
If you are in the Louisville area for some reason, morning prayer, Monday through Friday, In Accordance With the Church's Liturgical Tradition will be available. Please join us, if you can.
Yeah, and You're a Bunch of Hypocritical Jackwagons!
Lets look at some facts: a nut job in Arizona shot and killed a bunch of people, while attempting to assassinate a member of Congress. This is an awful fact, and one that should lead to a little soul searching on the part of Americans. Instead, it's become an opportunity of recrimination.
In retrospect, it was extremely unwise for Sarah Palin to use the graphics she did. However, in American political rhetoric saying you are going to target someone,or take them out, is a commonplace. Perhaps it's a common place that needs to be shelved. But Mrs. Palin isn't the only one to use such language. And, unlike Paul Kanjorsky, she didn't flat out call for anyone to be shot.
So the Democrats are calling for the rhetoric to be lowered, implying that Reublicans are whipping up hate. I think that they are lying opportunists using the tragedy of mental illness and violence. Simply because I believe in facts. And here are some facts:
Rep.Steve Cohen, (D--TN) has decided that since Republicans are opposed to the Obama Care Bill, that it's entirely appropriate to compare them to Nazis, Goebbles in particular, and accuse them of tryig to foment a holocaust. Way to turn down the rhetoric.
Some thoughtful person simply compiled tweets since the shootings that call for the shooting or death of Sarah Palin. They put it into a You Tube video. You Tube took it down, probably because they didn't want to be party to spreading such death threats and hate. It ran about three minutes. I watched it, and counted fifty some calls for Palin to be shot, or statements she should have been shot, or expressions of desire to shoot her, or to beat her up. The last were really interesting, because they came from females who often expressed the desire to disfigure her 'ugly' face. Weird.
I haven't found anyone calling for the death of democratic figures.
But what's worse is that all this has occurred after the Arizona Massacre. These things have occurred when we should know, and we all claim to know, that there are consequences to rhetoric. These things are not simply rhetorical misscariages--they are genuine expressions of desire for the death of another person--tit for tat for something that didn't happen--Palin killed or facilitated the killing of no one.
The topper came yesterday, when I picked up one of the local alternative news weeklies. it was the LEO. I want to get the publications name out there. LEO. It ran a cartoon called "The City", by a jackwagon named 'derf'' (sic). It has no words, just a stylized picture of Sarah Palin, with the word "A--HOLE" spelled out on her forehead in bullet holes and cross hairs.
Following their logic, if Palin is culpable for her graphics because in today's charged atmosphere they could lead to violence, and this is proved by the Arizona Massacre, then what they are doing has only one possible interpretation: They are deliberately trying to instigate the murder of Sarah Palin. Their own stated positions allow for no other meaning.
In retrospect, it was extremely unwise for Sarah Palin to use the graphics she did. However, in American political rhetoric saying you are going to target someone,or take them out, is a commonplace. Perhaps it's a common place that needs to be shelved. But Mrs. Palin isn't the only one to use such language. And, unlike Paul Kanjorsky, she didn't flat out call for anyone to be shot.
So the Democrats are calling for the rhetoric to be lowered, implying that Reublicans are whipping up hate. I think that they are lying opportunists using the tragedy of mental illness and violence. Simply because I believe in facts. And here are some facts:
Rep.Steve Cohen, (D--TN) has decided that since Republicans are opposed to the Obama Care Bill, that it's entirely appropriate to compare them to Nazis, Goebbles in particular, and accuse them of tryig to foment a holocaust. Way to turn down the rhetoric.
Some thoughtful person simply compiled tweets since the shootings that call for the shooting or death of Sarah Palin. They put it into a You Tube video. You Tube took it down, probably because they didn't want to be party to spreading such death threats and hate. It ran about three minutes. I watched it, and counted fifty some calls for Palin to be shot, or statements she should have been shot, or expressions of desire to shoot her, or to beat her up. The last were really interesting, because they came from females who often expressed the desire to disfigure her 'ugly' face. Weird.
I haven't found anyone calling for the death of democratic figures.
But what's worse is that all this has occurred after the Arizona Massacre. These things have occurred when we should know, and we all claim to know, that there are consequences to rhetoric. These things are not simply rhetorical misscariages--they are genuine expressions of desire for the death of another person--tit for tat for something that didn't happen--Palin killed or facilitated the killing of no one.
The topper came yesterday, when I picked up one of the local alternative news weeklies. it was the LEO. I want to get the publications name out there. LEO. It ran a cartoon called "The City", by a jackwagon named 'derf'' (sic). It has no words, just a stylized picture of Sarah Palin, with the word "A--HOLE" spelled out on her forehead in bullet holes and cross hairs.
Following their logic, if Palin is culpable for her graphics because in today's charged atmosphere they could lead to violence, and this is proved by the Arizona Massacre, then what they are doing has only one possible interpretation: They are deliberately trying to instigate the murder of Sarah Palin. Their own stated positions allow for no other meaning.
Meanwhile, the Creeping Minions of Evil...
Children are very much a part of my life. Whether they be my own children, who have grown into splendid if quirky women, my grandchildren or just children I know and love. And I look at the world they are growing into with alarm. It's going to be very difficult for them to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, when so much of our society is bent on turning them into agnostics with low morals and no concept of sacrifice. There is a famous quote from the Philokalia, in which a young monk asks an older why they find it so possible to fight the evil one, but that future peoples will find it much more difficult. The older monk replies that they fight Satan while he is chained, but later generations will fight him while he is unbound. That seems to me to be a prophetic utterance. Certainly it serves to explicate the modern world very well. After all, Jesus himself asked But when the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on Earth?
Love, genuine love, expresses itself in one way, really. The disinterested desire for the greatest good of another. Love, if it is real love, always returns to this, and always works for this. Evil is simply the opposite--the desire for the destruction of another. It seems to express itself in many ways, some subtler than others. It finds expression in murderous hatreds, or in little, almost unnoticed things a like a quirk of a government or economic system that makes life and dignity for all more or less impossible. A production system that renders food production unsustainable is one evil. A social system that makes people
disposable is another. And so forth.
Right now, we live in a time of rampant evil. Horrid things are accepted, and promoted. The egregious miscarriage of these societal permissions are punished, true. But they are punished least they point out the inherent evils of our system.
I spent the weekend at the home of friends. I have known the children since they were quite small, before kindergarten. It was sad for me to see how they are adapting to the world, especially the daughter, who is 14 and "going south". It's a worrysome thing, and to be honest, her references as to what's appropriate for a teenage girl come mostly from TV and magazines. It's not a good message. The Parents Television Council recently released a report on the sexualization of underage girls on TV. it found that underage girls were presented in sexual situations far more that adults, with 47% of depictions showing young girls as opposed to 29% for adult women. Only in about 5% of the depictions were underage girls shown as objecting to being sexualized. 86% of the girls so presented were shown as being high schoolers. And 93% were shown in relationships or events that would be considered, by the definitions of the American Psychological Association, as unhealthy. Oh--98% were shown occurring outside of committed relationships.
This doesn't even begin to cover the images of nihilism, violence and the glorification of lawlessness that soaks our entertainment industry. That would be a lengthy post in itself.
But we no longer teach our teen girls that keeping their clothes on is cool. Worse, we are teaching teenage boys that girls are supposed to put out, and are anxiously waiting for the opportunity. All this leads to underage sex, which notoriously leads--despite the ubiquity of condoms and information on contraception--to babies. The people who produce programming are not concerned, except when they can put emotional documentaries and dramas about how awful it is to be a baby momma. And then, it's not the usual to show these girls as foolish or manipulated, they are depicted as somehow heroic and romantic. What do they care? they've made their money. (The role of parents is another post. I will encapsulate it here: You are not here to be your child's friend, or to be the cool parent, you are here to form them into successful, well adjusted people--not to enable them because you are afraid that to do otherwise would mean that they won't love you. Your job is to love them. Do your job.) The thing is, one of the strongest correlations in sociology is the link between teen parentage and poverty. This link also holds true for being a single mother. In fact, this link is so strong that there is a statistical correlation between the number of people in poverty, and the above factors. The number of teen parents and single mothers in the US is about equal to the number of poor. Teen parentage and single motherhood are gateways to poverty and economic entrapment. The entertainment industry sees no reason to care, they've made their money. Essentially, they have pimped out America's teens for their own profit.
Avarice is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
It's deadly in several ways in this case. poverty itself cuts the average life expectancy nearly as badly as smoking. And poverty leads to such things as homelessness and living in shelters. As religious outreach has fallen more and more, and shelters become run by secular institutions, things have gotten worse in them as well. That leads to such things as the January 3d headline about a 2 month old boy starving to death in a Philadelphia shelter, and his twin being hospitalized for malnutrition. It's also manifested in disease transmission through sexual activities--not just AIDS, but things that can scare the reproductive system so women lose their unborn children due to the damage done by past or undetected infections. The deaths echo over and over again, hidden in statistics and lies. Deaths from breast cancer, about 300,000 since Roe v. Wade, due to Abortions--a link demonstrated but unacknowledged. Deaths from prematurity--the risk of which increases exponentially with abortion, going up as the number of abortions undergone increases. Deaths from suicide, as the psychological toll of promiscuity and abortion--remember, to have abortion, one first must have pregnancy--mount. (It's interesting that a Mental Health Care Provided in the UK was fired for discussing the link between abortion and mental illness with a co-worker, despite the British medical establishment's finding that this risk needs discussed with patients!) it doesn't mention the increase in Breast Cancer, linked with hormonal contraceptives that facilitate modern promiscuity. We get our monthly horror stories of malpractice at Abortion Clinics. (This months is about Kermit Gosnell, who is facing ten malpractice suits, mostly for sepsis, and homicide charges. he made millions from his practice, but found the most expedient way to do late term abortions was deliver the child alive, then stab it. Oh--he kept trophies, and common practice among serial killers.) We find that things apporved and marketed as "contraceptives" are actually abortificients--like RU-486 and Ella, which are described in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy as abortificients, along with details of their modes of action. (Not to mention praise for them as being the cheapest way to 'lower maternal morbidity' in poor regions--it costs too much to show real love by giving them decent care!) And at every turn, someone makes a buck from the trend.
Our daughters and grandchildren are dying to satisfy the avarice of varied interests who know they canmake money from sexualizing teenage girls, or selling products and services whose demand is linked to the sexual exploitation of our children. These varied groups have only two things in common: Avarice, and being subtle servants of Evil.
Avarice is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Love, genuine love, expresses itself in one way, really. The disinterested desire for the greatest good of another. Love, if it is real love, always returns to this, and always works for this. Evil is simply the opposite--the desire for the destruction of another. It seems to express itself in many ways, some subtler than others. It finds expression in murderous hatreds, or in little, almost unnoticed things a like a quirk of a government or economic system that makes life and dignity for all more or less impossible. A production system that renders food production unsustainable is one evil. A social system that makes people
disposable is another. And so forth.
Right now, we live in a time of rampant evil. Horrid things are accepted, and promoted. The egregious miscarriage of these societal permissions are punished, true. But they are punished least they point out the inherent evils of our system.
I spent the weekend at the home of friends. I have known the children since they were quite small, before kindergarten. It was sad for me to see how they are adapting to the world, especially the daughter, who is 14 and "going south". It's a worrysome thing, and to be honest, her references as to what's appropriate for a teenage girl come mostly from TV and magazines. It's not a good message. The Parents Television Council recently released a report on the sexualization of underage girls on TV. it found that underage girls were presented in sexual situations far more that adults, with 47% of depictions showing young girls as opposed to 29% for adult women. Only in about 5% of the depictions were underage girls shown as objecting to being sexualized. 86% of the girls so presented were shown as being high schoolers. And 93% were shown in relationships or events that would be considered, by the definitions of the American Psychological Association, as unhealthy. Oh--98% were shown occurring outside of committed relationships.
This doesn't even begin to cover the images of nihilism, violence and the glorification of lawlessness that soaks our entertainment industry. That would be a lengthy post in itself.
But we no longer teach our teen girls that keeping their clothes on is cool. Worse, we are teaching teenage boys that girls are supposed to put out, and are anxiously waiting for the opportunity. All this leads to underage sex, which notoriously leads--despite the ubiquity of condoms and information on contraception--to babies. The people who produce programming are not concerned, except when they can put emotional documentaries and dramas about how awful it is to be a baby momma. And then, it's not the usual to show these girls as foolish or manipulated, they are depicted as somehow heroic and romantic. What do they care? they've made their money. (The role of parents is another post. I will encapsulate it here: You are not here to be your child's friend, or to be the cool parent, you are here to form them into successful, well adjusted people--not to enable them because you are afraid that to do otherwise would mean that they won't love you. Your job is to love them. Do your job.) The thing is, one of the strongest correlations in sociology is the link between teen parentage and poverty. This link also holds true for being a single mother. In fact, this link is so strong that there is a statistical correlation between the number of people in poverty, and the above factors. The number of teen parents and single mothers in the US is about equal to the number of poor. Teen parentage and single motherhood are gateways to poverty and economic entrapment. The entertainment industry sees no reason to care, they've made their money. Essentially, they have pimped out America's teens for their own profit.
Avarice is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
It's deadly in several ways in this case. poverty itself cuts the average life expectancy nearly as badly as smoking. And poverty leads to such things as homelessness and living in shelters. As religious outreach has fallen more and more, and shelters become run by secular institutions, things have gotten worse in them as well. That leads to such things as the January 3d headline about a 2 month old boy starving to death in a Philadelphia shelter, and his twin being hospitalized for malnutrition. It's also manifested in disease transmission through sexual activities--not just AIDS, but things that can scare the reproductive system so women lose their unborn children due to the damage done by past or undetected infections. The deaths echo over and over again, hidden in statistics and lies. Deaths from breast cancer, about 300,000 since Roe v. Wade, due to Abortions--a link demonstrated but unacknowledged. Deaths from prematurity--the risk of which increases exponentially with abortion, going up as the number of abortions undergone increases. Deaths from suicide, as the psychological toll of promiscuity and abortion--remember, to have abortion, one first must have pregnancy--mount. (It's interesting that a Mental Health Care Provided in the UK was fired for discussing the link between abortion and mental illness with a co-worker, despite the British medical establishment's finding that this risk needs discussed with patients!) it doesn't mention the increase in Breast Cancer, linked with hormonal contraceptives that facilitate modern promiscuity. We get our monthly horror stories of malpractice at Abortion Clinics. (This months is about Kermit Gosnell, who is facing ten malpractice suits, mostly for sepsis, and homicide charges. he made millions from his practice, but found the most expedient way to do late term abortions was deliver the child alive, then stab it. Oh--he kept trophies, and common practice among serial killers.) We find that things apporved and marketed as "contraceptives" are actually abortificients--like RU-486 and Ella, which are described in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy as abortificients, along with details of their modes of action. (Not to mention praise for them as being the cheapest way to 'lower maternal morbidity' in poor regions--it costs too much to show real love by giving them decent care!) And at every turn, someone makes a buck from the trend.
Our daughters and grandchildren are dying to satisfy the avarice of varied interests who know they canmake money from sexualizing teenage girls, or selling products and services whose demand is linked to the sexual exploitation of our children. These varied groups have only two things in common: Avarice, and being subtle servants of Evil.
Avarice is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
What Makes My Opinion Important?
Well, to start with, it's mine. And since I have lived a difficult life, and put myself through a rather lengthy series of experiences that let me see what happens after a variety of decisions, I will just assume that I have basis for my opinions. not to mention that i have had to change opinions when confronted with facts more times than I care to remember.
Besides, implied in the question 'what makes your opinion important' is contained the seed of the answer: The same thing that make you think that your disagreement is important. Self respect. I have come to respect my own judgments, because when ever i have decided that X knows best, I get the dirty end of the stick. I respect myself, there for i respect my Opinions.
Not only that, but I have noticed that the retort/question/whatever that goes 'What makes your opinion/Who gave you the right to judge' only arises in a discussion where someone hasn't got a rational basis to contradict and opinion. if they can't assail the opinion itself, they assail to the right of the individual to hold or value y\their own opinion, or the morality of having opinions or judgments. It's a way to make your opinion inadmissible, because it contradict theirs.
Finaly, what makes my opinion important is this--I' a grown man who seen more shit than your superannuated teenage theorist self ever has, and I can tell you you're full of it based on experience and observation, but more importantly, It's my Gorram House!
There, I feel better.
Besides, implied in the question 'what makes your opinion important' is contained the seed of the answer: The same thing that make you think that your disagreement is important. Self respect. I have come to respect my own judgments, because when ever i have decided that X knows best, I get the dirty end of the stick. I respect myself, there for i respect my Opinions.
Not only that, but I have noticed that the retort/question/whatever that goes 'What makes your opinion/Who gave you the right to judge' only arises in a discussion where someone hasn't got a rational basis to contradict and opinion. if they can't assail the opinion itself, they assail to the right of the individual to hold or value y\their own opinion, or the morality of having opinions or judgments. It's a way to make your opinion inadmissible, because it contradict theirs.
Finaly, what makes my opinion important is this--I' a grown man who seen more shit than your superannuated teenage theorist self ever has, and I can tell you you're full of it based on experience and observation, but more importantly, It's my Gorram House!
There, I feel better.
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