The glorious days to come...

... unless you happen to be little and helpless.

I know I promised to get another post in on the brave new world that awaits us under an Obama administration, but I've been so up to my kiester with work and family that I just haven't had the time. (Of course, I'm on salary, so it's not like there's much difference between company time and my time. It's all company time.)

The thing that really worries me about electing Obama along with a Democratic supermajority is the abortocaust. Now, it's not the first time we've had a pro-death president in office, but Clinton had a check on his power in congress. Even before the '94 "contract with America" there were enough Republicans in both houses to make a filibuster possible. Also, Clinton wasn't really committed to the abortion industry. He mouthed the words because his party demanded it, but he wasn't bought and paid for.

Obama is. If he's got a single scruple about the value of helpless life, he's kept it well hidden. His dismissal of Gianna Jessen sums it all up. If you let them live, they cause you all kinds of trouble later.

The BAIPA is the most egregious of his positions on human life, but it's not the most insidious. Consider a couple of seemingly unrelated facts:

1. Barack Obama is both willing and able to use brownshirt tactics to control public discourse. The Fairness Doctrine is one aspect of that. So is the fact that nearly all the mass media are manned by his fans. The mainstream media will say whatever he wants them to. The Fairness Doctrine and other legal muzzles will guarantee that the mainstream media are all the media that are out there.

2. Abortion is a big-money business. There were something like 1.2 million abortions last year. (That figure is lowballed – more in a moment.) The cost runs between $400 and $800 on average; some are as much as $1,200 if it's after a certain point and requires an actual doctor. When you do the math, it adds up to a major cash cow.

The reason 1.2 million is a low figure is that the Guttmacher Institute only tracks reported abortions. It's common practice among abortuary workers to report only those abortions that leave a paper trail. But when there's a cash transaction, all bets are off. And legal attempts to get a clinic's records - for any reason - are a quick route to an ended career. As Phill Kline learned.

So we have an administration that (a) is heavily committed to a huge-money industry and (b) has the capacity to shut off talk that that industry doesn't like.

The first thing to go will be the crisis pregnancy centers. All the Obama campaign has said so far is that he intends to cut off federal funding for the centers, but that's kind of a non-statement. So far as I know, most of them don't get any federal funding. There have been bills introduced in the past to ban them from advertising or even operating at all, as their supposedly deceptive practices are cutting into Planned Parenthood's business.

I'm going to digress a little to marvel at the sheer chutzpah it takes to go after the CPCs. My Lovely and Brilliant Wife volunteered at our local one, and there's absolutely nothing deceptive about it. However, it does give the lie to the canard that pro-lifers only care about babies until after they're born. Crossroads keeps new mothers supplied with diapers and baby clothes, all of them from donations form the community. What support does Planned Barrenhood give women who "choose" not to abort? (Sound of crickets.)

Our CPC is also due to get an ultrasound machine next year, which the abortion lobby is trying to make illegal as well. See, women who see ultrasound of their babies are less likely to opt for an abortion. "Choice" is okay with the abortion industry as long as it's a choice that lines their pockets. That's the real issue abortion clinics have with CPCs: they offer actual alternatives to abortion. Tell me again which one is pro-choice? (Ironically, the reason given by the pro-aborts for prohibiting ultrasounds is that they might pose a risk to the baby. As opposed to the utterly safe alternative of scalding their skin off or jamming sharp objects into their skulls.)

Back to Obama's plans for America. First they'll come for the crisis pregnancy centers. Next will be the sidewalk counselors. My Lovely and Brilliant Wife spent countless days in front of a clinic in San Antonio, and the stories she could tell you would curl your hair. Trigger-happy guards watching for an excuse to shoot someone, sidewalk counselors being assaulted, things like that. One of the saddest things she saw was an older man, father or boyfriend or both, literally dragging a girl out of the minivan as she screamed, "No, no, I don't want to do this!" Two of the clinic "escorts" came in response to her cries for help, and dragged her into the clinic themselves. This isn't rumor; my wife actually watched it happen. Some choice, huh?

Under an Obama regime, you can expect the protesters and sidewalk counselors to be banned altogether. We've already seen how much use our presumptive president has for the first amendment. Want to bet that the Freedom of Access to Clinics Act gets expanded? The pro-lifers couldn't do anything to help that girl in the minivan because the guards had orders to shoot to kill, and the law backed them up. How many of those will go entirely unwitnessed if nobody is even allowed to raise a voice against them?

In my earlier post, I brought up free exercise of religion. That's going to figure even more into Obama's abortion policies. Already states are passing laws forcing pharmacists to dispense abortifacients, even in their own store. Same with hospitals. Doctors are being targeted even now for the same thing. We've gone from a fight to allow them to do abortions to a fight to force them to. Again, it's all about choice, isn't it?

Although the stereotype of the pro-lifer is a big-haired Bible-banging fundamentalist, the big enemy of abortion is the Catholics. See, it's absolutely, unequivocally forbidden for any Catholic to take part in an abortion in any way. If my medi-cab company ever told me to drive a woman to an abortion clinic (a service they've been known to provide), I'd have to quit. Period. Any Catholic who participates in abortion in any way is automatically excommunicated. No ceremony or official action is needed; you're barred from the sacraments immediately. (Contrary to popular belief, excommunication isn't the same as damnation. However, since it's also a mortal is to participate in abortion, dying without absolution for it does> land you in hell.)

Fundamentalists (however you define the word) make up a much smaller proportion of the country than Catholics do. The health-care professions are filled with us. The goal of eliminating conscience exemptions is not a blow against the fundamentalist caricature, but a concerted effort to expel all Catholics from the health-care field. If you change the rules so that a practicing Catholic is required to do things to keep his job that his faith absolutely forbids, the only Catholics you'll have left are the ones whose principles are for sale. Naturally, there won't be any new ones entering the professions, either. The less-numerous Protestant pro-lifers will be much easier to weed out once health care is entirely Katolischenfrei. (I'm not running down Protestant fervor on life issues; quite the contrary. But let's face it - we're more numerous and better organized, and hence a bigger thorn in their side.)

Finally, as I alluded to last week, the Fairness Doctrine and other free-speech-suppression tactics will be to the abortion industry's benefit as well. When the FCC won't issue licenses to religious radio stations, when the Internet is scoured of conservative content, when anyone who speaks out is subjected to investigation and harassment (you think Joe the Plumber was an anomaly?), the abortion industry will have no oversight and no restrictions whatsoever. You think abortion workers will be bound by consciences or limits on their own? Ask Carol Everett or Jill Stanek. But do it fast. If Obama wins, they'll be a lot harder to hear.

The bottom line in an Obama presidency: Live babies bad, dead babies good. If you don't like it, keep your mouth shut.

A matter of equal writhes rights

First off, women my own age are not too old to take off their clothes in public, thank you very much.

Kimberlee Ouwroulis doesn’t believe her age should be a roadblock to success.

So, the 44-year-old adult dancer from Stouffville has filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, alleging the owner of a Mississauga strip club fired her because she was too old.

“He told me that the club is going in a new direction with younger girls,” Ms Ouwroulis said. “That’s age discrimination to me.”

I have no axe to grind here; I don't frequent girlie bars and it wouldn't break my heart to see them go out of business. But if she can still bring in the customers, that seems to justify her on capitalistic grounds. A strip club owner is in kind of a poor position to take the high ground on anything, including aesthetics. Especially since he's 49 years old himself and I'll bet he doesn't look like a movie star.

(I do get a chuckle out of the idea that the guy paying her to give lap dances is called "Mr. Sit.")

On the other hand, maybe this is a god business opportunity for some enterprising person to start a club featuring elder ecdysiasts. Call it "Saggy's Place" or something. Chez Oedipus?

Thanks, Mom!

The Golden Age of Broadway Musicals Score: 100% (13 out of 13)

My mom used to play the records from these musicals all the time when I was a kid. I had the scores memorized long before I ever actually saw the plays. (Or the screen travesties that sometimes showed up on TV. Don't get me started.) There were only a couple where I couldn't immediately hear the line in my head.

If my Reverend Auntie doesn't get them all, I'll be very surprised.

Did they say Saudi Arabia?

I would have sworn it was Montana.

Barack Obama Malcolm X Jr.?

This has got to be hooey. I really don't buy it for a second. But you know, it's no sillier than "Sarah Palin is Trig's grandmother."

On the other hand, it would certainly settle the citizenship thing, wouldn't it?

Afterthought: The news media are taking this thing with a spoonful of salt, as they should. But compare how much attention it gets to the amount of ink/pixels lavished on the equally silly and scurrilous Sarah/Bristol/Trig rumor. Apparently they wanted to savor the remote possibility of something shameful about Sarah, whereas the journalistic principles kick in when it's about a candidate they want to like.

Halloween Cinema: White Zombie

I'm not a huge fan of horror movies in general. In fact, I haven't even watched the one I'm about to post, although I intend to correct that when I get an hour without kids.

My loyalty in the horror genre is given to H.P. Lovecraft and Manly Wade Wellman, neither of whom makes a very good transition to the screen. The emphasis on the visual in a horror film kind of takes away from any plot or characterization. I know there are serious fans of the genre, but I just can't be one of them.

However, I may make an exception for this "lost classic," which is apparently the very first zombie movie. (Candice, take note!) There doesn't seem to be any brain-eating in it, which suits me dandy. But it has the magnificent Bela Lugosi, only a year after his definitive performance in Dracula and long before his slow decline into Edward Wood travesties.

Most of the cast didn't sound familiar, so I did a little looking around on IMDb. I wonder if this movie should have been called "Curse of the Silver Screen" or something. None of the principals lived long and prospered.

Madge Bellamy was on the downhill side of a very prolific career as a silent film siren. She resurfaced in 1943 to stand trial for shooting the millionaire she was keeping company with. He survived, she get probation, and that was the end of her fame. She died poor and mostly forgotten, just a month before her memoirs were published.

Robert Frazer died at the age of 53 with only a string of forgettable B-films to his credit.

John Harron probably coulda been a contender. His brother's murder in 1920 catapulted him into films, and he hung around with the likes of James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, Hollywood's legendary "Irish Mafia." Johnny did well in the silents, but never got much more than bit parts in talkies. He died of spinal meningitis at the age of 36.

And we all know what happened to Bela Lugosi. The man whose Dracula makes all the others look stale, the hypnotically creepy Hungarian who could mesmerize an audience like a snake stalking a bird, ended up doing humiliating self-parodies to support both himself and his drug habit. He has the sad distinction of finishing his career with the worst movie ever made. Sic transit gloria mundi, I guess.



incidentally, there's a fascinating zombie story here. Apparently they're not just a myth.

Wanna be humbled?

Read this. Then rethink how much you really give God.

An Esther? Or a Daniel?

My best friend's mom pointed me to Man with a Black Hat, where David passed on an incident in the Sarah Palin tour d'awesome. It's from a pastor of some church in Ohio, who had an encounter with her in Cincinnati:

As he [McCain] moved to my right, Sarah Palin came over to my left side … standing over the crowd and then looking at the little lady who had lost the son. It took a moment for her to shake some hands and people were pushing in all around. Sarah came and got on her hands and knees on that side of the stage and hugged that little mom, telling her, “It was not in vain.” She promised her support.

It was at this moment Sarah Palin reached out for me to help her up, and as I was assisting her to stand, I was now face-to-face with her, and God said, “Open up your mouth and I will fill it.”

Here is what came out:

“God wants you to know that you are a present-day Esther!”

[She immediately began to cry!]

“God wants to tell you that you are chosen for such a time as this!”

“You are called, and chosen to be a leader.”

“Don't lose heart and don't fear man.”

“The news and naysayers and criticizers are going to be very hateful toward you … and in the days ahead they are going to turn up the heat … but do not fear.”

“You are a present-day Esther.” You are an Esther. You are an Esther!

Aaaaall righty, then.

I'm with David on being skeptical of private revelation. I've known too many people who were always having a "word from the Lord on their hearts," who were just as likely to have a word on their gall bladder from Barney the Purple Dinosaur. Then again, I've also known people whom God really does seem to speak through. Whether this guy is a prophet or a loon is kind of irrelevant, though, if what he's saying is true. The two aren't always mutually exclusive.

The pastor seems pretty compos mentis, more or less like any other charismatic Protestant. Like David, I'm familiar with them, and they don't seem weird to me. You just have to speak the language. For the same reason, I don't have too much problem with Fatima and Lourdes. To be a Christian requires a belief in the possibility of miracles. Whether a particular one occurred or not doesn't change that.

I'm also a little reluctant to call the lovely Sarah a present-day Esther. There is no secret plot to eradicate Christians from the planet. (At least not a human one; Satan hasn't given up yet.) The parallel doesn't stand up very far. I suspect the good pastor latched onto Esther because she was a woman. But as feminine as Sarah clearly is, she's not approaching office in a traditionally womanly role.

From where I sit, she's more of a Daniel. Daniel didn't have to save his people from overt destruction. They weren't endangered, just a minority overwhelmed by evil rulers. What Daniel did was legitimize virtue by example. He didn't get into authority through godliness; the Babylonians weren't terribly impressed with Jewish spirituality. He got there through sheer competence and honesty. Daniel's enemies had to go to some pretty ridiculous lengths to discredit him, because there wasn't anything legitimate to nail him with. His heroism wasn't as much in what he did as in who he was. He was proof that it was possible to remain true to God and still survive in Babylon. Because of guys like Daniel, the Jews managed not to be absorbed the way the other ten tribes seem to have been.

That's where I see Sarah Palin, win or lose. If McCain wins, she rides into office along with him, maintaining a social-conservative presence in the government. If Obama wins, she's still blazed a trail for women in politics. Never again will it be taken for granted that being pro-life and pro-traditional-marriage disqualifies a woman from being a feminist. (Let the uterofascists howl as they may; they still can't stuff the genie back into the bottle.)

Sarah Palin isn't likely to save us all from destruction. But then, she doesn't need to. All she had to do to win the victory was show up.

For Wharf Rat

When she was smaller, we used to do a lot of driving in a truck without a radio. So we built up quite a repertoire of "car songs," ones we could belt out over the defective muffler to keep fatigue and boredom away.

A while back I made her a CD of as many of those as I could find, but her favorite wasn't on it. Thankfully, the blogosphere contains High-Falutin' Newton, who enabled me to rectify that. Out of his vasty deep collection of Western Swing, here's "I'll be Hanged if They're Gonna Hang Me" by the Tune Wranglers:



I can almost smell the oil-laden exhaust from my old truck just hearing it.

Hey!

Whoever came here from Centerville, leave a comment if you come back by! Or if you're someone who knows me, e-mail me at jbmartin (at) nwi (dot) net. I'm curious to know who in that excellent-but-teeny town is reading this blog.

JIb Jab on the candidates

I couldn't play this direct on the site, so I'm trying it on here.

Time for Some Campaignin' | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Gay brownshirts protecting society from bigots...

... who show their hatred by participating in the political process as though they had rights. Notice where the story places the blame. Hint: it's not the perpetrators. If those religious fanatics had kept their mouths shut, those poor homosexuals wouldn't have been forced to such extremes.

I expect to see more of this sort of harassment regardless of who wins on November 4. If it's Obama, these earwigs will have the blessing of the government. If it's McCain, they'll be so angry that every traditionalist will be a target. Kind of like burning down the synagogue when the harvest fails. And in blue areas, don't count on the police to be on your side.

Meanwhile, Orson Scott Card offers some possible solutions.

I am. Are you?

From Iowahawk:

If it's meta-memes and meta-meta-narratives these media headlice want, so be it. I hope you will join me in expressing a simple bit of solidarity with this guy, Spartacus style. I AM JOE. I am a Wal Mart schlub in flyover country who changes my own oil and unclogs drains without a license. I smoke and drink beer and toss the football in the front yard with my kid, and I figure I can fend my way without handouts from some Magic Messiah's candy bags. Most everyone in my family and most everyone I grew up with is another Joe, and if you screw with them, you screw with me.

Are you a Joe? Say it proud. Leave it on every goddamn newspaper comment section and online forum. Let these pressroom and online thugs know you won't stay silent when they try to destroy the life of a private citizen for speaking his mind -- because for every one of them, there are a million Joe Wurzelbachers. And for that we should all be thankful.

What we have to look forward to

The Wall Street Journal has a chilling look into the future under an Obama regime. I'm embarrassed that it hadn't occurred to me before that with both houses overwhelmingly Democratic, this election will probably eliminate the last check on left-wing power. There are a number of things to be worried about, but what scares me the most is the effect on free speech.

- Free speech and voting rights. A liberal supermajority would move quickly to impose procedural advantages that could cement Democratic rule for years to come. One early effort would be national, election-day voter registration. This is a long-time goal of Acorn and others on the "community organizer" left and would make it far easier to stack the voter rolls. The District of Columbia would also get votes in Congress -- Democratic, naturally.

Felons may also get the right to vote nationwide, while the Fairness Doctrine is likely to be reimposed either by Congress or the Obama FCC. A major goal of the supermajority left would be to shut down talk radio and other voices of political opposition.

Now, it's possible that once Obama is elected, he'll lay off the brownshirt tactics against his critics. I'm not betting on it, however. Once he's in power, he'll have to stay there, and to consolidate it for his successors. Expect to see something like the blogger lawsuits happening in Canada against Mark Steyn, Kathy Shaidle, et. al. on the one hand, and FCC licenses being pulled from radio stations that air conservative talk shows on the other. The Internet as a whole is beyond effective regulation, but it's possible to make it too expensive for the opposition to speak.

Two other things that the article doesn't mention:
Free exercise of religion: The top priorities on the Democratic agenda are gay marriage and abortion. Now, I know it's not a popular stance for a Christian to take, but I really don't care all that much if the secular government wants to recognize homosexual unions. Other people's love lives aren't really my problem. Nor do I care who wants to share community property with whom, or designate whom as an insurance beneficiary, or any of that. Those are a matter for secular law, not religions to which the principals don't belong anyway. (I think it'd be less hypocritical if the state also recognized polygamous marriages on the same principle, but the polygamy lobby isn't as popular, so it ain't a-gonna happen.)

What I have a problem with is being required to consider those unions a marriage. I don't care if other people do, but my religion defines pretty carefully what is and isn't a marriage, and it's my right to adhere to that. It's also the right of religious institutions to determine whom they do or don't consider married.

This is not a minor matter. Churches that employ paid staff often have a lifestyle requirement that mandates that employees will not violate the teachings of that church. So do church-run schools and universities. When I went to Warner Pacific College in the early 90s, I had to sign an agreement that I would not drink, smoke, attend dances or fornicate. Those things were contrary to the Church of God, Anderson Indiana, which ran the school. (Or as we called it, Church of the Holy Hoosier.) Whether I considered them a sin was irrelevant. It is a church's right to require that both members and employees conform to certain standards of behavior. You don't like that, go to a secular school or work for a secular business.

My church, for instance, doesn't consider anybody married who has been divorced from a still-living spouse. Undoubtedly there are cases where the Catholic Church extends the benefits of marriage - employment or insurance, say - to people whose marriages are invalid under canon law, but there's a difference. A heterosexual marriage, even if invalidly contracted, is capable of being made valid. The ex-spouse could die, or the original marriage could be declared null, or something. For all the Church knows, the couple that was invalidly married last week could be convalidated tomorrow. The couple can be treated as married because there is no definitive proof that they are not. (Yes, I'm oversimplifying it, but bear with me.)

A homosexual marriage, by definition, cannot be valid under Church law. No matter what the circumstances, two people of the same sex are not married in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Period. Does anybody really believe that a completely Democratic government will respect the rights of churches in this? Couple the current trend of mandatory approval with suppression of free speech, and I don't foresee much hope for the right to dissent. As St. Jack said, they'll tell you that you can have your religion in private, and then they'll make sure you're never alone.

I don't have time to get into how an unchecked Democratic regime will affect the abortocaust, but that one scares me even more. To be continued...

See what happens?

Never, ever question The One™:

Real plumbers don't like Joe. Or at least the ones supporting Democrat Barack Obama.

About 100 union plumbers from a Boston-based local plan to knock on union members' doors Saturday in Portsmouth, N.H., and "Joe the Plumber" is certain to be a topic of conversation, said Kevin L. Cotter, business manager of Local 12 Plumbers and Gasfitters union...

"He's impersonating a plumber," Cotter said, referring to Joe Wurzelbacher, the Ohio man who confronted Obama about his tax plans and who became a media celebrity after John McCain repeatedly referred to him during the presidential debate Wednesday night.

Wurzelbacher, however, has paid a price for his moments of fame; news media reports have said he does not hold a plumber's license, has been hit with a tax lien, and would probably qualify for a tax cut under Obama's campaign proposal.

"We will definitely be talking about 'Joe the Plumber,' " said Cotter, whose international union was the first to endorse Obama during his run for the Democratic nomination.

Joe's mistake was asking the Obamessiah a question at a rally that he couldn't answer. In retaliation, he's now being investigated by the state for working without a license (which he apparently doesn't need) and his tax problems are being spread all over the front page. He'll probably lose his home and his livelihood, and I wouldn't be surprised if his boss has to go out of business as well. Because Joe asked questions.

Moral of the story: Support Obama or keep your mouth shut. Or it will be shut for you.

And they call this justice?

Let me get this straight. Kevin Coe was convicted of one count of rape and sentenced to 25 years. He served the entire sentence. No parole, no good behavior, no nothing. He wouldn't seek parole because he still maintained his innocence. (There do seem to be some holes in the conviction, and it's the only one that stuck out of some 43 that he was accused of.)

Upon finishing his time, he was brought to court, re-tried, and sentenced, in effect, to life for the same crime. How, other than as a technicality, does this differ from double jeopardy? You can't take a man who has fulfilled his obligation and say, "Well, we've thought it over, and we don't think the original sentence was enough. Back you go." If he has an obligation to serve his sentence, the state has an obligation to let him go free when he's done.

The rationale behind the "civil commitment" is that a man convicted of a sex crime is likely to reoffend, so they'll keep treating him until he's not a danger. It's kind of a pre-em So in essence, Coe has been convicted of crimes that have never even been committed.

Are we still in America, or not?

Lower that Cascade Curtain!

Ran across this map today showing the primary vote tallies for Gov. Rossi vs. Christina Gregoire in the Washington primary. If you add up the numbers from all the red and pink (pro-Rossi) counties, they total up to 80,077, or about 7,000 less than King County. Unless Thurston County/Olympia turns red (and the devil will ice-skate the same day), there is no way the rest of Washington can win an election against Seattle. (Even without the cheating.) No matter whom we elect, King County will always have an effective veto.

Eastern Washington needs to secede and form its own state. I'd rather be another West Virginia than be Seattle's bitch. Are there any other brownsider bloggers with me on this?

The young and the clueless

Something the Barking Spider said triggered kind of an embarrassing memory.

The first time I lived on my own, I was 20 years old and had just moved to Portland. Being new to big-city life, I hadn't gotten out of the habit of picking up hitchhikers. (Of all the myriad times I did, BTW, I never, ever had one that was anything but polite and grateful. In retrospect, I'm a little surprised I never got carjacked. Then again, with my car, what would have been the point?)

I was driving to work one early afternoon, going up 20th toward Belmont (quiet, mostly residential neighborhood), when I saw a woman a few years older than me with her thumb out. Naturally, I pulled over and let her in.

"Where can I drop you?" I asked.

"Well, actually, I'm working."

Did I mention that I was naive? And a hick?

"That's okay, I've got time. Where do you work? I can drop you off."

"No," she said patiently. "I mean I'm working."

Now the little light bulb came on over my head. Even I knew what that meant.

"Ah. I see." Blushing furiously. "Well, I'm not hiring, so maybe I'd better let you get on with it."

I let her out at the next corner. She was really tickled and more than a bit surprised that I had taken her at face value. Thanked me very kindly and waved as I drove away.

Looking back, I should have wondered why she would be hitching at traffic going one direction while walking the opposite way down the sidewalk. But then, what did I know?

What the election boils down to

Circumstances are irrelevant. Either babies (and by extension, other human beings) are in and of themselves a good thing, or they are a bad thing. Are they valuable, or are they trash?

Choose which you believe and vote it. Everything else is secondary.

Who's being negative?

We seem to have forgotten how politicking was done in the good old days before right-wing blogs and left-wing media monopolies. You just don't picture those dignified old men in the history books pimp-slapping each other this way.

On the other hand, it seems that not-too-subtly-implied death threats were still out of bounds.

The Audacity...

... of Hope Flames!

PORTLAND, Ore. - Authorities have arrested two men after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a 4-foot by 8-foot campaign sign for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in a southeast Portland yard.

Karen Scrutton said she was asleep inside her home at 7956 S.E. 17th Ave. in the Sellwood neighborhood when she saw her sign go up in flames after 1 a.m.

"I screamed upstairs to my husband, 'Gene! Gene!" she said.

A neighbor heard a crash and chased off one of the suspects. Gene Scrutton said his son-in-law found another suspect not far away.

Coincidentally, I lived several years just three blocks away from this house. Lovely neighborhood, when it's not being attacked by Molotov-cocktail-throwing thugs.

Feel the rage!

Hate and anger from McCain/Palin supporters:

At Clearwater, Gov. Palin lathered up the crowd herself. "You're going to have to hang on to your hats," Palin told the rally, according to The Washington Post, "because from now until Election Day it may get kind of rough." Linking Sen. Obama to a reformed radical of the '60s, Palin shrieked her signature smut line, "he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

"Kill him!" a man in the crowd reportedly responded to Palin's rabble-rousing. Her related attacks on the media had already whipped a frenzy among the crowd of about 3,000. Tempers rose to a boil when she blamed Katie Couric's questions for tripping her up as a seeming dimwit. The Post wrote, "Palin supporters turned on reporters ... waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. ... One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African-American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

As with McCain's fingering of Obama as "that one," in the last debate, supporters dismiss a white Southerner calling a black man a "boy," as mere words. Perhaps so, but, given the nation's sad, racial history, such language still elicits ire.

"Let's get it on" seems to be Palin's campaign refrain. "It's about time the pit bull got loose," the Post quoted Ken Gow, a 47-year-old police officer who was among the more than 10,000 people at a rally in Carson, Calif.

Compare the reasoned political discourse from Obama's supporters. (I'm not going to try to quote it all; follow the links Michelle has collected.)

How vicious does the left have to get before they're held to the same standard as the right?

Could sure use some prayers

So Christina made our house payment last week, and the mortgage company waited five days to process the payment. During which time we bought frivolities like groceries and gas. Wen they finally put the payment through, it bounced. The upshot is that, as a result of their incompetence, they're threatening intending to take our house if we can't make three payments by the fifth of November. We were out of the woods until today. I'm so pissed I can't even see straight.

Prayers gratefully accepted.

Addendum: I don't think it's an accident that the Internet Monk posted this today. We needed to be reminded.

Huge surprise

So apparently the Obamessiah doesn't just stand for the worthlessness of human life, but it turns out he's also crooked as a dog's hind leg.

A Chicago Democrat? Who'd'a thunk?

Meanwhile, as you can see, the respectable news organizations are all over this story, way ahead of the conservative pundits. Right? Yeah, right.

Born children to rally for Obama

No word yet from the ones he voted to have killed. One suspects they wouldn't be welcome, anyway.

Ingrate

What ever happened to "Thanks for all the fish?"

He that believeth in me...

...though he were dead, yet shall he vote.

(I saw the headline on the WaPo article, and I couldn't resist.)

Addendum: And he that believeth not will have to shut the hell up.

Well, really, it is simple. With the first-amendment unfriendly Obama in the White House, the Internet-unfriendly Pelosi running the House and as many as 3 SCOTUS judges to be named probably within Obama’s first year in office, the press will face a huge reduction in competition from the alternative media. With a filibuster-proof house the so-called “fairness doctrine” will quickly be put back in place, which will effectively end representation of opposing viewpoints. With Mrs. Pelosi’s previously murmured intentions to regulate internet freedoms and access, even unto her own elected colleagues, the ‘net will cease to be a force in politics or freedom of expression. And the newly revitalized ‘activist’ Supreme Court will uphold all of it.

In other words, with an Obama victory and a Democrat sweep, the press will - within a year or so - once again be “the only game in town.” And with no reason to do so, they will not even pay the barest lip-service to opposition opinion. Hell, they barely do, now. They will become the monolithic monopoly which acts as the trumpet for the Glorious Government of the People’s Republic of America - or, if you like, Pravda West.

I expect we’ll also see a newly minted “crisis” coming down the pike every other week - to keep the nation off-balance and distracted. Fun times.

Once again, as one raised by classical liberals, one who considers herself, still, to be a “classical” liberal, I am at a loss to understand how those who call themselves “liberal” in 2008 can find this unfree, suppressive press acceptable. I am at a loss to explain how the very people who have been hyperventilating about “lost civil rights” - and projecting all manner of suppression onto a Bush administration that never shut down a film, or a parody, or a radio station or a book or play or any media that criticized it so roundly and with so much vigorous hate - are so willfully blind to the maneuvers being run by their favorite candidate. But love is blind. So, apparently is the appetite for victory. Winning “at all costs” - even unto the ends of the scorched earth - will end up costing a great deal, but some don’t seem to care about that.

A President Obama seems to promise a heavy boot coming down hard on dissent and to seriously threaten civil liberties, beyond the first and second. He’s already showing his inclinations in that area. Those of us who dissent will no longer be told “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” We’ll be feeling full-blast the “chill wind” Tim Robbins so prosaically imagined all those years ago. I can’t wait to see what happens to our rights to assemble and to worship. Hey, where 2 or 3 are gathered, and not in his name, there might be a conspiracy - can’t have that.

Akubra tip to Kathy, the wad of gum on the jackboot of censorship.

Christianity outside the cocoon

So Doug from IllumiNations stopped by the paper yesterday and I used up a lot of his time chatting with him. Doug has this amazing quality of making me comfortable talking about faith, which is something I can do on a blog but I'm not good at in real life. (I suppose that's part of what makes him a good pastor.)

I first got to know Doug about four years ago, when I was assigned to do a special publication about the 40 Days of Purpose that his church was embarking on. The conversation shifted from there to my own journey from a mediocre Protestant to a fairly serious Catholic. I enjoy talking with Doug about this, more than with most people, because I never feel like I have to either defend Catholicism or shill for it. It's simply talking with a brother whose Christian walk is taking a different route.

A subject that came up was the tendency of American Evangelicalism to sort of cocoon itself. We discussed a friend of mine who spent his whole life surrounded by members of his own Charismatic mega-church (a church that Doug is well familiar with), and then when he discovered that the world didn't end at the church doors, swung full force into kind of a belligerent Dawkins-style atheism. I don't know how he'll end up. (I understand his mom reads this blog, so Judy, take courage. When He's answering prayers, God gives top priority to mothers.)

One of the things Doug mentioned was that his son had been to a Maronite church while away at college, and been struck with how much the ancient liturgy had in common with his own experiences of Christianity. It was kind of a door-opening experience, seeing that there are Christian traditions out there that are different (and much older), yet not alien. Evangelical Protestantism, for all its influence in our culture, is only a small part of the vast Christian Church.

So between that and the approach of Reformation Day, it seemed like a good time to re-post a letter I wrote to my now-atheist friend in 2006:

----------------------

Note of explanation: About a year ago [in 2005], a close friend of mine was unjustly dismissed from his job teaching at an Evangelical Christian school. We had a long talk when I heard about it, about the clannishness of such schools, and about the tendency for rules to go unwritten: "the Club and the Code," as he described it. He'd had it up to his kiester with Christianity, and was seriously doubting his faith. This rattled me, because he had been a strong influence on my own faith when we were teenagers, and a sounding board when I became Catholic. A couple of days after my friend and I talked, I sent him this long e-mail. I'm sticking it in here with identifying information changed. I still think what I said then is worth saying.

I've been thinking a good deal about the conversation we had Sunday, and I finally put my finger on something that I wanted to say that I couldn't really formulate at the time. You're welcome to dismiss it as "witnessing," although that's not really what I want to do, at least not in the Sunday School "bring-a-friend-and-get-a-prize" sense.

You're pissed, with excellent reason. You're pissed at a school that screwed you over, and a church that places its focus on "the club and the code," as you put it. In feeling this way, you think you're also pissed at Christianity, but you're not. This is why.

You're not, because you've never really had much experience of Christianity. (I don't mean experience of Christ; that's another matter entirely.) What you've had is extensive experience with a specific kind of Christianity. You've spent your entire life in a cocoon, the walls of which are defined by a small, recently-developed movement that thinks it's all there is. I'm not running down your church or Evangelicalism in general. They do good work, they love the Lord, and they hold to the core of the Gospel, which is redemption by Christ. But Evangelicalism is no more the whole – or even the essence – of Christianity than the third lug nut on your right front wheel is the whole of your car.

What the Evangelical movement of the 60s and 70s that you're familiar with has done is to strip away the visible aspects of the Christian faith and replace them with other visible aspects. The confessional is gone, but there's a coffee bar. The iconostasis is replaced by a video screen. Most tellingly of all, the altar has been eliminated and replaced with a podium.

Christianity is not just hymns and a sermon. It's not about the emotions or the bumper stickers or the intellectual study or the "codes." It's not even just the Bible. Those things are expressions of Christianity, and they're the familiar ones to you and me, but they're only the tip of the iceberg.

Christianity is more than just an American white-bread cultural imperative. Christianity is also ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday, and palms on Palm Sunday, and fires on Pentecost. It's painted icons of Christians who have gone before, and statues of the Blessed Virgin, and Stations of the Cross. It's rosaries and prayer cards and incense and holy water. It's not just the upraised hands of the Charismatic; it's also the dipped knee of genuflection and the sign of the cross and a kissed icon.

How many times have you seen pictures of people lighting candles before a statue of Mary and thought, "What idolatry!" But it's not. It's a Christian practice far older than Sunday School coloring books. The people who come to the Blessed Mother with their requests are Christians holding to a tradition that goes back to the catacombs. Those superstitious people who line up to see a bone of St. Anthony? They're honoring the memory and holiness of their Christian brethren and sistern. Yep. That's Christianity, too. It only looks alien to someone who's only seen one small slice of the faith.

One of my favorite corners of the calendar is the feast of Corpus Christi, where the consecrated host, the Body of Christ, is carried over the heads of hundreds, maybe thousands, of people parading through the streets. To you, it seems weird, but to the vast majority of Christians, it's the most natural thing in the world.

We hear all the time that the Church isn't a building; it's the people. That's true, but it's also a structure built not just out of laity but of priests in robes, bishops in funny hats, and monks in habits. You think of those things as frippery, but they're as much an integral part of Christianity as a preacher in a double-breasted suit. It's also ordinary people; not just the few currently walking around but the ones who have already gone to heaven. The Church, as C. S. Lewis pointed out, stretches not only through space but time as well.

Christian writing didn't begin with Rick Warren, or even with Lewis. Try reading John of the Cross, or Ephraim of Edessa, or (best of all, I think) Thomas A Kempis' "Imitation of Christ." These are a much deeper glimpse of a very deep faith than anything you can get at the Christian bookstore at the mall.

I'm not trying to put together a sales pitch for Catholicism here. For that matter, I'm not trying to sell Christianity at all. If you really are so browned off that you just can't stomach Christianity, then by all means leave, or at least take a hiatus. Better that than to keep chained to something you hate. But bear in mind that there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dream't of in your Sunday morning bulletin. You've only dipped a toe into the sea so far. You kind of owe it to yourself to take a look at the whole thing before you dump it.

Today's family values post

Your 13-year-old daughter's boyfriend breaks up with her. You learn that he took naked picutres of both of them. Do you:

A) Take a tire iron to the little hemorrhoid until he bleeds from every orifice, or
B) Blackmail him into dating your daughter again?

Police are investigating whether an Elgin woman used nude photos of her daughter's 13-year-old ex-boyfriend as blackmail to get the two back together.

No charges have been filed, but police confirmed Monday they are actively pursuing counts of intimidation, harassment and child pornography possession in the case that originated in Sleepy Hollow...

The probe began Aug. 21 when a couple from Sleepy Hollow reported to police that their son received hundreds of threatening e-mails and text messages after the boy and his 13-year-old girlfriend of five months broke up, according to an officer's sworn affidavit.

The parents told police their son admitted he and the girl had taken naked photos of themselves while dating, sharing them with each other with their cell phones, but the pictures of the girl no longer exist.

The parents said that after the breakup the girl's mother told the boy she'd tell his parents about the images of him and post them online unless the youngsters started seeing each other again.

In another tactic, the mother set up an e-mail account the boy could use to contact her daughter without his parents knowing, according to an officer's sworn affidavit.

With such fine parenting, how could these kids ever have gone wrong?

I've wondered about this

From the Portland Tribune:

A recent Google search showed that commenters on the Internet frequently have referred to Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, as “Sally.”

And if that doesn’t seem significant, you’re probably not the real Sally Palin, Sarah’s cousin by marriage, who runs an up-and-coming yarn shop on Northeast Alberta Street called Close Knit.

Sally’s husband, Greg, is a cousin of Sarah’s husband. The families have had dinner together. “She’s an impressive person,” Sally says of Sarah Palin.

Sally Palin says it’s been downright surreal to turn on the television during the Republican convention and see her last name on banners. But after wrestling with the family connection, Sally, who along with her husband is a Democrat, will vote against Sarah Palin.

“I admire her,” she says, “but I don’t agree with her politics.”

Greg is my second cousin on the other side, through his mom's family. When I first heard about the lovely Sarah's election as governor a few years ago, I wondered if there was a connection. I haven't seen Greg in a lot of years, but we were pretty close as kids. He used to spend chunks of the summer staying with us in Goldendale. Greatness several times removed, I guess.

Was I right, or what?

Back when Sarah Palin's candidacy was announced, I said:

Has anyone else noticed that while our new VP candidate has lived in Alaska since infancy, she was actually born in Sandpoint? (How long do you think it'll be before the media get hold of that fact and make racist innuendos?...)

Looks like it took 37 days. Okay, so this woman isn't mainstream media. She's a professor of history at some college back east, who thinks she knows all about us northwesterners.

Here's the climax of the stupidity:

There is no evidence that Palin was ever affiliated with white-supremacist groups during her years in Idaho or at home in Alaska. On the other hand, the beliefs of ultraconservative, evangelical churches like her family's come dangerously close to those of the Christian Identity movement of those years. Likewise, Palin's husband was a member of a political party whose members favored secession for Alaska, suggesting an affiliation with radical antistatism.

East-coast ignorami are so cute. Think I'll head over to Starbucks and see who's interested in discussing the Biblical insights in Mein Kampf over a double skinny half-caff. Unless my pastor calls to invite me to a lynchin' at the recyclin' center or to go out and drag some of them homer-sexshuals behind his Prius. This bein' the northwest and all.

This ought to slow down global warming

The world will be a little less hot without Miss Brahms in it.

"Ground floor: perfumery, stationery and leather goods, wigs and haberdashery, kitchenware and food...



... Going up!"

Pay no attention to the man behind the bomb

Is it still a smear if it's true? In the Obama lexicon, maybe especially if it's true.

Okay, let's be fair. Obama took a beating for being a member of Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright's church, then another for dumping Wright under political pressure. He knows some loathsome people, and that's the way it is. Not really much he can do about it now.

But would the media be trying to downplay it if, say, McCain had had a third cousin who got his hair cut by a guy who once used the same men's room as Eric Rudolph? Every media outlet and lefty blogger in the country would be demanding an account and then calling him a liar for whatever his answer was. If the standard were applied the same way to both sides, it would be a non-issue.

Sarah Freakin' Palin

Lifted from Ken:

Apparently the Wilson sisters have asked that their song "Barracuda" not be used by the campaign. Works for me; I like this better anyhow.

What can I say? The woman is just plumb awesome.

I sound my barbaric oink

I used to have an agreement with some of the ladies I worked with, that I was allowed to be a misogynist only on odd-numbered days. This, of course, was before I met my Lovely and Brilliant Wife, who has created in me a genuine appreciation for all that is wonderful in women. (I should mention that our living-room couch is lumpy and too short.)

Be that as it may, tonight I thought I'd revert to my porcine ways with this soundie from the Internet Archive. Gentlemen, you'll want to tell your wives you're watching something on Lifetime or something. It's clean, but it's sexist enough to make your knuckles drag even while you're in front of your computer.

From either 1941 or 1936 (it seems to be in question), here's "Gags and Gals."



A side note: I remember my ex-wife singing one of these songs (the "playmate" one) to Wharf Rat when she was little. I doubt this is how she envisioned it.)

What a pain in the...

The great P J O'Rourke has been diagnosed with cancer, and wait till you see where. Let's just say, from now on, the genius will have to stand to reason.

I could read this man nonstop, were it not that I keep having to put the book down and stop laughing so I can breathe. O'Rourke is the man I'd most like to be able to write like, and never will in a million years. Please get well, sir. America needs you now more than ever.

History repeats itself in the nastiest ways

I have to admit that I've been stuck on stupid trying to find parallels between the current fecal-matter/fan collision and 1929. The circumstances surrounding the Depression of 1873 are much closer, and much more disturbing. I've got my name in for a second job now, and I hope it comes through, because it looks like us ordinary schmoes are in for a grim few years.

A Little Night(fly) Music

With Billy Joel due to play a big-ticket fundraiser for the O-man, this is even more wicked fun. Me 'at's off to the Fly!

The big debate

I didn't get to see it, as we were out at a fundraiser for the local crisis pregnancy center. But the news reports - the NYT, the WaPo, CNN - are all calling it fairly even.

Which means Sarah must have kicked some serious Biden booty. If even her enemies can't find something to claim victory over, she must have won on all counts.

Update: The marvelous Cassandra had this to say:

What did I think of the debate? I would have liveblogged, but I passed out 2/3 of the way through the debate. Woke up this morning naked on a John Deere tractor, bitterly clinging to a King James Bible and a twelve gauge shotgun.

It's getting cold out there.

Which just goes to show you that there is such a thing as being too suggestible. It's never a good idea to agree to drink every time you hear the word, "Maverick".

For her sake, I'll try to type more quietly.

Teach your children well...

Imagine the outcry if this were Jesus buttons.

Movie for the heck of it: Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven

This little piece of cinematic weirdness was one of the first things I discovered on the Internet Archive. The story is kind of disjointed, as it seems like it's two or three stories in succession. It's not that it's hard to follow; more that any of them could have been expanded into a B-flick of its own. First, Texas reporter Eddie Tayloe (Guy Madison) inherits a bunch of money and heads off to New York to produce his play. (Hasn't every newspaper drudge written something he thinks he can sell for his big break?) Along the way he meets Perry (odd name, pretty girl), played by the delightful Diana Lynn, who is convinced he's a bank-robbing fugitive. Or rather, pretends she's convinced and won't be disabused of the notion, which makes the viewer chuckle at the poor guy's attempts to make her believe he's not.

On their arrival in New York, the whole story takes a right-angle turn. She drops the mistaken-identity thing, mostly, and the two of them maintain a friendship that perpetually teeters on the edge of romance. (I was kind of reminded of When Harry Met Sally with the principals from Houseguest.) Meanwhile, the cast becomes a collection of oddball characters that any sitcom would kill for, as he rents a room from three crusty old women and she adopts an elderly pickpocket as her mother. There's a "riding academy" where none of the mounts are actually alive, a hotel with no phones (to force guests to make calls in the bar) and a trip to Coney Island that's not quite a date and not quite not. Madison and Lynn play passably off each other, he good hearted and stodgy and she maddeningly flighty and charming. It's all silliness delivered with a mostly straight face.

The story (or stories) is sweet, but what makes this film fun is playing "spot the character actor." Florence Bates, Lionel Stander, Moyna MacGill (Angela Lansbury's mother, in a rare credited role), Margaret Hamilton, Irene Ryan, William Frawley and Roscoe Karns. Keep an eye peeled at the beginning for a copy boy at the newspaper - that's Audie Murphy, in his first (albeit brief) screen role.

A side question for Texans: the story starts at a Dallas newspaper, where Eddie is the entire Fort Worth bureau. Even so, he's more bored than the Maytag man. Was Fort Worth really that much of a podunk in 1948? (Speaking of the Maytag repairman, look for an uncredited Jesse White as the bar patron that starts and ends the film.)

Here to make your day a little more surreal is Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven:

I think I should start an office pool on this

Never has "winner take all" carried so much meaning. Via Tigerhawk.

A proposal

I move that Mr. Smith Goes to Washington be required viewing for all registered voters during any election year, proof of such viewing to be presented at the polling place. All in favor?

No stereotyping here

No, siree.

"If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention," said Hastings. "Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through."

Not surprisingly, the Palin campaign isn't commenting. Not that they really need to. Best thing is to let this bozo keep talking.

Stem-cell-sucking sodomites? Huh?

My Conservative Identity:

You are a Values Guardian, also known as a social conservative. You believe in serving on the front lines of the culture wars to restore traditional values and protecting America against condom-dispensing, stem cell-sucking sodomites from Hollyweird.

Take the quiz at www.FightLiberals.com

Let there be enchiladas on earth...

Many years ago, I was involved in several Mormon e-mail lists to learn more about the religion. (As I recounted here.) One of the other list members used a sig that said, "It really comes down to who makes the best enchiladas." Eventually he sent me the recipe, and I made up a batch at home. As we were belching happily after several platefuls, I found his phone number in Salt Lake and called to tell him so. I said, "If all the world ate these, we wouldn't have wars." He said, "Yeah, it's hard to hate someone who's passing you the hot sauce."

I've been wanting for a long time to post the recipe, but I lost it in a hard drive crash. Fortunately, another former member of the list preserved it verbatim, so I'm passing it on just as he gave it to me:
Rudy's Enchiladas
(yup, that's my other name from times past!)

COSAS PARA COMPRAR AL MERCADO:

1 lb ground meat
2 lg cans crushed tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1 white onion
1-1/2 lb or so sharp (charp!) cheddar or white cheese
3 large jalapenos (or enough to heat it all up a bit or a lot depending on how macho--Chicano you are.)
2 tbs. chile powder (pref. Chipotle but good ol' red will do) 1 tsp. cumino
1 can black olives
1 large pkg. cream cheese
Fresh cilantro
Green onions (so-called scallions on the east coast)
2 dozen or so corn tortillas
oil (lots of it)
Sour Cream
Chips of choice
Guacamole (Another easy thing, Cocinero. Just blend together ripe, soft avocado--of course without the skin burro!--a little lemon juice, salt, and hot sauce to taste ( If you're going to buy some, I really like "Cholula" brand. Blend in food processor until a little chunky...do it esse, it's so easy.)
Refried beans (Go ahead, esse, make you own, its ezzzzzzzy with una poca manteca or bacon grease, salt and chile powder. Smash those suckers up and fry til smooth and hot, put cheese on top with salsa....saboroso!) salt to taste
COMO HACERLOS:
Grate queso (OK, cheese) and set aside

In a blender or food processor, put jalapenos, chile powder, cumino, 1/3 cup (mas o menos) cilantro, 4 green onions, tsp. or so salt, half of can of crushed tomatoes, and blend.

Put 2 tbs. oil in bottom of deep pot, heat and brown 2 tbs. flour. Add sauce blend along with rest of crushed tomatoes into pot. Add can of tomato paste.

Simmer for a long time while you snooze una siesta....or at least 20 min. Fry meat, drain fat (this is just a small gesture toward health), put in bowl with cream cheese and half the onion chopped, stir until meat, onions and cream cheese are blended

Fry the tortillas in hot oil just until soft (!no mas!)and set aside.

Spoon about a heaping tbs. spoon into a tortilla along with a small handful of cheese and roll into enchilada. Place in baking dish. Continue until something runs out--either ingredients or your patience.

Pour sauce over rolled enchiladas, top with more shredded cheese. Bake at 350 degrees or at least until cheese melts and dish is bubbling a bit.

Take those suckers out and top with sour cream, chopped green onion, chopped fresh cilantro, chopped or whole black olives. Sit your nalgas down at the table with lots of napkins, Fritos, White Corn Chips, guacamole, refritos (refried beans), Sangria (Make some real stuff or, for you who WW*, get some Pena Fiel Sangria--its ok, no alcohol), Margaritas (not to be confused with macarenas!) and XX and Orale!. An hour later, when you are finished drinking and eating a plate or two, have someone help you up from the table and into bed. Sleep it all off until the morning when you wake up and have the left overs (they heat up bueno in the microwave with Saranwrap over the top) for breakfast with more XX. Follow the whole works up with Menudo the next day....!Buen provecho, life is gooooood esse!

Enchiladae vobiscum!

* Abbreviation for the Word of Wisdom.

"Out of my mouth, foul Jesus cookie!"

I almost spit coffee on my monitor when I read that. (Via Ken; Language alert in the original)

Watch her graciously greet a visiting foreign ecclesiastical dignitary from Africa, and not go running off the state in an undiplomatic freak-out as he exhibits his strange foreign customs.

Apparently some on the left think she should have done the latter.

I was the best man at my friend's wedding but am not a confirmed Catholic (or much of a confirmed anything). We told this to the priest, and he said I wouldn't be able to receive communion, which was fine by me, because 1) the rules said I shouldn't and 2) I didn't want to be a hypocrite and 3) well, who cares. It wasn't my church. I was there to be my friend's best man. Whatever was on the program, I was down for.

During the actual ceremony, apparently the priest called an audible and decided that the it would look better if everyone got communion instead of three out of four, so he put the wafer in my mouth.

At that moment, I jumped up and spat out the communion wafer, screaming "OUT OF MY MOUTH, FOUL JESUS COOKIE!" and generally ran around like a jackass, screaming blue murder and cursing God and ruining my friend's wedding.

Uh, no I didn't. I ate the wafer and sipped the wine and bowed my head thoughtfully and pretended to be a good Catholic. I was there to be my best friend's best man, not to let everyone in the church know my precise feelings on transubstantiation.

Just for the record, the priest wasn't supposed to have done that. Nevertheless, Ace did the right thing. If a given religious function doesn't actually violate your beliefs, be as polite as possible out of respect, not necessarily for the belief, but for the person who believes it.

Now, there are limits to politeness. I wouldn't participate in, say, a Wiccan ceremony even so far as walking in the door. That would violate my beliefs. However, if I fond myself present for something of that sort, I would still try to quietly slip away and pray for their souls, rather than make a huge to-do that would serve only to make Christians look like dolts by association. (Of course, I'm not promising that I wouldn't go find some holy water to splash on them when they weren't looking, but still. Always discreetly.)

Among Christians, it seems to me that there is much we can agree on, and it's usually possible to skip over the things we can't. I've been to pentecostal services where, when the whole thing dissolved into Holy Spirit-induced chaos (from my perspective, anyway) I stood and prayed quietly in English while others around me prayed in tongues. I don't do it myself, but other Christian brethren in good conscience were, and we're all in it together. (I did avoid the Hail Mary out of respect for them, because if others knew I was praying it it would have been a stumbling block.)

Conversely, my mom came to Pete's baptism last month, and although she doesn't believe in infant baptism or baptismal regeneration, she loves and respects us Christians who do. (For those who aren't familiar with the rite, it's here. When we went through the Apostles' Creed and the priest asked us all if we believed it, she could say "I do," because she does. When we reached the Litany of the Saints, she held her peace while those of us who could pray it, did. (I'd forgotten it was part of the ceremony, incidentally, or I'd have asked Father if he could leave it out.)

I've even been to Mormon functions, mostly weddings and funerals, and there are things I could agree with. They read from the Bible, I can say "amen." They read from the Book of Mormon, I can let the people next to me say "amen" and disagree silently. God knows my heart and theirs; there's no need to clarify publicly.

Sarah Palin might or might not have put much stock in the pastor's prayer. (I haven't actually seen the video, so I don't know what-all it entailed.) But it seems to me that, for all the guff she's gotten about lack of foreign exposure, she has the right attitude. She was respectful of a presumably good man doing what he believed was a good thing for her.

The criticism she's gotten points more to the secular Left's (and the media's) ignorance and fear of serious religion than to anything about her. The African pastor's invocation seemed weird and scary to them, because people who actually believe their religions frighten them. Look how much has been made out of her belonging to a pentecostal church in her youth. Pentecostals aren't scary to me, because I know that they hold to a particular moral code. Mormons aren't alien to me, either, for the same reason. I've never met an Orthodox Jew, but they don't give me the willies, either. It's got nothing to do with whether I believe their tenets or not. It's more to do with how strongly they believe their faiths. Someone who believes strongly in praying in tongues (or even in Joseph Smith's visions) probably also believes equally strongly in honest dealing and charity to the needy. I can respect such a person.

It's like Lewis said: People who are orthodox in separate religions usually have more common ground than the more inclusive liberals who try to pretend there are no differences.

Uh oh!

Does this mean I have to let my daughters get tattoos now?

A bad week for the medical profession

And an even worse one for patients. But apparently a fantastic one for lawyers.

Gobsmacked by God again

So a few minutes ago I overheard a co-worker take a phone call, then burst into tears and run to the ladies' room. A few minutes later she came out and I asked her if she was all right.

Seems two days ago, she had a call from her dad that he had cancer. No other details were available yet. The call today was to tell her that the cancer was gone before treatment had even begun. These people are prayin' folks, so I have no doubt that's what they've been doing.

A better Christian than me would be completely unsurprised by it. Me, I just sat there with my mouth hanging open. And then blogged about it.

Best slogan ever

Okay, so "Barbie" is a little demeaning. But I like the idea of her high heels being planted in a few liberal hinies. They'll be begging her to go after caribou before she's done.

Meanwhile, the real reason McCain postponed the debate.

Akubra tip to Roanoke Copand Mark Shea, respectively.

For my buddy Ken

With my compliments:

Pure genius!

Beep beep!

Just for the record, Iowahawk rocks my world. If he didn't before, this would be sufficient. Puts the whole thing in perspective.

Hooray for injustice!

"What I’d like to understand,” said the Ghost, “is what you’re here for, as pleased as Punch, you, a bloody murderer, while I’ve been walking the streets down there and living in a place like a pigstye all these years. Look at me, now. I gone straight all my life. I don’t say I was a religious man and I don’t say I had no faults, far from it. But I done my best all my life, see? I done my best by everyone, that’s the sort of chap I was. I never asked for anything that wasn’t mine by rights. If I wanted a drink I paid for it and if I took my wages I done my job, see? That’s the sort I was and I don’t care who knows it. You may think you can put me down because you’re dressed up like that (which you weren’t when you worked under me) and I’m only a poor man. But I got to have my rights same as you, see?”

“Oh no. It’s not so bad as that. I haven’t got my rights, or I should not be here. You will not get yours either. You’ll get something far better. Never fear.”

“What do you keep on arguing for? I’m only telling you the sort of chap I am. I only want my rights. I’m not asking for anybody’s bleeding charity.”

“Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought.”
(C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce)

I mentioned a while back that I was mildly impressed with our new Associate Pastor, Fr. Brooks. I'm sorry, but I have to change my assessment of him in light of yesterday's Mass.

I'm impressed as all get out with him now.

Since we left Visigoth, Ostrogoth and the baby at home, we were able to sit through an entire Mass and actually hear what was being said. I have to tell you, I know Fr. Brooks is a cradle Catholic, but the way he preaches, I'd have taken him for a recovering Baptist.

You have to understand, I grew up in a church that was probably on the liberal end of Baptistdom, but still decidedly Baptist. And like many other denominations that don't make a big deal of sacraments, they compensate for it with a strong tradition of sermonizing. That's the primary criterion for a good preacher in that tradition, is how well he can drive a point home in a sermon.

When I turned Catholic, I found that one of the first things I missed was good sermons. We call them "homilies" on this side of the Tiber, and they're actually about five minutes of thoughts on the readings of the day. Most of the priests I've heard (which isn't many, admittedly) deliver them in almost a Father Mulcahy style, sounding well-educated in well-modulated tones, with enough reasonable openness not to offend anyone. In a word, Catholic homilies tend to be, well, bland.

Not so with Fr. Brooks. Now here's where the looks get deceiving. Fr. Brooks looks like a nerd among nerds. He's tall (about six-four), thin and balding and has kind of a perpetually befuddled look on his face. When he speaks to you, he kind of sounds hesitant and unsure of himself, like that shy middle-aged bachelor that lives two doors down and spends his time talking to cats and reading the lonelyhearts ads. (Father, if you read this, I'm sorry. I mean all that as kindly as possible.)

But when he finishes that Gospel and steps out from behind the ambo, it's like somebody threw a switch somewhere and he suddenly turns confident, colloquial and coherent. Having spent a fair amount of time in the business world before swapping a tie for a collar, his take on yesterday's Gospel reading was really, really cogent. (It was the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, if you're familiar with that.) He pointed out that it's human nature to demand fairness in our dealings, and that that principle is what the American business culture is founded on. If business were operated the way the parable describes, he said, the economy would crumble. That, he said, is where the American culture and the Kingdom of God part ways.

It's true. The entire Christian faith is predicated on unfairness. It's hard for the rest of the world to grasp, but that's the truth. Take a look at the "cultural religion" you see on TV and in the movies. There's an underlying assumption that you go to Heaven if you're good, and to Hell if you're bad. (And that once in Heaven, you turn into an angel, but that's a whole 'nother irritant.) You get what you deserve, in other words.

You can't blame the makers of such shows, because to a human way of thinking, that's exactly how it should be. Justice is one of the most basic human instincts, and on the whole, it's a good one. it is incumbent on us to behave justly toward one another. We should keep our word, give honest measure for fair pay, and return the wallet on the sidewalk with all the money intact. And if we violate laws, our punishment should be swift and sure.

To an extent, that's what we find in Christianity. There is a quid-pro-quo involved. Sin rates damnation. (N.B.: I'm not going to get into arguments about the exact nature of the Atonement. I'm not theologian enough to keep up my end.) But that's where it ends. Virtue does not rate salvation. In fact, nothing rates salvation. We start out sinful through no direct fault of our own, and as soon as we learn how, we proceed to add our own fault to it. Everybody does it, and once it's done, it's done. The debt outweighs our potential for payment. We cannot virtue our way out of it.

So damnation is a given. We deserve it, if not for original sin, then for actual sin. It's no use complaining that it's not fair, because it's eminently fair. We did the deeds, we take the consequences. it's also no good complaining that eternal damnation is disproportionate to whatever our little peccadillos are, because we simply have no way of knowing what is proportionate and what's not. We understand as much about God's operations as a cow understands about calculus. Did we know right from wrong when we sinned? We did. Then we're in a darn poor bargaining position to try to negotiate proportionality. We don't make the rules, we don't get to change them. We're damned, fair and square, and there's not a frimpin' thing we can do about it. And what's more, it's fair that we should be.

But God doesn't cotton to fairness. He's a Person, not an accounting system, and He has a way out of the dilemma. The catch is, we have to give up on the whole idea of justice. Justice won't keep us from toasting our toes eternally. Injustice will. God, who owes us less than nothing, will give us a free passage into Heaven, which He is under no obligation to share in the first place. The catch is, there is no catch. None. Take it or leave it. You can't pay for it, you can't repay it, you can't get it anywhere else. It's just not fair.

That's the part that's so hard to grasp. We automatically start looking for catches and loopholes. We automatically want to make an exchange. But while God does have some expectations for us as saved people (like not throwing it away once we have it), the actual salvation is not subject to any kind of deal whatsoever. Then, too, we think of a scapegoat system as a dishonest, sneaky way to do things. That we should gain by throwing Someone else under the bus upsets all our notions of right and wrong. Nevertheless, this is how God has decided to do things.

This is so much a part of the Christian faith that we tend to treat it as a fish treats water. We take it as a background and assume we're owed justice within that structure. Once we're in the Kingdom, we reason, we ought to get what we deserve. I've been good. Shouldn't good things happen to me?

That's kind of the attitude I took last year when our financial situation came to a head. I've been a good Christian, I figured. I don't kill, fornicate, worship idols or covet my neighbor's ass. My areas where I do fall short I glossed over, since that has already been taken care of. Unjustly.

But when it came to this, I figured I deserved justice. I did what I was supposed to do as a child of God. I should get the results I consider fair.

Yeah? Sez who? I don't determine what's right and wrong in that area, any more than I do wen it comes to salvation. I'm completely pig-ignorant of how God does things. the one thing I can be certain of is that I will not get what I deserve. I may get something better, or I may get poked in the metaphorical eye with a sharp stick. Either way, as long as I'm benefitting from God's manifest injustice, it's pretty stupid of me to start demanding "fairness" when it suits me. I'd much rather have the Bleeding Charity.

Yep! That's me!

What would we do without the Curt Jester? More here.

Friday Night Miscellany

As I'm trying to ignore the kids clamoring in the next room. Meanwhile, Wharf Rat sent Christina a picture of the new grandchild. I don't care what anyone says; I think he looks like his grandpa.


A thought came to mind the other day: My grandparents are still alive, pushing ninety. In particular, my grandfather has lived long enough to see his first great-great-grandson. His great-grandfather, the man who is the same relation that to Grandpa that he is to Loki, was a boy of six when he watched his father march away to the American Revolution. It's a little staggering to think of.

I don't know how to embed a music player, but here's something for my Reverend Auntie and anyone else who might be interested. You'll have to right-click, download, and play it on your own computer. It's a song I used to hear my mom sing as a child, so it must have come from one of her parents. (Update: Found a player. Let's see how this one works.)





And a soundie by the same band, courtesy of High-Falutin'Newton:




Happy weekend, y'all!

Blowin' like a bandit

Pastor Dave hadn't posted for a long time (since March), so I didn't notice until now that he's returned and is blogging his way through Hurricane Ike. It looks like the worst is over now.

Up here in the sagebrush desert, it's hard to picture what those hurricanes must be like. The worst we ever get is dust storms, and those aren't nearly so destructive. I can't imagine sitting through something like that.

I hope it means once the mess is cleaned up, he'll be back in the blogosphere. I've missed what he's had to say.

Any time now

I may already be a winner grandpa. Wharf Rat went in to be induced this morning, and so far there's no word. I don't have any rational reason to worry, but I am anyway. She's down in Oregon somewhere between Portland and Salem, and I can't be there, so I'm nervous. St. Anne, grandmother of Our Lord, protectress of women in labor and WR's own patron, pray for her.

More information will follow as it comes in.

Update: The phone rang literally as I clicked the "Post" button. It's all over with. (Or just beginning, depending on how you look at it.) Mama and baby are doing well if wearily. They ended up doing a C-section because of worries about the cord, so WR is about to discover the joys of painkillers. I don't think she's ever had to take them before.

Official stats because the ladies will ask: Loki Brian was born at 2:45 at Willamette Falls Hospital in Oregon City. He is 8 pounds 9 ounces, 21 inches. No picture yet, as the parents have much more pressing matters on their minds.

(And incidentally, Brian is my middle name. I'm humbled and proud.)

If I believed in reincarnation

Your result for Reincarnation Placement Exam...

Pirate

Arrrh! Yer just what we need in the way of a pirate -- I mean, privateer!

According to your answers, you love adventure, and working with -- or against -- people. And you can enjoy it all without having to deal with the pesky interference of that abomination called... civilization.

Keep yer powder dry and yer sense of adventure as sharp as yer cutlass! Don't bother saving for retirement... it's just not close to likely. If the weather doesn't sink you, an enemy ship will. But in the meantime, you'll have plenty of rum, fresh air and adventure.

Remember the Pirate's Code! Even though it's, you know, more of a set of guidelines.

Take Reincarnation Placement Exam at HelloQuizzy

A tip of the ol' Akubra to Nina.

Classy. Real classy.

Just for the record, I'd be equally disgusted if this were aimed at a Democrat. My beloved grandmother used to volunteer at a home for developmentally-disabled adults, and I was brought up better than to call them "retards." Apparently, there are those who hate Sarah Palin so much that they'll stoop to lows I wouldn't have expected, and prove that they weren't even as well-raised as a red-necked Rethuglican. I wish I were more surprised.

A/T to Mark Shea, the Godfather of St. Blog's Parish.