Update on the altar-smashing God-goons

(I tried to post this yesterday, but Blogger was down.)

I was really, really hoping these people would turn out not to be acting out some deranged version of Protestant Fundamentalism. Rats.

"We are in End Times," Wagner said. "This is Armageddon, the end of all things. Basically, what we're in right now is the appearance of the antichrist who we believe to be Pope Benedict (XVI). . . . That's the main reason we chose the Catholic church. It didn't have anything to do with the people in it...

Turgeon and Wagner said they believe the End Times have begun because of widespread famine, epidemics and natural disasters like hurricanes and a tsunami that killed thousands.

"I'm just waiting for an earthquake," Turgeon said.

The couple spoke of their readings in the book of Revelation, saying changes in the moon, stars and an asteroid he believes is the woodworm, were all predicted. [That's "Wormwood," you dolt! – Joel]

Both Turgeon and Wagner believe Pope Benedict is the antichrist. They said Pope Benedict changed his pallium, a band worn over the pope's shoulders, and the color of his ring.

"He changed the color to red," Turgeon said. "A symbol of the blood of the lamb. Every time he puts the ring on he's saying, 'I'm God.' "

Turgeon said he discovered the difference in the pope's attire while browsing the Internet.

You know, this is not unlike a Protestant analog of the Catholic pervo-priest scandal. The overwhelming majority of Protestants would no more do something like this than the overwhelming majority of priests would diddle boys. Normal, sane Fundamentalists (no, that's not an oxymoron!) may believe that the Pope is the Anti-Christ, but they don't trash their neighbors' churches to combat him. (Particularly since there's a lot of ocean between Alabama and Rome, so the Pope wasn't even affected.) These people bear about the same resemblance to genuine Fundamentalists that Tim McVeigh bore to Republicans. To my Fundamentalist friends on- and offline, I want to say I'm sorry if any Catholic has tarred you with the same brush that slathers these loons. It's wrong when "guilt by association" is applied to Catholics, and wrong when it's applied to Protestants.

BTW, would someone who knows more about vestments tell me if the pallium's color changes according to the liturgical season, or what? I'm curious.

Let me get this straight

You're a Muslim in England, a country that eight or nine hundred years ago fought your ancestors in the Crusades. Your lot won, frankly, which is why Jerusalem has been mostly Muslim ever since. Chances are, you're either an immigrant or the son of immigrants, in a country that's been historically Christian since the third century. Moreover, you're in prison in England, which means you did something rotten to the people of your (adopted) country.

And you're offended if the local people wear their national symbol in your presence?

To use a term that's probably equally offensive to Muslims, that's Chutzpah!

He did what?!?

Okay, the gay priest thing is bad enough, but giving the Holy Eucharist to a dog? How much contempt for Christ does that take?

Homosexuality is a sin, whether you wear a cassock or a T-shirt, but it's a sin that is at least understandable, i.e. a giving in to lust. But to deliberately profane the Sacrament like this is not weakness, it's blasphemy, comparable to the Satanic "Black Mass." And this guy (who isn't named, fortunately for him) is priesting somewhere?

"Disgusting" just doesn't even come close.

All right, I'm in.

"It is awfully hard to be b-b-brave," said Piglet, "when you are only a Very Small Animal."

Courage, little oinker! We're a Very Large Blogosphere!

Things that make you say "well, duh!"

A new study links juvenile obesity to produce prices. Seems kids who live where fresh fruits andd vegetables are more expensive are less likely to eat it. No kidding?

The results showed that young children who live in communities where fruits and vegetables are expensive are more likely to gain excessive amounts of weight than kids who live in areas where produce costs less. That connection was stronger than the proximity to fast-food restaurants.

On average, children in the study gained 29 pounds. But for the region with the highest relative price for produce _ Mobile, Ala. _ children gained about 50 percent more excess weight as measured by body-mass index (a ratio of height to weight) than children nationally.

Among kids in the area with the lowest relative cost for fruits and vegetables _ Visalia, Calif. _ excess weight gain was about half the national average.

The study also found that many children who live in poverty have just as much access to grocery stores as kids in higher-income neighborhoods.

Access, yes. Do they use it? Maybe, maybe not. Kids do tend toward the path of least resistance, as do low-income parents, often working long hours and too damn tired to cook. There's access to fast-food all but the smallest towns; I don't think whether there's ten or twenty grease-joints in town makes that much difference. Then, too, the current trend in fast food is toward healthier, less-fattening meals. Of course, kids will always go for the grease; I don't know too many who say, "Hey dad, can we get a salad at McDonald's?"

Something that's missing is the lifestyle differences between, say, Visalia and Mobile. Visalia is a sizeable city, true, but it's also farm country, and low-income people in an ag commmunity are a lot more likely to be farm workers than in a city like Mobile. Farm work is hard, dirty, and lots of exercise. I wonder if that was any kind of a factor.

A family tradition

I've always had a soft spot for Jimmy Carter. I think he was and is a good, decent man, far too good and decent for the Machiavellian edge that being the president required, which is why he did so badly at it. Now it looks like his son Jack will be running for the Senate seat currently held by John Ensign of Nevada.

I don't know much about Jack, but I like the little bit I got from this article.

"I'm more concerned than ever with the way that the country is headed," said Carter, 58.
Carter told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in Tuesday's editions that he's considering a challenge of Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., in 2006. He termed himself a social liberal with conservative Southern roots and a business background that taught him that "you pay for what you spend."

But the thing that really jumped out at me is this little breath of classiness in a crass political landscape:

Carter's name has previously been floated for political office in Nevada. An effort last year was made to recruit him to run against Republican Congressman Jon Porter. Carter said at the time that since he was new to the area, "I didn't think it would be polite."

After seeing Hillary Clinton move to New York and get elected to the Senate before the U-Haul was unpacked, it's good that at least one Southerner knows the value of not being a carpetbagger. That in itself makes me look forward to seeing more of this guy.

Being Catholic means never having to say this:

Or it should, at any rate. Greg Krehbiel lets loose a deliciously sarcastic broadside at armchair experts:

I’m adopting a new strategy. When faced with Institutional Stupidity, I will (1) mock the stupidity, (2) withdraw any and all support (real or implied) from said stupidity, and (3) go play with my kids.

So, for example, when the cantor announces a David Haas song, I will fold my arms, scowl, press the lips tightly and tickle my daughter. When atrocious translations of Scripture are read from the pulpit, I will roll my eyes and have a thumb war with my son. When asked to read a part in a play written by some 60s wannabe, I will emit a belly laugh and take a kid to 7-11 for a slurpee.

I have already withdrawn all financial support from the American bishops and submitted my resignation to the Republican Party. The operative phrase from now on is “I won’t be a party to this.”

One of the toughest things about being an American Catholic is coming to terms with the fact that the bishop is the boss; I am not. Americans, by and large, dislike authority intensely. In terms of political parties, well, they're run by the pee-pul in theory, but in practice, the individual can't expect to call the shots there either. The bozos ye have with you always; that doesn't make it a good idea to abandon the whole bandobast whenever they come to the fore.

This may be the best thing that could happen to her

Operation Rescue is opposed to Harriet Miers' nomination.

Given the reputation (not really deserved) that Operation Rescue enjoys for being wackos and borderline terrorists, this may be of more benefit to Miers than detriment with the undecideds. The enemy of my enemy, and all that.

Still, I stand by my postulation yesterday that Miers is a throwaway nominee, to make the real one more confirmable. My LaBW suggested the same thing yesterday, before she had seen my post about it. See why I married her?

Update: Trent Lott doesn't approve of her either. The only thing that would make liberals like her more is if NARAL endorsed her.

Washington ballots being reprinted

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- A mistake by state elections officials is prompting some counties to reprint thousands of ballots, driving workers and printers into overtime and testing a deadline for getting ballots to overseas voters.

The error, in an advisory from the secretary of state's office, caused some counties to print ballots with statewide initiatives in the wrong order, officials said Tuesday.

I figured they forgot to pre-mark the Democratic candidates before they sent 'em out. Oh, well, that'll be fixed when they're counted.

Back in the sidebar again

I'm pleased to see that a blogger I've enjoyed in the past is back under a new name. He's asked that we not mention the old name, as he doesn't want it googled, but you can see his new beginning here.

Welcome back, Joe!

"Mariaphobic Response Syndrome"

Catholic überblogger Mark Shea has an excellent article at Catholic Exchange that responds to the latria vs. dulia distinction that's hard to get across in Catholic-Protestant discussions.

I have to disagree in one place with Mark, when he says that Evangelicals don't have a problem with Eucharistic adoration, but the question does tend to take a back seat to Mary in raising Protestant hackles. Mary is more visible, and hence an easier target, but the Real Presence is a lot more fundamental, and I suspect a lot of Evangelicals don't really realize what a big deal we make of the Blessed Sacrament. (I know I didn't, but then, I was never a very thoughtful Evangelical.)

Anyway, go take a look. In particular, I'd like, in a brotherly spirit, to invite a regular commenter on this blog to read it and see if it doesn't address the things we've been discussing. (I'd just as soon not say who, as I don't want to make it look like I'm putting him on the spot.)

Great article, Mark! I look forward to Part II.

Woops!

I have a lot of trouble believing this wasn't somebody's idea of a practical joke.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Copies of a movie aimed at a Mormon audience have been pulled from store shelves after a recording mix-up left buyers watching "Adored: Diary of a Porn Star" instead of the squeaky clean "Sons of Provo."

Two Utah families caught the problem after purchasing DVDs at Deseret Book stores, which are owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Fortunately, the movie the customers unintentionally bought wasn't rated. Mormons consider it a sin to watch movies with an "R" rating, so it would have been the equivalent of spiking food with pork and selling it under a kosher label to observant Jews. Still, it's not far off, and it's a slimy thing to do to trick somebody into something they believe is sinful. Real funny, folks!

Here's a thought

What if Bush nominated Harriet Miers as kind of a sacrificial lamb, to make the Kleptocrats use up their political capital with a pointless battle, and leave them less ready to fight his real choice, to be named later? I don't think she'll end up being confirmed, but if the Dems put up too much of a fight, the voters will be tired of it after round one, and the next nominee will have less trouble with the Senate.

Or maybe he just knows something about her that the rest of us don't. Maybe there's some real quality behind her that we haven't seen. The one thing I'm fairly sure of is that the president is a lot less stupid than the media make him out to be. There's an iceberg under here somewhere.

Trust me, I'm a doctor

And I can play one, too!

SEATTLE - An Oregon woman whose doctor convinced her that he could cure her lower back pain by having sex with her is suing him and his medical clinic for $4 million, according to legal documents obtained Monday...

Dr. Smith’s medical treatment included intercourse in which he told plaintiff was needed to help alleviate plaintiff’s lower back and lower extremity pain,” the former patient said in the lawsuit.

What gets me is that the woman fell for it. How naïve is that?

The highlight of a five-dollar bill's existence...

... is to be stuffed into an undulating G-string. But it won't be happening in Seattle anymore.

By a G-string-thin margin, the Seattle City Council yesterday approved tough new rules governing conduct in strip clubs.

The council voted 5-4 to approve an ordinance that will require clubs to keep dancers and patrons at least four feet apart, install a 3-foot railing between the stage and audience, ban direct tipping and install brighter lighting...

"Without being prudes, we can be prudent," [Councilman Nick] Licata said.

In the city that Boeing built, I predict that there will be a new craze for folding bills into paper airplanes and competing for marksmanship.

Tell me they didn't really name him that!

Nicholas Cage does DC proud by raising his own Kal-el

The actor's publicist, Annett Wolf confirmed the delivery of the baby boy in New York City besides his name as Kal-el Coppola Cage, while saying, "They are healthy and happy and it's quite lovely". It is not known where they got the inspiration to name the boy Kal-el, but it is very likely that Cage himself, who at one point collected Superman comics, might have thought of it. Though he has since auctioned off his huge collection including the prized 1938 pulp Superman debut for an estimated $1.6 million, Cage can now hope to raise a super-son.

Of course, since it's been well-demonstrated by Larry Niven that Superman himself would require some pretty extreme measures ever to have his own super-spawn, it may be that this is an act of kindness on the Cages' part. Follow the link; it's one of the funniest things you'll ever read.

It's good night from me...

... and it's good night from him.



Ronnie Barker, 1929-2005. R.I.P.

(Go here to see why it's such a loss.)

Let the Carnival begin!

This week's Catholic Carnival is up at Kicking Over My Traces. Lots of good stuff there!

Good night, Father-Boy!

Last week, my Lovely and Brilliant Wife posted her thoughts about large families and vocations. I have to admit, even though I was the one who originally made the joke about our sixth-born becoming a priest, I hadn't really given the matter any serious thought.

Part of it is my Protestant background. My grandfather was a Baptist minister, and my mother always kind of hoped that I'd be a preacher, too. (I've made some steps toward diaconate formation, but I think she's not sure if that's the same thing or not.) In my family, the pastorate and paternity were far from mutually exclusive. The idea that a clergyman son would mean no grandchildren simply isn't (pardon the pun) an issue.

The thought of one of my kids being a priest is, frankly, a little frightening. First, of the six that have been born so far, three are girls, which makes the question moot for them. But what of the boys? Well, Number One Son is a faithful Catholic, but he'd make a terrible priest. Really. If ever there was a kid born with "engineer" tattooed on his forehead, he's it. He'd be the ultimate square peg in a vocation centered around mystery and the unquantifiable. The priesthood is no place for him.

Number Two Son is also unlikely to be a priest, as he's being raised mostly by his mother, who is not Catholic. And this is also where my own prejudices come in. He's named for my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather; he's the first to carry on my last name (Number One's is different), and if he didn't have children, I would feel like the family had been cut off.

But Number Three Son is a definite possiblilty. Granted, he's only a year and a half old, but already I find myself picturing him in vestments and collar. His favorite thing is to pray the "Our Father" with Mama; he lets us know he wants to pray by tapping his shoulders to cross himself. (My wife is teaching him the correct way to do it: "In the name of the Father (tap)... and the Son (tap)... and the Holy (tap) Spirit (tap), amen (fold hands)." In contrast, my oldest daughter learned the Sign of the Cross as "Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet, Watch." My own fault; I taught that to her when she was ten.

It's a little scary thinking of little Dai as a priest. First, I never met a priest until about six years ago. The priests I know at our parish are in their 70s and 80s. How can this baby ever be old enough to be a priest? And although my clergy experience before then was with Protestant pastors, they were still authority figures. How can I respect the authority of someone whose hiney I've whupped? Can I picture someone behind the altar that I've had to pull down off the bookshelves?

Then, too, what do you call a priest twhose diapers you've changed? "Father?" Hah! That's my title! "Kiddo" seems kind of disrespectful. I think maybe a compromise from The Waltons is in order: "Father-Boy."

But what about grandchildren? Well, with six-point-three kids, I don't think my future status as a revered patriarch is in any real jeopardy. My quiver runneth over already. I can imagine one or two of my kids not producing the number of grandchildren necessary to pay me back for their raising. Still, it's hard to imagine knowing that a child of mine will never have his own children. How do you threaten him when he misbehaves (approximately once per heartbeat)? "Just wait till you have parishioners of your own!" Doesn't really carry the same vindictive weight, does it?

On the other hand, there could be some real advantages, too. As my wife pointed out, John Paul the Great was raised by a single father, and gave him some of the credit for his vocation. Father of the pope... yeah, I could see that. (Would that make me the Holy Grandfather?) Pope Dai the First has a nice ring to it. And even if he never makes it that far up the ladder (which I'm not giving up on yet, thank you), I have no doubt he'll still be a model of devotion and strength in the church, a boost to a dad's ego if there ever was one.

All right, so the reasons it seems like a good idea are selfish. But half a century ago, it was almost expected that one son in the family would go into Holy Orders. Today, it's far from automatic even for cradle Catholics, and for an ex-Prod like me, it's on a par with thinking of myself as an underwear model: scary and almost unimaginable.

Mostly, I need to remember that God gave me this kid (and don't think I haven't had some things to say about that!), and what God does with him is emphatically not up to me. I'm just the caretaker; God will call Dai to the priesthood or not, as He sees fit. My mission – whether I jolly well accept it or not – is to raise him to be as Godly a man as I can manage, without trying to second-guess the real Father. If Dai marries and reproduces, good. If he celebrates Mass instead, also good.

But if so, I hope those parishioners give their Father hell! It's the least they can do for Father-Boy's old man.

Don't it just make Jesus proud?

Yea, brethren and sistern, I reckon we done showed the great Roman Harlot whut wuz whut! Watch their false altars break under the force of our Godliness! If we crush a couple of their spawn, well, they probably weren't the Elect™ anyway!

"They were screaming something about Catholics worshipping idols and other things. I was so stunned, I didn't hear it all," she said. "The man then went behind the altar and pushed it over. If it had not been so heavy and had not gone straight down the steps, someone would have been hurt, probably those little children sitting near us."

Nope, them Mary-lovin', Pope-kissin', Bible-burnin' heeee-thens won't be clackin' their beads in our Godfearing neighborhoods no more!

Now, I got the gas and the cross. Who's got a match? Puh-raize Jeee-zus!

Update: (From my LaBW) Jesus hates you, this I know/For my PCP tells me so..."

A/T to Mark Shea.

Predictable

NARAL doesn't like her, although she has a chance to redeem herself by their lights..

“The burden is on the Bush administration and Harriet Miers to prove to the American people that she will respect and protect our fundamental freedoms, including a woman’s right to choose. Miers does not appear to have a public record to assure Americas pro-choice majority that she is a moderate in the tradition of Justice Sandra Day OConnor, who was the critical swing vote that protected women’s reproductive health and freedom.” — Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America

No, Ms. Keenan, the burden is on the Bush administration to prove that she is a competent and fair judge, who will rule on the law rather than on what she thinks it ought to be. I'm sorry if that doesn't line up with NARAL's platform. If you don't like it, start buying more legislators.

Like this is a surprise!

You speak eloquently and have seemingly read every
book ever published. You are a fountain of
endless (sometimes useless) knowledge, and
never fail to impress at a party.
What people love: You can answer almost any
question people ask, and have thus been
nicknamed Jeeves.
What people hate: You constantly correct their
grammar and insult their paperbacks.


What Kind of Elitist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Akubra tip to North Western Winds, who inexplicably came up with the same thing. Snobbish minds think alike!

And so it begins...

The president has announced his choice for Justice O'Connor's seat, and it's Harriet Miers. I've never heard of her, and I don't know how many others have, either. Predictably, conservatives are encouuraged by little hints that she might be pro-life (she's active in an Evangelical church, and she once argued that the American Bar Association should not adopt a pro-abortion stance as its official position). Liberals are upset that once again, a nominee has no paper trail to provide ammunition for a character assassination, annd are throwing around terms like "longtime Bush supporter" as thought they were somehow damning.

But what gets me is the mug picture the Washington Post used in its online article:


Notice how it makes her look undead or something. Of all the pictures available of her, why use this one?

Keep an eye on the pictures in the news stories about this confirmation process, and see if all the conservatives aren't shown looking either angry or stupid. And they say there's no bias!

Update: Look at this one. I can't play the video on this computer, but the opening shot is even stupider-looking than the WaPo one.

Oh, and a link...

...from the same Staghounds blog, to what I certainly hope is a parody of BBC's front page. Click any of the links, and see where it takes you. Supposedly there's no connection, but the stories seem to relate eerily to the spoof. A very well-done satire!

The "racist" blog

The blog that Stacey Campfield (see below) so rashly linked to is called Staghounds, and it's one of the best I've seen. A few sample quotes:
On Rep. Campfield's media crucifixion (profanity edited):

During the post Katrina stuff, I read a very impressive piece by a Jamaican ( I grew up in the W. I.) columnist in which he suggested that crying racism to justify theft and worse was both dishonest and insulting to decent black citizens, and that black citizens might do better to strive to provide a good example rather than whinge and riot. I posted a quote from Mr. Levy's column as a teaser.

I reckoned without the stupidity and Pavlovian indoctrination of the left, for whom ANY discussion of racial matters beyond "Look at what the blue eyed devils have done to the poor innocent noble (insert victim group)" is absolutely taboo. Some of these defenders of tolerance read the posted part of the Levy piece and leaped to the conclusion they have been trained to see and so much wanted to believe.

Doubleplusungood thoughtcrime! ...

Now I see that in response to these bigoted jackass shouters, Rep. Campfield has found it necessary to disable comments on his blog. The protectors of free speech- at least when it's "Bush is a [person with oedipal tendencies]"- have managed to silence hundreds of people. Many of them disagreed with Rep. Campfield and used the comments to challenge and teach a legislator who wanted to stay in touch with the people he represents.

Nice going, petty tyrants. I feel badly that my blog led to this, but not very. The left behaves as though the way to deal with disagreement is to silence it. I just happened to be the catalyst. I do feel sorry for the people of Tennessee, who have been deprived of a direct conduit to a part of their government.

On the blog post that started the furor:

A man who dares to reject and denounce predators and parasites, even of his own race. Can't have the darkies forming their own opinions on massas Jackson, Rangel, and Dowd's plantation. Take your welfare check and shut up is the standard for the left...

I decided long ago to stop keeping the black man down. It was just too much trouble, all those meetings and memos. And one really does try to avoid exposure to those who wear percale sheets, forsooth.

On Senator Kennedy: (I love this one!):

Senator Kennedy said...
"What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out and those people who were impoverished died,"

Now if one just changes "impoverished" to PASSENGERS...

Miscellaneous Katrina-related:

It's not looting...
It's just self assigned welfare benefits!

After all, lying around and letting someone else house, feed, clothe, and medicate you IS stealing.

Poor people die young of starvation and disease. Our "poor" die old of diabetes and cancer. Poor people live in dirt floored huts or shantytowns. They get their water from a creek or street tap.

Genuinely poor people- in huts in Madagascar or slums in Lima- DREAM of the Lucullan luxury of a New Orleans housing project.

EVERY big city in Britain, and the U. S., and the rest of the west, has a little New Orleans within it. They operate all the time, even without natural disasters. Places where the cruelest and strongest are the law, where police, law, and morals are just temporary visitors.

The lord of the flies rules somewhere in your town, too.

This guy belongs on my sidebar! And yours, too!

Six degrees of Stacey Campfield

Rep. Campfield, you may have heard, is the supposedly racist state congressman in Tennessee who incensed the state's Black Caucus by asking for a copy of their bylaws. Apparently, they told him he couldn't have them unless he was a member, and made no bones about the fact that they wouldn't let him join if he wanted, what with his melanin deficiency.

It got uglier from there. Campfield maintains a blog, and he's had to cut off comments because he was getting death threats.

I love irony . I have been labeled a hate site . Why you may ask? ...

It was because I had a link to a sight that had a link to a site that quoted a black man who wrote for a black owned paper in a black run country about a thought he had that some call racist.

I use to play a game in the 7th or 8th grade called the 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon. The object of this game was to link by association any one in the world to movie star Kevin Bacon in 7 steps or less. It was fun and simple to do.

Now I have become Kevin Bacon and some people are doing all they can to link me to what ever they can (many times fabricating it on computer as they go along.We used to call this cheating when I played the game).

I did a little research, and found the site he was referring to. (More on that in the next post.) Meanwhile, the skin-shade silliness is snowballing (is that a racist term, I wonder?) as the Southern Poverty Law Center jumped on his daring to quote the Reverend Doctor Saint Martin Luther King, Jr. (peace be upon him), which is apparently a sign of racism if it's done by a white guy. From the Washington Post story:

The long excerpts from the Rev. Martin Luther King's famous 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech infuriated some readers. It prompted Campfield to ban reader comments after some of the angry postings included death threats.

Experts on race and hate groups said Campfield hit a nerve when he used King's words to take on a black institution. It's the same tactic white separatists often use, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"Very typically these days we see white supremacists, hate groups, trying to use the words of King and other civil rights leaders to try to advance their agendas," Potok said.

If that's "intelligence," Mr. Potok, I'd like to see stupidity.

Campfield made a major pubic-relations misstep in comparing the Black Caucus' race-based admissions policy to that of the Ku Klux Klan, which is notoriously reluctant to accept non-white members. In fact, they get downright nasty about it, about as nasty as the Tennessee Black Caucus. The difference is, the Klan uses a nice, straightforward burning cross, while the Caucus prefers a sleazy innuendo-smear that leaves you with no defense whatsoever. You can always shoot cross-burners (and in fact, I recommend it). You can't do anything about the press, especially if you're a white politician with black enemies.

A handy reference to cults

Usually I hate Landover Baptist. It's like a joke that's funny the first time, but begins to smell like last week's crab salad after a while. But I had to post this, simply because I know people who really do think like this. Funny as satire, depressing in the bit of truth behind it.

A good idea?

Yeah, I think so.

Ten couples tied the knot in a group wedding billed as "Marry Your Baby Daddy Day.''

Each of the couples who married at the House of the Lord Church had been living together for years and had children together.

"The older I get, I see getting married as the way to go,'' said Garfield James, 34, who married Millicent Ellis, 35. "I want to raise my kids the right way.''

I hope this sparks a trend. I have no disrespect for single parents; I did it for years. But it's not the way things are supposed to work. Single-parent households have been almost a default position in our society for entirely too long.

I wonder, though, why they didn't say "your baby's daddy." Would have made more sense. Or is there a meaning to "baby daddy" I don't know?

Blog discovery

I just ran across Magic Statistics, following a link from Challies.com, and this guy is great. Well-balanced, sensible, and Christian; just what you'd expect from a Christostatistimagician. Although I do have to wonder what a statistician finds to do in Whitehorse. Count caribou?

Check Scott out.

Botched abortion kills both mother and baby

A girl with Down Syndrome became pregnant (a miracle in itself) and was taken to Wichita for an abortion. She died the next day, from the clinic staff's incompetence.

At that time, a drug was administered to kill the baby and another drug to open the cervix for delivery or removal of the dead baby. After starting the procedure, which normally takes 3-4 days, Christin was sent to a local hotel to begin her labor.

Somewhat surprisingly, she returned to the clinic the next day, the abortion procedure was completed and she was once again told to return to her hotel room. Immediately her condition began to deteriorate. When she returned to the clinic, her symptoms were misdiagnosed as dehydration. She was given an IV and again sent back to her hotel where she began having episodes of vomiting and unconsciousness. She was advised to return to the clinic where she became unresponsive. By this time Christin was in serious trouble. According to one doctor who reviewed her autopsy report, she was "bleeding and oozing from every orifice of her body."

A clinic employee called 911. More worried abut the clinics image than Christin, she begged the dispatcher to turn off the lights or sirens of the ambulance. The ambulance arrived and took Christin to the emergency room at Wesley Medical Center, but it was too late. Christin died. According to the medical examiner's report, her horrifying and painful death was a direct result of the abortion. What's worse, it could have been prevented if not for the misdiagnosis and slow response of clinic staff.

More here.

Sure, we think of it as a tragedy, but to the abortion industry, it's only a failure if she dies before her check clears. Ka-ching!

A/T to Fructis Ventris.

And they don't even know how offensive it is

A new single written by Barry "More than a Woman" Gibb for Barbra "Talk-to-the-Nose-Cause-the-Brain-ain't-Working" Streisand to sing on her new anti-American anti-Iraq-reconstruction album is entitled "Stranger in a Strange Land." Now, I know he didn't come up with the phrase – it comes from Exodus – but those words will always be associated with Robert A. Heinlein, the überpatriotic "dean of modern science fiction." (They can probably be excused for not knowing that; I doubt either of them has ever heard of RAH.)

Why would Heinlein be furious to see his title appropriated by the Hate-America-First crowd? Here's part of what he said in an address at the Naval Academy 32 years ago:

Today, in the United States, it is popular among self-styled "intellectuals" to sneer at patriotism. They seem to think that it is axiomatic that any civilized man is a pacifist, and they treat the military profession with contempt. "Warmongers" – "Imperialists" – "Hired killers in uniform" – you have all heard such sneers and you will hear them again. One of their favorite quotations is: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

What they never mention is that the man who made that sneering remark was a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his life by a pathological fear of death.

I propose to prove that [the] baboon on watch [to warn his herd of danger] is morally superior to that fat poltroon who made that wisecrack.

Patriotism is the most practical of all human characteristics.

But in the present decadent atmosphere patriots are often too shy to talk about it – as if it were something shameful or an irrational weakness.

But patriotism is NOT sentimental nonsense. Nor something dreamed up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of man's evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as eyes are to the individual.

A man who is NOT patriotic is an evolutionary dead end. This is not sentiment but the hardest of logic.

Read the whole thing here. Make sure you read all the way to the story at end. If you can finish without a lump in your throat, you're a tougher man than I am.

At the time Heinlein spoke those words in 1973, America was learning the hard way the consequences of a hobbled and despised soldiery. Yet these buffoons, these paid performers, actually believe that they are morally superior to the hardnosed, patriotic men who bear the painful duty of ordering young men into danger. They joggle the elbows of the generals, because they are smugly certain that the cure for all human ills lies in buying their CDs and watching their movies. No, Babs and Barry, there are human situations that cannot be sung away, and every note you warble to demoralize our nation may result in another dead soldier. An army that is continually second-guessed is an army destined for body bags.

My choice for Supreme Court (or so I'm told)

JUDGE KAREN WILLIAMS
U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, appointed by
G.H.W. Bush, 54 years old
Lots of recent buzz for Judge Williams, known best
in constitutional law circles for writing the
opinion that said the Miranda warnings are not
constitutional requirements. The Supreme Court
reversed her. If you can't beat em, join em!


New World Man presents: My favorite candidate for the Supreme Court
brought to you by Quizilla

I've never even heard of Herronner, but I'm about to go see what I can find out. Akubra tip to Ken Summers at it comes in pints?, who also picked her.

Good sense from Greg

Greg Krehbiel over at Crowhill has a refreshingly sensible take on the Vatican's anticipated statement on homosexual seminarians. (Must resist vulgar double entendre... must... resist...)

First, it’s about time! Where do you begin commenting on the stupidity of allowing this problem to go on for so long?

I once saw a show where some guy claimed that God has to have a sense of humor because He made the donkey. I think the modern version of that is that God has to have a sense of humor because He made the church. One, holy, Catholic, apostolic, and often dumber than a mud fence...

I’ve heard estimates that from 10 to 50 percent of seminarians and priests are gay. Of course I haven’t the foggiest idea — having (1) no way to measure such things, and (2) too weak a stomach to read up on the issue. But just for laughs let’s say it’s 10 percent. Can the church afford to lose 10 percent of its priest candidates?

Yes, it can! Remember the story of Gideon’s army? It’d be better to have five priests in the whole country than to allow this foolishness to continue any longer. Maybe we’ll only be able to hear mass once a year in football stadiums, but it’s a price worth paying.

Go read the whole thing.

Bad senator! NARAL spank!

Looks like Patty Murray has disobeyed her pro-death politico-pimps. Oh, well, at least Maria Cantwell knows when to lie down annd be counted.

When Planned Parenthood comes to ATMs

One of the posts over at The Dawn Patrol by guest blogger The Raving Atheist has to do with NARAL's shameless quest to increase the number of abortuaries. In the course of it, he suggested "...maybe it would be better to have a clinic in every town, block, supermarket, or next to every ATM machine." This spurred a comment by a non-blogger named Kate, who graciously gave me permission to quote her hilarious vision of how such a transaction might take place:

Please insert your card.

Please enter your PIN:
0486

Withdrawal from:
Primary Checking?
Savings?
Uterus? X

Withdrawal amount:
One?
NYTimes Twins?
All Present? X

Receipt:
Yes?
No? X

Don't forget to take your card.

Thank you, and have a barren, guilt-laden, and breast-cancerous day!

Catholic Carnival XLIX

Welcome to this week's Catholic Carnival! Do bear with me, as I've never hosted the Carnival before. And if there's any mistakes, please let me know in the comments.

Confiteor: Our Word and Welcome to It discusses The Wages of Sin. Our salvation carries with it certain obligations. Being a witness to Christ means changes in the way we think, talk, and act. And it applies to our entire life, not just certain aspects of it.

Ubi Caritas: Elena at My Domestic Church finds that Real Intimacy isn't to be found where we often assume it is.

Puer Natus est Nobis: My Lovely and Brilliant Wife at Confessions of a Hot Carmel Sundae reminds us that life only begins in the womb. Being pro-life requires a dedication from Catholics at all levels, from the parish to the family. When Catholic people contracept and parishes are less than welcoming to children, the result is fewer priests and a pro-life belief that becomes ineffectual because we don't really live it.

Mors et Resurrectio: Kicking over My Traces introduces us to the Sisters of Hurricane Katrina,as the Presentation Sisters look to rebuild on the Gulf Coast.

Hic Sapientia Est: Herb Ely sees wisdom in a general's sarcastic retort to a reporter, and offers some ideas on getting Unstuck from Stupid.

Indica Mihi: Catholic liberal Nathan Nelson at Here I Stand invites his conservative brethren (and sistern) in for a friendly dialogue, with ten questions to get the ball rolling. The important thing, according to St. Benedict, is not to talk but to listen.

Agnus Dei (or should it be Arachnus Dei?): in Crucified Hero, CowPi Journal finds seeds for contemplation occur in the strangest places. This time, grace is received in thinking about a child's colorful crucifix of Spiderman.

Exspectantes Beatam Spem: In The Father's Will, Kevin at HMS Blog reflects on the Mass readings for Sunday 9/25, considering especially the meaning of Christian hope for salvation.

Verbum Domini: Deo Omnis Gloria considers some of the serious problems with Sola Scriptura, Luther's doctrine of the Bible alone as our source of Truth in Half the Truth: the Bible Alone.

Salve Regina: September 24 was the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham (go on, tell me you remembered!), and Quenta Nârwenion has some thoughts on this least respected of our Blessed Mother's feasts. The English Reformation tried to wipe it from the calendar, but they couldn't wipe her from the hearts of England's faithful. Check out The Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham.

De Civitas Dei: In Return of the City, A Penitent Blogger reflects on the devastation wreaked by hurricanes, and on the devastation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Cities, like souls, can be brought back to life in the face of death and emptiness by our faithful Lord.

Quid Enim Scriptura Dicit: Crusader for Justice has found some interesting gems in Divino Afflante Spiritu. Apparently, Encyclicals say the Darnedest Things.

Orate, Fratres: Dunmoose the Ageless gives us a summary of daily life at a monastery in New Mexico, and some reflections on monastic life in A Day in the Life of Christ in the Desert.

Apologia Pro Vita Nostra: My own humble contribution, at On the Other Foot, looks at Apologetics and Anti-Catholics. Very few of the Protestants we debate with are genuinely anti-Catholic; most (though not all) of them would rather see us saved than damned. A little patience and civility may be in order.

Update: This one got caught in my spam filter, and I just found it Wednesday morning. Sorry, Eric!

Dona Nobis Pacem: Eric at Ales Rarus is concerned that emotions are running too high in the discussion of Banning Gays From Priesthood. "There are some very reasonable, fair, open-minded, intelligent, and compassionate orthodox responses," he says, "to the policy against the admission of gays to the priesthood, and the related inspection of American seminaries, to be found in St. Blog's Parish. If only we could get that side of St. Blog's to talk peacefully to the other side. I don't know whether the discourse thus far has been civil because I thus far haven't noticed any discourse (outside of echo chambers) whatsoever. Let's change that."

And that's it. Ite, carnivale est!

Tell me you didn't see this coming

Let's see... a generation raised with the idea that fathers are irrelevant, and a generation of low-self-esteem, somebody-love-me lolitas. But of course, there's no connection.

Almost a quarter of 14-year-old girls claim to have had sex and say they have had an average of three partners, a survey reports today.

Among those who said they had had sex, 65 per cent admitted to unprotected sex and 45 per cent said they had had a one-night stand.

Alcohol played a part, with 60 per cent of sexually active 14-year-olds saying they had had sexual relations while drunk, half saying they regretted it later and 29 per cent saying they "did not even like their sexual partner"...

Norman Wells, the director of the Family Education Trust, blamed successive governments for failing to promote family values.

"The teenage pregnancy strategy is based on the false premise that young people will inevitably be sexually active irrespective of anything their parents and teachers say to them," he said.

"Under-age sex is being facilitated by the easy availability of contraception, by confidentiality policies which keep parents in the dark and by the widespread disregard of the law on the age of consent."

The whole depressing story here. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

Update: Fixed the link. Thanks for the heads-up, Tony!

Blessed dishonesty

Remember Lazarus Long's definition of an honest politician? It's one who, once he's bought, stays bought. That's why it's refreshing to see at least one senator reneging:

Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I) has said that he will vote for John Roberts’s nomination to the Supreme Court, a move that could jeopardize his endorsement from NARAL Pro-Choice America...

Although Chafee voted against the nomination of U.S. Circuit Court Judge Priscilla Owen, NARAL President Nancy Keenan blasted him June 8 for voting to confirm Janice Rogers Brown’s nomination to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

“Given our recent conversations with Senator Chafee, this vote is surprising and extremely disappointing,” Keegan said in the release. “We’d like to know what pressure the Republican leadership put on him. We will be watching closely his future votes on judicial nominees, including William Pryor and those for the Supreme Court.”

God forbid it should be conscience, or even a non-partisan respect for an excellent judge. No, it's got to be pressure. And if it happens again, he's off their payroll.

No word yet from our own NARAL whores Senators Cantwell and Murray, but I think it's pretty clear where they lie... er... stand.

Shucky darn!

Some people think this would be a bad thing.

A Cincinnati abortion clinic might be forced to close if enforcement of a 7-year-old Ohio law begins on schedule today...
The law requires women to meet face to face with a doctor for a consultation 24 hours before the procedure. It also requires doctors to obtain a parent's written consent for an abortion on a minor.
Ohio's legislature approved the law in 1998. It never has taken effect because the Cincinnati clinic sued to block enforcement.

This illustrates the arrogance of the pro-death crowd. Seven years, and they never really thought the law could be applied to them. They were so sure they had the judiciary by the short hairs that they never made any attempt to prepare for the law.

Wouldn't it be a shame if they had to close?

Loons R Us!

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

Akubra tip to my Lovely and Brilliant Wife, who, besides being a better class of lunatic, also just passed her last exam to get her bachelor's, and may graduate as early as December (depending on the vagaries of the school bureaucracy). She's overcome more hurdles than you can shake a sheeepskin at, and she's jolly well earned that degree. Stop over at her blog and congratulate her!

But will they protect your dress?

A tad ribald, maybe, but I couldn't resist. This suggests some hilarious celebrity endorsements. I can't wait.

Apologists and anti-Catholics

I'm still following the vigorous discussion at Camp on This, where the tone is slipping in and out of nastiness. In particular, the term "anti-Catholic" has been introduced into the conversation, and I feel like it needs some clarification.

Apologetics is a fine line to walk, particularly between Catholics and Protestants, who regard each other as brothers. At least the Catholics should see it that way, after Vatican II, and a good number of the Protestants do too. Apologetics is a necessarily confrontational activity, in that it regards opposing viewpoints, but it's vital to separate the viewpoint from the person holding it. There's also a differennce in tone between the two sides of Christendom: Protestants tend to argue angrily, as though they would wipe Catholicism from the earth if they could (and many of them would love to), while Catholics tend to be condescending and more than a little smug towards those poor, uneducated Protestants. What we fail to bear in mind sometimes is that with Protestants, the question is more urgent, as many of them genuinely believe that our souls are in danger. We (Catholics, that is) don't have that urgency, so the strident tones can get under our skins fairly easily.

We need to remember that almost nobody engages in apologetics out of malice. This is where I feel like it's necessary to define what is meant by the term "anti-Catholic." Anybody who argues against Catholic teaching is not automatically anti-Catholic. It's much better to consider such a person "anti-falsehood," as he argues to convince another of what he believes is true. That it's not is irrelevant to our attitude; remember his motive.

So what marks a genuine anti-Catholic? I use this hypothetical situation as a touchstone:

Imagine the scene at the Pearly Gates on judgment day. Let's assume that the Protestants (specifically, Calvinists, since they seem to be the most vehement) are right on all counts, and they are numbered as the elect, and automatically invited into Heaven. (Take a deep breath and keep reading; I said it was hypothetical.) As they're entering into Paradise, along comes a throng of Catholics, billions strong, lined up hoping to be admitted. The Lord turns to our Protestant apologist and says, "I know these people have held to false doctrine, and have been deceived into heresy. Yet My mercy is great, and I will admit them if you want Me to. The decision is yours. Would you like Me to allow them into Heaven?"

My contention is that the vast majority of Protestant apologists would say, "Of course, Lord. If there is any way they can be saved even now, by all means, I hope You will." But there are a few that would be offended, and actually would prefer to see us consigned to the flames. I know there are such; I've encountered them. Those, to my mind, are the genuine anti-Catholics, the ones who hate Catholicism more than they love mercy. But they are in the minority.

Most of the people you will encounter in the course of apologetics discussions are not anti-Catholics, but pro-"truth". Even if they're wrong, they deserve to be treated as brothers who have some wrong ideas, and not as enemies. After all, there is no enmity in Heaven.

Be careful telling too much of the truth

I begin to see why Lance got canned for candor. This is one of the most telling analyses of news headlines I've seen in a long time, and I'm in the business. Preach it, Lance!

Opposite Camps

I was a big fan of Christian rock music in the 80s, although I tended to favor some of the more "underground" new wave and punk-style groups like Flock 14 and Crumbacher. I still had a healthy respect for the greats in the genre, though, and I really enjoyed Steve Camp. In fact, as I've mentioned before, his song "Upon this Rock" was one of the things that propelled me into the Catholic Church. It said:

Upon this Rock I will build my Church
And thhe gates of Hell will not stand against it
Though Satan persecute my bride on every side
All is well; she is not defenseless

I had heard both the song, and the reference in Matthew that it came from, more times than I could count, but when I began looking first into Eastern Orthodoxy and then into Catholicism, those words took on new meaning for me. I began to see that the important thing in Matthew 16:18 was not the first part (Peter as the rock) that was the most important part, but the promise that the Church would withstand everything Satan had to throw against it. And the Church has survived, through heresies, schisms, and yes, even the Protestant Reformation. I could not continue to be a Protestant, I realized, because in so doing, I was acknowledging that the gates of Hell really had prevailed, for fifteen centuries. And that, Jesus promised, could not happen. The same Church that had existed in 431 still existed in 1517, and exists today in 2005. There was still the question of whether the Orthodox or the Catholics had the better claim to primacy, but it was clear that Protestantism, having deliberately separated itself from the ancient Church, had no such claim. Steve's song wasn't the only thing that made me examine the historical Church, but it was a trigger. Music can sometimes get ideas across that reading cannot.

I had no idea until last year that Steve was staunchly opposed to the Catholic Church (not the same as anti-Catholic, BTW), and I just recently stumbled across his blog, Camp On This. It's a real disappointment to find out what he really believes about the Church. I haven't been through all the archives or anything, but you can get an idea of his attitude here and here. Be sure to check out the comments.

I will say that Steve's a gentleman in the comment fields with people who defend the Church politely. He also has a much better familiarity with scripture than many Protestant apologists I've encountered, and a wicked sense of humor. Still, as I say, it's a disappointment, and I keep replaying in my head another line from another of the great CCM songs I remember from my youth:

I kept the things you taught to me
And I found them to be true
I only wish that you believed them too

I do wish that. And if he never does, well, God knows the love Steve has for Him and I look forward to seeing him in heaven. And Steve, thanks for giving me more than you meant to.

Update: Isaac points out in the comments that the word "apostasy" above is too strong to apply to the Reformation, and I agree with him. I've changed the wording to reflect that.

The Catholic Carnival is up!

There are lots of great links here, including my own humble submission below. Enjoy!

Oh, and BTW, it looks like I'll be hosting next week. Woohoo!

Prayer warriors

“You cannot want wrong things any more, now that you have died, my son, “ said Aslan.
-- C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

The post I did last week about Protestant/Catholic apologetics has sparked quite a discussion with David Bayly over at Out of Our Minds, Too, and one thing struck me in passing: a comment from Brandon, who was a missionary in Ecuador:

I was in Ecuador, and they worship la virgen del Cisne. They pray to her, they ask for help and intercession, they have a wall of "How la virgen helped me", they take her on parade, they put her name on everything, etc.

I gave kind of a flippant answer to this, to the effect that there were probably a lot of posts on the "How the Virgin helped me" wall, which should tell us something. But it got me thinking about the Protestant objections to praying with saints. Specifically, that God answers those prayers.

Now, it's well known that you can't prove that prayer works empirically, because God answers prayers as He sees fit. If we don't get what we ask for, it's a good bet that we asked for something we shouldn't have. (Yes, I know that's an oversimplification. Bear with me.) But the saved in heaven aren't fallible and sinful anymore. This is where the quote above from the Silver Chair becomes appropriate. If they're in heaven, they've been perfected, and if they ask for something, it's God's will they should have it, or they won't ask. They cannot want wrong things.

Think about this: If it is wrong to ask our brethren and sistern in heaven to pray for us, then it stands to reason that God will not grant those requests. So who's answering them? I can't see Satan granting a petition for somebody's release from a sin, or their healing, or that they be led to Christ. These things are God's province, and yet, time and again we see them being given to people who asked a saint, maybe even the Blessed Virgin, for their prayers for that intention. How often have you seen ads in the paper that say "Thank you, St. Jude?" Somebody's desperate, heartfelt prayers are being granted.

So my question is twofold:
For Catholics: Can you name a time when you asked a saint to pray for you, and God granted the prayer? Even something as small as St. Anthony finding the car keys? What miracles have you seen happen when the heavenly prayer warriors get on their knees?

For Protestants: I ask this with respect, not argumentatively: How do you explain the answered prayers? Coincidence? God's mercy on misguided but devout petitioners? Or is there more to it? I'm honestly interested in your thoughts on this one.

Comment fields are open!

Who is like our merry crowd...

...They are damned few and we should be proud. (That's best sung with a pint swinging in your hand, BTW. Full lyrics here, if anybody cares.)

It's funny what a huge small world the blogosphere is. Isaac from Ephrata just stopped by here yesterday, following a link from Crowhill.net, which is near the other Washington. From a county with a total population of about 80,000 if you count the coyotes, what are the odds that another Grant Countian would stumble in here?

Welcome home, Isaac, even if it's only electronically. I'll give your regards to Broadway, and remember you to the squares at the Herald. :)

What good is a treaty...

... if both sides benefit?

CASCADE LOCKS, Ore. (AP) — An open house regarding a proposed tribal casino here pitted environmental concerns over the scenic Columbia River Gorge against tribal unemployment and the hopes of a dying river town that sees the gambling enterprise as its last chance.

The Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, with the support of Gov. Ted Kulongoski, wants to put the casino on off-reservation land in Cascade Locks, about 40 miles east of the lucrative Portland market. It would be the first off-reservation casino in Oregon and one of only a handful in the nation...

But some at the open house questioned whether high-paying jobs would really come to fruition. Others were concerned that a tax-free tribal casino would make it impossible for existing businesses to compete.

"If motels and restaurants from the casino come into town, what will that do to our businesses?" asked Cheryl Randall of Cascade Locks. "Our end of the town will dry up."

Waaah, flippin' waaah! The treaties that left the Warm Springs tribes on their little patch of reservation were designed to give the white folks the best farm and grazing land, and the barely-usable stuff to the Indians. The only advantage the reservations have is their legal status as not-quite-part of the state they're in. And when they made use of that lone advantage only for selling fireworks and cheap tobacco, nobody complained. But once they started making money that began to place them on an even footing with the white population, suddenly they were villains. Why didn't anybody cry "unfair competition" when the good farmland was handed out?

I don't see how anybody who ever saw an Indian reservation before the gambling caught on can complain without becoming nauseated. They were poorer than the dirt they lived on, they began to make good use of what they had, and now they're succeeding, enough to buy more land at the white man's prices and make profitable use of it. They're capitalizing on the very laws that were intended to screw them.

Why is it only "unfair" when the Indians win?

A smartass after my own heart

I vaguely remember encountering Hog on Ice a long time ago, but I hadn't remembered it being this funny. This guy certainly isn't the first to play cat-and-mouse with a Nigerian scam artist, but he may be the first I've seen who is taking it a step further by siccing one of them on another.

I'm not going to quote it; you'll have to go read it. And set your coffee down before you do.

Whole lotta shakin'

Looks like we have a couple of nervous weeks ahead in Washington, as there will be about 30 times as much chance of an earthquake and tsunami in the Puget Sound area.

An important seismic event imperceptible to humans has begun in the Pacific Northwest as predicted, according to the government agency Geological Survey of Canada...

The event is called episodic tremor and slip (ETS). It involves a slow movement of the Juan de Fuca and North America tectonic plates along the Cascadia margin of southern British Columbia. Faults associated with the plates have been the sites of major earthquakes – akin to the colossal tsumani-causing quake last December in Indonesia – every 500 years or so, the geologic record shows. The last such temblor in the area struck on Jan. 26 in the year 1700.

More here and here.

It's a good thing they replaced the Kingdome a few years back, with one that would make a more comfortable shelter. Seriously, I hope if such a disaster happened, the Washington authorities would do a better job then they did in Louisiana. Fortunately, the underpopulated half of the state is on high ground, so we'll have plenty of space to house Coastie refugees. Even the ones that voted for Christine Gregoire.

And if Mark Shea and his family need a place to stay, we'd be happy to have them. He might even be so grateful as to speak at our parish, as I've been hoping he would for years.

We hold these truths to be unconstitutional...

Bill Cork follows up with the logical next step in the judicial effort to deport God over at Ut Unum Sint:

Judge Ima Krank of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals today issued a landmark decision declaring that the Declaration of Independence is unconstitutional. The case was brought by Michael Newdow, who objected to the fact that his second cousin twice removed was required to study it in a US history class. The relative, L. Z. Bum, argued that making him study this document was not only taxing to his brain and kept him from his game-boy, but had multiple references to a divine being.

Go see the whole thing.

Good neighbors

Thomas Lang and Alexander Westerhoff believe strongly that neighbors should know each other. So strongly, in fact, that they've started KnowThyNeighbor.org, a website devoted to knowing, if not all about your neighbors, at least whether or not they signed a petition in support of traditional marriage. Oh, and in case you weren't sure which neighbors they are, the couple has posted home addresses as well. Tom and Alexander are one of the couples that got "married" during that brief time that Massachusetts was performing mock ceremonies for gay couples. It really cheeses them off that the rest of us don't believe they're married.

KnowThyNeighbor is a great idea, really. Even though I live at the other end of I-90 from them, I feel closer to these signers already. I'm inclined to send a batch of cookies to every family listed as they get published. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Lang-Westerhoff (or is it Westerhoff-Lang? Maybe they take turns) are such good neighbors – at 3 Colburn Rd. Manchester, MA, 01944-1201, (978) 526-9707 – that it would be downright unneighborly of us all not to drop them a card or something to congratulate them on their nuptials and their courage in exposing their neighbors for what they really are: people different from themselves.

Update: Woops! According to a press release at KnowThyNeighbor, Tom and Alexander aren't alone in their neighborly concern. They're joined by co-director Aaron Tomeos and his wife, of 7 Sunrise Rd., Boxford. MA, 01921-2319, (978) 887-8547.

A/T to my good neighbor Timotheos at Balaam's Ass.

Pondering Protestantism: A Rant

First off, I want to emphasize that this isn't aimed at all Protestants, and not even at all of those who engage in theological debate with Catholics. Some of the best and most informative discussions I've sat in on regarding Catholic/Protestant issues have been with Tim and David Bayly, Tim Challies, Tim Enloe, and others like them. We don't agree on a large number of things, and some of those are very important, but they've always treated individual Catholics kindly and respectfully, even while deploring our "heresy" in general and "heresies" in specific. Most importantly, they discuss those areas of difference with the underlying assumption that holding to Catholic teaching does not (necessarily) mean being either a fool or a blackguard. Even among Protestants who do not believe Catholics may be saved, there are many who can discuss and debate like gentlemen.

And then there are others who cannot. Those for whom no charge is too strong, no superstition too silly, to lay against the "Church of Rome." For whom it is simply axiomatic that anything espoused by the "Great and Abominable Whore" must be not only incorrect but damnably so. For whom, in short, it is of primary importance that any argument show the Catholic Church in a bad light, and whether the facts and logic are true is secondary.

Some of the worst is what I call "Kachunk Logic." Ever seen a bicycle chain that's just a little too loose? You pedal along for a few feet, and the loose spot on the chain rides up the sprocket, and suddenly, KACHUNK! The chain slips back. That's the way some of the debates go. You can explain a point until the cows not only come home, but crack a cold beer and turn on the news, and when you stop to catch your breath, you find that it hasn't made the slightest difference. A still equals B, and no amount of demonstration that it doesn't can make any dent in their complacency.

I'm not going to link to anyone in particular; most of them seem like decent guys outside of this hot-button area, and I don't want to vilify anybody. Besides, some of them genuinely desire to see us "escape from the clutches of Rome," and it's hard to pick on somebody whose motives are that beneficent. This post is meant to be more cathartic than combative, really. But I suspect somebody will point a few of them here anyway, and I'd like to clarify a few things for the record.

1. Who's just wild about Mary?
Protestants who want to show the Roman Harlot in all her whorey glory usually start with the Blessed Virgin. Why? I'm not really sure, but I suspect it's simply because it's so easy to blow out of proportion.

It's simple: We don't worship Mary. Period. How hard is that to understand? I can't count the times I've gotten into the distinction between dulia and latria, typed until my fingers bled, and still been told, "But it's still worship!" Kachunk!

You have to understand, the Catholic Church today does not place a whole lot of emphasis on Marian devotion. It's not a central factor of our faith. Yet we are often approached as if we were the Church of Mary, with Jesus as just a footnote. But in the centerpiece of our worship, the Mass, she's barely mentioned. Once in the Eucharistic prayer, where the priest expresses a hope to share heaven with her and all the other saved, and sometimes once in the Penitential Rite, in an optional form. That's it. If you don't believe me, see for yourself.

Beyond that, all Marian devotion (the Rosary, apparitions, etc.) is optional. There are a couple of matters of dogma about her that the Church has declared true, but even those don't have much bearing on the faith. It's like Mary is only there to make Protestants hyperventilate.

Honestly, Protestants make a far, far bigger deal out of Mary than we do. It's time you got over her.

2. I can read, thank you.
I've seen repeated examples where somebody will line up doctrine under the heading of "What Rome Teaches" and proof-texts under "What the Bible Says." For cryin' out loud! Do you really think we don't have Bibles?

Being a convert, I'm not necessarily a good example. I got my training in a Baptist Sunday School, and from my mother and grandmother, a preacher's wife and daughter respectively. I attended a pretty well-grounded Christian college. My Lovely and Brilliant Wife, a cradle Catholic, learned hers in CCD and Bible-study groups, and she knows her Bible as well as I do, and probably better. We have a bookcase loaded with Bibles in different translations and commentaries on Scripture. Yet some yahoo is always convinced that being a Catholic, I must not know what's in the Bible, and if I would just read it, I would immediately see the error of my ways.

God said it, I believe it, that settles it! Kachunk!

Augustine of Hippo. Thomas A Kempis. Ignatius of Antioch. Thomas Aquinas. They were clergymen, well-educated ones, not just illiterate peasants. All these men taught Catholic doctrine, and what's more, all of them believed it. Do you really think they had never read the Bible? Do you think Pope Benedict isn't familiar with the Bible? My pastor went to twelve years of seminary before he ever headed up a parish. (Twelve years! How long did your pastor study in his "Bible College?") Do you really think a seminarian could have gone that long without ever cracking open the covers of a Bible? Puh-leeze!

Yes, I know about "call no man father" and "forbidding to marry" and "traditions of men" and all the other verses that supposedly prove that various (usually trivial) Catholic practices are an abomination before the Lord. I also know about "not by faith alone" and "whosesoever sins ye shall forgive" and the other verses that they somehow missed in my Sunday School. Contrary to myth, the Catholic Church has never kept the Bible from us. Heck, back when literacy was rare, it was read to the people every day. All of it, including the verses that get flung against us. Many passages admit of more than one interpretation; why must the only possible one be the one that contradicts tradition?

Incidentally, I've found that an ordinary Catholic Mass, daily or Sunday, has more Scripture in it than a Protestant service. Yesterday's Mass (September 11, 2005) included an OT reading (8 verses), a sung psalm (8 verses, plus chorus) an Epistle reading (only two verses; a short one) and a reading from a Gospel (14 verses). And that's not including all the regular fixtures of the liturgy like the Agnus Dei and the Sanctus that come straight from the Bible. At the Baptist church I grew up in, there would be a reading of three or four verses, a series of hymns, and 30-40 minutes of the pastor sharing his personal wisdom about something – sometimes the reading, sometimes not. So which service is for the "Bible Christians" again?

3. It's not a conspiracy.
Believe it or not, there's no great plot by the fabulously wealthy and powerful Vatican to subvert Christians into a Satanic cult. We're not sworn to secrecy at confirmation. Frankly if the Vatican were as powerful and sinister as some of the wilder theorists say, they would have been eliminated long ago. My pastor is a Jesuit, one of the most scapegoated segments of the Church. He's probably intelligent enough to seize global power, but if he ever did, he'd forget where he put it. No, right or wrong, we really are what we appear to be: ordinary people who love the Lord and believe what he says in His word. Not unlike you. Now take off that tinfoil hat; it clashes with your tie.

4. Have you ever actually read the Council of Trent?
Trent is every Protestant's nightmare, an articulation of anathemas in which Protestant truths are blatantly denied and Biblical Christians condemned. Right?

Wrong, actually. The Council of Trent was called (secondarily) to consider – not to condemn – the doctrinal issues raised by Luther and the other reformers. That's what ecumenical councils do; they discuss questions and determine what is true in light of the Bible and tradition. Some Protestant doctrines were found consistent with those things, and some were not.

But its first purpose was to address the abuses that drove Luther to nail his brain to the cathedral door in the first place. See, the Church really didn't want simony running rampant. They didn't want uneducated priests and slithery con artists fleecing the people out of their money and teaching false doctrine. Trent was primarily about correcting those things, and it did a jolly good job of it, too. In that regard, Trent was mostly a matter of the Church leadership listening to Luther, and doing what he wanted.

Of course, the line from Trent that gets quoted most often is Canon IX:

If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.

There you have it, shouts the Protestant! Anybody who believes in justification by faith is cursed by the Catholic Church! They believe they have to earn their salvation! Kachunk! Trouble is, the "anathemas" are mostly just a summing-up of the Council's findings, and if you read the description of what's actually being anathemized, you'll find it's not the same thing as most Protestants hold to. (In fact, the first anathema in that session is for people who believe they earn salvation!) Go ahead, read the Sixth Session on justification. Then go read the rest of the documents of Trent before you go flinging snippets at us.

5. There is no trademark on the word "Christian."
These days, "Christian" is too often used as a synonym for "Protestant," as though Christianity began in 1517. "Christian" bookstores, "Christian" magazines, "Christian" music... they're invariably Protestant-oriented, which only reinforces the meme. Believe it or not, we were there already. We're not "sub-Christian," we're certainly not "anti-Christian," and we're not "non-Christian." If we're not Christians, then you're not either, because like it or lump it, you came from us. The Eastern Orthodox, being just as old, could try to make an exclusive claim to the title of "Christian" (although they don't), but you can't.

Debate between Protestant and Catholic is not between Christian and non-Christian. It's a discussion between two Christians over certain aspects of our common faith. If you don't want to share the Christian umbrella with us, then get out from under it. We were here first.

Or, to phrase it a little more irenically, let me finish by pointing out that doctrine is not what saves us; Christ does. If one of us gets some piece of knowledge wrong, that's not the dividing line between heaven and hell. And someday, I look forward to the chance in heaven to sit down and discuss theology where we will see it all clearly, and to laugh at which things we got wrong. I hope you'll be there, too. In fact, brother, I'll save you a chair.

What, they haven't been through enough?

Michael Jackson is writing a song for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Jackson said in a written statement, "It pains me to watch the human suffering taking place in the Gulf region of my country. My heart and prayers go out to every individual who has had to endure the pain and suffering caused by this tragedy."

Bain said Jackson that the song has been tentatively titled, "From the Bottom of My Heart," and he planned to record it within two weeks after enlisting other top performers.

The temptation to make some play on his use of the word "bottom" is one best resisted, I think. But I notice that many of the media reports have included photos of cute little boys. Coincidence? You decide.

Prayers answered!

Remember Patty, for whom I asked for prayers here and here? Her granddaughters were being taken away from her to Minnesota by their father, whom they didn't know. Well, it seems that the strain of a blended family was too much for his girlfriend, and she gave him an ultimatum: either the girls went or she did.

So he dumped her sorry hiney, packed up the girls, and came out to Washington. He's got a job prospect that will allow him to drive truck and be in town on the weekends. Patty will have legal custody, and they'll spend weekends with him.

It's a better solution than we would have imagined a month ago. Thanks to everyone who prayed. You too, St. Anne, patroness of grammas!

I'm honored by this

You are Athanasius! You are willing to fight a
losing battle, just to make sure that the truth
is told. But don't get discouraged; sometimes
it takes more than one lifetime for truth to
triumph.


Which Saint Are You?
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Good-bye, Li'l Buddy!

Bob Denver has died.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Bob Denver, the actor best known as the star of TV's "Gilligan's Island" has died. He was 70 years old.

His agent says Denver died Friday in North Carolina, where he underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery earlier this year.

Denver's role as goofy first mate Gilligan on the 1960s show made him an iconic figure to generations of TV viewers. He also played Maynard G. Krebs, the beatnik pal of TV's Dobie Gillis on `The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."

Like most of my generation, the TV tended to replace a lot of the outside world in my childhood consciousness. I wasn't born when the series actually aired, but "Gilligan's Island" reruns were a staple of my after-school time as a kid. We knew the characters as if we had lived on the island with them. Most of us could recite the dialogue along with the show. His death is one more sign that the world is not what it was when we were half as tall as we are now.

According to his IMDB biography,

In contrast to more egotistical TV stars -- especially William Shatner on "Star Trek" (1966) -- Denver often went out of his way to help his fellow castmembers on "Gilligan's Island" (1964). This is included trying to give Dawn Wells an equal share of publicity as Tina Louise and demanding that she and Russell Johnson be given an equal credit in the show's title sequence.

Maybe the bypass was necessitated by a heart too big.

Good-bye, Gilligan.

Relief efforts

For all the armchair generals out there carping at the failure of emergency services to turn back the tide, take a look at this description from a Guardsman of the logistics involved in getting aid into New Orleans.

Now, if you still think the relief is being botched, get off your gluteus and get thee to Louisiana. Otherwise, sit back in your armchair, and give thanks to God that you're someplace dry, with plumbing and clean water, and your family's corpses aren't floating a few feet away.

Oh, but these are the compassionate people!

I suspect this has already made the rounds, but it absolutely left me bumfuzzled.

I was on my home and was on the ramp getting off the highway. I saw a mini-van on the side of the road. There was a lady standing next to the van and in her arms she held her child. I can only assume her mini-van had broken down. I don't know, perhaps with so many gad stations being out of gas, she had also run out. I slowed down and started to pull over to offer her a ride. At the very last second I noticed a "W" sticker on the back of her vehicle and I sped up and drove off...

How nice. Where I live, it can be a long, dry space between gas stations, and you just don't leave someone alongside the road. And that's when there's not an emergency going on. Under these circumstances, anybody who would abandon someone to the roadside deserves to be staked out to an anthill.

Nobody's ever going to mistake me for a tzaddik, but I've never left somebody by the side of the road if I could help it. I've taken some hellish chances doing it, too, although God's always kept me safe. I'd like to think that if it had been me, I'd have had the back of the truck brimming with people, Republican, Kleptocrat, or National Socialist. Even that chippie with the W phobia would have been welcome. In an emergency, you just don't do anything else. From each according to his truck capacity...

[S]o many hateful thoughts went through my head. I wondered how a person could see what was going on in NO and still have one of those awful stickers on their car. How could they support an awful excuse for a human being that has let our country down and is letting Americans die after they have made it through the storm? How can someone be so blind and so stupid?

Gee, I don't know. How can they?

A/T to Tim Bayly.

First attempt at a meme

This is probably bad, pushy manners, but I've never been tagged with a meme before, and it seemed likely that this one from The Crusty Curmudgeon would pass me by, and I didn't want that to happen. I could actually feel my hairline receding as I did this. So I'm going to share the feeling of obsolescence and tag Patrick, Julie, Lance, and, of course, my my Lovely, Brilliant and Eternally-Youthful Wife. Y'all are whatever the plural is of "It!"

Here's how it works:
1. Go to musicoutfitters.com.
2. Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year.
3. Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline your favorite. Do nothing to the ones you don't remember (or don't care about). Commentary is optional, but fun. Get in touch with your inner sneering teenager!

I graduated in 1986, just before pop music began to turn to crap (hey, don't we all say that?), so this is my list. I'm a bit surprised at how many of them I don't remember. Maybe it's God's mercy at work.
The List:

1. That's What Friends Are For, Dionne Warwick, Elton John, and Gladys Knight (I can't imagine why this made #1. Two lovely soul singers and a hag. You guess which.)
2. Say You, Say Me, Lionel Richie (Say what? C'mon, Lionel, you could do better than this one!)
3. I Miss You, Klymaxx
4. On My Own, Patti Labelle and Michael McDonald
5. Broken Wings, Mr. Mister This was a pretty good song the first ten thousand times. After that, it sort of lost something.)
6. How Will I Know, Whitney Houston
7. Party All The Time, Eddie Murphy (Steve Martin was right; comedy is not pretty. But when comedians try to cross over into music, it's even less so.)
8. Burning Heart, Survivor
9. Kyrie, Mr. Mister (I wasn't absolutely sure what Kyrie Eleison meant at the time, Baptist boy that I was, but I still loved the song.)
10. Addicted To Love, Robert Palmer (Might as well face it, he's a talentless slug.)
11. Greatest Love Of All, Whitney Houston
12. Secret Lovers, Atlantic Starr
13. Friends And Lovers, Carl Anderson and Gloria Loring
14. Glory Of Love, Peter Cetera
15. West End Girls, Pet Shop Boys
16. There'll Be Sad Songs, Billy Ocean
17. Alive And Kicking, Simple Minds
18. Never, Heart
19. Kiss, Prince and The Revolution
20. Higher Love, Steve Winwood
21. Stuck With You, Huey Lewis and The News
22. Holding Back The Years, Simply Red
23. Sledgehammer, Peter Gabriel
24. Sara, Starship (The last depressing remnants of the Jefferson Airplane; i.e. Grace Slick. She was too good for this dreck, but what do you do when all the other talent in the band has gone elsewhere?)
25. Human, Human League
26. I Can't Wait, Nu Shooz
27. Take My Breath Away, Berlin
28. Rock Me Amadeus, Falco
29. Papa Don't Preach, Madonna
30. You Give Love A Bad Name, Bon Jovi
31. When The Going Gets Tough, Billy Ocean
32. When I Think Of You, Janet Jackson
33. These Dreams, Heart
34. Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone), Glass Tiger
35. Live To Tell, Madonna
36. Mad About You, Belinda Carlisle
37. Something About You, Level 42
38. Venus, Bananarama
39. Dancing On The Ceiling, Lionel Richie
40. Conga, Miami Sound Machine
41. True Colors, Cyndi Lauper (I actually liked this one until they used it for a film commercial)
42. Danger Zone, Kenny Loggins
43. What Have You Done For Me Lately, Janet Jackson
44. No One Is To Blame, Howard Jones
45. Let's Go All The Way, Sly Fox
46. I Didn't Mean To Turn You On, Robert Palmer
47. Words Get In The Way, Miami Sound Machine
48. Manic Monday, Bangles (Second choice for favorite!)
49. Walk Of Life, Dire Straits
50. Amanda, Boston
51. Two Of Hearts, Stacey Q
52. Crush On You, Jets
53. If You Leave, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
54. Invisible Touch, Genesis
55. The Sweetest Taboo, Sade
56. What You Need, INXS
57. Talk To Me, Stevie Nicks
58. Nasty, Janet Jackson
59. Take Me Home Tonight, Eddie Money
60. We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off, Jermaine Stewart
61. All Cried Out, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam With Full Force
62. Your Love, Outfield
63. I'm Your Man, Wham! (They always looked like each other's man. They were a lot better when they were still Wham UK.)
64. Perfect Way, Scritti Politti
65. Living In America, James Brown (Weird Al did James Brown better than he did. How often do you get to say that?)
66. R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A., John Cougar Mellencamp
67. Who's Johnny, El Debarge
68. Word Up, Cameo
69. Why Can't This Be Love, Van Halen
70. Silent Running, Mike and The Mechanics
71. Typical Male, Tina Turner
72. Small Town, John Cougar Mellencamp
73. Tarzan Boy, Baltimora
74. All I Need Is A Miracle, Mike and The Mechanics
75. Sweet Freedom, Michael McDonald
76. True Blue, Madonna
77. Rumors, Timex Social Club
78. Life In A Northern Town, Dream Academy
79. Bad Boy, Miami Sound Machine
80. Sleeping Bag, ZZ Top
81. Tonight She Comes, Cars
82. Love Touch, Rod Stewart (Even by 1986, anybody receiving a love touch from Rod Stewart would have been washing themselves frantically and hollering for the police. Rod didn't age well.)
83. A Love Bizarre, Sheila E. (This title just about sums up everything this chick recorded. And slightly more subtly than "I'm a kink-slut" would have.)
84. Throwing It All Away, Genesis
85. Baby Love, Regina
86. Election Day, Arcadia
87. Nikita, Elton John
88. Take Me Home, Phil Collins
89. Walk This Way, Run-D.M.C. (Never try to improve on a classic. Especially with rap.)
90. Sweet Love, Anita Baker
91. Your Wildest Dreams, Moody Blues
92. Spies Like Us, Paul McCartney (I still believe he really did die in 1969.)
93. Object Of My Desire, Starpoint
94. Dreamtime, Daryl Hall
95. Tender Love, Force M.D.'s
96. King For A Day, Thompson Twins
97. Love Will Conquer All, Lionel Richie
98. A Different Corner, George Michael
99. I'll Be Over You, Toto (By this time, their career was over, too)
100. Go Home, Stevie Wonder (Yes, Stevie, go home. But let someone else drive.)