What's Cracking Us Up Today

Hasn't She Heard? The "N" is Silent.

K-Lo just posted my exact feelings to her FB page:

I need to get out of my mood where all I want to write in the column due in the morning is: REMEMBER NEVER AGAIN? Do you see what is happening to Christians in the Middle East? Do we see what is happening to religious freedom here? Are we asleep? Are we distracted to utter indifference? It's hell out there -- and here. And there's not even always a petition at Masses for these courageous souls ... Where are our holy hours for them? Where are out holy hours to save our own souls? Lord, have mercy ...

Doesn't she know? The "N" is silent (see posts tagged that way)!  

I suppose that's not a terrible attitude to have at the start of Lent, at least that last bit about the holy hours.

Apocalypse Now

Everyone's telling you to read this, and you really should, at least if foreign policy interests you in any way.  What ISIS Really Wants.

Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I don't know who turned this red, but I like it.

Candlemas

Purification, Fra Bartolomeo

Christmas may be officially over today, but if you think I'm taking down the outdoor lights in this weather, you're nuts. 

Happy World Day for Consecrated Life during the Year of Consecrated Life! No homily text available yet, but coming, I am sure.  

Krauthammer And "[N]ever Again"

Krauthammer has a piece about the return of anti-Semitism and the cheap grace of Auschwitz memorials if we're not going to do anything about a nuclear Iran.

On the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz, mourning dead Jews is easy. And, forgive me, cheap. Want to truly honor the dead? Show solidarity with the living — Israel and its 6 million Jews. Make “never again” more than an empty phrase. It took Nazi Germany seven years to kill 6 million Jews. It would take a nuclear Iran one day.

Emotionally I agree with him, but what is his proposed solution? For years Conservative critics have been dunning the President's approach (I can't tell whether it's a strategy or just the random actions of a person who has no idea what to do) as appeasement, but what is the alternative? Is there anyone who doesn't think a nuclear Iran is inevitable short of a show of force? I don't see evidence that either talking or not-talking makes the slightest bit of difference to the mullahs.

"Germaine Greer Does Not Represent Feminism."

Progressives continue to eat their own. Now Germaine Greer is boycotted.

The only thing this and the suppression of the Vagina Monologues teaches me is that once we unhinge ourselves from Nature, everything really does fall into chaos.

In this instance, however, who the hell cares? It's only womyn.

At Least The French Like Cheese

It's been a while since either ninme or I chanted "Die, Boomers, Die," but if the Sec. of State sending a mix tape to France to make amends for not showing up for the anti-terror rally in Paris doesn't convince you, you probably ARE a Boomer.

Kevin Williamson with more on that. 

A word of advice: Next time, send Slayer.
Seriously: If you’re going to send a past-its-prime musical act to an ally in distress — instead of showing up to join the rest of the heads of state in a show of solidarity — then send in the wild boys from Huntington Park, Calif., who are, like the last effective foreign policy maintained by this country, born of the 1980s. James Taylor tells France, “You’ve got a friend.” Slayer tells the world, “You’ve got a problem.” And there’s something in the Slayer catalog for everybody: “Jihad” for the most literal-minded; “Evil Has No Boundaries,” a sentiment that social conservatives could surely endorse; “War Ensemble” for the neocons; and President John Bolton’s agenda for his first 100 days in office: “Raining Blood.” (“Endless war?” President Bolton scoffs. “Try three weeks.”) If you find yourself in a fight, you want to know that you’ve got a friend. But do you really want that friend to be James Taylor?