The Politically Incorrect Bob Dylan

Curtsy to First Things for this. From a recent interview in which, among other things, he counsels young men not to play the guitar to meet women and advocates the prayer, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned":

Q. The guy in IF YOU EVER GO TO HOUSTON mentions he was in Houston during the Mexican War. A lot of people think the Anglos treated the Spanish badly in Texas, but miss the fact that the Spanish had claimed Texas for Mexico without ever populating it. They just drew a big line on the map and said, "All this is ours." The people who actually lived there were either Anglo settlers or Indians, and none of them wanted anything to do with Spain or its Mexican colony. Do you think Sam Houston has gotten a bum rap?

A. I don't know. I never heard that he had gotten a bum rap. Are we talking about Sam Houston the statesman, soldier and politician? Sam Houston was the governor of two states, both Texas and Tennessee. Who else has ever done that! What was he supposed to have gotten a bum rap for?

Q.Well, he chopped off Texas from Mexico.

A.No he didn't. He chopped it off from Spain. Just like somebody else chopped off Florida from Spain. Where does the bum rap come in?

"Change of Direction"

From The Ryskind Sketchbook

His take's a little different from mine.

Gingrich Takes Waxman To School

The beginning is Waxman grandstanding and trying to silence Gingrich. The money exchange begins roughly 4:00.

Where Have All The Wimpy Bishops Gone?

There's Bishop Tobin down below and here's Bishop Finn's keynote address to a pro-life convention: We Are At War (relax, it's not with other people, but with the glamour of evil).

Bishop Tobin On Same Sex Marriage

Bishop Thomas Tobin's weekly column minces no words: Rhode Island, Most Catholic State, Welcomes Gay Marriage. I'm just going to paste in the entire thing:

That’s a headline we haven’t seen yet, dear readers, but probably will in the next couple of years. And, make no mistake about it – that’s exactly what the headline will say as the story makes its way around the state and across the nation.

The march toward gay marriage across our nation is relentless, and liberal New England is leading the way. The supporters of gay marriage in Rhode Island are well-organized and well-funded. They’re fiercely determined to impose their politically correct agenda on all the citizens of the state – human history, culture and moral principles not-withstanding. Anyone who opposes them is quickly labeled a bigot.

And what’s the typical response of Catholics in Rhode Island? “As long as it doesn’t affect me, I really don’t care what other people do,” you say. “We shouldn’t judge other people,” you demur. “The Church is losing its influence. I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” you rationalize.

Well, my friends, gay marriage will affect you and you should be concerned. And there’s a lot we can do. But first, let’s review the principal reasons why we’re opposed to gay marriage.

First is our firm belief – based on the natural law, the Bible and consistent religious tradition – that homosexual activity is unnatural and gravely immoral. It’s offensive to Almighty God. It can never be condoned, under any circumstances. Gay marriage, or civil unions, would mean that our state is in the business of ratifying, approving such immoral activity. And as I’ve written previously: “The state shouldn’t be placed in that position, and as a citizen of the state I don’t want that imposed on me and my conscience. Neither should you.”

Second is the fact that gay marriage seeks to radically redefine the most fundamental institution of the human race, the building block of every society and culture. From the beginning, marriage has been defined as the stable union of man and woman, designed by God to continue the human race through the procreation of children. Homosexual relationships are not marriage – never have been, never will be.

Here let me explain the “champagne principle.” Not every wine is champagne. Champagne has certain very specific, universally recognized characteristics. If someone were to take a bottle of Chianti, label and sell it as champagne, they’d be arrested for fraud. In the same way, those who seek to redefine marriage – with its specific characteristics – and to usurp the title “marriage” for their morally bankrupt relationships, are committing an act of fraud. It’s insulting to those who have entered the authentic, sacred and time-honored institution of marriage over the years.

The gay culture continues to seep into our popular culture, cleverly claiming credibility. Did you see that President Obama issued special invitations to gay families to participate in this year’s Easter Egg Hunt at the White House? Just another not-too-subtle attempt to ignore the objective immorality of the situation and present gay couples as normal and happy as every other couple.

The third way in which gay marriage will affect you is its impact on religious freedom, including that of the Catholic Church.

A recent headline in the Washington Post demonstrates the problem: “Faith groups losing gay rights fights.” It goes on to give some examples of how the gay agenda is imposing itself on religious beliefs: a Christian photographer in New Mexico was fined because she refused to photograph a gay couple’s commitment ceremony; Christian doctors in California were obliged to artificially inseminate a lesbian patient; A Christian student group was punished because it denied membership to anyone involved in sex outside of marriage.

We’re familiar with other examples of the gay agenda infringing on religious freedom. In Massachusetts, the Catholic Church was required to place children for adoption with gay couples; and in some countries, clergy preaching the Christian doctrine about homosexual practices have been accused of hate crimes.

Proponents of gay marriage say that the Church won’t be forced to witness such marriages. Don’t believe it. And other related problems will inevitably arise. Will the Church be required to admit gay couples as sponsors for baptisms; to rent its facilities for gay wedding receptions; to hire employees despite their immoral gay lifestyles; to grant family benefits to gay couples? For simply maintaining its teachings in these and many other possible scenarios, the Church will be accused of bigotry and unlawful discrimination. The threat to our religious freedom is real, and imminent.

The fact that Rhode Island has successfully avoided the gay marriage phenomenon is a credit to our Governor, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate. They – along with a number of other legislative leaders – have been consistent and courageous in deflecting the onslaught of gay activists and in upholding the traditional definition of marriage. We hope and pray they’ll continue to do so.

“The Church is losing its influence,” you say, “and there’s nothing we can do.” “Bull feathers,” I reply. I don’t know if we have 600,000 Catholics in the state or 500,000 or 400,000. But if even ten percent of our Catholic population got actively involved in this issue – even five percent – we could have an enormous impact and help Rhode Island maintain its moral sanity.

Lots of things you can do about this issue. First, you can be aware of the legislation as it’s introduced in the General Assembly. You can contact your state senator and representative and insist that they oppose gay marriage and defend marriage and family values. You can exert your influence with letters to the editor and calls to talk shows. You can join and support organizations like NOM-RI that’s leading the charge on this issue. And you can pray fervently that God will help us in this critical struggle on behalf of morality and common sense.

The Church teaches us that it’s the responsibility of the laity to get involved in public life, to transform the secular order into the Kingdom of God. Therefore, if someday a headline reads, “Rhode Island, Most Catholic State, Welcomes Gay Marriage,” people across the nation will ask, “How did that happen?” And it’ll be our fault, fellow Catholics – not necessarily because we approved of gay marriage – but simply because our abysmal apathy allowed it to happen.

Support Roxana Saberi

Reporters Without Borders has taken up Roxana Saberi's case (she's the American journalist the Iranian mullahs are holding as a spy.)

Specter Of Things To Come

Two views of the Specter matter:

The Swine Flew!

The Purity Brigade Strikes Again & Strikes Out.

I'm reworking this post because I realized I was writing in response to a couple of things I've heard or read in print that ticked me off, but since I didn't explain what I was responding to, the resulting rant wasn't fully coherent. This is the do-over.

What's got me ticked is the talk radio, conservative & Christian blog denunciations of Specter in the most vile possible terms and --worse-- in the Catholic blogosphere, the opportunistic seizing of the opportunity to revile former Sen. Santorum for supporting Specter over Pat Toomey in the Republican primary for the 2004 election cycle. (See, Santorum, you sold your soul for a fellow who sold you out, goes the thinking.)

I get sick to my stomach when I hear a good man like Santorum denounced because of a difference in prudential judgment. Is it the purpose of the Catholic Right to scare all the actually fervent Catholics out of politics? Say he was wrong (he wasn't!), say you couldn't disagree more strongly with his decision in that instance, why is it necessary to denounce a man who fought heroically for the full complement of Catholic social teaching the entire time he was in office as a coward and a squish? No, he was a man. A good man who did his best and like other good men made calls you like and calls you didn't. Can't we leave the comment box-style denunciations to the Kossacks and speak like Christian men among ourselves?

I even have need to mount a mild defense of Sen. Specter. For heaven's sake, he's not betraying the party, he's being pushed out by the PA GOP! Which is fine --I will be delighted if we manage to pull off an upset and send Pat Toomey to the Senate-- but let's be clear about who first put an end to the longstanding gentleman's agreement between Arlen Specter & the GOP: we did!

That agreement was: although he is a liberal, in exchange for political support, Arlen Specter would organize with the GOP (he switched parties in 1965). This affected committee control & gave us defense against filibusters, and meant that while Specter was free to vote however he pleased generally, he would have the party's back whenever his vote would be decisive. Check the record. I believe you will find he never cast a deciding vote against the GOP on anything of substance (not something you can say about Orrin Hatch, eg, ahem).

This was particularly important to us on social issues, where he never cast a pro-life vote unless his vote would make the difference between victory and defeat for our side. He made a big difference on judges. In earlier days, Specter even went so far as to be Senate champion of Clarence Thomas, a particularly bitter political pill for him to swallow given his allegiance to Planned Parenthood, but he went along --he knew the rules of the game and stuck to them.

I'm not saying he's a man I admire. Anyone can see his career has been mostly about him. What I'm saying is I consider it crazy to be perpetually angry with a diehard liberal for not being Conservative rather than being at least grudgingly grateful he helped us over the top on more than a few close votes. We needed his seat desperately in the Bush years and that's why Santorum did what he did. Even Pat Toomey knew that, which is why he endorsed Specter immediately after failing to defeat him in the primary.

There's a different political reality today, so both parties now realize their little contract has run its course. It's no tragedy, although we should realize even today Specter's all that's standing between freedom for union members and the loss of the secret ballot. If Specter flips in order to stave off a union challenge in the Democratic primary, then Pat Toomey had better darn well win that seat. As JPod says at that second link:

Politics is not about casting the easy vote for the person you admire. It’s really about choosing the least bad alternative. The foes of Specter in Pennsylvania thought their least bad alternative was challenging him in a primary he would lose. Now they will really discover what the least bad alternative might have been. And so will we all.

I'm not prepared to be angry with Toomey as JPod appears to be (update: FWIW, Michael Barone thinks Toomey's chances of winning the general are worse in 2010 than they were in 2004; if that's so, I am prepared to be mad), but I have a knee-jerk need to defend people unjustly piled-upon. Santorum thought about the likely consequences of his actions and did what he had to to defend life and liberty.

The larger point is my hobby-horse, which I now mount again. I get a little tired of the messianic remnant of the GOP. It is not a good thing when a political party starts talking like a religion. Sen De Mint, exemplifying this line of thinking, says of the Specter exit:

I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.

Curse you, Kant! I am so frustrated by the politics of the Categorical Imperative, which isn't politics at all because it eschews the virtue of prudence.

Sen. DeMint's a good guy; maybe his remark is just sour grapes. But I still want to shout, parties are coalitions. The Church can be a "creative minority" to use Benedict XVI's phrase and still have purpose; not so a party. Churches are for witness and for being instruments of the mysterious workings of Providence; parties are for accomplishing things --or preventing them--through prudent action. Andrew Stuttaford is exactly right:

If it comes to a choice, I'd rather have 60 Republicans in the Senate, however squishy some of the views of some in their ranks, than 60 Democrats who are all certain of theirs. Anyone who truly believes in limited government ought to understand that voting against can be as valid as voting for. If it takes a few Specters to see off a Democratic majority, so be it.

Yes. Politics should be played strategically --to advance your cause and ultimately win. If you just want to give witness to your ideological purity, I respectfully suggest politics isn't your field.

Sorry. I'm just a little grouchy that the Dems think they've elected the Messiah, the Republicans think they're the Remnant of Israel, and it's the American people who'll be undergoing the crucifixion.

How Bad Is It?

The economy is so bad...

#1 Sign Toomey Was Ahead Of Him In Internal Polling

Specter Switches Parties.

Obamessiah Withdrawn

I'm sure you've seen that painting of the Obamessiah --with Obama wearing a crown of thorns and posed as if he were on the cross. The artist is withdrawing it from display. Here's why.

I just thought that through that painting people would see different things. The right and the left would have different interpretations of it based on their political lens. But I have to admit I was very surprised that instead of that I got thousands of email complaining on the religious front. And that was not my intent at all. I wanted to create a dialog politically but not religiously. I didn't mean to make fun of anybody's religion; maybe I did so naively but I didn't mean it that way. In the bible Jesus is The Truth and comparing Obama that way isn't something I meant to do at all.

Apparently, I've upset a lot of people. And I've decided that's not what I wanted to do and I'm not going to display it in the park on Wednesday ... art is meant to be somewhat provocative but the religious element went way farther than I had anticipated

It's astonishing anyone could be that naive or that ignorant; but it's refreshing to find an artist for whom provocation is not the highest value.

It's also astonishing to find a work withdrawn due to rethinking of its purpose rather than because of potential beheading.

I wonder if he'll be blacklisted by the "artistic community"?

Gracious, It Really Is The 70s Again

The last time we had a swine flu epidemic was 1976. Perhaps it would be well to recall how that turned out. Strangely I have a childhood memory of seeing Dr. Salk on all the news shows trying to calm people and dissenting from the view that everyone needed a shot.

Huzzah For Mary Ann Glendon

She's refusing the Laetare medal and her explanation takes Fr. Jenkins to school as far as moral reasoning is concerned.

She's got class.

Plus, she listened to me. (Not really, but I like it when I stumble onto the same side as people I admire.)

Evidence Of Things Unseen

God has a facebook page. He's listed as "other public figure."

Belated Anzac Day

Noble spirit lives in hearts united. Nice BBC slideshow of the ceremonies.

We were traveling, so I couldn't wish our friends down under the best on time.

On a related note (related because I was just reading a piece with an old digger lamenting how few of them are left) the travel was to NJ for the funeral of Mr. W's beloved uncle and godfather, who served under Patton at the Battle of the Bulge. A lovely man in every respect: jovial, always with a joke, never said no to an opportunity to help, a daily communicant, never without his rosary all his life, never cursed except to say, "Cheese and crackers!" Strong character, gentle demeanor, always thought the best of everyone (except anyone who dared defeat the Giants...everyone's gotta have a vice, I guess).

On our wedding day this uncle gave me my favorite compliment ever: he exulted about our reception (no assigned seats): "This is great. It's like an old union meet-up!" I loved him at once.

Anyway, I made it through the whole funeral and eulogy without crying, but the bugler at the gravesite did me in. What can I say, I'm a sucker for veterans. He was the kind of man for whom the term "man" was made, as Mr. W. said in his eulogy, "the most natural Catholic man I ever knew."

Seventy Days To Tomatoes

Yesterday Franciscan Monastery began their huge plant sale. Went early to scarf up heirloom tomatoes (though not early enough to nab any bell peppers; a trip to Home Depot is in the offing), lavender, arugula, various basils and eggplant. Plus marigolds to protect them from slugs.

Haven't done a thing to the garden this spring, so that was today's lengthy project: ready the garden, then plant. Over the winter two rosemary plants sprang into enormous bushes. They smell wonderful and they're so pretty: little purple blossoms everywhere.

The strawberries are doing well, though they needed significant weeding and are being interfered with by spearmint. Last year I think I complained I couldn't get mint to take off in my garden. Still true of peppermint, but the spearmint found its sea legs or whatever the appropriate analogy is and had not only taken over its bed, but leapt into the lettuce patch. (Would mint & arugula salad be weird?). Oregano similarly is doing its own thing, regardless of where I actually put it. I'm sort of letting it, as long as it leaves the strawberries alone.

Shallots are doing well. The ones I didn't get around to using multiplied like gangbusters.

Anyway, the important thing is the tomatoes. Two old reliables and two heirlooms.



Green Zebra











Mortgage Lifter (a pink tomato)










Celebrity (a disease-resistant hybrid)












Better Boy (fastest ripening)







Yay.

Or You Could Kneel On Dried Peas

Sr. Mary Martha 'splains it to two young'uns who figger what's the use of praying if God's will is always going to be done?

Her explanation is terrific --where was she when I was in Catholic high school? I like this too, though. Pointing out that Jesus himself always prayed before he healed, she offers:

So, you think you know better than Jesus?


That attitude always reminds me of terrible movie versions of Classic literature. I saw a version of "Huck Finn" where Huck Finn just floated around on a raft with Jim while they had escapades. What fun! No mention of Huck Finn's moral dilemma. You might recall that in the book, Huck thinks himself very evil because he is breaking the law by not turning in Jim, who is a run away slave. He decides that if he is going to Hell for his sin, than so be it. He makes a courageous choice to do what he knows in his heart is right, when everyone else in his world tells him he is wrong. But these people who made this film knew better than Mark Twain, one of America's greatest authors, one of the world's greatest writers. I think it was a musical.

Don't make your life into a bad movie version of what it could be.

Nothin' But 'Net

From The Ryskind Sketchbook

Heh:

her suggestion that the Silver Star for valor be replaced with an ankle tracking device was taken out of context.

I Think I'm Going To Start Getting My News From Al-Jazeera

Can you imagine a report like this on any other cable station?

Curtsy: CMR, which has a particular reason for bringing this up now.

Beats Le Tupperware

WSJ: French Recipe For Launching 1000 Parties. 14,000 Americans have signed up to host sales parties for the French government:

Would-be hosts are required to go to the House Party Web site and fill out a form. The company plans to choose 1,000 applicants who will receive coupons that offer 15% discounts on certain French wines and a free gift when they order French cheeses on specific Web sites.

They also will receive a hamper of French-themed party gear, including a corkscrew, an apron and a CD featuring pop singer Carla Bruni, wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In return for the gifts, the hosts must hold a party, take photos and blog before and after, in an effort to help create a buzz about French wine and food. After the party, they will have to answer a questionnaire seeking their opinion of the products they tasted. French wine and cheese producers are planning to follow up the parties with a series of special promotions of French goods at local shops and supermarkets.

Tortured Questioning

A bit late for it, but there's finally a worthwhile conversation about "torture" in Catholic teaching over at Inside Catholic. Start at Deal Hudson's post: Is Torture One of The Church's Non-Negotiables? A lot more follows in comments, and he points you to other links, including a discussion at Vox Nova and Fr. Brian Harrison's excellent treatment of the topic concluding "torture" can be acceptable in extremely limited circumstances. (I'm using the scare quotes because I think torture properly understood is intrinsically evil, but remain unconvinced that everything we're calling torture these days merits the label.)

Fr. Harrison addresses for me my own question: what is torture? I am well aware of several outspoken Catholic apologists who snort at that question as if the answer were self-evident to all honest men, but it isn't to me. For starters, there's a delegate in California who annually tries to define spanking a child as torture, so clearly we don't all start on the same page.

Even deciding what exactly we mean by torture is not easy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes it as "physical or moral violence" (CCC 2297); the definition given by the 1984 United Nations Convention on Torture is "the intentional infliction of severe pain." The words violence and severe are themselves somewhat vague. Who draws the line — and where? — as to which specific practices are harsh enough to correspond to those words? What has become clear in the contemporary debate is that while many shudder-evoking practices (which needn't be spelled out here) are recognized by everyone as meriting the name torture, there is no consensus about whether other less extreme interrogation techniques really count as torture: for instance, sleep deprivation, being kept under harsh temperatures or in uncomfortable positions, or "waterboarding" (which causes a brief, panic-inducing sensation of being about to drown but no pain or injury). Since no Catholic magisterial intervention so far offers any real guidance for resolving this controversy, the only methods we can be sure are included under "torture," when that word appears in Church documents, are those in the former group.

Where the subject of Bush's "enhanced interrogation techniques" comes in, while every fiber of my being has the Shepard Smith reaction to "torture" (I don't care if it helps or not, this is America, we don't do that), I simply can't consider putting a guy in a room with a bug torture. Waterboarding? I honestly don't know. We do it routinely to our own servicemen to train them (and the men I know who've endured it scoff at the idea of its being torture; is that bravado or educated opinion?) and its purpose is precisely not to kill, maim or do any lasting psychological harm to the target.

Is torture both deliberately to inflict as much pain as possible with utter indifference to the harm done to the person --indeed with delight in it?-- and also deliberately to punish while taking every precaution to preserve the individual from lasting harm?

That's what throws me: my own private definition (subject to education, re-thinking and correction), what I naturally consider torture, is the deliberate effort to maim and/or inflict severe pain and/or humiliation and/or psychological harm on another person. And I'd probably add: because you enjoy it or because you can. I think of true torture as having a dimension that is purely mean or depraved --and therefore is an intrinsic affront to the dignity of both the tortured and the torturer.

My own checklist is as follows.

• Death sentences carried out by any means other than as swiftly and painlessly as possible? Torture.
  
• Deliberate maiming? Torture.
• Inflicting pain by highly imaginative methods (indicating you savor the process)? Torture.
  
• Doing anything to inflict pain and suffering on lawful enemy combatants you capture? Torture.
  
• Doing anything to hurt captured persons --even masterminds-- long after they've ceased to have any contact with the outside world? Torture.
  
• Sexual deeds performed on captives? Torture.
  
• Abu Ghraib? Torture.
• Bush Admin's "enhanced interrogations"? Not sure.
  

The Geneva conventions protect lawful enemy combatants largely because they recognize that armies and navies are peopled by folks following orders, not those responsible for strategies and policies. You capture one of them? Keep him off the battlefield til the war ends, but treat him decently: he's just a bloke.

Masterminds? That's a different matter. And of course with acts of terrorism, every participant is in a way a mastermind. Each cell has its own plans, so every terrorist you capture, it's like getting Rommel or Goering in a way. You're not going to ask him any questions? Or you're going to limit yourself to asking him pretty please to betray his cause? It's hard for me to believe that's what the Church requires.

Which is usually the point in the discussion when, as I've complained before, someone says "you may not do evil that good may come." Right principle, certainly, but it begs the question of whether or not the act under discussion is or is not an intrinsic evil. I'm not confident that the Church's ban on torture bars any and all enhanced interrogation techniques. If there is Just War, then there is right use of the means to win the war, right?

There are additional questions: the effect of enhanced interrogation on the persons who perform the deeds. Do waterboarders become coarse people, ruined by the experience?

And --what worries me more-- the deleterious effect of even having this conversation publicly. As bad as it will be for the country's defense if the Obama administration wins this fight (by political show trial, revelation of secrets that expose our agents in the field, riling up hatred for our nation, etc.), I worry equally that it will lose --with the result that more people blithely accept "torture" as a legitimate thing. This is coarsening our already coarsened culture.

Until persuaded otherwise, I think there really is a significant moral (not merely semantic) difference between torture and enhanced interrogation, and the muddled conversation we've been having --both the political one in public and the moral one taking place behind the scenes-- isn't shedding much light. Probably good people can disagree on whether or not waterboarding is torture; but if we call putting a guy who fears bugs in a room with a caterpillar "torture," I think the majority of Americans are going to say, "Hell, yes, we torture!" That's not a happy result. Not at all. And if it's being done, as I suspect, just to humiliate Bush & Cheney --merely for partisan political purposes-- it's stupid and profoundly wicked as well.

P.S. Fr. Harrison has a much longer treatment of the torture question here. I haven't read it yet, although I did scroll to the end for his conclusion: three instances in which infliction of punishment is intrinsically unjust, one in which it isn't, and one open question.

Update: w/ respect to the politics of it all, former CIA director Porter Goss has a few choice words.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.

-- We understood what the CIA was doing.

-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.

-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.

-- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately -- to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president's national security adviser -- and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted.

Three reasons why it matters:

Unfortunately, much of the damage to our capabilities has already been done. It is certainly not trust that is fostered when intelligence officers are told one day "I have your back" only to learn a day later that a knife is being held to it. After the events of this week, morale at the CIA has been shaken to its foundation.

We must not forget: Our intelligence allies overseas view our inability to maintain secrecy as a reason to question our worthiness as a partner. These allies have been vital in almost every capture of a terrorist.

The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by which we operate. The terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of beheading innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic of placing explosives high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply no comparison between our professionalism and their brutality.

Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. "Name, rank and serial number" does not apply to non-state actors but is, regrettably, the only question this administration wants us to ask. Instead of taking risks, our intelligence officers will soon resort to wordsmithing cables to headquarters while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are lost.

Exactly. We're going to turn our own people into a bunch of Bagdad Bobs.

Plus (here's the transcript):

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

On the other hand: Our Hearts Fail; the strongest anti-waterboarding argument; and this does sound like torture to me:

Among the procedures was prolonged stress-standing with arms chained above the head while the victim is made to stand naked for days, compelled to defecate and urinate in place.

And why do we subject our own guys to waterboarding? Isn't it to toughen them up against the tortures they'll face at the hands of unscrupulous enemies?

Freedoms We've Lost

Nice post here: 101 Freedoms & Rights The Progressive Left Doesn't Want You To Have. The list ranges from the vital

1. The Right to participate in the political process by donating money to causes you support (like Proposition 8 in California) without being harassed by radicals
2. The Freedom to work in a shop without belonging to a union.
3. The Freedom to use a secret ballot when voting to unionize.

and

23. The Freedom to join with others to criticize a politician within 30 days of an election.
24. The Right to own a firearm.

to the humorous

The Freedom to publish editorial cartoons with monkeys in them.

It's quite the list --I was tempted to just re-post it in its entirety without comment. But then I read the first comment on the post and the discussion that follows, which includes this choice observation:

Yes, some people do flinch under the oppression of compassionate, sensible living. It’s funny to me that so often the Conservatives who bleat on about their lost rights and freedoms (disregarding that “rights” are largely legal and are supplied by our governments which also gift things to us we’re happy to take as if we’re entitled) are the same people who are happy to participate in religions full of commandments.

That literally saddens me. Someone needs remedial help in conceiving herself as a person rather than a creation of the state.

Anyway, that brings me to this post last week from The Anchoress, who had an interesting conversation with an immigrant Afghan cabbie. He says America is no longer free. One example of what he means:

this country used to be about freedom. You work, you pay your taxes, and you are left alone to live your life. That was freedom. Now America is all about little laws, I am being nagged to death with the little laws. I work on cars like a hobby. I always keep my cab covered, out of regard for my neighbors. Then I am told, ‘you’re not allowed to cover your car’, I think because they wonder what is under it. So I don’t cover it, and then I get told it must come off the street because it is an eyesore, but I am not allowed to cover it.

snip

I do nothing but work and work and I work very hard, and I feel like every day America is finding new laws, more laws, and no matter how much I want to just live my life and keep to myself, America is making so many laws that we all cannot just live anymore, now we have to always answer to someone. I don’t like it.

Similar thoughts from an Aussie veteran, so it's not just us.

It seems to me it's a true cultural, not just legal, change. That is, it's not just that (in the U.S.) the federal government years ago started using the commerce clause to regulate every bloody thing and states and localities followed suit to keep up. We also became more litigious, so companies and institutions (like private schools) self-regulate to avoid lawsuit (no dodgeball, no monkey bars, no tree climbing, limited outside play). When Mr. W. was at HUD right after 9/11, some poindexters in NJ, I think it was, refused to allow Muslims in low-income housing to have a mourning service for relatives lost in the towers --didn't want to run afoul of regs preventing establishment of religion, as this was gov't property. The Secretary had to send a memo assuring the mid-level bureaucrats people don't lose their right to free exercise because they live in HUD houses, for the love of pete.

Instead of having one crabbed, nosy neighbor (or even a clique of 'em) who's part of the fabric of your community and sort of gets on everyone's nerves --that's just life-- you feel (or I feel anyway) that most of your time in public you're being watched to see if you're abusing your kids and listened to lest you should say something incorrect and be proven a dangerous hater. We don't call the posse out for murder, theft or dishonoring a white woman anymore. Now it's for growing corn in the front yard or cutting down your own tree or parking your cab in front of your own house or daring to believe that homosexuality, whatever its origins, does grave harm to its practitioners.

Communities --as opposed to state and federal governments-- have the right to band together to set standards. Even the much-mocked (including by me) gated communities I defend on the ground that no one has to live there. The rules may be dumb, but you know when you move in you're agreeing to live under the watchful eyes of the homeowners association, which knows with certainty that property values will decline if your brass kick plate exceeds 11 inches or the color of your shutters varies in any degree from its original hue.

In a true community, however, the trade-off for having nosy neighbors and the occasional stupid regulation preventing you from doing as you please is that you're known. Don't show up at church or don't lift your shades just so or miss your morning constitutional two days in a row and someone will investigate to see if you've "fallen and can't get up." Your kids can play outside because the watchful eyes of an entire community are on them lest they be interfered with (nor will they get away with playing with matches). Go on vacation, your neighbors will report the strange man lurking on your porch while you're away. The further away from your actual life the regulatory body gets, the more it destroys genuine community.

We're seeking the good life and security more and more now in multiplication of rules with little of the give and take and self-giving it takes to actually have such a life. Nosiness and pecksniffery (is that a vulgar word? I hope not) we have always with us. But they used to be moderated by respect-- if not affection-- for our fellows. We need a new version of the golden rule: do not regulate in others what you would not yourself have regulated.

Prosecute The Senate Too

Re: talk of prosecuting the authors of the CIA "torture" memo.

In 2006, Sen. Kennedy offered an amendment to the military tribunals legislation that would have outlawed waterboarding. The amendment failed, 46-53.

Since the Senate also advises in these matters, it's only fair to prosecute it too.

Who Do You Think Collapsed Their Country?

Icelanders believe in elves.

Curtsy: "Chris"

Life Is A Flow Chart

Shamelessly pinched from American Digest,
which pinched it from Dr. Sanity.
Click to enlarge.

Need This T-Shirt

Purchase here. Curtsy: American Digest's tweets.

Not "Catholic" Much Longer?

I can only conclude from this public statement of Bishop D'Arcy's (here with Fr. Z's worthwhile commentary) that the severing of Notre Dame's relationship with the Catholic Church is on the table. Tough stuff, here's just the conclusion:

In my letter, I have also asked Father Jenkins to correct, and if possible, withdraw the erroneous talking points, which appeared in the South Bend Tribune and in other media outlets across the country. The statements which Father Jenkins has made are simply wrong and give a flawed justification for his actions.

I consider it now settled — that the USCCB document, “Catholics in Public Life,” does indeed apply in this matter.
The failure to consult the local bishop who, whatever his unworthiness, is the teacher and lawgiver in the diocese, is a serious mistake. Proper consultation could have prevented an action, which has caused such painful division between Notre Dame and many bishops — and a large number of the faithful.

That division must be addressed through prayer and action, and I pledge to work with Father Jenkins and all at Notre Dame to heal the terrible breach, which has taken place between Notre Dame and the church. It cannot be allowed to continue.
I ask all to pray that this healing will take place in a way that is substantial and true, and not illusory. Notre Dame and Father Jenkins must do their part if this healing is to take place. I will do my part.

Toldja It Was Just A Handshake

Obama shook hands with Hugo, but made a deal with Uribe.

Obama may have shaken hands, accepted an idiotic book and politely listened to diatribes from regional troublemakers. But for our ally Colombia, he wasn't just gesturing. He was delivering results.

It started Saturday, when he put himself next to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe at lunch and then studiously exchanged notes.

Having listened to Uribe, (and that must have been a nice dose of sanity after enduring 50 minutes of ravings from Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, or weird conspiracy theories by Bolivia's Evo Morales), Obama then seemed to realize that the long-stalled Colombia free trade agreement should have been passed yesterday.

The president announced that his team must find a way to pass the agreement. With world trade down 80%, the pact opens new markets to the U.S. He demanded immediate action, asking Colombia's trade minister to fly to Washington this week.

Then it got even better: Obama invited Uribe to the White House and promised to visit Colombia himself, allowing the Colombians to lay out for him their vast economic and social progress, and their desire to integrate into global trade.

In a final flourish, Obama scribbled his autograph onto President Uribe's notes, writing: "To President Uribe, with admiration! Barack H. Obama." A smiling Uribe showed it to reporters. Given Uribe's discretion, it's likely that Obama asked him to do that.

The media made much of Obama's polite gestures to dictators, but he gave them nothing resembling what he gave to Uribe. Name one dictator Obama sat with for lunch. Which troublemaker got a White House invitation? Which tinhorn got a promise to visit?

And has anyone heard of Obama giving his autograph — "with admiration!" — to another president?

Indeed. Well-played, sir.

On Second Thought, I Won't Ask

Former (4 term!) D.C. City Councilman Harold Brazil defended himself against assault charges today, saying he was the one who was attacked during a knife fight at a tattoo parlor.

And what was a 60-yr-old man doing in a tattoo parlor?

The story is worth reading just for the comedy. It's like movie slapstick.

Making Christianity A Little Frightening

Don't know anything about this group, but its welcome freaks me out a bit. Curtsy: ninme's tweets.

Orange You Glad?

They went through the budget line by line and decided to remove a period. Curtsy: ninme

Cheney's Still A Hero

Bless him, he points out it ain't sportin' to release CIA memos on "torture" w/o telling what we learned from the measures. Yes indeed, if we're going to be transparent and make judgment for history, it would be nice to know the full facts.

One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified. I formally asked that they be declassified now. I haven't announced this up until now, I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I say that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.

More from Michael Hayden. If we're going to have this conversation, let's be honest.

Most of the people who opposed these techniques want to be able to say, I don't want my nation doing this — which is a purely honorable position — and they didn't work anyway.

That back half of the sentence isn't true. The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work.

The president's speech, President Bush, in September of '06 outlined how one detainee led to another led to another with the use of these techniques.

The honorable position you have to take, if you want us not to do this — and believe me, if the nation says don't do it, the CIA won't do it — the honorable position has to be even though these techniques worked, I don't want you to do that. That takes courage. The other sentence doesn't.

Another UN Triumph

A Palestinian doctor tortured by Libya speaks...until they shut him down.


More.

A Is For "Ariel"

WSJ: Chinese Learn English The Disney Way.

Disney English appears to be a hit with members of China's burgeoning middle class. After a recent Monday-evening class, 5-year-old Zang Siqi rushes toward her mother, eager to show off a white rocket she has made out of paper, a Snow White sticker in its nose cone.

The girl's mother, Li Ruchen, says she enrolled her daughter in twice-a-week Disney English classes for roughly $1,000 a year because she wants the girl to be "international" and Disney is a "familiar and trustworthy brand."

In the family's sport-utility vehicle on the way home, a Disney English CD plays over the sound system. Arriving at the family's 30th-floor apartment, young QiQi, as she is called by her parents, eagerly directs a visitor toward a notable decoration: a tiny Cinderella sticker on a glass cabinet in the dining room. Next to the girl's Disney English backpack, her mother sets down instruction books from the school featuring the Buzz Lightyear character from "Toy Story" on the cover, including one titled, "Whose Toy Is This?"

Soon, QiQi and her parents are gathered around a dining table -- her colorings of Ariel the Little Mermaid displayed underneath a plate of glass -- and gripping yellow Disney English playing cards.

It's a comfort to know when the Chinese take over we'll always have The Lion King.

Remember Daniloff

Jennifer Rubin doesn't like Obama's response to Iran's conviction of American journalist Roxana Saberi on espionage charges. (The Prez has expressed first "disappointment" and now "concern.")

One hopes the full force of the United States government is being applied to rescue one of our own citizens from a hellish captivity. And if we cannot find the words to properly express outrage or the will to force her release, we can expect that the Iranians and many other dictatorial regimes will conclude they have free rein to take pot shots at America and nab our citizens.

Hmm. What did Reagan say publicly when the Soviets kidnapped Daniloff? I don't remember, I'm just asking. But if we recall the Daniloff case, Gorbachev had him released and this was taken as an "opening" to the West which led to enormous pressure on Reagan to make concessions to Gorby at Reykjavik. The entire world --including Conservatives and his own administration-- wanted Reagan to concede missile defense. Only the shrewd mind and steel spine of Ronald Reagan saved the West at that moment.

Mr. W. predicts Ahmadenijad will try to use Saberi in just the way the Soviets used Daniloff: he'll release her, this will be seen as an amazing gesture of good will, and even Conservatives will start favoring meeting with Iran.

Who's Got The Energy To Resist?

Mark Steyn has the story of Pierre Lemieux, a Quebecer denied a gun permit because he refused to detail for the Canadian government why he broke up with his last girlfriend. I kid you not. This leads, as everything does these days, to Tocqueville, with his observation that the king, while theoretically in control of everything, rarely actually exercised his power to mess with you on a daily basis. He didn't tell you not to smoke in your own house, that you couldn't grow your own vegetables, etc.

But what would happen, he wondered, if administrative capability were to evolve to make it possible "to subject all of his subjects to the details of a uniform set of regulations"? That moment has now arrived in much of the western world, including America.

This kind of thing can be defeated...but it takes a kind of vigilance few can muster.

The proper response of free men to the trivial but degrading impositions of the state is to answer as Pierre Lemieux did. But it requires a kind of 24/7 tenacity few can muster - and the machinery of bureaucracy barely pauses to scoff: In an age of mass communication and computer records, the screen blips for the merest nano-second, and your gun rights disappear. The remorseless, incremental annexation of "individual existence" by technologically all-pervasive micro-regulation is a profound threat to free peoples. But do we have the will to resist it?

And if you do, won't the media beat you down?

Tea Parting

ninme's got a useful post on the tea parties. She links to Mark Steyn on the major media's inability to cover the event. There's also video and commentary on the Susan Roesgen/stupid CNN angle. It's not the sniffing superiority that gets me, it's the materialism:

Don't talk to me about freedom, little man, you're getting a tax credit and that should be enough for you.

Sunday Evening's Unpleasant Little Revelations

Earlier this evening I needed to take our daughter to the library to pick up a book she needs for school this week. On the way out the door I grabbed my purse off a hook and reached up to the high shelf where I habitually place my keys and glasses and found...the wrong pair of glasses.

"Odd," I thought to myself, "I just had the good ones, where could they be?"

This was just a glancing thought, however; I put on the emergency back-up glasses and hustled my daughter out the door.

At the library we sought help from the librarian when we couldn't find the book. Turns out we'd mis-remembered the author's name. The librarian found it right away for us and I thought she was looking at me as if I were some kind of curiosity. Ditto the other librarian who checked my daughter out. She seemed amused somehow.

Out in the car I noticed I had a killer headache coming on, which I attributed to the headband in my hair, so I reached up to pull it off...and found my good glasses.

Yes, I have become the absent-minded old bag who doesn't know where the glasses on top of her head are.

And, yes, my daughter allowed me to parade around in public wearing two pairs of glasses and a headband simultaneously.

I'm nutty and my daughter dresses me funny.

Night of the Living Government

The latest installment of Klavan on the Culture.

You're 16, You're Beautiful, & You're Pumped Up w/ Free Government Norplant

Relax, it's just a proposal. In response to the fact that millions of pounds sterling have been spent in Great Britain to curb teen pregnancy, yet the rate is nearly the same it was ten years ago.

Let's just ignore all the medical and moral objections for once. ninme has a good question nonetheless:

I don’t know why nobody suggests tying all boys off (till they’ve done right by a girl and are married, preferably). Why are girls always the ones getting pumped full of gadgets and chemicals when it’s the boys who can be …tampered with, safely, temporarily and with no weird foreign objects shoved into them.

Well...safely, not so much, but we're ignoring health problems. The answer is (say it with me now): because it's only women, so who the hell cares?

Goes Around, Comes Around

Photo credit

There's been an escalation in the high stakes international war of diplomacy and Venezuela just upped the ante. Hugo came up with a gift even worse than a wrong-region DVD pack or an iPod loaded with Obama speeches.

He gave Obama The Open Veins Of Latin America: 5 Centuries of The Pillage Of A Continent. (Plus, I think he re-gifted it.) Read the customer descriptions at Amazon....This was a naked act of agression and I hope Obama retaliates by sending a crate full of signed editions of Los sueños de mi padre: Una historia de raza y herencia to Caracas.

The press isn't saying who won the thumb-wrestling match, but the Prez seems to have the drop on Hugo here.

Photo credit

More seriously, I'd like to make a mild defense of the President's "apology tour." I am not happy with it because everywhere the President goes he signals weakness and naivete.

However, I don't think it's fair to say the Prez has been going around the world apologizing. What he's been doing is going around the world asking everyone to "move on." When he was in Europe, for example, the right wing blogosphere lept on him for apologizing for American arrogance. Well, ok, he did say this in that town hall in Strasbourg:

In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

But did anyone note the next paragraph?

But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what's bad.

And the next?

On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America.

So I've come to Europe this week to renew our partnership, one in which America listens and learns from our friends and allies, but where our friends and allies bear their share of the burden.

Does anyone have any honest objection to that in the abstract? I don't. Nor, when you read the whole passage in context, does it read to me like an apology for American conduct. He simply asks that we let previous policy differences go. Read it for yourself and see.

What he said was fine --harder on Europeans than on us, honestly. (Of course, it didn't work; Europe gave him nothing of what he wanted --help for Afghanistan.)

Similarly, the Prez is now rebuked for not defending the U.S. against a 50 minute diatribe from Daniel Ortega. When asked what he thought, the President replied,

It was 50 minutes long. That's what I thought.

That was a stinger if you ask me, and the right response. Some things are so stupid you don't dignify them with a reaction. (It was even shades of Bush's "gaffe," though on mic and deliberate.) Should the President of the United States have stalked out of the room in a huff over Daniel Ortega?

In a departure from his own text, the President eventually did respond --in a manner both mild and withering, I think:

I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old. Too often, an opportunity to build a fresh partnership of the Americas has been undermined by stale debates. We've all heard these arguments before.

In other words, before the whole summit the President dismissed Ortega as a huge snoring irrelevancy. Well done, as far as rhetoric goes. And it happens to jibe with what he told the Europeans: let's move on.

What President Obama does in Latin America is liable to annoy me; what he's said: not really.

Update: That's not to say the Prez didn't miss an opportunity to stand up for what's right. His view of the world and his sense of the human person are too materialistic for him to know how to stand up for the human spirit in any way. But he didn't say anything terrible.

2nd update: See? It was just a handshake.

For The Sake of His Sorrowful Passion...

Shamelessly pinched from Faith & Family

...have mercy on us, and on the whole world!

Read all about the devotion here. Back in 2008, B16 said:

Mercy is in reality the core of the Evangelical message; it is the name of God itself, the face with which He revealed Himself in the Ancient Covenant and fully in Jesus Christ, incarnation of Creative and Redemptive Love.

I love the chaplet of Divine Mercy and have adopted the devotion, but I have to say I still think of today as Hunchback Sunday, just for my own amusement.

Japan Is A Whole Different Country

Photo source. Curtsy: American Digest's tweets

There having ginormous mechanical spiders visit your party is a good thing.

Limits Of The Personal Touch

A colleague of mind just received a hand-written note from the Pope (Yay!) in response to a letter she'd written him about something or other. (My colleague's grandfather was a prominent German professor of philosophy and Joseph Ratzinger knew him.)

Alas, the Pontiff's handwriting, while perfectly straight and neat, is so tiny as to be illegible. Really, she showed me: you can't imagine how small. Three different German speakers (the note's in German) have tried and can't make headway beyond "...fond memories of Prof. X...."

I hope my pal's not enjoined from teaching or invited to tea Sunday next or anything.

...And David Hasselhoff

Germans love Obama.

A full 82 percent believe that his impact on world affairs will be overwhelmingly positive. They expect him to first of all solve the problems of the economic crisis we face, then halt climate change and, last but not least, to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Yet Germans do not actually know much about Obama's political beliefs.

But seriously, an interesting look at why die Flitterwochen won't last.

Gays Can Marry, But Not Atheists

I am trying to imagine the outrage if a Christian minister seriously suggested you could only get married in Church.

Kmiec v. Colbert

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Douglas Kmiec
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

I Sense A Foreign Policy Metaphor

Yet another reason we need DDT. The EPA's been holding a Bed Bug Summit because the blood-suckers, once all but eradicated in the US, have made an astounding comeback.

the insects are spreading rapidly, infesting all kinds of public buildings and spaces/

"We've never seen anything like this,'' agreed Mike Deutsch, an entomologist with Arrow Exterminating, saying bed bug colonies were being found in lamp bases, clock radios, televisions as well as snuggled up in the pages of books.

"We certainly know that bed bugs are not restricted to beds and upholstered furniture, but now we're finding them in places even we never thought possible.''

Of note in this story:

1. The pests enter by sneaking across the border together with benign visitors.

Frequent international travel and hotel stays have helped bed bugs stage their comeback after near extinction in the US, hitching a ride back into the country in suitcases.

2. After certain defeat, they re-grouped when we announced unilateral disarmament.

The bugs' dramatic reappearance also coincides with the withdrawal from the market of powerful chemicals such as DDT

3. The administration has announced the U.S. must be more humble in its approach & signaled its willingness to meet with the bugs "without preconditions."

Few of the remaining chemicals have proved as effective against the tiny invaders, and some kinds have even developed a resistance to them.

[snip]

One Democratic MP now plans to throw the full force of the Congress against the itchy little pests, with plans to reintroduce the "Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2008.''

That bill failed to get passed last year, but it aims to provide funding for public housing authorities to exterminate the unwanted visitors hidden in their midst.

Maybe if we called them bed pirates....

Curtsy: Tim Blair

Potpourri of Popery, Pope's Birthday Edition

Here's Benedict at yesterday's Audience, acknowledging the crowd singing him, "Happy Birthday." (Just last year we got to sing it to him here, remember?) Today's the actual day, and he's spending his 82nd in Castel Gandolfo w/ his brother, Georg, resting up from the Holy Week/Easter exertions.

Resting. Which for him probably means writing another book.

See a slideshow of the audience here. Gov. Richardson was there with a delegation from New Mexico --the state was being honored later in the day by the Saint Egidio Community for abolishing the death penalty.

Popery

• Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum. This year's reflections were written by Archbishop Menamparampil, S.D.P., of one of the Indian provinces. The Holy Father gave this address at the conclusion.

• I posted his Easter addresses earlier, and the entire week's addresses are here now.
  
• No Audience in English (only Italian)...Zenit's on hiatus this week, but he urges Christians to be witnesses to the truth of the Resurrection --its historical truth attested by many witnesses.
• His letter to Gordon Brown on the eve of the G-20 Summit asks the big guys not to cut off aid to little guys --and to recognize the root of our economic problems is the collapse of ethics caused by a crisis of confidence in the human person.
  

Potpourri

Going to make this one Amero-centric, except for the news out of Hong Kong that good Cardinal Zen has retired. His successor appears to be cut of the same cloth --sticking up for religious liberty right away.

U.S.:

• Big News is that communities under the Leadership Conference of Women Religious --already undergoing apostolic visitation under the direction of the Congregation for Religions-- will undergo a second visitation, doctrinal in nature, directed by the CDF. Cardinal Levada's (prefect of CDF) explanation to the conference is pretty tough. Visitation to be overseen by Bishop Leonard Blair: a perfect choice. Lovely man, with an intellectual specialization in the role of women in the Church. Huzzah! (Won't Sister be pleased?)
  
• Archbishop Timothy Dolan is the new bishop of NY. By all accounts the right man for the job. Sustained raucous standing ovation for his defense of life during his homily, followed by this:

  the Church is a loving mother who has a zest for life and serves life everywhere, but she can become a protective “mama bear” when the life of her innocent, helpless cubs is threatened.

  [snip] Everyone in this mega-community is a somebody with an extraordinary destiny. Everyone is a somebody in whom God has invested an infinite love. That is why the Church reaches out to the unborn, the suffering, the poor, our elders, the physically and emotionally challenged, those caught in the web of addictions..."

  ...and more sustained applause.
  

  (My spy among the NY clergy says priests there are deeply demoralized and Dolan's sunny disposition and obvious care for them is already helping). Will have a weekly radio show. Hits the ground running, opposing Gov. Patterson's same-sex marriage bill today.
  
• Knight v. Pirate: Commander of the Bainbridge sent to rescue Capt. Phillips is a Knight of Columbus. Phillips is a practicing Catholic too, by the way; his Vermont parish is "overjoyed" at his return. (Curtsy: NCRegister)
• So much for "dialogue," so much for self-respect. The President asked Georgetown to cover its crucifixes and other religious symbols while he spoke --and they did.
  
• Thomas Dillon, president of Thomas Aquinas College, killed in a car accident in Ireland yesterday. How awful! Prayers for him, his still-hospitalized wife (who was with him), and his kids.

And finally: John Paul's Cleveland miracle? And...get your man interested in spirituality.

Peep Jousting

From the comments here:

My kids ( teenage boys) and their friends thoroughly enjoy Peep Jousting. You put a toothpick in each Peep and set them next to each other in the microwave. Turn it on, stand back and watch as the Peeps expand and the jousting-or sword fight, commences! Especially fun if your microwave has a turntable. Jousting in the round.

Whoa, Nellie, there are a zillion videos of this activity on You Tube. Here's one. For all your stale Easter candy needs, this is a full-service blog.

Yup

Shamelessly pinched from Temple of Mut

This (and two links below) shamelessly pinched from American Digest

Vanderleun has Seattle Tea Party coverage. In spite of the MSM's determination not to cover them and the Right's Usual Suspects' determination to co-opt them, the more than 700 tea parties throughout the country yesterday strike me as hopeful signs of civic health. A good counteraction to the dark thoughts people are thinking.

Dark Thoughts such as:

Daniel Henninger says the world is full of pirates. (Since we can't say "terrorist," can we call bin Laden a pirate?)

Small signs of decline:

Oh, conscription and slavery and arbitrary compulsion of all sorts and imprisonment without bail and without speedy trial - but those things are obvious; all the histories list them. I think you have missed the most alarming symptom of all. This one I shall tell you. But go back and search for it. Examine it. Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms as you have named... But a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot. This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength. Look for it. Study it. It is too late to save this culture - this worldwide culture, not just the freak show here in California. Therefore we must now prepare the monasteries for the coming Dark Age.

And this fellow says:

We are at that point reached by the Roman Republic during the last years of its existence ( 133-30 BC) before becoming an empire. Our present ills can be found there as well: a weakening of the ancient faith, massive political corruption, a lawless senate, rampant divorce, birth control and abortion among the ruling classes, an economic system that expropriated wealth from the provinces to concentrate it at the capital, teeming masses of foreigners and a host of potential dictators eating their way through the Roman state. To put the matter simply, Rome became ungovernable. It took military intervention, civil wars and the foundation of a permanent dictatorship to bring back economic and political stability.

More than likely such will be our own fate.

Which reminds me that some time ago I thought Thomas Sowell was just having a bad day when he observed the same:

I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

Hmm. I don't think any of those dark thoughts are crazy. The trends are there and more than troubling.

But it's also the octave of Easter, the sun is shining, spring's in the air and I'm not in the mood. Evil is real; setbacks are real; dangers are real. Despair, however, is sinful and whining is plain annoying, which might be worse in my book.

There are always countermovements which, precisely because they oppose the zeitgeist, the zeitgeist doesn't notice --or doesn't see the significance of at the time. In spite of Newsweek's assurances that Christianity has nothing to do with us, 150,000 people came into the Church during the Easter vigil in this country. Rick Warren baptized 800 people in one day a few weeks back. Even politically, there's always hope. As Tocqueville says, freedom is always there for any generation to claim: "it requires but to will it."

We're a bit thin in the will department here in the West these days, but there's still a great reserve of civic health and common sense, as this map of the tea parties (which drew crowds of 500-1000 in places like Seattle and rain-soaked Washington, DC --and 15,000 in Atlanta, 10,000 in St. Louis, etc. ) shows.

See coverage here and here and here (great photos, excellent slogans. In Greenville, SC, they sold "Obama burgers" --you buy it, they cut it in half and give half to the guy standing behind you). That's a lot of folks who aren't merely anti-Obama --they're anti-feckless GOP, pro-Constitution, disgusted that the administration considers them terrorists and willing to stand up for their rights.

In short, after all this rambling, I don't think we need head for the catacombs quite yet. A new Congress in 2010 would do wonders. Work for that.