THIS 'N THAT,
'N RANDOM STUFF FROM ALL OVER

It's 1:20 p.m. and I'm still in my jammies and have all kinds of things to do (must buy new dishwasher), but I've been going off on some pretty entertaining tangents in the last couple of days to distract myself, and might as well report on them. But first:


PRIORITY ONE: BULLETIN FROM THE 'STANS

Nephew LT. E-BOY, USN, "friended" me this morning, so he can report in on the Facebook from Afghanistan, from whence he checked in today to say that he had arrived at Baghram Air Base, en route to his destination in [REDACTED] province to spend the better part of a year in re-construction work. ["re-"? Was there that much in Afghanistan that was ever "constructed"?]

Once upon a time it was "Hell no, we won't go!" But it's a new world out there in the younger generation. Lt. E-Boy spent 4 years at what may be the most tough and competitive college in the country, the U.S. Naval Academy, and then spent three months at a time cruising beneath the waves of the vast Pacific in a nuclear submarine. But he traded in the waves for the peaks and windswept valleys of Afghanistan, as a volunteer willing to go where sailors never go, and place himself in the kind of danger that's a little more immediate than a missile's distance from ship to target.

These kids today!

That's what they do. Where did we find them?


WEEKEND IN FLORIDA

Unlike the typical snowbirds from the north, we headed to the Gulf Coast to be part of the winging of #3 son, who is now a fully qualified Naval Aviator/Navigator (Naval Flight Officer). Early on the day, under the watchful eye of St. Brendan the Navigator, we had a small contingent of the Wingees in the chapel for a blessing of their wings -- a simple but very moving rite, crowned by singing four verses of the Navy Hymn. Awesome.

In a very fine ceremony at the National Naval Air Museum (cool) about a dozen students -- Navy and Air Force, with German, Italian, and Saudi classmates -- had family or superiors place their hard-earned wings on their uniforms.

It was my turn to wing a kid (the spousal unit had winged the elder one), and I did my job: carefully place wings one quarter inch above "thanks-for-showin'-up" ribbon; press two pointy prongs through uniform coat; punch Wingee in the chest until pointy prongs leave small red marks on skin (if possible -- as it turned out there was too much jacket for skin contact).


Since Flyboy was only the second in line (preceded by a Saudi, who had no one to belt him), the crowd seemed unprepared to see a gray-haired woman pound her son in the chest, so it elicited a small chorus of "oohs". Over in the reception line, Flyboy's C.O., a square-jawed Marine with a chest full of fruit salad, told me I done good.

By nightfall it was raining like fury, and I was eating shrimp and crab and fried green tomatoes. Finest kind.


ON THE THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS
I'M JAMMIN' WITH THE PROS

We got invited to a Third Day of Christmas Party (on December 28, for those of you in Rio Linda, although technically that's probably the Fourth Day). The invitation said to "Bring your instruments." I had a suspicion what that might mean, but I had the brass to do as directed, thinking I might join in with some pretty amazing people.

And they were there. Our hosts have a huge farm house in the Peterborough area, with what can only be called a "great room", in the style of a castle, except that it's all timber. And our hosts are also old school friends of Canada's finest Irish family band, called by just their surname "Leahy"-- eleven kids, who form up in various combinations to tour and record, playing fiddles and step dancing (simultaneously, which is no mean feat), and generally tearing up the place. The best fiddler in the Leahy family is married to the other best fiddler in Canada, Natalie McMaster, and she came along to the party too.

So there I was, having the nerve to bump away on my bodhran with the best of the best. I kept up fine with the jigs, but the reels were just too fast for me, so I tom-tommed as best I could. They are such very nice folks, all the Leahys, and were as welcoming and friendly to me as could be. Great way to keep the season up past the 25th, which is as it should be.

Christmas was spent with as much of the fam as we could muster: two out of My Three Sons at home, one with new wife and even newer unborn oven-bun in tow. I guess at some point I'll get used to people passing around their ultra-sound pictures -- it's just a little, er, intimate when you think about how you're checking out somebody's uterine studio, eh? But we do love the anticipation as grand-baby #2 thrives and prepares to make an entrance in May.

Hope he/she doesn't work too hard to upstage the other scheduled production, my Play of the Resurrection for the upcoming Chester Cycle. Another year, another medieval "Wagons, HO-O-O!"


BACK TO THE RANDOM

Spent last night and this morning revising my little sheaf of half-a-dozen poems, wondering if anyone else will ever read them. Not a total waste of time. Memo to self: Must take initiative to see where people go to publish poetry, and seek recognition and admiration from someone other than self.

Spent yesterday afternoon reading about the Bauhaus, the better to dump on the whole vision when doing architecture lectures. (BWA-HA-HA, open minds be damned!) And you know, the more you read, the more you realize that there is no better criticism to be made of the movement than to listen to those who admire it. I found a much-linked 3-part video series about Walter Gropius and the theory behind his HQ built in Dessau, Germany. It contains all the clues as to why this style is not good for humanity (or at least for the individual within humanity), nor was it ever intended to be. Fascinating stuff.

Pay particular attention, class, to the difference between the principles the masters taught and imposed upon their students, and the principles which governed the way they chose to live themselves, just down the road, in the private homes.





IT'S ONE OF THOSE WEEKS WHERE I THANK AL GORE
FOR INVENTING THE INTERNETS

I keep having these evenings where we're watching something on the tube and I've got the lap-top out doing the background search. For example, the spousal unit is recently enamoured of the series Deadwood -- of course, he watches just for its portrayal of the development of social institutions out of chaos, doncha know -- certainly not for the cusswords and boobies.

But there I am on the Internets, reading about the real Deadwood, South Dakota, and all the real people who are the basis of the television characters. [More on that at a later date -- I can only do so much random in one day.]

So this week, me and the Internets had one of those spasms where a face or name pops into my head that I haven't thought of, literally (as Biden would say) in decades.

When this happens, just on a chance I Google the name, and check out the Facebook thing, and by gumbo, more often than not, there they be in one form or another -- either they've got a business, or have written a letter to the editor, or have directed a string of Broadway shows, Hollywood movies, and TV series.

Not kiddin' about that last part -- considering my decades spent on the fringes of the world of theatre, it's not so unlikely that some old familiar face will have made itself theatrically notorious. My own "career", such as it was, has been predominantly amateur hour -- my closest brush with production on a really high professional level was actually my very first job, snagged when I was but 18, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a place which, while technically an arena for non-professionals ["pre-professional" as it was called], was in fact a nursery for many people who went on to long and prestigious careers -- like directing a string of Broadway shows, Hollywood movies, and TV series. Specifically, that would be Ron Lagomarsino I'm talking about -- curly-headed boy from Santa Clara, an old friend who became Truly Famous.

I have been following Ron's career progress for decades, and we corresponded for years (though that has lapsed). But the person whose face and name popped into my head this week for no discernible reason (also a colleague from that long-ago Shakespeare experience) was one whom I never knew very well, and last laid eyes on 38 years ago. So why am I suddenly seeing Paul Myrvold in the corner of my mind's eye? Dunno.

Out comes the lap-top, on go the Internets.

And there he be -- living in small-town California after a productive stint in the Big Apple, doing local theatre, juggling two jobs, and (wait for it...) STILL MARRIED TO THE SAME WOMAN!!!!!.

He's also done the lead in Man of La Mancha at least six times since he went west [that's had me bellowing out show tunes all morning while I made my toast and got the mail -- "I was spawned in a ditch/by a mother who left me there....."], but as far as I'm concerned his name ought to be on a blazing marquis somewhere just for being a liberal artistic baby-boomer capable of celebrating a 40th wedding anniversary. How many of those have there been since Jimmy Stewart?

I know he's a liberal 'cause he's on the Facebook thing, and gives a shout-out to Obama. [gag] I'll overlook that, though, 'cause he and Sylvia have three kids too! [no secrets being revealed here, folks, it's all on the Internets in the public domain] -- and I have this vague recollection that life did not make the stork business easy for them, so good on 'em. More lights, more red carpets, hand these folks the statuette: they're a family!

Kind of sad that this takes me so by surprise, but you live long enough in the Modern Age, and you learn to take nothing for granted.

By the way, Paul's got a couple years on me, and he is lookin' good. That's so not fair. How does that happen when I've been the one up here in the deep-freeze for 35 years?

All this is of no great moment to anything in my life -- just a snapshot of the interwoven world we live in: the slightly creepy quality of its shrinking privacy, but the compensatory aspect of its capacity for connectedness.

(I can't believe I just wrote that last sentence -- there's a job for me somewhere in government.)


ANOTHER TRIUMPH FOR NATIONAL HEALTHCARE

The Premier of Newfoundland/Labrador, the rich and oily Danny Williams, apparently needs some heart surgery. I could easily imagine that little old St. John's might not have everything he needs for a complicated procedure, but surely it could be accessed in Montreal or Toronto.

But NO-O-O-O -- for some reason Danny, who has no reason to be content with anything but the best, is trotting off to the U.S. of A. to patch up his cod-nourished heart.

This has not escaped notice in the American press: check out the Drudge Report, Instapundit, BeltwayBlips, the Politico, RealClearPolitics, and JustOneMinute:

OK, fun's fun but let's have a "To be fair" moment - Newfoundland & Labrador has a population of roughly half a million, which would not even make it a big-time, NFL-ready city in the US. I would think the premier ought to head to Toronto for top surgery, but he is independently wealthy and prefers US services. No kidding.

Heh. Yiss, b'y.


MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CHURCH

Was happy to have spurred a special parish brunch collection for victims of the Haiti earthquake, for money that we could count on going straight to the heart of the matter, as it was collected for the use of the Missionaries of the Poor, the Jamaica-based order of brothers with whom I spent the preponderance of four missionary trips to Kingston, back in the day.

Their Haitian outpost (in the north, at Cap Haitien) was not hit by what seems to have been a very localized quake, but they will be dealing with refugees and other needy folks from the epicentre. If you're looking for a target of charitable giving, which you can be absolutely certain will go directly to the victims with barely a particle of overhead, send your dollar$ to the Missionaries of the Poor.

Also in the Haiti-saving business, a splendid little crew of ex-Marines and others who blew in and blew out of Haiti so fast, mission accomplished, that I didn't get time to bring attention to their efforts and advertise their bling. It was a typically Marine-produced surgical strike [and I mean that literally -- hat-tip Joe Biden.....], with a small, well-equipped, fully qualified team of do-ers who shoved aside the bureaucracies and competing interests and got 'er done.

I'm sure their success will lead them to other similar missions, so go right on ahead and check them out, send them dough, and buy their shirts (some design elements contributed by my niece). It's all right here, and it's called TEAM RUBICON. Ooh-rah.


CANDLEMAS -- ANCIENT FEAST, TIMELESS MASS


Joined a motley crew of singers to assist in the super-duper Missa Solemnis carried out by our local representative of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (strayed traditionalist lambs now back in the fold). We have but one in Toronto, Fr. Howard Venette, but on these occasions he is ably assisted by seminarians wanting to learn the old ways. Music was decent -- not up to the standards of the Choir Formerly Known As Mine but quite pleasurable to do, some chant, some hymns, some polyphony.

Some memories, some longings.

As usual, the Anchoress covers the feast beautifully.

The Anchoress also says her bit about the coming Super Bowl ad controversy, with the acceptance of a Focus on the Family-funded pro-life ad (in the most literal sense, Joe!) telling the personal story of Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow's narrow escape when his mother chose to bring him to term rather than abort him because her health was in danger.

Big Surprise: the ad has caused all the usual suspects to go apoplectic at the thought of abortion dissent being given air-time before this huge television audience.

Really Big Surprise: pro-choice Washington Post writer Sally Jenkins calls the ad's critics on their obvious intolerance and suppression of genuine choice. Wow. She even refers to the biggest nay-sayers, the NOW gang, as the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time". Heh. Stunning.

And yet so obvious. Remember Madonna's early hit, Papa Don't Preach? The same forces of "choice" went ape-sh#t that the traitorous Madonna had dared to record a message about the determination of a pregnant teen to keep her baby. Of course, it wasn't really a "message", it was just an anecdote: one story of one girl who "got in trouble" and was telling her father in no uncertain terms that she, one lone girl in one situation, was going to keep her one baby. At no point did the song lyrics drift into advice or admonitions about any other girl in any other set of circumstances -- never did it recommend a particular course of action, or condemn another. It was a story. And the feminists pilloried her for it.

People that criticized the song's message include Ellen Goodman, a national syndicated columnist, who called the video "a commercial for teenage pregnancy".^[42] Feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, the spokeswoman of the National Organization of Women (NOW), angrily called for Madonna to make a public statement or another record supporting the opposite point of view.^[43] Alfred Moran, the executive director of Planned Parenthood of New York City, also criticized the song, fearing that it would undermine efforts to promote birth control among adolescents and that it would encourage teenage pregnancy.
[Wikipedia]

Hey, if Madonna couldn't keep the femininnies happy, what's a poor Jesus-loving beefcake footballer to do? Hope he fares better than those reactionary rockers, Seals and Crofts, who many years ago had the almighty gall to put out a song which involved genuine advocacy of a position on this controversial subject, a song called Unborn Child. Wooooh! Did the cr&p ever hit the feminist fan on that one!

Ah, Choice -- it's a beautiful thing. Long as it's the right one. Otherwise, duck!

Incoming!!!!


POLITICAL NOTES [not possible to avoid them]

It's tradition for the sitting President to appear and speak at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. Apparently Mr. Obama was urged to skip it this year, but it's nice to know that he still has at least a few political/public service instincts intact, and he did attend.

His speech was notable for what has become his customary tone: whining and scolding and preaching, and singing the chorus from that famous Beatle hit, I, Me, Mine. [He seems to have missed the interview where George Harrison explained that the song was about ego as a problem, not as an ambition. Mr. Obama has an uncomfortable penchant for trying to see how many time he can utter "I, me, and mine" in one speech. This one was no exception, despite the fact that it's supposed to be about faith in God -- well, no wonder he got confused.]

Matters of Ego aside [u-u-u-u-n-n-h.... PUSH!!!!], the President out-did his growing reputation for total cluelessness about the fundamentals of his job, when he repeated an account of heroic American service in Haiti, as carried out by our military. I'm sure he thought this would be a good opportunity to, FOR ONCE, say something complimentary about America and its service members. However, since this is something which does not come naturally to him and he must be fed such material by his handy teleprompter, once again POTUS stepped in it -- revealing not only his ignorance but his supreme overconfidence in spite of that ignorance, and his failure to do his homework about things dear to America's heart.

Mr. Obama told of an American (Haitian descent) Naval officer administering help to an earthquake victim. He identified, or rather mis-identified, one "Christian" Brossard as a "translator" -- in fact, Hospitalman Petty Officer Christopher Brossard is a Navy Corpsman, that trusted and valued adjunct to all Marine companies, as well as other branches, charged with giving emergency medical treatment in the heat of battle before casualties are evac-ed to safety, as well as providing medic services within military hospitals. For Hospitalman Brossard, translating was just a happy accident of his Haitian roots, something he could employ while doing what he came to do.

Mr. Obama's ill-mannered stumble on Brossard's name was inexcusable in this setting, and whoever prepared his remarks should face consequences (which, of course, will never happen). But more telling was the mistake which was Mr. Obama's own, showing the kind of carelessness towards his duties as Commander-in-Chief for which he is now justly famous.

If he had anything but a tin ear for his military responsibilities, Mr. Obama would know that Hospitalman Brossard's highly respected MOS (that's Military Operation Specialty, Mr. President) is that of Navy Corpsman. That's pronounced "COR-MAN", Mr. President, not "CORPSE-MAN", as you said it, TWICE, in your Prayer Breakfast speech.

I know it wasn't part of Saul Alinsky's vocabulary, and it doesn't come up much when you're kibbitzing with Rahm Emmanuel. But, Jaysus, even Jeremiah Wright would know what a corpsman was, and how to pronounce it! How could you get outta Harvard and not recognize the word "corps" on the page, Sir? How did it not come up, even in a non-military context? What sort of crap was on your reading list?

In the pithy words of Dennis Miller (referring, I think, to Bill Clinton, but I wouldn't swear to that), Mr. Obama, if you were any more low-rent, you'd be a spring break destination.


I've had it with this random stuff -- it's 4:00 a.m. Time to catch some Z's.

There's a bit of hagiography (holy legend) about the Second Apostle of Rome, St. Philip Neri, which has the ring of historical truth, and the solid gold seal of metaphysical truth.

Here it is, as recounted by the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus in his journal First Things:

The story is told of St. Philip Neri (1515-1595) that he gave a most unusual penance to a novice who was guilty of spreading malicious gossip.

He told him to take a feather pillow to the top of a church tower on a blustery day and there release all the feathers to the wind. Then he was to come down from the tower, collect all the feathers dispersed over the far countryside, and put them back into the pillow. Of course the poor novice couldn't do it, and that was precisely Philip's point about the great evil of tale bearing.

Slander and calumny have a way of spreading to the four winds and, once released, can never be completely recalled. Even when accusations are firmly nailed as false, the reputations of those falsely accused bear a lingering taint. “Oh yes,” it is vaguely said, “wasn't he once accused of . . . "

The words of the Bard that you learned in grade school are entirely to the point:

Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

A heinous crime against reputation is going on at present in the United States, created by a national media for whom their profession has become an ethics-free zone, with the willing complicity of Democrat politicians and their accomplices in the liberal punditocracy, f'rinstance those public menaces the Race-Shakedown Twins, Sharpton and Jackson.

The crime in question is the slanderous attribution of vicious and repugnant utterances to radio gab-king Rush Limbaugh -- utterances that have been branded "racist" (with good reason), and are being blown around by once-reputable media organs like wildfire through an L.A. county canyon in midsummer, without the merest, slightest, most perfunctory effort to discover whether these things were ever actually said.

Limbaugh categorically denies having said them, and challenges the slanderers to produce a single authentic source for any one of them -- a task that not one slanderer has succeeded in doing, and the furious back-peddling has begun already, though with reservations and without apology or retraction.

Rush Limbaugh is one of the most politically astute voices to command the public ear in America. He is also brash, relentless, occasionally vulgar and sexist, culturally under-educated, and genuinely EDGY (where most on the contemporary arts or discourse scene who claim to be so don't even come close to it). Limbaugh is proof that genuine, Swiftian satire is not yet dead -- though his most vicious and/or hypersensitive critics prove equally that it (satire) may be on its last legs.

One of the areas where Limbaugh can be the most edgy is in matters of race, or more specifically, racial politics. One might sometimes be able to characterize his mode of delivering uncomfortable truths as "offensive" or perhaps, more accurately, "abrasive" -- but I challenge anyone to reveal a single abrasive utterance for which an intelligent person, in the cool light of reasoned debate, could not make some coherent and persuasive arguments. Others might disagree, but even Limbaugh's most outrageous claims ARE basically arguable.

Anyone who claims otherwise, and who attributes to him the kind of mindless bigotry embodied in the controversial "quotes" now scurrying around on the public winds.... well, you could say a lot of things about such a person, but one thing is for certain: he or she has NEVER been a listener to the Rush Limbaugh program. IMPOSSIBLE. In fact, Limbaugh's harshest critics, on any subject, prove again and again that they could not possibly have listened to his show for more than a sound bite. (Or, I will allow, it's possible that they did listen longer than a bite, but they have demonstrated themselves too blind and stupid to grasp what they heard.)

There are any number of legitimate criticisms one could make about Limbaugh's program and his manner in delivering it -- I've made a few above, and there are more. I'm always surprised at how his most vitriolic critics seem to miss everything that they might genuinely criticize, and then spew with abandon criticisms that are patently false, even as they themselves engage in all the crass, hateful, superficial, often cruel ad hominem attacks and dishonesty of which they accuse their target. It's a strange thing -- one which, I'm thinkin', betrays nothing so much as FEAR.

Now, I can picture some sort of academically-inclined leftist phiilosopher/ideologue -- of an intensely serious and humorless and apocalyptically tragic mentality -- cultivating the kind of visceral hatred for Rush Limbaugh which has clearly gripped his opponents in media and politics. But I cannot picture this serious partisan lowering himself to engage in the mindless schoolyard savaging, the casually bald-faced lying, the hysterical bogey-manning that issues from Limbaugh's media enemies day in and day out, to their everlasting humiliation; the non-stop indulgence in the very sins for which they would burn Limbaugh at the stake (or some other form of execution, as cheerily recommended by Chris Matthews and others).

What's going on here is just wrong. And the purpose of it is not simply to discredit Limbaugh's opinions, but to destroy his reputation in order to prevent him, as a private citizen, from pursuing a private business transaction to become part-owner of a sports franchise.

Limbaugh has become very rich doing what he does, and that's probably his biggest sin -- he has enough ready cash to fulfill the ultimate sports fantasy, especially for the fan who was never talented or fit enough to play himself. How much, one wonders, does rank jealousy of both his money and his sports-dream lie behind this all-out effort to sabotage Limbaugh's bid for the St. Louis Rams?

On such things apparently the world turns, and, like Hitler at the English Channel, this advance must be halted in its tracks. A proud moment for the fifth estate.

St. Philip Neri, Holy Fool, pray for us.

CONVENTION, DAY TWO


THERE'S LIFE IN THE OLD GIRL [Holy Mother Church] YET!

FAUX CATHOLIC, SPEAKRESS PELOSI, GETS THE EPISCOPAL SMACKDOWN FOR BUTCHERING CHURCH TEACHING ON ABORTION

Nancy Pelosi is "an ardent, practicing Catholic" -- except when she's not. I believe it's a principle of physics that two objects cannot occupy the same space, so let's be clear that an ardent Catholic and an advocate of abortion license cannot occupy the same human body. One or the other of those entities must be exorcised. There's nothing the least bit remarkable about Pelosi's spiritual bankruptcy; self-induced laetae sententiae excommunicate Catholics are a dime a dozen, especially among the political class. [Democratic Veepster Joe Biden is just such another.]

What must be called remarkable, though, is the committed and confident abject ignorance on display as Pelosi assured NBC interviewer-emeritus Tom Brokaw that, in 2000 years, the Church had never quite been able to make a definitive pronouncement about when an embryonic human acquires the status of a being with rights. Even Senator [OOPS!] Saint Augustine put it at 3 months' gestation -- so we don't know, right? So, like, whatever! -- we err on the side of caution elimination.

WHOOOOSH-H-H-H! [sound of men in moiré satin and lace swooping down like a stooping falcon] This is a job for SUPER-BISHOP!!!

First out of the chute, Archbishop Chaput (and his auxiliary, Bishop Conley), right handy there in Denver, who issued a well-crafted letter and catechetical slap to Madame Speaker, less for her benefit than for those whose perception of Catholic teaching may have been blindsided by Pelosi's brain-droppings. Full text is here with The Rest Of The Story, as well as the words of the FOUR other bishops who followed his lead: Rigali and Egan (Cardinals), Lori, and Wuerl. KABOOM!!

It's been a tough week for San Fran Gran Nan. First she makes an first-class ass of herself (yet again) by barking about how we need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels by using more natural gas. (Uh, yeah. Ya see, Nan, yer natural gas is way down there where da oil is -- it works kinda like this.) Then she gets her moment in the sun at the convention (blink, blink, blink in the sun) only to burble and blabble in the late afternoon while absolutely nobody was listening. Which is just as well, since she gave so much evidence of how firmly planted she is in her little parallel universe. Then she runs afoul of a surprisingly fleet-footed Catholic hierarchy ready to read her the riot act. It's enough to make anybody's facial stitches pop.


HALLOWEEN IS TWO MONTHS AWAY,
BUT THE GREAT PUMPKIN HAS LANDED:

HILLARY'S IN AN ORANGE PANTSUIT,
AND SHE'S LIT UP INSIDE

The orange is actually a well-calculated choice, against the electric blue background -- classic colour theory. She's stealing the show pretty good, with her slightly re-worked stump speech (starting with her 35 years of experience-- as opposed to, oh, you know....) Bio video and speech are almost entirely the story of her campaign, very little else about her life before that. Old Hillary campaign signs were very little in evidence. Then she started speaking, and a whole new genre of signs -- a more personal look, consisting of her signature -- and there were hundreds of them, waving to the rhythm thunderous cheers.

Michelle looked pretty sour through the speech, until about half an hour in, when Hillary finally got around to mentioning who's really running for President. Odd-- Michelle at least got an acknowledgement that she'd be great for her perspective job. Barack got nothing that enthusiastic. Everybody's jazzed -- about Hillary, the historic woman -- who did a pretty good job of delivering tired campaign boiler-plate. She's learned not to shriek. That's a good thing. Obambi probably should have picked her, and knows it better now than he did at lunch today. I'm glad he didn't.

Hillary came to the hall this evening as a "proud mother, Democrat, Senator, American, and Barackista." Um.... let's see now. Proud........wife? Nah. Barack ain't the only one who got nudged to the margins. On a general note -- why do Democrats always have to lie so much? Just askin'.




Hey, Barack. I know you think you shouldn't take your eyes off her. But looks who's coming up behind.

THE GREAT INVERSION

When did it all go belly-up?, you were wondering one day.

My friend David Warren sends me his latest column for the Ottawa Citizen, which contains the answer. He pinpoints the date as August 10, 1969 ("That's one small step for [a] man...."), and the documentary proof is in his high school yearbook.

I emailed him back with my thoughts on the subject, and, well, they were just so damned insightful I figured they must be shared with the rest of the world. (Thanks to all eleven of you.)

Sir: [that's Warren]

I think you have nailed the year quite well. I enrolled in a Catholic girls' high school in 1966. At that time it looked pretty much as it always had, staffed by the local branch of the Holy Names (Montreal-based order, thriving in Oregon) which had also staffed my elementary school and many others, as well as running their own women's college, site of their blossoming novitiate. I had never wanted to attend [name of school, which shall remain nameless], and had begged my parents to let me go to a new De La Salle school (with boys) but they refused.

When I returned for sophomore year in the fall of 1967, the nuns had taken their first step towards being part of the "new church" by doffing both their elaborate traditional head-gear (in favour of the "hankie veil") and their "names in religion". Sister Magdala Mary was now Sister Debbie if she wanted to be. [names fictionalized but characters real] At [the school] I had followed my elder sister, who had made a name for herself in many noble pursuits which I was convinced I would never live up to. During my second year I was followed by my cousin, who also made a name for herself in many noble pursuits-- and all I wanted was to get out of there and join my friends back in the suburbs at the local public monster-institution. My parents finally relented, urged on by the sight, on a parents' night at the girls' school, of a banner across one of the classroom blackboards which read "God is a marshmallow."

Two years later (1970) during my first year of college I met one of my fellow [the school] drop-outs, who told me the tale of having been in a (fortunately unconsummated) romance with her married drama teacher at her new public school, which had emotionally devastated her and turned a sweet girl very cynical. Although she had left [the school] the same year I did, she had continued to take [nameless instruction] from Sister Debbie, in whom she had confided about her miserable lovelorn situation. The nun's sage advice to the 17-year-old? "Maybe he'll get a divorce." That was around 1969.

Within another year the nuns had, on the whole, chosen to doff their habits entirely (not going nude of course, as far as I know, but donning the equally identifiable uniform of the the polyester dress and blazer), and move into downtown apartments in small clusters...

I knew it was all but over when I ran into my favourite nun on the street in my college town-- a worldly and probably somewhat liberal woman who had been in her twenties and engaged when she decided to "enter", and was therefore much more sensible and clued-in than almost any of her comrades. She had been, as I understood it, the last to want to give up the habit, the community life, and her name in religion..., but there she was walking in front of my apartment doorway in a maroon velveteen pantsuit. She had not left the convent -- it had left her. I tripped on the sidewalk and landed on my knees.

The complete, and apparently overnight, implosion of the great teaching orders and their historic mission to parish schools has always been one of my major markers for the triumph of the revolution, and something of a mystery. Or so it was until I read Ann Carey's Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women's Religious Communities... It is a jam-packed book in desparate need of a brutal editor...but I will credit it for explaining (at great and repetitious length) exactly how and why the American sisterhood went kami-kaze. And you can certainly lodge those events, at least as I experienced them, in the festering heart of 1968-70.

I did go to the local public high school in the fall of '68, by the way. And by the spring of '69 even that whitebread and well-moneyed campus had begun its interior crumble. The long-established dress-code was removed as a result of student activism; the "fascist" vice-principal had to transfer his energies from calling the police about Minors in Possession of Tobacco (still a misdemeanour then) and dealing with the cloud of marijuana in which many students were living; an underground newspaper was trumpeting that "Nixon is A-BM" and "napalm is war-gasm"; and the annual May Fete crowning was serenaded with the theme song, "This is the dawning of your sensitivity" (to the appropriate tune from HAIR).

There are many reasons for most people not to be the least nostalgic about their high school days-- certainly for those of us who had nothing in common with "the cool kids". But I have often reflected on how little we understood about just how wretched a time that was for the well-being of the universe. On the other hand, kids in my second high school were still subject to the military (Vietnam) draft (most in our neighbourhood would have the convenience of a college deferment, but not all), so there was a fairly grave reality check driving some of what was happening. And we graduated, and looked forward to college, just a month or so after the Kent State shootings. So I suppose that's an excuse of sorts for taking oneself more seriously than 18-year-olds deserve.

Unfortunately, we are now witnessing the ascendancy of that Kent State generation in power-- the kids who became "cool kids" in 1969 were not the traditional sort who quarterbacked the football team and dated the cheerleader, but the sort who ran the student government and took on the system from within. (I believe that's also the year a high-school kid got himself elected President of our newly-minted parish council!!) They got so full of themselves, so fast, that they lived out one of the truly revolutionary inversions of all time: they actually ENJOYED HIGH SCHOOL (dear God!), and wanted it to last forever-- and they are now fulfilling that dream as they run the American congress, and probably substantial hunks of the EU and the UN.

I remember the moon landing well. I don't remember associating it with "the end of all things"-- we probably thought it was the beginning. I guess one implies the other.

Thanks for helping me get ready for Good Friday, dude.

By the way, saw 300 last night. (First time men have had to show their chests in order to get a movie role! A veritable warehouse full of six-packs. Leonidas channelled Mel Gibson, the movie channelled everything Gibson ever made except Passion of the Christ.)

Husband walked out with about 30 minutes to go-- couldn't take the schlock any more. I was willing to go with the appropriately artwork-style super-heroic depiction for awhile, but groaned as it descended into soap-opera 90's-guy senstivity. A Spartan sobbing about his dead kid that "I never told him I loved him best!" BARF! BARF! BARF! What was Victor David Hanson thinking!

This is a footnote to the above reflection insofar as the decadence attributed by the movie to the Persians inspired but one thought in me: that's us. Spring break at Myrtle Beach.

DOMINO THEORY





I’LL HAVE A LARGE IRISH PIZZA
topped with monomania sausage, Guiness cheese, hair-trigger hot peppers, and magic healing-Mass mushrooms, with an extra large glass of Monaghan’s Ol' Fashioned More-Catholic-than-the-Pope Kool-Aid and a side order of Insular/Oedipal emotional-blackmail slaw.





Dominator’s Pizza magnate Tom Monaghan’s latest chess-move in his micro-management of that Floridian Portmeirion

known as Ave Maria University has been to fire Provost [professor of theology & philosophy, promoter of good liturgy, founder of Ignatius Press, all-round “can-he-really-be-Jesuit?” Catholic shite-disturber] and FOB [friend of Benedict] Fr. Joseph Fessio –

only to rehire him 24 hours later, albeit in some truncated capacity.

I’m not totally up to speed on the finer points of the AMU chronicle, beyond the general awareness that it is hemorrhaging students, faculty, and public good-will (and probably financial support) as Monaghan seems increasingly determined to create this new Catholic World in His Own Image (something done earlier, better, by a whole Trinity of talented Persons), and to have a ready answer for that nagging Portmeirion question, "Who is Number One?"

Not content with personally molding all the statues in his Catholic Town / Higher Education theme park (click here, and be afraid, be very afraid), scuttlebutt is that Monaghan has finally exerted sufficient pressure on the more established and more successful (owing to its being more independent) Ave Maria School of Law to force closure of its Ann Arbor, Michigan, campus, and kit-and-kaboodle-transfer to the AMU Naples, Florida, campus. (“See Naples and die”?) (see “hemorrhaging” above)

Massive weeping and gnashing of teeth greeted the surprise (you-have-24-hours-to-clean-out-your-desk) firing of Fr. Fessio, especially on the part of students. It took only a day for Monaghan and Corp. to rescind the FIAT, and offer Fessio an “association” which will see him permitted to attend commencement (and lunch afterwards????), deployed on the Florida campus in the summer with high school students, surveying AMU’s European campi during the regular term—[not so bad: Austria and Rome]-- and possibly wedged into the teaching schedule for next spring as a player to be named later.

University President Nicholas Healy described the recent events as “the separation of Fr. Fessio from the University’s administration.” To my knowledge Fessio was neither married to nor physiologically conjoined with the University administration, nor was March 21 the date of his divorce proceedings and/or surgical detachment-- separation? say again?

I leave all this to wiser, better-informed, and more wickedly funny people than me to make sense of [ here and here ]. My parting shot is that a reformed and revivified Catholic Church must surely be added to that long list of things that Money Can’t Buy Me—Everybody Tells Me So—No No No NO.

If I ever had any enthusiasm for the enthusiasms of Tom Monaghan (and I have to admit I once did), it all came to an end when I got a look at the GOD-AWFUL design his administrative star-chamber had passed for gajillion-dollar chapel at his Catholic Town campus. SWEETE JESU!!!!!






Apparently it was generally considered such a gross-out that the design was revised. Oh, this is MUCH better!









The Curt Jester feels that the Church of Monaghan has actually come full circle and re-instituted the whole concept of radio-based revivalism. Look out, Aimee Semple McPherson, your day has re-dawned!:





The Jester proposes an interior design which could start a whole new communications revolution called “AMU-Tube”.


Comments at the Jester’s include the dedication of this edifice as the "Shrine of Saints Amos and Andy”.

Provosts come and go, staff gets hired and fired, but architectural crime is forever.

TWO DAYS AND COUNTIN' till we toast old St. Paddy (Patrick, Padraig, Poric, O’Whatever).

Big plans in a certain local Irish household, which may include my annual pummeling of the Bodhran.

Anticipated Events of the Green Day:

(And I don’t mean these people)

A GATHERING OF EAGLES

will face off with Jihad Jane Fonda and friends:

What: Gathering of Eagles

When: March 17th, 2007

0700-1600 (7 AM to 4 PM)

Where: The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall, Washington D.C.

Why: To stand silent guard over our nation's memorials, in honor of our fallen, and in solidarity with our armed forces in harm's way today. Read our mission statement.

Leftist activists who march to the Pentagon [on Saturday March 17] will discover that their path won't be as clear as it has been in the past.The group, led by Cindy Sheehan, Jane Fonda, Ramsey Clark and their ilk, plan to gather March 17 at the Vietnam Memorial Wall to begin a march to protest America's involvement in the Iraq war. The date marks the fourth anniversary of the war's beginning. This time, however, protestors will see objectors if they spit on Iraqi veterans again, or throw paint on a war memorial. This time, they will encounter a buzz saw of Vietnam veterans and supporters who will gather to protect the Wall, and show their support for U.S troops. The counter-protestors are calling themselves the Gathering of Eagles. [hat-tip U.S. Vets Dispatch ]

P.S. Apparently Rolling Thunder, the brigade of bikers who are dedicated to keeping Veteran/MIA issues on the front burner, will have an official presence (minus the bikes) at the Gathering of Eagles. The Patriot Guard Riders—another briga de of bikers who travel far and wide to protect the dignity and privacy of military funerals from being disrupted by monster Fred Phelps of the Westboro “Baptist Church” and his bizarre spawn—do not take an official stand on the GOE, but invite their membership to attend, in colors, if so inclined.

Sure wish I could be there – think I’ll buy a set of armbands for the family.

BIRTHDAY GREETINGS TO ACTOR
and TROOP-SUPPORT TROUPER

GARY SINISE

I’d be surprised if quietly determined Veterans' advocate Gary Sinise were to be seen on hand with the Gathering of Eagles on Saturday, since he tries to remain above politics as he carries out his tireless work on behalf of American military personnel, and of the Iraqi children whose lives have been impacted not just by four years of war but by a two-generation-long reign of Baathist terror. [Besides, it’s his birthday on Saturday-- happy 52nd, ya big kid.]

In addition to touring his incredibly accomplished Lt. Dan Band for the USO, and maintaining (with screenwriter Lauren Hillenbrand) the work of his foundation Operation Iraqi Children, Sinise is now the official spokesman for the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial

– a project underway to erect a memorial to all disabled veterans, near the National Mall in Washington D.C.When I first heard about this project, I had a moment’s hesitation. Supporters are seeking $65 million to design, build, and maintain the memorial.It’s only natural to wonder whether that money might be better spent on the needs of the veterans themselves, especially as we are finding out more and more about the degree of bureaucratic negligence our wounded veterans are enduring as they try to access medical care.

On the other hand, there are many different kinds of wounds, and as many ways to salve them: while it is unconscionable to cut corners on pragmatic needs like facilities and therapy, official recognition, appreciation, and evidence of history’s remembrance offer something very real to the veteran who has given some portion of the prime of his life in service to his fellow man, and must carry with him the scars and confined horizons of a permanent disability. We are all of us body and soul, and both must be nourished.

I can’t say that I am completely knocked out by the memorial’s design, as proposed— it seems to have borrowed a lot from the Vietnam “Wall” without having learned the lessons which made it necessary to add Frederick Hart’s brilliant sculpture “Three Soldiers” to the Vietnam site;

nor has it been guided by the success of the deeply evocative Korean War Memorial,

and the failures of the cold, Soviet-bland National World War II Memorial.

Perhaps one can hope for some re-thinking of the planned site before it comes into being. My advice: lose the “branding/logo” look of the little star, and don’t be afraid to go “heroic”—it works for the Marines across the river.

Anyway, kudos to the CSI:NY birthday boy for his continued hard work, always minus the Hollywood-style grand-standing. Hope my fellow Chicago native spends some part of the day enjoying his green beer.

SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM

That’s “If you want to live in peace, be prepared for war” – or something like that. (My Latin starts to flag after the Credo and the Salve Regina.)

It’s also the name of the weblog of Iraq vet Rusten Currie, whose sentiments about his work in the Big Sandbox I highlighted here back in February 2006. He doesn’t write a lot since he’s been home, but I occasionally drop in for a visit, and this one yielded something interesting, datelined last February. Currie received a communication from “an NCO in Afghanistan" whose thoughts of the moment echoed Currie’s own when he was in theatre. Apparently that NCO is really TIRED of a whole lot of things about this war—money quotes:

I am tired of Democrats who tell me they support me, the soldier on the ground, and then tell me the best plan to win this war is with a "phased redeployment" (liberal-speak for retreat) out of the combat zone to someplace like Okinawa...

I am tired of the Democrats whining for months on T.V., in the New York Times, and in the House and Senate that we need more troops to win the war in Iraq, and then when my Commander in Chief plans to do just that, they say that is the wrong plan, it won't work, and we need a "new direction."...

I am tired of senior officers and commanders who fight this war with more of an eye on the media than on the enemy, who desperately needs killing....

I am tired of the decisions of Sergeants and Privates made in the heat of battle being scrutinized by lawyers who were not there and will never really know the state of mind of the young soldiers who were there and what is asked of them in order to survive....

I am tired of senior officers and commanders who are too afraid for their careers to tell the truth about what they need to win this war to their bosses so that the soldiers can get on with kicking the ass of these animals....

I am tired of Code Pink, Daily Kos, Al-Jazzera, CNN, Reuters, the Associated Press, ABC, NBC, CBS, the ACLU, and CAIR thinking that they somehow get to have a vote in how we blast, shoot and kill these animals who would seek to subdue us and destroy us....

I am tired of hearing soldiers who are stationed in safe places talk about how hard their life is.

And my personal favourites:

I am tired of begging to be turned loose so that this war can be over...

I am tired of Rules of Engagement being made by JAG lawyers and not Combat Commanders. We are not playing Hopscotch over here. There is no 2nd place trophy either.

There’s more – visit retired intel officer Currie’s SVP,PB site and lap it up. (Consider going back and reading on from his first post – I haven’t read them all, but what I’ve seen would give the,..er... LIE to the Kerry/Rangel/American Friends Service Committee meme that only the hopeless and clueless join the military. Would love to see Rangel trying to tackle all the Latin that keeps popping up through Currie’s posts. Duh-h-h-h-h…….)

TRACKING OSAMA

AN elite group of Native American trackers is joining the hunt for terrorists crossing Afghanistan's borders.

The unit, the Shadow Wolves, was recruited from several tribes, including the Navajo, Sioux, Lakota and Apache. It is being sent to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to pass on ancestral sign-reading skills to local border units.

In recent years, members of the Shadow Wolves have mainly tracked smugglers along the US border with Mexico.

Everywhere you chase this story it seems to originate at The Australian – odd that no America-based, Ward-Churchill-loving, Friends o’ the Earth types seem to have picked it up—guess they just can’t bear to see that among today’s aboriginal folks are some who have eschewed the call to Professional Victimhood and have embraced a long-standing heritage as proud (if not always particularly well-treated) members of the American military, dating back to the Civil War.

Initially I thought this might just be a “stunt”—have we noticed that the Bush administration is not above doing things that are downright silly in the face of deeply SERIOUS challenges? (F'rinstance, sending horse-faced muffin-mom Karen Hughes out to cheerlead for her Dubya amongst the far-flung Islamistas—God help us.)

However, a little judicious research [here and here], and one realizes that the use of these trackers is a move (like so many others) long overdue, one that a really serious war-president would probably have made some time ago. Interesting stuff, this.

SPEAKING OF BIKERS

At the movies: WILD HOGS

You gotta love it – Hollywood (and those Canadians & Europeans) fall all over themselves trying to be deep and significant, wallowing in the ever-metastasizing delusion that they are capable of re-making the world into a model of simple, peaceable, non-materialistic Care-Bearing (one that they themselves could never manage without private jets and an entourage), and who is it who connects with the film-going public?

A bunch of mid-century men with thickening torsos and creeping crepe-necks who set off on motorcycles on a journey of self-discovery on which they discover that free-spirited, irresponsible rebels are jerks, and it’s okay to be, on the whole, kind of boring as long as you keep a spark of fun tucked away here and there. It was dumb and silly. A packed theatre (with a disproportionate presence of male-pattern-balding in attendance) laughed happily all the way through, and burst into warm (not wild) spontaneous applause when the trick ending wound up.

TAKE THAT, you Blood-Diamond/Syriana/Day-After-Tomorrow/
Manchurian-Candidate/Jarhead/Death-of-a-President -thumping artistes du cinéma.

Nice try. Touchstone Pictures is laughing all the way to the bank.

Interesting stats at Yahoo movie site:

14 critics from major papers – average grade D+

"The contempt of Wild Hogs for its audience is so glaringly self-evident it's sickening."

Over 9000 viewers who spent the money – average grade B (with many giving straight A’s)

Get a grip, critics! Did anybody buy a ticket thinking this was going to be screenplay by Noel Coward?!

P.S. Google "Wild hogs -- images" and be astounded at how many pages and pages there are of pictures that have NOTHING to do with the movie of the same name.

FINAL NOTE

If you pray for anything in St. Patrick's name, please let it be that the day of this ghastly holy card art dominating Catholic taste will some day meet its well-deserved apocalypse.

GACK.