Be Not Idle

In nominating Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Pres. Obama was fulfilling his commitment to choose someone with “empathy”. Of course, empathy can interfere with justice and fairness. Concern grew after the publicizing of a speech she gave in which she remarked that “a wise Latina” woman just might be a better judge than a white man.

As Charles Schumer (D, NY) said of another judge’s nomination, “His beliefs are so well known, so deeply held, that it’s very hard to believe — very hard to believe — that they’re not going to deeply influence the way he comes about saying, ‘I will follow the law.’”

Except that when Schumer was saying it, the “beliefs” in question were religious beliefs. Now that doesn’t seem to matter. Evidentally, we’re supposed to empathize with the beliefs of the candidate.

Willian McGurn has a piece in the Wall Street Journal about The Catholic Double Standard. Read it, if only to get great insights like the explanation of judging without personal prejudice:

What matters is the law, not the personal feelings. When judges follow this path, they take some of the heat out of culture wars. That’s because those who want to change the law — pro-life or pro-choice — have to do it the way our Founders intended: through their elected representatives.

I decided to put all my favorite bookmarks into links. It doesn’t include all the sites to which I’m subscribed, but it’s a fair representation of writers I respect and handy resources.

Deej, the SciFi Catholic, is going to the seminary. He has listed the reasons he wants to be a priest. His #2 reason?

Wealth. …(W)e all know the Vatican has gigantic vats full of it, so much that if the Church only opened her greedy coffers, she could instantly solve all the world’s problems with her enormous monetary assets and still have enough left over to fund an ill-fated space program involving flying cathedrals and confused nuns.

I spit Coke Zero when I got to #7, just to warn you.

I am as interested in reversing global climate change as anyone, but I fail to see how increasing taxes and random machete attacks on Ohio coal producers alone will solve the problem,” said Marcy Kaptur (D-OH). “Come on, people, there are plenty of other industries who deserve machete attacks, too.”

IowaHawk reveals opposition to the Cap-And-Trade’s Blood Sacrifice Amendment.

“The prayer station helps people see, whether it’s 9/11 or Chrysler or GM about to go into bankruptcy, we always share a need for God…. The station becomes a vehicle toward life change, not just offering a prayer.”  - Tom Grassano,  member of Urban Harvest Ministries

Christine Ferretti, a Detroit News reporter, wrote an interesting and well-balanced story. A nonprofit set up a prayer booth in Warren City Hall as a place for unemployed or financially-distressed people who might want prayers or spiritual comfort.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) has raised a hue and cry, but it sounds like Mayor Fouts isn’t giving in.    

As a former resident of Warren, where I had my first apartment, I opine that FFRF isn’t going to win the hearts and minds of residents.  The FFRF is based in Wisconsin, so perhaps their members are unaware that Michigan has been in a one-state recession for several years before the current economic downturn. As an added bonus, the GM Tech Center is in Warren.

Not that I’m trying to support FFRF’s agenda, but strictly as a practical and rational matter, its leadership should take a different tact. They could set up an atheistic alternative support booth for the unemployed and financially-teetering. Heck, they wouldn’t even have to rent it from City Hall – there are plenty of vacant buildings for rent!

Instead, the FFRF is providing a valuable advertisement for Christianity.  The Christians are letting people come to the booth of their own volition. They offer prayer, but they don’t force it on anyone.

In contrast, the FFRF isn’t concerning itself with the needs of the unemployed, let alone those most pathetic losers - those who seek spiritual comfort (aka “superstition”).  They’re more concerned with people who believe as they do, people who might be “uncomfortable” by public displays of (religious) affection.  They have a different take on the Establishment Clause** :

This is ridiculous. Prayer should be private. -  Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president

(Note to my non-Americentric readers: In the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, there is a clause that forbids Congress from establishing a state religion.)

I coined the term “Contrarians” one day in a conversation with Baby Brother. It was a riff on the “Vulgarians” at the Michigan Renaissance Festival, a fictional royal family that was not only vulgar, but also cheated, insulted other families, etc.

In a similar way, Contrarians don’t just disagree with other people’s opinions. They seldom create anything of their own, yet when viewing the results of another person’s labor, they state (loudly) how it could have been done better. They throw no fabulous parties, but they somehow manage to attend the most popular (and disappointing) affairs. Continue Reading »

at 6am
the gun first pressed to her brow
ten years ago
by the editor of cosmopolitan magazine
all spandex and day glo
and by the creative consultants of sundry advertising companies
like grinning puppets in a row
and by the programme planners of itv rte and the bbc
no no no
went off
and the body she had starved for so long
to attain their image
to obey their decree
made tangled
made desolate
made broken
ceased to be

at 6am
jesus woke her from her sleep
that’s enough suffering for one lifetime
come with me
walking down d’olier street
they chatted like old friends
and she realised at last
that the rain is diamonds

The Heelers Diary is one of my favorite sites because it author, James Healy, is always surprising. I never know if he’s going to wax eloquent or embark on a flight of fancy. And then there’s the poetry…

Check it out. But don’t be fooled. His grandeous claim to the title of “Ireland’s Greatest Living Poet” is to obscure the fact that he really is a poet.

A site that I visit from time to time is Iowahawk, a satirical writer and car enthusiast. Recently, he has also become a force to be reckoned with in his satire of the new race for nuclear arsenals.

Of course, it’s merely coincidental that I tracked back to his site. In no way do I fear him or his trailer park cohorts. Plus his firepower doesn’t equal the vintage cherrybombs that our neighbor Mr. Wilson gave my brothers and I.  And we still have a secret weapon – our Dad, who in his misspent youth discovered that quartered sticks of dynamite made AWESOME firecrackers.

Bob Parks, an online columnist I greatly admire, posted about the Chuck Jones Gallery (Jones of Warner Bros fame)  displaying a work that spoofs Leonardo’s The Last Supper. The artist Glen Tarnowski replaced the Apostles with cartoon characters. And Bugs Bunny figures prominently.

Tarnowski, an alumnus of California Lutheran University, explained that he meant it to be positive. The article paraphrases that he wanted to show that “God loves people so much that even if we all were cartoon characters, he would have come to us.”

Mr. Parks is skeptical, but  I don’t think it’s an insult to Christ. No, it’s just a plea for help. This is proof positive that the good folks in Washington must pass a media/arts bailout soon. Continue Reading »

People sense something slipping away, a world receding, not only an economic one but a world of old structures, old ways and assumptions. …I suspect more than a few see themselves, deep down, as “the designated mourner,” from the title of the Wallace Shawn play. – from ”There’s No Pill for This Kind of Depression”

Peggy Noonan has discovered that people are anxious about the economic crisis. More people are going to church; city folks are looking for farms. Gun sales are up; some deep-pocketed persons are pulling large sums of cash from their banks. (Or perhaps, being of Irish descent, Noonan is merely on a mortality rant.)

She thinks that anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication contributed to the financial crisis. I jest not. She writes: “In New York their use became common after 9/11. It continued through and, I hypothesize, may have contributed to, the high-flying, wildly imprudent Wall Street of the ’00s.”

Perhaps she should do a little informal study of how many users of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication work on Wall Street. Then, to compare, see how many users of anti-depressants, etc. voted for politicians who had their hands in the pot of various bailed-out institutions.  It ought to be downright interesting, to say the least.

Instead, she talked to a writer, a psychiatrist, etc. to take the pulse of the nation. And the patient isn’t well.

I know what she means. An aquaintance of mine (I’ll just call him “Max”) ignored the signs of the times: environmental change, the devastating cost of gas, man’s inhumanity to man.

He lived as he pleased, a loner speeding around in his gas-guzzling car and having conflicts with nearly everyone he met. But he reconsidered his ways and really thought what kind of world the younger generation would inherit. And that’s why he’s known far beyond Thunderdome.

Continue Reading »