Sorry so quiet. I meant to get a lot done today, including some writing, some site housekeeping, and the last rosary podcast, but circumstances and some personal and professional business stuff have chewed up the hours and now they are spit back at me, all ughy. It’s almost 5PM and I haven’t even thought about what I’m making for supper.
Speaking of rosary podcasts, if you look to the righthand sidebar, you’ll see a new button – for now it’s between the subscriber feed and the paypal button – that will link you to the three rosary podcasts I’ve already filed. Reader Mark S asked me to make them “easier to find” and I always aim to please!
And you know, the way things are going, we need lots of prayer!
So, lemmee give you a quick linkfest, here, of things I’ve been saving all day to share with you – but first, from the good nuns at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, a Chesterton quote, I’d read but forgotten:
Call it your Lectio for the day…
Feed Your Spirit: Vanderleun on The Persistence of Sacred Beauty
Hey Ho, Nobody Home: Don Surber takes issue with the photo shoots. But what’s worse? No appointments or bad ones? Coverage is selective, anyway
In an Economic Crisis: it seems weird to not staff the treasury. Unless you really don’t want to, for some reason.
But at least he’s not a cowboy: Difficult? C’mon, our president is no Diva! Is he? Oh, you said airbrush, not hairbrush!
Not good: First Putin told him not to, now France and Germany. Boy, didn’t the left HATE when Bush was this stubborn and set on his own way? And he didn’t listen to other countries? I seem to remember the left really, really hating that. About Bush. They hated these things too. When Bush did them.
Leadership: You’re doin’ it wrong.
The enemy is…the enemy is: “primarily…Jewish neoconservatives!” American ones, too! Yep! That’s the enemy, alright! And they’re attacking Obama via his lousy appointments!
Well, of course they wanted Bush to fail: For crying out loud, they were pretty plain about it. Still ripe in my memory: Ellen Ratner saying to Linda Vestor, “we’ll just have to hope Iraq goes badly so we can take back the White House!” What a charmer. More here on situational patriotism.
Pork: It always did have a fast expiration date. This one smelled pretty early, actually. And here is some selective reporting.
Perpetual Adolescents: they’re 14!. That’s all.
Ugh: Pandering, extraneous and arbitrary. As long as women believe they need special treatment, they will never truly be equal. It’s a mental state. And a spiritual one, too.
Strip mining humanity: To save it. Sort of like killing and economy to save it, too, I guess. Same philosophy? Either way, it’s worth noting that the left and the press mischaracterized Bush’s policy for years. But you already knew that.
I dread the day we start to live like this: horror pictures
What’s two more?: More Lobbyists in the Obama Administration
War is Over: If you want it this way. The courts are in their heyday, it seems.
It’s almost like one of those “deal with the devil” cartoons: You’d think Banks could read fine print.
My Li’l Bro Thom: says they should have hired me. Heh. Low class dance halls are not my speed.
A Giant Yankee Doodle Dandy: Barry Zito and the troops
Are the Churches becoming too feminized?: It’s a good question. But I can remember, as a kid, lots of dads on our block staying away from church until they were forced in.
The Tipping Point: See-saws. Everything does, eventually. Thankfully, people are figuring it out. Now the question is – how do we jump off?
New Site I just Found: I kinda like it.
Let us pause for a bit of beauty and a bit of reassurance about humanity
Technology: even I am awestruck
Thanks for the link Anchoress! I definitely kinda like you too, and it’s very gratifying to get noticed despite my wall-flowery tendencies. Your writing, along with the others I mention, has meant a lot to me over the past few years.
That TED video was as impressive as you promised. It looked cobbled-together, of course, but so did Doug Englebart’s legendary “mother of all demos” back in 1968. Here’s the Wikipedia link to that extraordinary event, which itself has links to grainy videos of the demo. I suspect that the technologies featured in the TED presentation will require far less time than Englebart’s innovations did to enter the consumer mainstream.
[Rand - as I was writing to a friend, earlier, it will be interesting to watch watches and cameras (and craftsmen and industries) disappear or evolve thanks to this stuff. Good reminder that nothing is static and all things must pass, so it's best to remain detached. - admin]
The Church and various denominations had become too feminized, and some are still moving that way, but I think that the tide has started to turn back for some, not necessarily toward a “masculinized” Church, much less an androgenous one, but toward one that is complementary both male and female, at least in some dioceses.
I can remember when everyone serving at the Mass was female, except for the priest — female altar servers, female lectors, female cantors, female organists, female EMHCs — all of which does tend to make a guy feel that his service is unwelcome (especially in the case of altar boys). But now I see more of a balance. And the priests themselves are more dynamic, more hardcore, more “manly” in their homilies. All of this adds up to the proportion of males in the pews being higher.
*****
On another note, in other news . . .
You know, I was a Michael Steele supporter and thought he was a great up-and-coming leader of the Party — a few years ago, when he was Lt. Gov. in Maryland. But ever since he became a talking head on the TV, soon after he left that office, he has been little more than a disappointment. Too much smoozing with the enemy, due to wanting to be liked, I suppose. Now this interview with GQ:
Q: How much of your pro-life stance, for you, is informed not just by your Catholic faith but by the fact that you were adopted?
A: Oh, a lot. Absolutely. I see the power of life in that—I mean, and the power of choice! The thing to keep in mind about it… Uh, you know, I think as a country we get off on these misguided conversations that throw around terms that really misrepresent truth.
Q: Explain that.
A: The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other.
Q: Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
A: Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.
Q: You do?
A: Yeah. Absolutely.
He’s made questionable remarks about abortion before, after appearing to be solidly pro-life. But this goes too far. And what with the other disasterous things he’s said recently? Time to show him the door.
[You know, before "showing him the door" I think you should consider the fact that what he meant is what many pro-lifers feel: it IS an individual choice; everyone walks their own journey to God, and you answer for the choices you have made. What I am hearing him say, here, is that he is pro-life, and he believes that life is sacred, but that everyone has to come to that realization for themselves. I know fervent pro-lifers - people who have marched on Washington - who will tell you that they fight to help people make that realization, and to overturn a bad law that should never have been made from the bench, but that they know in the end, nothing will change until what is broken in the human heart is made whole. I am coming to believe that the pro-life movement does not help itself, or convince anyone, or HELP anyone to really make the "life is sacred" realization by being heavy-handed, unpastoral and quick to "show him the door" (or her.)
I am passionately pro-life. But I think if you don't throw away a pro-lifer who may be a little more "feminized" in his thinking, if that's what you want to call it. Perhaps it is time for pro-lifers to really be clear on whether or not what they are "fighting" for is the chance to help people realize that life is sacred, or if they want to actually "criminalize" the issue to the point where people go to jail. If that is what they want, I can tell you - it is never going to happen. The very best we can hope for is to overturn Roe and watch the issue go to the states, where abortion will remain mostly legal but with more restrictions. If the pro-life movement really, really wants to end abortions (and they never will - people will always have them, even if they're illegal) then it needs to concentrate on and communicate the love and mercy of God more than "show him the door." People are only going to begin to think that new life is the coming of Love into their lives when we tell them THAT more than we tell them they're "sinners murdering children." -admin]
Anchoress, I agree with your response above to Bender. Abortion comes down to a simple issue, either the fetus is human or it is not. Which side you take pushes you inexorably in a particular direction. Either abortion is murder, no different from any other murder, or it is simply a procedure some women choose to have when they don’t want to become mothers.
Any person who feels abortion is murder is compelled to stop it by any means necessary and any perosn who personally opposes abortion but thinks each woman should choose for herself is morally no better than a NAZI death camp guard.
BUT, as a practical matter, this is a hearts and minds battle and ending the practice of abortion even just a few days earlier than it otherwise might have ended will save more lives than any direct action of violence or intimidation against individual abortionists or shunning campaigns against abortion supporters.
The best way to oppose abortion is to present the best case you can that the fetus is a hunman being entitled to human rights. For this reason, I think the religious overtones of the opposition movement are the greatest gift that could be given to NARAL. Nobody who supports abortion will be swayed by bible quotes and I’ve never found it necessary to refer to the bible in my arguments against abortion either. Simple reason is enough to make a complete argument.
This is not the first time that Steele has exhibited fairly pro-choice leanings, all the while making a complete mash of exactly what his position is. And by now, if he wants to be the head of the RNC, and if he wants to be the number one face and voice of the Party, as is evident from him being on way too many TV shows, and now giving way too many interviews, then he should know by now how to give clear and coherent answers.
As it is, at best, his position can be characterized as something along the lines of: personally opposed but . . .
What the pro-life movement does not need is someone who is Cuomo-lite, some super-big tenter who tries to be all things to all people without any bedrock principles. That is hardly the model of an effective advocate (for the pro-life cause). Looking to Lee Atwater as your model, saying that “Lee Atwater said it best: We are a big-tent party” — said it best!, not Atwater had a point, not Atwater had an interesting approach, but Atwater said it BEST — is the exact reason that the Republican Party no longer firmly stands for anything and, consequently, has sunk into the abyss.
I can understand a position of “it’s a woman’s personal choice,” but as a philosophical/theological matter, not as a public policy one. I can understand a “leave it to the states” position, but only as a compromise, not as a principle in and of itself. Indeed, being in a multi-state federalist system, where different states can do different things on various issues, that is probably the best that the pro-life movement can get as a practical matter, but only by recognizing that, in protecting life in some places, it is left attacked in other places.
And it is hardly “rushing” to show him the door when I have long (several years) been a supporter of his, an enthusiastic supporter. He has said a LOT of right things, but he is increasingly saying a lot of the wrong things, and apparently coming from a wrong philosophy. And eventually, there is that last straw, and this is it, especially when one adds in his multiple other “gaffes” in recent weeks (e.g. remaining silent and thereby giving implicit agreement with the characterization of Republicans as Nazis).
As for the GQ interview, I wasn’t too thrilled with several other statements: (a) his indictment of the Republican Party as offering non-white Americans “nothing” and giving the impression that “we don’t give a damn about them,” (b) his indictment of the Republican Party as being composed of nothing but closet racists who “don’t see the chairman of the Republican Party, they see a black man just walked into the room,” (c) his apparent endorsement of Eric Holder’s indictment that we don’t talk about race, (d) his total and abject confusion (for an ex-seminarian no less!) on the nature of marriage, that male-female marriage is just a matter of opinion (“that’s just [his] view”), not sociological, much less theological/moral truth, and hence, a matter for state reinvention, (e) his slam at a couple of commentators as “bomb-throwers,” (f) his disingenuous claimed inability to remember who his first presidential vote was for, Ford or Carter (it is not the least bit believable that a person does not remember his first presidential vote, unless he is purposely trying to forget who it was for, whom I suspect was Carter), and (g) his disturbing swooning for Academy Award red carpet fashions.
Again, these are hardly the comments of an advocate, much less a faithful and zealous believer. Rather, they give the enemy bucketfuls of ammunition to use against the Party and conservatives in general. There is too much bad mixed in with the good that he says.
At the “end of the day,” Steele no longer inspires me; he is not doing the things and saying the things that lead me to want to follow him. And THAT IS HIS JOB, to rally people in a positive direction in advance of the Party. He is a poor advocate, notwithstanding his years of experience in public commentary. If he is failing to rally people and, indeed, is alienating his own people, perhaps he is not the right person for the job after all.
as a practical matter, this is a hearts and minds battle
My last comment was lost in the ether, yet another casualty of the spam filter, but until that one is posted, let me be clear (assuming this one posts) — Yes, it absolutely is a hearts and minds battle. We must convert hearts. And, indeed, I have long and repeatedly said that current pro-lifers will not win the fight, that today’s pro-choicers will win the fight – for the pro-life side. That is, today’s pro-choicers will be tomorrow’s pro-lifers and they will win the war.
But you do not convert folks, you do not win hearts and minds, by mish-mash confusion and comments that can be best interpreted as saying that abortion is an individual choice. I know that some of the Obama crowd is pushing this “pro-choice is pro-life” argument, but that is nonsense. And it is doubly nonsense when it is coming from our own. Maybe that is not what Steele meant, but that is the clear interpretation. Whether he meant it that way, or whether he is nothing but a sower of confusion, either way, that is not the way to convert the other side.
[John Hawkins defends Steele here and Steele walks back his remarks, here. I frankly do not much like watching the pro-life movement start to act like the Democrats and Leftists who demand oaths of purity and fealty to the cause and will climb on to people's backs until they get them. We pro-lifers had better be careful that we do not end up lamenting, like Paul, "all that I hate I am become..." Strongarming people into conformity is never the way to succeed with honor. Two wrongs don't make rights. And this sort of behavior will LOSE, not gain, support among the pro-life movement - admin]