You say “Keep it blogwatch,”
But when the beef come you’re the first to run…

So, yeah, apparently I needed a two-week hiatus. Sorry about that. Back now….

Colby Cosh: “Where in the endless annals of nation-states has the ‘the workers-own-the-means-of-production school’ not led smack into the ‘state-owns-everything approach’? (Please try to cite examples covering more than 100 acres of territory and lasting longer than eight months.) [Hugo] Chavez’s use of state power to hassle commercial food producers out of the market is already a clear enough example of the latter, rather than the former.”

And more on Chavez, via Mark Shea: “In a televised Christmas Eve speech, Chavez, a left-winger and a former soldier, said that ‘minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ … have grabbed all the wealth of the world for themselves.’“

Sed Contra: David Morrison vs. the Nat’l Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian & Gay Ministries: “At its foundation NADGLM appears to have cast itself in the role of the Rich Young Man who, having heard Christ tell him that salvation would mean selling all he owned and following Christ has decided to keep what he owned instead. Maybe, like NADGLM, the Young Man hung out around Christ for a while, part of the crowd. Maybe he kept Christ in view, but all the while hanging back, unwilling to give up what he clung to instead of Him. But in the end it comes down to what and who rules our hearts, minds and souls and I can only pray that eventually the folks who run NADGLM make the right choice.”

Mark Stricherz has a new blog, here, subtitled “A Catholic and Populist Review of Politics and Culture.” You all might know Stricherz as the author of this piece on ultrasounds at pregnancy centers and this piece on how the Democrats became the party of abortion.

Dept. of There Goes Another One:

…The story was “Boston,” [Upton] Sinclair’s 1920s novelized condemnation of the trial and execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian immigrants accused of killing two men in the robbery of a Massachusetts shoe factory.

Prosecutors characterized the anarchists as ruthless killers who had used the money to bankroll antigovernment bombings and deserved to die. Sinclair thought the pair were innocent and being railroaded because of their political views.

Soon Sinclair would learn something that filled him with doubt. During his research for “Boston,” Sinclair met with Fred Moore, the men’s attorney, in a Denver motel room. Moore “sent me into a panic,” Sinclair wrote in the typed letter that Hegness found at the auction a decade ago.

“Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the full truth,” Sinclair wrote. “…He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them.”

more (via Cosh)

Dept. of Grace:

…The lyrics of the “Rap of Redemption” were created by a maximum-security inmate, Essex Sims, at Lansing Correctional Facility, with the arrangements done by the East Hill Singer’s conductor, Elvera Voth. The idea of mixing the chants of the third century with modern rap was Voth’s.

“I wish I’d never hurt you, hurt you,” Sim’s lyrical refrain proclaims.

The Gregorian chants are the “Kyrie” and the “Agnus Dei.” The text of the “Kyrie” means “Lord have mercy,” and the text of the “Agnus Dei” says “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.”

more (via Amy Welborn)