"Any questioning of the moral ideas that prevail ...is received with the utmost hostility. To attempt such an enterprise is to disturb the peace"
--H. L. Mencken

 
"UNTIL THEN..."
A Magnificent Tribute to Our Guys and Gals in Iraq

The above-linked Flash presentation incorporates some wonderful photography of our troops "over there," together with a recording of Marta Keen's gorgeous song "Homeward Bound," the lyrics of which are as follows:

In the quiet misty morning when the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing and the sky is clear and red.
When the summer’s ceased its gleaming,
When the corn is past its prime,
When adventure’s lost its meaning,
I’ll be homeward bound in time.

Bind me not to the pasture, chain me not to the plow.
Set me free to find my calling and I’ll return to you somehow.

If you find it’s me you're missing, if you’re hoping I’ll return.
To your thoughts I’ll soon be list’ning, and in the road I’ll stop and turn.
Then the wind will set me racing as my journey nears its end.
And the path I’ll be retracing when I’m homeward bound again.

Bind me not to the pasture, chain me not to the plow.
Set me free to find my calling and I’ll return to you somehow.

In the quiet misty morning when the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing,
I’ll be homeward bound again.

-Music and Lyrics by Marta Keen

posted by The Curmudgeon at 10:11:00 AM

 
PEGGY NOONAN WRITES ABOUT 9/11 ...IN 1998
Noted Conservative Columnist Saw the Signs of the Times

Below is a very eerie passage from a piece written by columnist Peggy Noonan on Nov. 30, 1998.

It was republished on Sept. 18, 2001 at the Wall Street Journal web site opinionjournal.com, where the entire piece can be read:

There Is No Time, There Will Be Time


....Something's up. And deep down, where the body meets the soul, we are fearful. We fear, down so deep it hasn't even risen to the point of articulation, that with all our comforts and amusements, with all our toys and bells and whistles . . . we wonder if what we really have is . . . a first-class stateroom on the Titanic. Everything's wonderful, but a world is ending and we sense it.

I don't mean: "Uh-oh, there's a depression coming," I mean: We live in a world of three billion men and hundreds of thousands of nuclear bombs, missiles, warheads. It's a world of extraordinary germs that can be harnessed and used to kill whole populations, a world of extraordinary chemicals that can be harnessed and used to do the same.

Three billion men, and it takes only half a dozen bright and evil ones to harness and deploy.

What are the odds it will happen? Put it another way: What are the odds it will not? Low. Nonexistent, I think.

When you consider who is gifted and crazed with rage . . . when you think of the terrorist places and the terrorist countries . . . who do they hate most? The Great Satan, the United States. What is its most important place? Some would say Washington. I would say the great city of the United States is the great city of the world, the dense 10-mile-long island called Manhattan, where the economic and media power of the nation resides, the city that is the psychological center of our modernity, our hedonism, our creativity, our hard-shouldered hipness, our unthinking arrogance.

If someone does the big, terrible thing to New York or Washington, there will be a lot of chaos and a lot of lines going down, a lot of damage, and a lot of things won't be working so well anymore. And thus a lot more . . . time. Something tells me we won't be teleconferencing and faxing about the Ford account for a while.

The psychic blow--and that is what it will be as people absorb it, a blow, an insult that reorders and changes--will shift our perspective and priorities, dramatically, and for longer than a while. Something tells me more of us will be praying, and hard, one side benefit of which is that there is sometimes a quality of stopped time when you pray. You get outside time.

Maybe, of course, I'm wrong. But I think of the friend who lives on Park Avenue who turned to me once and said, out of nowhere, "If ever something bad is going to happen to the city, I pray each day that God will give me a sign. That He will let me see a rat stand up on the sidewalk. So I'll know to gather the kids and go." I absorbed this and, two years later, just a month ago, poured out my fears to a former high official of the United States government. His face turned grim. I apologized for being morbid. He said no, he thinks the same thing. He thinks it will happen in the next year and a half. I was surprised, and more surprised when he said that an acquaintance, a former arms expert for another country, thinks it will happen in a matter of months....

--by Peggy Noonan, originally pubslished in Forbes ASAP magazine, 11/30/1998
posted by The Curmudgeon at 11:15:00 AM

 
DAN BROWN WRITES A HOLOCAUST NOVEL

If Dan Brown wrote a novel about the Holocaust it would probably look something like this:

Robert Langdon, while on a lecture tour in Germany, is contacted by a reclusive unorthodox World War 2 historian who claims to have a great secret which would rock the Western world to its foundations:

Everything we have been taught for the past 60 years about the Nazis and the Holocaust were lies, Langdon is told. No Jews died at the hands of the Nazis and there were no death camps in Poland and Eastern Europe. In fact, Langdon "discovers," the "real" secret behind the Holocaust is that the Nazis were persecuted by the Jews, not the other way around. Langdon also "discovers" that the "myth of the Holocaust" was created by a Vast Zionist Conspiracy under the control of the Israeli government and international bankers.

Langdon soon "learns" that for thousands of years ruthless Jewish conspirators have been murdering the true heirs of Abraham in order to preserve their false version of Judaism and to hide the “truth” that Abraham really worshiped the Divine Feminine and intended to start a fertility cult.

The "evidence" Langdon uncovers? A set of "ancient" secret documents known as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." (The "Protocols" were actually fabricated by the Russian secret police and released to a gullible Russian public as a pretext for the Czar's systematic murder of thousands of innocent Jewish peasants. But so what?)

Of course, Dan Brown would say that all this is "just fiction," but that it "poses" some "interesting" questions about history, which we can't really know anything about for sure anyway. After all, Brown would argue, he has done his research:

He has read the "scholarly" papers published by the Institute for Historical Review and "well-researched" books such as Did Six Million Really Die? and The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. (Both books were written by notorious neo-Nazi nutcases, and the IHR was set up by a well-known anti-semitic propagandist. But what the heck; it's great material for a novel, no?)

And so it would go in the confused world of Dan Brown.
posted by The Curmudgeon at 2:58:00 PM

 
CAVING IN TO "ISLAMIC LAW":
Will the West Sacrifice Its Freedoms to Placate the Implacable?

At least one American columnist thinks so.

In her op-ed piece "Cartoon Rage," Diana West gets it just right about the Western media's cowardly response to ongoing militant Muslim riots and threats over some mediocre editorial cartoons about Muhammed and Islam published in a Danish newspaper:

"...We dress up our capitulation in fancy talk of 'tolerance,' 'responsibility' and 'sensitivity.' We even congratulate ourselves for having the 'editorial judgment' to make 'pluralism' possible. 'Readers were well served... without publishing the cartoons,' said a Wall Street Journal spokesman. 'CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for Islam,' reported the cable network....

"...Calling these cartoons 'unacceptable,' and censoring ourselves 'in respect' to Islam brings the West into compliance with a central statute of sharia [Islamic "law"--JE]. As [Danish newspaper] Jyllands-Posten's Flemming Rose has noted, that's not respect, that's submission."

Amen!
posted by The Curmudgeon at 9:58:00 AM

 
ANNE RICE VISITS BLOG'S PARISH
Famed Novelist Making the Rounds at Catholic Blogs

During the past few weeks Catholic bloggers have been all abuzz in anticipation of Anne Rice's new novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, which focuses on Jesus Christ's childhood (for more info about the novel and how and why it came to be written, go HERE and HERE), and was composed a few years after her recently publicized return to the Catholic Church in 1998 after a decades-long absence.

Of course, because Christ the Lord hasn't been released to the public until today most commentators, including Ms. Rice's co-religionists, are taking a wait-and-see attitude. (Hopefully, they'll be kinder to her than the Evangelicals in the Religious Right were to their co-religionist Harriett Miers.)

One of those taking that charitable (and only sane) approach is St. Blog's own Mark Shea, who expressed great interest in the book as well as some perhaps requisite caution:

"...it makes me a bit nervous when I read of a relatively new convert starting an ambitious series of novels that seek to get inside the psychology of our Lord. It is a trade hazard of writers that we can build idols out of characters. All the more dangerous when the character is our Lord. Pride makes it easy to mold him to our preferences and then worship the fictional Jesus rather than let him mold us to his as we worship the real Jesus."

One could not agree more, and Ms. Rice herself responded to his statements with grace, as Mark himself acknowledged by posting her reply HERE. However, a friend and long-time fan of Rice notes that...

"...it is only in reading all of her books, and in chronological order, can someone observe her religious 'search and discovery'. She uses her characters in different settings and time periods to explore her own ideas, beliefs and their origins.... She's gifted with the ability to take her journey and sell it to the masses, but it's her journey, using her characters to hash it out, shake it down, and examine it under a microscope.

"We should remember, too, that she is returning to a faith she was raised in. This isn't new territory to her, except in what it now means in her life. She went thru her rebellious stage. She went thru her discovery period. She's found what so many of us find in our later years, our roots. She's coming home.

"I think she means to stay."

So do we.
posted by The Curmudgeon at 12:01:00 PM

 
OH, THE IRONY!
Greenpeace Damages Coral Reef

" GREENPEACE is to be fined after its flagship Rainbow Warrior II damaged a coral reef in the central Philippines during a climate change awareness campaign...."
posted by The Curmudgeon at 10:10:00 AM

 
THE REAL ORIGINS OF HALLOWEEN
It's Not a "Wiccan Holy Day" After All

On BeliefNet (use the link above to read the article), a Catholic priest writes about the history of this allegedly pre-Christian pagan festival:

"We’ve all heard the allegations: Halloween is a pagan rite dating back to some pre-Christian festival among the Celtic Druids that escaped church suppression. Even today modern pagans and witches continue to celebrate this ancient festival. If you let your kids go trick-or-treating, they will be worshiping the devil and pagan gods.

"Nothing could be further from the truth. The origins of Halloween are, in fact, very Christian and rather American. Halloween falls on October 31 because of a pope, and its observances are the result of medieval Catholic piety...."
posted by The Curmudgeon at 10:22:00 PM

 
QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Republican majority leader Tom DeLay was indicted and he was stripped of his congressional leadership powers. When asked what it feels like to lose all his power, DeLay said, 'I feel like a Democrat.'" --Conan O'Brien
posted by The Curmudgeon at 8:57:00 AM

 
HARRIET MYERS' FAITH

Apparently, like her soon-to-be-colleague, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Miers was a lapsed cradle Catholic who became a conservative pro-life Evangelical Christian over 20 years ago, after years as a non-religious careerist. (Thomas, a one-time Baptist who migrated to Episcopalianism, returned to Rome a few years after he joined the Supremes.) Naturally, the Establishment media considers this an indication of weakness or psychological instability, if not a character flaw; e.g., "In Midcareer, a Turn to Faith to Fill a Void" (NY Times)

=sigh=
posted by The Curmudgeon at 12:42:00 PM

 
WHO REALLY CAUSED THOSE DEATHS IN NEW ORLEANS?
And, No, It Wasn't George Bush ...or God

Unlike the Democrats and other naysayers who blame George Bush for the Big Easy's current woes (and unlike some fundamentalist Christians who see God's wrath behind every mishap), National Review pundit Jim Geraghty understands the difference between fact and fiction.

posted by The Curmudgeon at 3:12:00 PM

 
IT'S THE VICTIMS' FAULT?
James White on Hurricane Katrina as "God's Wrath"

In a rambling pontification on his internet-based radio broadcast, Baptist apologist James White argues that the USA, if not the populace of New Orleans, brought Hurricane Katrina upon itself:

White seems convinced that Hurricane Katrina, like the 9-11 terrorist attacks, was an instance of God's wrath against the USA for rejecting "biblical Christianity" (which rejection, no doubt, includes allowing the Catholic Church to exist on American soil) and especially for "cultural degradation," such as allegedly promoting sexual immorality.

Yet the French Quarter --the section of the city known for its extravagant uber-partying, its transsexual strip joints, and its largely homosexual population-- stayed dry and mostly untouched. As one commentator noted, upon encountering the Wrath Theory embraced by White, God's aim must've been off that day.

Moreover, White's Wrath Theory cannot account for the fact that in the predominantly Evangelical Christian culture of 1900 --decades before there was any such thing as Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, or Playboy magazine, or MTV, or the gay "rights" movement-- a hurricane wiped out the town of Galveston, Texas, killing between 8,000 and 10,000.

(To be fair, White insists that San Francisco would've been more deserving than the Big Easy of such a demonstration of divine judgment. But it doesn't really matter because, as his Hyper-Calvinist Manichean theology informs him, merely being born human makes you ipso facto evil and therefore deserving of death anyway.)

Catholic blogger Mark Shea masterfully puts such nonsense to rest in his own debunking of the Wrath Theory:

...From where I sit, there are certain things I think it's safe to say. First, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Second, God is in control of stuff (including weather). Third, life is extremely mysterious. Fourth, God is the judge of the world, not me and not even my most especially holiest readers. Fifth, if I were in the position of people in New Orleans, I would be strongly tempted to give a good swift kick to the Holy Ones whose first thought is not, "How can I help?" but "This is your fault, you know."

Theodicy is a fun game in the abstract. Sort of like playing "Lifeboat" in a college bull session. I enjoy a good game of "What if" as much as the next guy. But playing Lifeboat is much less fun when you are in a lifeboat and sensible people know that there is a time and place for speculating on the mysterious purposes of the Almighty and a time and a place for shutting one's trap and just helping.

...Was New Orleans judged by this hurricane? Only in the sense that everything that happens to us can be a means by which God reveals himself and ourselves to us. Certainly, I think, we learned some very unpleasant things about ourselves last week. But then again, I think as the stories of heroism emerge (as they will) we will also find that (at least some people) learned some very surprising and good things about themselves and others last week too.

...In a strange way, it helped me make sense, at an experiential level, of Paul's talk in Romans about how the trials of this life are nothing compared with the glory to be revealed. It explained how an entire generation can look back fondly on a time of depression and war. Because the judgement does not consist of our external circumstances. It is, rather, how we embrace God's love and live it out under those circumstances.

Our task is not to check on other people's test scores, but our own.


posted by The Curmudgeon at 11:11:00 AM

 
OUT OF THE MOTHBALLS

Yes, like some of the French Quarter's cafes and restaurants, we're once again open for business --albeit with a less-than-full menu.

Between the Judge Roberts hearings, the 9th Circuit Court's frequent excursions into lunacy, the post-Katrina fiasco and Democrat-vs-Republican blame game, and (of course) the usual rantings and shenanigans of the New Know-Nothing Party --i.e., Agents of Anti-Catholic Agitprop and Disinformation such as James White, Eric Svendsen, and the like-- there's been simply too much material around to not cook up something on a more regular basis.

In fact, it was a recent instance of the latter which has moved us to take down the "On Vacation" sign. (More on that in the next post.)
posted by The Curmudgeon at 9:24:00 AM

 

posted by The Curmudgeon at 3:27:00 PM

 

posted by The Curmudgeon at 2:08:00 PM

 

posted by The Curmudgeon at 9:48:00 AM

 
"LIBERAL WEINER" vs. "RIGHT-WING NUT JOB"

Kudos to the geniuses at JibJab.com for this truly hilarious spoof on the George Bush and John Kerry campaigns!

"This Land" starring Bush and Kerry

posted by The Curmudgeon at 10:45:00 AM

 
AL QUEDA’S USEFUL IDIOTS:
At Least One Columnist “Gets It” About Islamo-Fascism

In his very thoughtful column yesterday at National Review Online, Victor David Hanson addresses a central Western liberal attitude which will inevitably lead to the demise of the West if something isn’t done to reverse it.

The West, especially Europe, says Hanson, has been playing into the hands of Al Queda and other militant Islamist threats through self-loathing combined with ignorantly regarding them as mere nutcases and unthinking fanatics who “don’t understand” us. On the contrary, he asserts, they understand us all too well, and perhaps better than we understand ourselves. And that is what makes them so dangerous, on some level even more dangerous than the Nazis and the USSR were:

..[T]oo many of us deem bin Laden's new fascists unhinged — their fatwas, their mythology about strong and weak horses, and their babble about the Reconquista and the often evoked "holy shrines" are to us dreamlike.

But I beg to differ somewhat.

I think the Islamists and their supporters do not live in an alternate universe, but instead are no more crazy in their goals than Hitler was ...Nor was Hitler's fatwa — Mein Kampf — any more irrational than bin Laden's 1998 screed and his subsequent grainy infomercials. Indeed, I think Islamofascism is brilliant in its reading of the postmodern West and precisely for that reason it is dangerous beyond all description — in the manner that a blood-sucking, stealthy, and nocturnal Dracula was always spookier than a massive, clunky Frankenstein.

Like Hitler's creed, bin Ladenism trumpets contempt for bourgeois Western society. If once we were a "mongrel" race of "cowboys" who could not take casualties against the supermen of the Third Reich, now we are indolent infidels, channel surfers who eat, screw, and talk too much amid worthless gadgetry, godless skyscrapers, and, of course, once again, the conniving Jews.

Like Hitler, bin Ladenism has an agenda: the end of the liberal West. Its supposedly crackpot vision is actually a petrol-rich Middle East free of Jews, Christians, and Westerners, free to rekindle spiritual purity under Sharia ...an Israel to be nuked, a Europe to be out-peopled and cowered, and an America to be bombed and terrorized into isolation. This time we are to lose not through blood and iron, but through terror and intimidation: televised beheadings, mass murders, occasional bombings, the disruption of commerce, travel, and the oil supply.

It was hard for the Islamic fascists to find ideological support in the West, given their agenda of gender apartheid, homophobia, religious persecution, racial hatred, fundamentalism, polygamy, and primordial barbarism. But they sensed that there has always been a current of self-loathing among the comfortable Western elite…If anyone doubts the nexus between right-wing Middle Eastern fascism and left-wing academic faddishness, go to booths in the Free Speech area at Berkeley or see what European elites have said and done for Hamas. Middle Eastern fascist killers enshrined as victims alongside our own oppressed? That has been gospel in our universities for the last three decades.

...bin Laden understood the importance of splitting the West, just like the sultan of old knew that a Europe trisected into Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism would fight among itself rather than unite against a pan-Islamic foe...

If after four years of careful planning, al Qaedists hit the Olympics in August, the terrorists know better than we do that most Europeans will do nothing — but quickly point to the U.S. and scream "Iraq!" And they know that the upscale crowds in Athens are far more likely to boo a democratic America than they are a fascist Syria or theocratic Iran.

Just watch.

posted by The Curmudgeon at 1:05:00 PM

 
“RELIGIOUS LIBERTY FOR WHOM?”
Political Correctness and the Coming Death of the First Amendment

Dr. James Hitchcock, a professor of history at St. Louis University, notes some scary trends here and in the rest of the West which bode ill for the survival of freedom of conscience and religion –at least for those whose consciences are religious in orientation.

In an his weekly column titled Religious Liberty for Whom? Hitchcock cites some examples of how liberal government officials here and abroad have been increasingly trampling on the rights of Christians and other religious people who refuse to walk in lockstep with whatever guilt-and-envy-driven public policy comes down the pike. For example:

In England a crowd assaulted a street preacher who posted a sign saying, "Stop Homosexuality." The police arrived and made an arrest of — the preacher! He was convicted of insulting and harassing behavior. Also in England, an Anglican bishop was investigated by the police after he publicly suggested that homosexuals seek counseling.

and,

Meanwhile the Irish Council for Civil Liberties has warned the Catholic Church of possible prosecution if it promulgates the Holy See’s official statement on "same sex unions.

and,

In Canada a teacher has been suspended for writing a letter to a newspaper saying that homosexuality is immoral. The preacher was being deliberately offensive, and the teacher’s letter no doubt upset many homosexuals among his students.

As for the notion that This Could Never Happen Here in the Good Ol’ USA, don’t be so sure. Hitchcock warns, “…where homosexuality is concerned, governments are prepared to abrogate civil liberties. The American tradition of free expression so far has resisted these measures, but there are no grounds for complacency. Just outside public view, in books and journals read only by scholars, there are influential American political and legal theorists who openly advocate the restriction of religious liberty, in order to prevent the ‘wrong’ ideas from being circulated. In particular these theorists bluntly insist that parents have no right to inculcate their own beliefs in their children.”

That humming you hear may not be coming from the cicada invasion. It may be Thomas Jefferson spinning in his grave.

posted by The Curmudgeon at 2:48:00 PM

 
TED RALL vs. THE FIRST AMENDMENT:
Cartoonist Takes a Page from the Church of Scientology’s Law Book

One of the more interesting aspects of Looney Left “journalist” Ted Rall’s character (see our June 9 post on Rall, “Attack of the Girlie-Men,” below) seems to be how he handles criticism, including when it comes from a colleague in the form of parody.

In 1999, fellow editorial cartoonist Danny Hellman poked scathing fun at Ted Rall for the latter’s strange Village Voice article defaming noted Jewish cartoonist Art Spiegelman, author-illustrator of Maus, a creative psychological exploration of his Holocaust survivor father’s life under the Nazis. Apparently sick and tired of Rall’s narcissistic rants in general, Hellman set up an e-mail list of his fellow cartoonists to whom he sent out a few over-the-top “letters,” using the internet ID “TedRallsBalls,” satirizing Rall’s writings, style, and personality.

One of those on Hellman’s e-mail list was Rall himself.

Now, any normal adult would merely laugh off such antics and take them like a mensch, especially someone who seems bent upon making a public figure of himself. But not Ted Rall, for whom the words “normal” and “adult” apparently hold little or no meaning.

Instead, Rall seems to have followed the example of late paranoid cult leader L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology. Hubbard’s cult, as cult watchdog groups well know, takes as kindly to criticism as Rall seems to, especially when it comes from the media. For example, in 1986 Time magazine published a lengthy, well-documented expose of Hubbard’s “church” titled “The Cult of Greed and Power,” in which it detailed the long checkered history of Hubbard’s shenanigans as well as several Federal crimes which had been committed by some of Hubbard’s top lieutenants, for which they ended up in a big house, courtesy of Uncle Sam.

The “church’s” reaction to the story? Following its decades long tradition of “handling” critics, it sued Time magazine for “libel.” After years of legal battling with the “church’s” in-house lawyers (who seem to outnumber its ministers) and spending millions of dollars defending its First Amendment rights, Time managed to get Scientology’s case thrown out of court as a SLAPP (“strategic litigation against public participation”) suit, a tactic of intimidation-via-litigation used by wealthy corporations to silence public dissent.

Like the Church of Scientology, Ted Rall responded to Danny Hellman’s criticism by suing Danny Hellman for libel, and –get this!— to the tune of 1.5 millions dollars. However, unlike the Hubbard cult, Rall thinks of himself a “journalist.”

Not even the Church of Scientology is that out of touch with reality.

posted by The Curmudgeon at 10:15:00 AM

 
ATTACK OF THE GIRLIE-MEN:
Envy-Ridden “Journalists” Whine One More at the Gipper

German sociologist Helmut Schoeck points out in his book Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour that envy is "a drive which lies at the core of man’s life as a social being…[an] urge to compare oneself invidiously with others." The envious person is a type of sociopath who, upon comparing him- or herself with another of higher character or greater accomplishment, finds him- or herself wanting. But rather than emulate that other person the envious person will try to destroy him or her, or at the very least in some way bring that person down to their own level.

Thus even before Ronald Reagan's corpse had a chance to get cold, some on the Looney Left, like the stuck-in-adolescence dimwits they seem to be, couldn't wait until after the funeral to vent unrestrained vitriol about the former Prez.

One such example is a shamelessly soul-less narcissist named Ted Rall, who seems bent upon dancing on whatever nearby freshly dug grave will further his career as a "journalist" and editorial cartoonist, and keep his name on the front burner. As noted writer and blogger Mark Shea (compared to whom Rall is an intellectual and moral amoeba) aptly summarizes Rall’s character, “Notice ME! NOTICE ME! NOTICE MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!”

Rall, some may recall, initially made quite a splash for himself in the mainstream media barely two months ago by publicly denigrating the sacrifice made by the late Pat Tillman --the NFL player who quit pro football and a 7-figure-earning career to serve his country in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks-- and insulting Tillman’s family and friends in the process. Tillman lost his life; it turns out, by friendly fire. Rall's reaction to Tillman’s death, while Tillman's loved ones were still burying him, was to make Tillman the subject of his syndicated cartoon series, in which he calls Tillman an "idiot" and portrays him as a bloodthirsty bigot who wanted to kill Arabs.

Tillman, whined Rall, "falsely believed" the war in Afghanistan was linked to the September 11 attacks and was a "cog in a low-rent occupation army that shot more innocent civilians than terrorists to prop up puppet rulers and exploit gas and oil resources." Contrariwise, however, Rall approved of the cozy relationship the Taliban had with Al Queda while the former were executing women in football fields for showing their faces in public, or going to school, or in other ways displeasing their Mullahs. As for Al Queda's attack on Rall's own town, no doubt he found a way to blame that on Bush. Or perhaps the NFL. Or both.

Similarly, this week, fresh on the heels of Ronald Reagan's death, in his "Search and Destroy" web log and elsewhere, Rall asserts that the late former president must be in Hell "turning crispy brown right about now" for all his alleged "crimes" against humanity --which in Rall's world seems to consist only of gays, liberals, and his buddies in Al Queda and the Taliban. "If there is a hell," Rall says, "this guy is in it." Reagan, Rall declares, "was an idiot" who "elevated unjustifiable military action to an art."

Of course, Rall has not been alone in his envy-ridden denigration of real men like Tillman and Reagan. At about the same time the cyber-ink was drying over at "Search and Destroy," in chimed veteran crank Christopher Hitchens, who, like Rall, seems to relish in bashing his betters. For example, back in the 1990s Hitchens defamed Mother Teresa not only with a nasty character-assassinating book but with an equally nasty character-assassinating "documentary" as well, both sarcastically titled "Mother Teresa and the Missionary Position."

In his June 7 column immediately after Reagan’s passing, the supposedly more-mature-than-Rall “journalist” Hitchens cannot seem constrain his lesser impulses to “memoralize” Reagan by engaging in the same level of scorn and character assassination he leveled at Mother Teresa almost a decade ago. For example,

“…The famously genial grin turned into a rictus of senile fury…”

and

“The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump.”

and

“He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn't like him all that much. He met his second wife —the one that you remember— because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see.”

And

“I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon.”

Thus it's the propensity of envy-ridden girlie-men like Hitchens and Rall to detract real men and any others who are or seem better than they are in some way. But only when it's safe, such as when the latter are dead and the former live in a country kept free by their betters. There can be only one explanation for this sort of conduct on the part of allegedly civilized persons:

Envy.

In response to Hitchens, Shea points out in his web log ione of the “peculiar talents” Americans have is “burying the hatchet.” Shea wistfully wishes that “people like Hitchens” --and Rall-- “would learn it.”

Actually, however, they did: But they buried it in Mr. Reagan's back. It’s the only way they know.

posted by The Curmudgeon at 1:22:00 PM

 
THE FOUNDING FATHERS GO DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE
A Frightening Trend in "Higher" Education

It seems that university history departments around the US are abondoning study of the Founding Fathers and the American Revolution. As one source notes,

"Two of the leaders in colonial- and revolutionary-era scholarship, Bernard Bailyn at Harvard and Gordon Wood at Brown, are being replaced by historians with no apparent interest in the Revolution and the founding. The same happened some years ago at Yale when Edmund Morgan retired."

If true, this is pretty scary stuff and it just goes to show what can happen when relativism, political correctness, and post-modernism take over a culture.

Read more about it here:

Forgetting the Founding Fathers

posted by The Curmudgeon at 10:22:00 AM

 
HAIL TO THE CHIEF
Ronald Reagan, Rest In Peace

The USA and the world have lost a great leader, and a very good man.

God bless you, Mr. President. And thank you!
posted by The Curmudgeon at 1:12:00 PM

 
CICADAS THREATEN EARTH!
Revealing Web Site Blows the Whistle on the Critters

At last the Truth Is Out There about those seemingly innocent red-eyed bugs invading the Eastern seaboard. For example, from the Cicadaville.com FAQs page:

What do Cicadas eat?

Human children are the primary source of nutrition for Cicadas.

Are Cicadas poisonous?

Yes, Cicadas have a deadly venom that is injected through a small bone like tube known as the "Cicada deadly venom tube". The venom can kill a human being instantly. In 1987, the last time the Cicadas emerged in Cincinnati, over 7 million people died from Cicada injections. Many people escaped but most perished.

How large are Cicadas?

Many of the Cicadas in this year's strain stand over 3 feet tall and weigh over 50 pounds. The largest Cicada to appear in Cincinnati is shown to the left causing several hours of downtown traffic congestion while it searched for food in the form of human children. This giant Cicada was eventually shot by Cincinnati Police who mistook a spot of shiny tree sap on its leg for a gun.

Do Cicadas make that loud buzzing sound to attract a mate?

No, that is a common myth. Our research indicates that sound is actually a battle cry that roughly translates as Kill the Humans. When you hear that sound, take cover! It means the killing spree is about to begin.

But there's hope! The following preventive measures are recommended:

What should I do if a Cicada knocks on my door and pretends to be a Jehova's Witness?

This is a common occurrence. If it happens to you don't panic. Simply invite the Cicada in to hear your Amway presentation. This is generally a strong enough repellant.

Save the Children!

Losing your child to a deadly Cicada can be very traumatic. To prevent such a tragedy, we recommend wrapping your children tightly in shrink wrapping.

Follow these instructions:

It is important to shrink wrap all children under the age of 12. The shrink wrapping must stay on the child for a 6 week period. Shrink wrapping is the only way to protect kids from the predatory and venomous cicadas.

Good luck, and God help us all!
posted by The Curmudgeon at 11:12:00 AM

 
MEMO TO THE WEST, POST-NICK BERG:
How to Respond to Islamo-Fascism

The recent mea culpa hand-wringing in the West over the abominable mistreatment of imprisoned Iraqi terrorists and insurgents by rogue American military personnel is as much a commentary on the morally weakened state of the West as it is yet another demonstration of the blindness of the West to an evil which cannot be comprised or negotiated with. Namely, the Islamo-fascist movement, which has no regard for the rule of law and order, as defined in Western civilization and most other civilizations, as it seeks to destroy everything and everyone in its path which does not meet its demented Muslim standards.

This weakness and blindness was made clear by Western responses to the videotaped murder-by-decapitation of Nick Berg --an innocent American contractor helping the Iraqis to rebuild their country-- by a group of Muslim terrorists. Even the Bush administration, which should know better, talks about "bringing" these subhuman thugs "to justice" rather than hunting them down and eradicating them as the destructive vermin they are.

The Bush administration, and the West in general, needs to revive the classical definition of "outlaw" as understood under the time-honored Catholic legal code known as the English Common Law, created by Catholic King Alfred the Great and incorporated into American jurisprudence over 200 years ago:

Under that system, anyone who deliberately placed themselves outside the law by making themselves autonomous ("self-law" or "law unto oneself") also thereby placed themselves outside the rights and protections guaranteed under that law. Hence, they could be hunted down with impunity by anyone and taken "dead or alive" with no guarantee of safe passage, much less a trial. Wikipedia.com puts it this way,

"To be declared an outlaw [under the English Common Law] was to suffer a form of civil death. The outlaw was debarred from all civilised society. No one was allowed to give him food, shelter, or any other sort of support; to do so was to commit the crime of couthutlaugh, and to be in danger of the ban yourself. A person who encountered an outlaw was allowed, and indeed encouraged, to kill them; to do so was no murder. Because the outlaw has defied civil society, that society was quit of any obligations to the outlaw; outlaws had no civil rights, could not sue in any court on any cause of action, though they were themselves personally liable."

Berg's Al Queda murderers, along with the rest of the Islamo-Fascist thugs, are clearly nothing more or less than outside the law, "outlaws" in the original sense of the word. They should be officially declared as "outlaws" and treated as such.
posted by The Curmudgeon at 12:41:00 PM

 
JESUS AS SURFER DUDE:
What Happens When Hollywood Imitates Real Art


posted by The Curmudgeon at 10:56:00 AM

 
THE COMING "PASSION" FRANCHISE?
The $150 MIL (and Counting) Success of Gibson's Film Demands Sequels

Since The Passion of the Christ continues to do so well at the box office, we predict that Hollywood will jump on the band wagon and demand the production of sequels.

In fact, to those of us out here in the cultural hinterlands (i.e., outside the LA beltway). it seems to be the rule that *anything* which makes enough $$$ at the box office ends up getting turned into a franchise.

Thus we expect to see coming down the cinematic pike...

"The Passion II: The Wrath of Saul"

"The Passion III: The Search for Greeks"

"The Passion IV: The Voyage Rome"

"The Passion V: The Gaulic Frontier"

"The Passion VI: The Undiscovered Brits"

"The Passion VII: Regenerations"

...and so forth.

And then there's the matter of the t.v. series and spin-offs. Not to mention the Broadway musical version, "The Passion: All This and Vatican II."

It's only a matter of time.

posted by The Curmudgeon at 2:53:00 PM