Laugh or Cry?

'My Fair Wedding' Host David Tutera --
Dumping My Husband ... and We're Preggo with Twins | TMZ.com:

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Aside from the squalid feel of the whole thing, that fact that two men would be associated with the phrase "We're preggo with Twins" is deeply creepy.  Poor kids gonna grow up with this.

[And to be fair, let me say that, of course, this kind of skin-crawley scenario is not at all limited to gaydom. Straight men and women have been shaming our species since, well, Adam and Eve.]

From Saul to Paul

Enantiodromia.

From An Islamophobe To A Muslim: Arnoud Van Doorn,
Ex- Leading Member In Far-Right Dutch Politician Geert Wilders’ Party,
Accepts Islam - Carbonated.TV:

OMG. And it's not from The Onion.

It's a shame we don't have an apostate policy like The Religion of Peace.

Shall we call this Amsterdam Syndrome? (HT to Kathy Shaidle).

Is Ex Cathedra next?


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PS. For you Biblically Challenged types, St Paul began his career as Saul of Tarsus, actively persecuting the followers of Jesus, then had his famous conversion experience on the road to Damascus and became Paul, the great apostle and fashioner of Christianity.

Testing

Speaking of technology, I am trying to see if I can make a blog post using the microphone on my new iPhone. It's amazing!

Cyber Trek

Although I have not read Heidegger for a long time, I do recall one of his themes being the impact of technology on the human soul and culture. Amazingly prescient. When my laptop fails or when I lose my cellphone connection, I realize how much of a Six Million Dollar Man I have become, as have we all. A race of cyborgs, really. Even the flash mobs of feral Black yoofs (aka Obama's Children) use their wireless phones to arrange attacks.

The internet --one of the many things we have to thank Al Gore for-- has given me access to worlds I would otherwise have been entirely ignorant of. A mixed blessing. My wanderings have brought me into virtual contact with both Vegans of Color and the NorthWest White Republic, the inner sanctum of Mormon initiation rituals and the classics and details of Muslim sharia. I have easy access both to The Great Literature of the World and porn. I get to see and hear the (mostly deeply boring, sometimes astonishing) day-to-day details of transgenders transitioning and watch pirated movies and TV for free. With email, I can't remember the last time I actually wrote someone a letter or sent them a card through the post.

It has been very enlightening.  With access to all sorts of information that my moral and intellectual superiors in the media don't want me to know, I have become far more conservative about even the most taboo of subjects  than I would ever have imagined.

And I have also wasted huge amounts of time. But that is a character flaw of long standing, for which new technology has only given me different and more efficient means.

Jus' cuz'

Long before his election, Obama's game was clear. All you had to do was look at his history and his record. My loathing for the man and all his works was settled in 2007, when I first heard about him. If you were a conservative type, even slightly right of center, it was clear as day what he was about.

But the real problem, and the reason Ex Cathedra has taken mental refuge in the fantasy of a post-American Alternative Republic, is that Obama is not the problem; he is fundamentally a symptom. The American electorate put him in office. Twice. After four years in office, with the country still in a disastrous state, they kept him there. That's the problem.

It indicates a change in the nation. Not just its demographics, which are deteriorating ever more towards Third World status, but its mind. Obama and his minions are the agents of this collapse, but they could not do it without the support of at least half the electorate. And, of course, the most troubling part is the 40% of Whites who pulled the levers for a man like this. We are over 70% of the electorate and we are the ones who give power to people who basically loathe us. That's the problem.

So when I am told that polls consistently show Americans to be powerfully resentful of the massive illegal immigration from Mexico, that they want it stopped, I think, "Then why did you vote for the fucker who you know is gonna keep it flowing?"

One of the scariest things I ever heard was when a priest said, many years ago, in reference to the appointment of a manifestly ill-suited new superior, "We get the leadership we deserve." Well, that's the problem.

--

What's the deal, bro?

Nothin' but Net: Collins' announcement drawing reaction | Fox News:

"I'm Black. And I'm gay."

What's with telling us what we already know by looking at you?

He's not the only one.

Is preceding the coming out speech with this racial marker supposed to...what?

Tell us that even though he's Black and Blacks aren't supposed to be gay, he is?

Or that he's a Racially Protected Victim, so don't increase his pain by being homophobic?

It's weird. Like the NJ gov's "I am a gay American."

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Ebony and ivory

Racial belonging, either claimed or assigned, is sometimes absolutely clear, but sometimes fuzzy. At the fuzzy points it becomes obvious that race is not only genetic and geographical, but also political and local, dependent on which categories you use and why you use them.

Barack Obama, for example, as much genetically White as he is Black, is Black.

So the borders can never be decided "objectively" and once-for-all, even by genetics.

But that does not make the categories meaningless, as some perfectionists like to pretend. If only objectively decided and hermetically sealed categories were real and important, we'd be reduced pretty much to writing mathematics.

IMHO, and for the sake of my fantasied Alternative Republic, you're White if your predominant genetic loading is from haplogroups in Europe.

White = European (or descended unmixedly therefrom).

That makes it clear for a lot of people.

But where does Europe end? That's a matter of convention, as many borders are. Since Whiteness is not only genetic but cultural and political, for my purposes, Europe (with the exception of parts of the Balkans) ends where Christianity ends and Islam begins. Russians and Armenians and Georgians are Europeans. Turks and Chechens and Khazaks are not.


In a Black vs White race riot, though, Dhokar Tsarnaev, Alan Dershowitz and me are all on the same side. At least as far as the Blacks would be concerned.

---

Visions of non-sugar plums

If Ex Cathedra finds the Seven Spokes in the Wheel of Liberalism, shall we say, unacceptable, what, in his Alternative Republic, would he put in their place?

Right now in the Empire of Lies, we are encouraged and/or required to embrace multiculturalism, feminism, redistributionism (the big three issues of race, gender and class), along with pacifism, transnationalism, secularism and environmentalism.

What would a non-multicultural, non-feminist, non-redistributionist, non-pacifist, non-globalist, non-secularist and non-environmentalist post-American country look like? (Obviously, there'd be more than one. Lots of folks obviously want to live in a Liberal nation, the more progressive the better. They'd have their own turf.)

Let's start from the end, with just a few strokes.

We now have a no-risk environmentalist mentality. If an activity presents any risk for the rest of the natural world --I say "the rest" because we are part of the natural world, btw-- we are forbidden to do it. In a non-environmentalist AR, resources would be conserved...for the sake of the people, not as a form of sacrifice to a Goddess we have violated. There being risk involved would not be enough to prevent using a resource that would benefit us.

Non-secularist? The AR would have no State religion, but it would recognize that its people's religious traditions --its culture--exist prior to it and that it is not the State's job  to confine religious expression to the internal and private sphere. If minorities were made uncomfortable by that, too bad. The law should protect minorities from harm, not discomfort. No more making majorities dance to their victimist tune. Islam, an expansionist theocracy, would, of course, be most unwelcome.

Non-globalist? The point of having a nation is for the sake of the nation. Borders, you can bet, would be damn secure. (The blood red borders of the flag are not accidental.) Citizenship would be local and definite, not "global." Sovereignty would not be weakened. Even patriotism would be fostered. Immigration would be shaped to serve the nation's self interest, nothing else. The only "immigrant rights" a foreign invader would have would be 48-hours to show his papers; lacking that, immediate deportation. This nation would not be abstractly creedal, but rooted in soil and blood. In short, a normal country, serving a particular people who are genetically and culturally connected, not a rootless "creedal" nation.

Non-pacifist. Anyone who thinks that the State is not founded on violence is either a moron or a liar. The use of force is as necessary to human life as breathing or eating. So there'd be no fake apologies for it when necessary. The warrior virtues would be honored. There'd be hunting, corporal and capital punishment. The 2nd Amendment would be greatly expanded. Since the Alternative Republic would be monocultural, like Switzerland, it could have an armed populace, like Switzerland, without fear of out-of-control violence. All males would serve in the military as a condition for voting or being elected to office or having a government job.

Non-distributionist. There would actually be private property and the point of fiscal policy would be to create wealth for the nation's people. Tax law would be simple.

Non-feminist. Men and women would not be considered interchangeable. No law would require that they be so considered. (In fact, there would be hardly any anti-discrimination laws of any kind. Freely chosen association would dominate.) Marriage would be reconstructed for the sake of family stability, with divorce hard to get. Abortion would be restricted and abortionists severely punished. Women would not serve in the military except in an auxiliary capacity.

Non-multicultural. There would only be as much racial diversity as the cohesiveness of the nation could safely manage. Given the role of racial tension and the ideology of diversity as the prime destructor of the Old Republic, that would not be much. It would be dominated, by law, by the descendants of European Christendom. The lingo would be English. Since the political philosophy of the Alternative Republic would not be attractive to kinds of people who love the Nanny-Welfare-Managerial-Therapeutic Progressive model, most of this would be self-selection. It would turn into a new post-American ethnic group.

This is a horrifying idea to most of my contemporaries, as it once was to me. But why do we recognize that if a man and woman come to hate each other and make each other miserable all the time, it is far kinder they should separate and divorce because of their "irreconcilable differences", when the far greater and deeper and hugely more destructive "irreconcilable differences" between racial and ethnic groups is only supposed to make us try harder to live together in the same national house?

Now that I have sketched out the future on my keyboard, it's time for coffee.

---

Not political rocket science

In my Alternative Republic, citizens would have constitutional legal protections distinct from non-citizens. Due process for one group would not be identical to due process for the others.

If you were found in the AR as a non-citizen and were unable to provide proof of legal presence within 48 hours, you would be immediately deported. No appeal. That's for a first offense. Second time, a couple of years at hard labor, followed by another deportation. Third time you come in illegally, you don't leave.

If a country cannot --or will not-- control its borders, WTF is the point of having a country?

---

Forest of gallows

RealClearReligion - Render Unto Bishops:

What (the American bishops) call on their web page the "Catholic Church's position on Immigration Reform" is not orthodox teaching but tired left-wing clericalism.

This kind of stuff makes me want to be an Anti-St-Paul. He was a persecutor of the Church who became a Christian. Me, a Christian who became a persecutor of the Church.

And before the forest of gallows, I'd like to make sure that each episcopal residence in America was provided with a dozen or so Mexicans, maybe two or three dozesn, to live in them with their Excellences. We can call them "undocumented occupants."


I think it would make a nice touch, all ecumenical like, if the ACLU joined their Excellencies in the forest.





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Picky picky

I do have an element of OCD in my character. Not enough to make me dust very often. But I do like order. In typical fashion, I will avoid an unpleasant task that actually needs doing by instead cleaning or arranging something unnecessary . When it comes to clothing, no one would call me fastidious but there are a few things I like and some that set my teeth on edge.

Watching the TV series Hannibal, the Hannibal character dresses very formally and in a certain kind of high European style. Not appealing, but noticeable.

His tie irritates me. It's done in a double Windsor, which makes for a wide and prominent knot. But he doesn't often dimple it. Undimpled ties irritate me. I wanna grab em and fix em.

I also hate it when shirt collars that should be under and inside the suit jacket stick outside. That's just disorderly.

But the dimple/non-dimple thing. No clue why.

Fatal or trivial?

Not the Catholic system

For hundreds of years, the basic language of Catholicism about sin has rested on the distinction between mortal and venial sin, that is, serious and not-serious. The language, I believe, comes from St Augustine but I know little of its history.

Mortal sin is sin which, as the term suggests, kills. That is, kills the life of grace in the soul. Extinguishes it. Venial sin is pardonable sin (from venia, forgiveness, pardon, excuse), which damages the soul, but not fatally. Fifty venial sins do not equal one mortal sin. One mortal sin does something which a hundred venial sins can't.

Mortal sins require a certain commitment. You have to be dealing with a serious matter, know that, and still freely choose to do it. If the issue is grave matter, one which normally is a mortal sin, but you either A. don't know that or B. don't fully consent to what you are doing, then it reverts to venial.

If you commit mortal sin, just one, you may not approach the altar for Communion. All grace is gone from you. You must go to confession first. Otherwise, you add sacrilege to the mix. If you have committed only venial sins, even many of them, you are welcome, even encouraged to go. One of the little known effects of Holy Communion is the forgiveness of venial sins, something taught both in the Baltimore and new catechism.

Dante understood the difference. Mortal sin sends you to the Inferno, which only goes downward to a dead end and from which there is no escape.

Mohammed eternally having his gut split open in Hell 

because he introduced such division into the world.

Venial sin puts you in the Purgatorio, a mountain you have to climb, but whose eventual top is the entrance of heaven, the Paradiso. Someday purgatory will be empty. Hell, never.

So you can see that, theological niceties aside, the message and the effect of this language is pretty clear: certain kinds of sins are serious; others simply are not. Capital crime vs misdemeanor. Mortal, to hell. Venial, no big whoop.
Consequently, the only practical way the Church has of marking something as important and serious is to make a related transgression a mortal sin*. Cause unless it's mortal, it's venial. And if it's venial, let's face it, for most people, it's trivial. The difference between adultery and stealing a stapler from work.

How this has played out is that if the Church really doesn't want you to do something, no matter what the act is, it has to be a  mortal sin. No other option, really.

That's why, to prevent anyone from even starting down a road that might damage the place of sacramental marriage-and-family, a seemingly ordinary and trivial thing like wanking off is a mortal sin. If it weren't, everybody would do it...

That's why, in the days of the Six Precepts of the Church, it was a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday, to fail to make your confession and go to Communion once a year, to marry in contravention of Church law. The famous rule against eating meat on Friday was included in this list, as was contributing to the financial support of the Church.

Like the original Ten Commands of God, these Six Precepts are best understood as a whole rather than one by one. These six items described, in real and concrete terms, who was a practicing Catholic and who wasn't. Since that is/was a big deal, at least 4 of the 6 were clearly marked as mortal sin territory. Friday abstinence was universally believed to be a mortal matter, although if you look in the Catechism, it's not specifically there. Same thing for giving money.

So the question is, in terms of a human institution performing what it considers a divine mission, not "Would God really send little me to hell for all eternity if I just went to the beach one Sunday out of 52 instead of to Mass, like I do all the other Sundays?"  The question is, "Does the Church think apparently small thing is important to some larger issue or value on which its mission depends?" For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. (A poem my Dad knew from memory and made me learn!)

From this quite non-theological, even political/sociological point of view, what's mortally sinful (missing Mass = committing murder = sleeping with your own sex) is not always the act itself --though the Church's theology can't admit that-- but what role it plays in the larger scheme of things.

If missing Sunday Mass were only venial, then that means Mass is not important. And if Mass is not important in Catholicism, then nothing is. If homosexuality were only venial, that means male-female differences, which are institutionalized and sanctified in the Sacrament of marriage-for-procreation as their purpose and shape, are not important and neither is the Sacrament.

Unlike our recently discarded complex Homeland Security schema, it's pretty much --aside from subjective conditions**-- an either-or language. Not elegant, but clear. And, in a way, it understands its audience.



*There's excommunication, but that's a this-worldly administrative penalty laid on top of certain mortal sins.


**Catechism,2352. "To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired
habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that can lessen, if not
even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability."



--

My bad

My Christian Nihilist friend believes six impossible --well, at least contradictory-- things before breakfast each and every day. He believes life is meaningless, but would give his for his dog. He is a loner libertarian who consistently votes for statist Democrats. He likes Jesus but has no use for God. Other than that he's a very nice guy.

One of his solutions to America's broken state is to re-institute the draft. No exemptions. He is a military veteran who holds in contempt Commanders in Chief who never served...well, there it gets complicated. Obama is exempt because he is Black, which in my friend's mind pretty well excuses anything. And Bush was in the military, but not actually in combat, so that made him a privileged asshole...you see how it goes...Anyway, he thinks it would do everyone a lot of good, especially the spoiled rich kids.

I have opposed the idea, largely because the energy and money it would take to deal with a huge number of America's current multicultural youth would be a waste of time at best. Fragging would start up in ten minutes.

But today I thought that I might be wrong, that this in fact might be a very good idea.

What if all those leukophore university kids who will grow up voting liberal Democrat were forced to live cheek by jowl with the Other America they are so passionately in favor of and, of course, live at a safe and compassionate distance from? What if they had to experience what Viet Nam era draftees did: right in there 24/7 with the hip hop yoofs and all the colorful eses from El Barrio for a couple of years?

Who knows? That might...and I emphasize might...wake them up to what their futures actually are in the new Rainbow America they love so much.

Does this idea make me a bad person?

They even censor The One Himself

HuffPo edits Obama’s joke calling himself ‘strapping young Muslim socialist’ - BizPac Review:

Is O a Muslim? No. But he is an enabler, promoter, protector and apologist for (and to) Islam.

Is O a socialist?  Not in the classical sense of outright "State ownership of the means of production", but in the National Socialist and EuroSocialist sense of regulating your property so heavily that, while you retain paper ownership and fiscal responsibility for it, the government tells more and more how you may, may not or must use it; and of taxing you at such rates as it may deem appropriate, since, in reality, you did not build that yourself and other people have needs more dire than yours and you have made enough money as it is.





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Ramblings with coffee on a Sunday

In logical argument, it is a fallacy to confuse correlation with causation. Great philosophers even argue about whether causes are real. In day-to-day life, which is neither a classroom nor a laboratory, it's not so much of an argument. Circumstantial evidence, when strong, can be sufficient for a conviction. We live in the world of doxa, not of Parmenidean absolutes. Survival depends on adapting to what is real in our actual level of existence, not some Platonic empyrean. At the sub-atomic level, there are vast realms of emptiness between particles. But if you try walking through a wall, all you'll get for your trouble is a bloody nose. Sikhs may believe that their God has no enemies, but their history tells them that they certainly do.

Very few things are universally true, that is, without exception. Many things are generally true, most of the time, more often than not, regularly or commonly. To ignore these or dismiss them, especially when they touch on dangerous or taboo subjects is the folly of moral and cognitive perfectionism, sometimes leading to disaster.


During my studies of Gnosticism, I discovered the typical three-fold anthropology some of them used: the human race was divided into hylics, psychics and pneumatics. Hylics (those made of matter) lived by the laws of biology. Psychics (those possessed of a soul as well) lived by the laws of morality. Gnostics come from the class of pneumatics (those possessing the divine spirit) lived by the divine consciousness which transcends both biology and morality. Gnostics were not egalitarians.

But modern Gnostics usually are. For them I developed another type, the pseudo-Gnostic who mistakes the values of morality for divine consciousness: the Angelics. Actual Gnostics are aware of their true identity AND the true identity of the irremediably fallen world in which they find themselves. The Angelics believe that because they imagine themselves divine, that the world is once again a garden paradise. This is a flight into spirituality, rather like the flight into health you find in early stages of therapy. This hubristic mistake actually makes them more closely allied to the Demiurge, a second-order being who deludedly thinks that he is the only God and the controller of the universe. In political terms, these are called Liberals.



What do you think are the strongest societal taboos for us?  I suggest two: pedophilia and racial discrimination (by Whites). Interestingly, racial miscegenation (by Whites) was once the strongest taboo...



Catholic sexual morality is determined by a single fundamental attitude and a single fundamental law. The attitude is the primacy, protection and promotion of marriage-and-family, that is, of the Seventh Sacrament, Matrimony. What protects and promotes marriage-and-family will be protected and promoted by the Church. Whatever detracts from it or threatens it or damages it will be rejected by the Church, even if it seems unconnected. It's the Catholic version of the rabbinic theme, Building a fence around the Torah. You could call it Building a fence around the Sacrament. This attitude is, I suspect, prior to any explicit rules or theories.

It explains why something seemingly as trivial as masturbation is considered seriously sinful. Like homosexuality, it is "intrinsically and gravely disordered." (Catechism 2352).

The fundamental law, which expresses this deep conviction, is the Catholic sexual axiom, the one sentence on which all of its sexual morality is built: The only legitimate (non-sinful) form of sexual intercourse is that between a married man and woman, and open to the creation of a child. As the new Catechism makes clear (2351), any sexual pleasure sought outside its unitive (man and wife) and procreative (open to child)  purposes is simply lust. Legitimating anything else implodes the axiom and threatens or detracts from what the Seventh Sacrament sanctifies: marriage-and-family.

Keeping these two things in mind both explains and predicts Church responses to any phenomenon which touches on matrimony.

The exaltation of celibacy for monks and priests, btw, actually proves this point because one sacrifices something fundamentally good for the sake of God. It's not giving up a sin, but offering a sacrifice. And you never offer God anything as a sacrifice which is not valuable.

I used to complain that the Catholic Church unrealistically acted as if there should be only two kinds of people in the world: married couples and celibates. Well, compassion for human failing aside [1], it really has no other choice if it's to do its job. Otherwise the axiom falls and the Seventh Sacrament follows. And I really don't know of societies where the (heterosexual, of course) marriage institution crumbles (regardless of its form) and good things result.

[1] It can have compassion on a failing but will call it a failing and not transform it into an option.

Having said that, Ex Cathedra's experience of the world leads him to believe that no system of any kind, moral or otherwise, can account successfully for all human behavior. Moral systems there must be. But reality will always outstrip them in unexpected ways. The Church must act as if there are only marrieds and celibates, but that does not make it so.

Facts and facades

I alternate using Bing as my search engine, when Google pisses me off. Bing puts up a new picture every day. They're usually quite striking. And they include little tidbits (as opposed to big tidbits?) of info about the pic to help you guess what you're seeing.

Today we had a glowing set of little tidbits about this pic, which is the harbor of Baltimore. I remember visiting there in the 70's when it was new. It was nice. Past tense.

I added the crime stats rating, showing the national and local numbers. Charming Balmer --as the locals call it-- is one of the Top Ten Most Dangerous Cities in America.

---

Finally

Finally my role as a politico-cultural commentator is being recognized.

For years now, my most popular posts have been pictures of men deshabilles. Now one of my gems of insight about the confluence of language and European high politics has surged head, reaching almost 10,000 views in the last few months.

Here it is.

Does this mean that the cyberworld is maturing at last?

--

Microsoft geeks

Microsoft has a history of upgrading its programs in ways that make me nuts. Taking away my ability to do something I was once able to do. In the name of progress.

The fonts in Windows 7 are numerous and many of them non-Latin. Fair enough. This is a global product.

But I am not allowed to delete what Windows considers "protected" fonts. So I to scroll through them in my fonts list to get to the ones I like.

And even the foreign ones I like do not print in the foreign scripts, just in Latin.

Unless I change the whole keyboard. Which requires a previous set of choices and such.

Were I still doing papers which required me to add text in Greek, for example, I would have to switch keyboards to do it and lack choice of typefaces.

Amazing how frustrated and murderous these things make me feel.

Unexpected moments

Although stretching out The Hobbit through three movies is too much, there are moving moments.




When the great eagles come to rescue them from the Pale Orc. Like the end of LOTR, when they come to rescue Sam and Frodo. Great eagles, the way angels should have been. Loyal to smaller creatures who can do nothing to repay them.

The fate of the dwarves, dispossessed and fighting to regain a lost homeland.

And the ending song, Song of the Lonely Mountain, ain't bad, either.

Bearly tolerable

I watched two gay Bear movies, Bearcity 1 and 2. (Spoilers below).




Yikes.

The primary romantic story is between a young bear-chaser and a handsome bearded older man. The first movie is the drama of their finally overcoming various obstacles and falling in love. In the second move, the older one proposes marriage. The younger one first refuses, scared of such a commitment at his age and then agrees. The wedding is set in Provincetown, with a gathering of friends, former lovers (and the young guy's hyper-accepting parents) during Bear Week.




The climax comes when they decide, in flagrante ceremonio of course, not to proceed with the wedding because "it doesn't feel right, even though they love each other." So they break up, revert to being just friends and ex's and proceed to pick up new guys and make out with them.

Really.

The default model for the supporting friend characters --a hyper queeny twink or a very girthful fat-and-jolly type-- is the sassy Black girl. And we have drag, of course. Must have drag.

And one reviewer expressed his pleasure that the movie did not rely on tired gay cliches and stereotypes.

Really.

Wikipedia, famous for its inclusive authorship and its spotty reliability, describes a Bear as "a large, hairy man who projects an image of rugged masculinity...Some bears place importance on presenting a hypermasculine image and may shun interaction with, and even disdain, men who exhibit effeminacy."

Really?

Paleo Picnic

Yesterday at Kirby Cove with B. You cross the bridge, hang a left and hike down a steep mile and there you are, isolated and protected forest and beach, maybe a dozen other people, but with a front row view to this beautiful city. Chicken, avocado and cashews, fruit salad. And good company.

Teaching us

our place in the world.




And of course, completed by the Voice of God.

Since they're all White

none of this can be "raciss."

The Official European Joke | ploum.net:

European paradise:
You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by an Englishman. Food is prepared by a Frenchman and an Italian puts you in the mood and everything is organised by a German. 

European hell:
You are invited to an official lunch. You are welcomed by a Frenchman. Food is prepared by an Englishman, German puts you in the mood but, don’t worry, everything is organised by an Italian.

This is one version of an old joke, but the point is the same in all of them. Different peoples have different gifts, and corresponding deficits. This is as obvious as sunrise in the morning.

[Reminds me of taking the train in 1975 from Italy to Germany. The Italian ride was full of families, food eaten in public, a less than sterling attitude toward litter, semi-interested staff, lots of noise. At the Swiss border, a change of crew and passengers, and a total change of attitude and environment. All cleaned up, everyone had to have their papers, fewer families, sit up straight with no feet on the seats, very quiet, etc. Cultural difference completely obvious.

It continues to astonish me how much "multiculturalists" deny the existence of culture when it threatens their egalitarian (anti-White) agenda. ]

But if you mixed this joke up and made it global, so that there'd be a recognition of deficits of People of Color, it would go from being amusingly true to being unpardonably criminal.

Which, of course, makes perfect sense, no? After all, as the Canuckistan Supreme Court, our highly evolved neighbors to the North, have recently informed us, just because a statement is true does not exempt it from being forbidden hate speech...

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Interesting idea

Part of the unusual constitution of the fantasied (1) post-American Northwest Republic forbids --constitutionally, mind you-- two kinds of professions which have "wreaked havoc on society": lawyers and clergymen.

Prohibiting lawyers seems only common sense :). The NW forbids anyone from receiving any kind of payment, in coin or in kind, for being an advocate for someone else in a legal matter. You can be an advocate --which is the word for lawyer in the Romance tongues-- but it has to be totally volunteer. The NW legal code is contained in a single book of about 200 pages, so such people would be possible. The NW constitution re-establishes the institution of the duel as an alternative to suing. One of the incidents which sets a legal duel in motion is the lethal insult of calling someone a "lawyer."

Same with clergymen. Being a priest or a minister is not forbidden, since freedom of religion is constitutionally guaranteed. You just can't make your living at it. No kind of payment or support for this service is allowed. (Mormon bishops already do this.) I guess the idea is to prevent the princely carryings-on of prelates and TV evangelists: if you have to earn your living otherwise, it cuts back on your time for empire building.

One of the assumptions in the NW novels is that the primary threat to the stability of the new order is religious dissension: differing kinds of Christians, and Nordic neo-pagans, fighting against one another in the National Assembly for power to make their faith the de facto State religion. The prohibition of priestcraft appears to be designed to reduce these energies so that they do not compete with or destabilize the State. This is the ironic situation in which the National Socialists act as the moderating influence in society!

The NW version of Nazism is not a copy of the German one. Whiteness, not German-ness, is the basis, so Ukrainians and Poles are as welcome as Italians, Norwegians or Irishmen. The idea of a fuhrer is discarded in favor of a one-term-only State President, elected every six years by the citizenry. But since the population of the NW, after initial ethnic cleansing, is entirely White and chooses to remain there, a lot of the nastier tactics of the 1930's and of the war for independence are no longer needed. For example, its version of the 2nd amendment is radical, forbidding any restriction on firearms and actually encouraging all its citizens and residents to be weaponized.

No lawyers. No televangelists. And a populace armed like cowboys. You gotta give 'em credit for imagination.



(1) Not Ex Cathedra's fantasy; he would be barred from entry to the NW one.

Another phrase

I am starting to wish I never hear again.

Holder Calls Amnesty a 'Civil Right' | Amnesty | Fox Nation:

Civil Right = What I Want

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Easy on the eyes

Beware

Once you start looking at different groups' typical aggregate impact on society, it's hard to be PC.

To use a typically biased and low-brow Ex Cathedra example, suppose there had been no Muslim emigration to America over the last 40 years.

How would our history and our present have been different?

And even more scarily: does their presence here, given their typical aggregate impact on society,  outweigh in benefits what it has cost us?

What if our immigration policy had been conscious based on the self-interested question: What do these people (both individually and especially as groups) bring to our country that's likely to benefit us, both in this generation and in following generations? What problems are they likely to cause us?

Pardon me if it seems to me that our actual policy --where we even care to enforce it-- has been, What right do we have to keep you out?

--

Just in case you were wondering

You ordain women in the Christian churches and this is what you will get. On a good day.

Katharine Jefferts Schori’s Cosmic Earth Day 

The picture says much. What was Bergoglio's line? Feminism is machismo in skirts? Or in a Roman collar?

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Proof that Republicans R not Raciss

but can be utter and complete morons.

Look at the dope-smoking Rasta whom John Boehner's daughter is marrying...

Even at age 35, this girl clearly has Daddy issues. Talk about marrying down so you can enrage your parents. (And she doesn't even have the evobio excuse that he's hot or rich.)

And we are unfortunately now so civilized that Dad can't run him off with a rifle and a horsewhip.

Dominic Lakhan: The Jamaican-born fiancé of John Boehner's daughter - who has been arrested for possessing marijuana | Mail Online:

If the Speaker ever wanted to cry, now would be a good time.

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Combox mobocracy

I was tempted, and I fell. Mea culpa

I commented on a story in a liberal Catholic paper. The National Catholic Reporter. Where it's still 1968.

A gay man who got civilly married was removed from his volunteer ministries at his parish. Not forbidden communion or excommunicated, just told he can't have a public role there anymore. The local bishop is now Simon Legree.

I pointed out in my comment out that Roman Catholicism is not whatever you want it to be, but has a clear and public shape. Too many lefty Catholics live in the the Church of Wishful Thinking and then whine when The Real Church appears in view.

Well. I was treated to a lesson in Jim Crow and slavery. Yes, Jim Crow and slavery and other "White Southern" crimes that Jesus didn't like. Etc. A little gang of liberal Catholics treated me, well, worse than the bishop they were so angry at for his incivility.

There's a conservative rhetorical form called Godwin's Law, that as an online argument grows longer and more heated, the likelihood of the conservative opponent being compared to Hitler grows exponentially. The reductio ad Hitlerum. I'd suggest a corollary about Confederate Slavery and Jim Crow.

As for the scores of other comments on the story, well, kinda like a madhouse. Not so different from comboxes everywhere. And especially at that paper.

Someday, when sanity is restored and universal suffrage is an antique idea that we shake our heads over --Can you believe they used to let every moron over 18 actually vote?!-- the recent institution of the online comment can serve as an easy Exhibit A on why.

Vultures of a feather

Obama Bashes GOP on Immigration at Bush Library Address:

I supported George Bush on a few issues I thought were important, but when it came to immigration he was on the wrong side. On this, Obama recognizes a kindred evil spirit.

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Plus ça change

Pleas for a radical reform of the Roman Curia and the manner of appointing bishops...1931.

Same complaints. Same solutions proposed (sans females, of course)

Vatican Diary / Future curia, old project:

"Aliquando autem totus episcopatus alicuius nationis ita est compositus, veluti si coecorum, claudorum et infirmorum omne genus esset refugium." 
"Sometimes it seems as if the whole body of bishops of a nation is composed so that it becomes a refuge for the blind, lame and sick."

Very funny.

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Pas d'ennemis a gauche

Funny how, when the MSM's culprit is toward the Right, when, say, there's a gun incident with Whites being killed by Whites or the rare non-Black that kills a Black*, it's the general atmosphere or language or attitudes of the White Right that foster these bad things. But when you've got Muslim jihadis blowing people up or shooting them, it's all carefully restricted to certain limited and special and extreme non-representative enclaves of Islam.

Ya know?

As I've often said, in all the years post 9/11 that I have lived in San Francisco, I have heard droolingly enraged rants against Bush and Republicans and the Religious Right, but aside from one demonstration about Iranian hanging of gays, I have never, ever, heard anything remotely similar directed to Muslims or Islam, or even Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Ladin.

Liberals tend to hate and loathe the Right. Fair enough. But bring Islam --that most illiberal religion-- into the picture and they grow immediately and strangely circumspect. Ex Cathedra's theory is that they do this, consciously, because they see Islam as a non-White religion. And liberals revere all things non-White.

--

*The chronic pattern of murders among Blacks are only of local interest; we are positively discouraged from knowing about Black attacks on Whites, be it flash mobs, home invasions, or whatever.

Propaganda

How often do I see the same themes and memes in movies? Even if the star is a White guy, the only cripplingly conflicted or foolishly incompetent characters are White men. We have the spunky and fearless anti-authority and lethal Black or Latin babe. The grimly determined no nonsense Black guy. And here, the conflicted White guy lead gives up his leadership role to the Asian guy. And the Black guy threateningly lectures a cowardly White guy, in Ebonics and in the presence of an admiring blonde White woman, on how to be brave. The the sassy Latin girls bravely saves the stupid and immobilized White guy. It goes on and on.

Instead of propaganda in the form of Socialist Realism, we have Liberal Unreality teaching us the way the world is ought to be and what our place in it should be. And when we notice, or say, that that is not how the world really is, suddenly we're the ones with the problem.

Maybe some day we'll develop our own Solzhenitzyn.

Bad memory

Ordered Liberty » The ‘Public Safety’ Follies:

He complains that "the Gitmo bar", the lefty lawyers who rushed to give pro bono defense support for the Gitmo detainees, has been too influential in making policy.

I had to work with a very generous donor to my old workplace, who told me one day with great pride, and the attitude of one who'd assume I shared this attitude, that a lawyer friend was flying down to Gitmo to provide this legal service to the prisoners. As if that were the coolest thing.

I had to use my suppression and repression skills --which are better than I'd like-- to make believe it had not happened.

Too many of those folks, very well off and successful, gained moral capital in each others' eyes by their default assumption of American blame and inferiority.

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Just askin'

So. The Tsarnaev family got into the US as refugees.

And then voluntarily returned to the place they were refugees from...?

--

We report, you decide

Four female prison guards impregnated by same inmate - CBS News:

...the 25 defendants participated in running the activities of the Black Guerilla Family - a prison and street gang - from behind bars in Baltimore City.

Four corrections officers-Jennifer Owens, Katera Stevenson, Chania Brooks and Tiffany Linder, who are also facing charges - allegedly fell pregnant to inmate Tavon White while he was behind bars. White made as much as $16K a month and "showered three of them with expensive gifts including cars and jewelry."

Charging documents reveal Owens had "Tavon" tattooed on her neck and Stevenson had "Tavon" tattooed on her wrist.





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S'pose

The American Marx, Professor Rawls, is the philosopher of Justice As Fairness, who "envisions a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights cooperating within an egalitarian economic system." He has his devotees play a little game of make-believe to ferret out their values. He tells them to put themselves behind "the veil of ignorance" and decide what kind of society they'd like to be born into, without knowing who they'd be born as, where, etc. He expects, rightly, that most pussified souls will choose an egalitarian liberal welfare state, where anyone's chances of more than subsistence survival are greatest.

I believe this is called "acting out of self-interest and fear?" I thought bold and brave liberals eschewed that crass emotion, along with H8, as something only rightwingers experienced. Oh, well. Live and learn.

Being a man of thinking...ok, being a man whose natural inclination is to live in his head...I like thought experiments. My own little sorties into that realm have been enjoyable for me, if uncomfortable for my readers. So here's another one --inspired by the 1951 sci-fi flick When Worlds Collide--which I'll leave up to you.

A large body is discovered, hurtling through space toward Earth. As it approaches, it is further discovered, surprisingly, that it is not an asteroid but a small planet. And even more amazing, very much like Earth. Rather than colliding with us, it slows down and settles into an orbit not so far from us. Travelling from our Earth to the new planet is not very difficult. 

So, we have a possible new home for, well, a part of the human race. A new start for a some of us. And guess what: you are put wholly in charge of this project. You get to choose who goes and under what conditions. You alone.

So?


BTW, the Wiki article about the movie, of course, contains this bit of critical wisdom:

Adilifu Nama, Cal State professor of Pan African studies, regards the collision between the two worlds as a type of metaphor for the then-ongoing post-colonial confrontation between the developed nations and the third world. He views the film as confirming a form of "whites only" racial segregation found in the United States during the period, as inferred by "the visual absence of blackness". As evidence, he notes that only "white people" survive the disaster. Thus the film "overtly advocates white racial homogeneity as a requirement for the preservation of the American way of life".

Hard to argue with that.

--


--

Perversity

No, not the usual Ex Cathedra kind.

Hope This Works. God Help Us. 

For some perverse reason, I found this perversity very funny.

Shut up, he explained

Every society and group has taboo subjects. In our current ebonicoid style, we have the phrase, "Do you really want to go there?" This means, "Do you actually want to cross that line of taboo and bring up a subject of which we are all very well  aware and which we know is dangerous?"

As I've said before, parts of the American experiment are an opus contra naturam, a work against nature. Neither democracy nor freedom come naturally to human communities. If they did, we would not need to enshrine them in Bills of Rights. To the extent that we have had these things, I think John Adams' insight is true: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” And a particular people of this kind as well --English Protestants-- one that had the cultural capacity to overcome tribalism and allow people different from themselves, especially in opinion, to be allowed to live, much less speak. That is a rare capacity.

One of George Bush's greatest errors was believing that everyone on earth --much less Muslims--wants the kind of liberty that Americans have. Not even all Americans want it. We want freedom for ourselves and people like us. We don't really want it for ideas or people we hate or who threaten us. Ask Mayor Nutter. Even to tolerate such folks it is a very much learned behavior.

We have varying ways of enforcing these Thou Shalt Nots. In unapologetically religious societies, we have blasphemy laws. In crypto-religious liberal societies, we have "hate speech" laws.  Hate speech flourishes in Islamic countries. Blasphemy is a proud achievement of the West. Both regard each other's strictures and behaviors with horror. They are essentially the same.

In the West, we have politically correct shorthand to explain to people that they should shut up. Das raciss is my favorite, of course. If you don't agree with the idea of genderless marriage, you are homophobic bigoted H8er. If you are, in the words of the British Chief Rabbi, a "Christian atheist" like Richard Dawkins, your atheism is anti-Semitic. And, of course, if you suspect that Islam might be hugely, even fundamentally, significant in the Boston bombings, you are an Islamophobe.

Racist! Homophobe! Anti-Semite! Islamophobe! In the Universal Translator aboard the Enterprise, they all come out the same way:

Shut up!

--

Returning conquered lands

The Muslim Brotherhood wants Spain back. Can the Christians have Egypt in exchange? – Telegraph Blogs:

Yes, what date will be the universal reset button where things go back to where they were before bad things happened?

Every time I hear a White American confess his guilt at stealing North America from the Indians, I wonder about how many Turks feel bad about taking Asia Minor from the Greeks.

Crickets chirp.

You know who lands belong to? The people with the balls to hold them.

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My religion

I have found The Faith That's Right For Me:

Our creed and war-cry would be: Dolce far niente!

His Teen Brain Made Him Do It!

Boston Marathon Bomb Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Teen Brain Might Have Been Easily Swayed - ABC News:

ABC also reports that he said his brother was motivated by hate for America's wars against Muslims and that they had been followers of (dead) American jihadist Anwar Al-Alwaki...

But his teen boy brain...


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Charlie Chan on parenting

Enjoying a 1935 Charlie Chan mystery and watching his interaction with Number 2 Son, this phrase came to me: High investment, low romance.

Chan (and wife, presumably) have made a huge investment in the kid, with high expectations, but without romancing him.

Current (White) parenting --which comes down to mothering-- is far too high in romance with the kids. Giving love in hopes of getting it returned.

Another grain of wisdom from your local childless male observer.

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Popery

Some of Jorge Bergoglio's pre-papal ideas and opinions appear in a new book. Best line: feminism is machismo in skirts.

He's an anti-death penalty fundamentalist [1]. Anti-abortion, too. Anti-gay marriage.Thinks that the practice of moving "pedophile" priests around to new places was "a stupid idea." Wants irregularly married Catholics to come to church, but not communion. Thinks women are important, but not capable of being priests. Etc. All in all, pretty Catholic.

Preaching on his birthname feast day today to assembled cardinals in Rome, he joked that Jerusalem's sending of Barnabas to check out the fledgling Gentile ministry (Acts 11) was the beginning of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the son of the Inquisition.) And made it very clear that you can't have Jesus without belonging to the Mother Church, on which he quoted Jesuit founder St Ignatius Loyola: the Church "hierarchical and Catholic."

Foot kissing man of the people he may be, but when it comes to content, it's Popery all 'round.


[1] The very strong anti-death penalty attitude --theoretically ok but practically not-- is recent, though, no matter what they say. The 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia:  "The infliction of capital punishment is not contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church, and the power of the State to visit upon culprits the penalty of death derives much authority from revelation and from the writings of theologians. The advisability of exercising that power is, of course, an affair to be determined upon other and various considerations."

PS. I confess, with shame, that I was gonna title this post A Potpourri of Popery, but lacked the nerve.

More Trudeaupian wisdom from Shiny Pony

Harper slams Trudeau for comments on Boston bombings - Yahoo! News Canada:

Justin told us that "over the coming days" it would be necessary to "look at root causes." He continued, "We don't know if it was terrorism, or a single crazy, or a domestic issue or a foreign issue — all those questions. But there is no question that this happened because of someone who feels completely excluded, someone who feels completely at war with innocence, at war with society." Trudeau finished by saying that it was important not to "marginalize people even further who already feel like they are enemies of society rather than people who have hope for the future."

All about their feelings...

I suppose he'll bring the same depth analysis to Canada's own terrorism problem.

Christ, what a moron.

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Back door admission?

Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect Will Not Be Charged As Enemy Combatant:

Jay Carney: " ...it is important to remember that since 9/11 we have used the federal court system to convict and incarcerate hundreds of terrorists."

Hundreds?

Is this a back door admission that while Big Sis Napolitano talks about "man caused disasters" --sooooo sexist--maybe there might just be a Muslim jihad terrorism problem?

Really, Jay?

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Liberal ducks

The basics of liberal discourse on the Boston bombers' attack on America, as they scratch their mush-filled heads in a vain attempt to imagine what could have driven "these two young men" to this desperate act?

Speak of "Worse Than I Thought"

Huffington Post Religion and Spirituality page for today:

A "spiritual" menagerie.

And sometimes, Christians just need to shut up.

And here we have a jaw-dropping level of banality and mush from "Catholic" PhD candidate Craig Considine. Mother of God. What a moron.

Ah, turns out he's in a sociology program. Ça explique tout.

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PS. Just occurred to me what an odd name that is for a Celt. And a Celtic name it is. Turns out that it's from MacConsaidin...son of Constantine. So it is an odd name for a Celt.

Even worse than I thought

A detailed reflection on 1968, its prequels and its aftermaths.

Ed Driscoll » Off the Rails: Mad Men and American Liberalism in 1968:

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Why are these people even here at all?

Michelle Malkin |:

Which could be said of most of the new "immigrants" --legal and illegal--to this Global Third World Homeland Formerly Known As America.

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Reb Sirota "One of us"?

Re: He who was hoping that the bomber would turn out to be a White American...

When it becomes acceptable to wish in public for people you disagree with to be heinous murderers (and without even the slightest bit of evidence), we have crossed a line that doesn’t allow for a functioning democratic society. I’d like to say that I hope David Sirota isn’t an American citizen, because his words of hate shame me, but sadly, the truth is that he is one of us and if we don’t call out his crime, we are condoning it.

The dear lady decries this "crossing of the line" as if it were something novel. Hardly. And she assumes that said Sirota is "one of us." Who, dear lady, might that be? Who be "us?"

PJ Media » David Sirota and the Definition of Hate Speech:

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Jim Goad notes that Mr White Privilege, Reb Tim Wise got into the act as well, he who is both one of us and not one of us, depending on his mood and advantage. Great line:

Fuck me with a dreidel if that “destruction” line doesn’t sound somewhat genocidal, Uncle Tim. 

Why Does Evil Make Liberals Stupid?

Couldn'a put it better myself.

Why Does Evil Make Liberals Stupid? | Power Line:

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What's wrong

with this picture?

The supporting character gets top visual billing over the two actual co-stars. Wonder why...?

[I should say that I am sick to death of seeing and hearing Morgan Freeman. The man is worth $90 million and should stop working. After all, his bro, The Great and Powerful O, did say that "at a certain point, you've made enough money."  Obviously he was not thinking of Morgan, or Beyonce or any of his other 1% pals.]

One who stays

James Alison is a "gay Catholic priest and theologian." An unusual fella. Ex-Dominican. Very English. An original writer, as evident just from the titles of some of his books. The Joy Of Being Wrong. Raising Abel. Undergoing God: Dispatches from the Scene of a Break-In. 

He is a priestly rarity: without portfolio, belonging to no order or diocese. Despite his published works and his frequent assertion that homosexuality is "a regularly occurring, non-pathological sexual variant in the human race," he remains unsilenced and un-defrocked.

He is also a Girardian, not a point of view I sympathize with. Smells too much of the ideology of sacred victimhood and the myth of The Great Secret.

His approach to the issue of homosexuality is not simply moral. He takes an usually optimistic but     very long view and circles around toward it through a re-thinking of more fundamental theology about sin and nature, grace and truth, as is clear from the brief email exchange I had with him in 2009.

Hello, James. I am a fellow former Dominican and gay man. I left the Order and stopped the practice of Catholicism because I became convinced that being gay and being Catholic simply doesn’t work, for either side of the equation.

Being asked to regard something so central to my identity, my erotic self, as a sinful mistake was just too much. Sinful I have been and mistakes I make aplenty. But that’s because I am human, not because I am homosexual.

I also came to realize that for the Church to accept my erotic self would mean the eventual unraveling of its sexual ethic, a monumental self-inflicted wound. Within the mountains of writing and talking about morality, the Catholic sex ethic is really quite simple: "the only valid use of the full sexual faculty is between husband and wife, open to the begetting of children."

Once you make an exception to that, especially so huge an exception as two men having penetrative intercourse with each other, what ethical norm remains?

That’s my inquiry. What usable ethical principle, allowing same-gender sex, could replace the current Catholic axiom and still maintain a credible continuity with its tradition?

His reply:

What an interesting question you ask! And it’s one for which I’m not sure that I have any answer. I don’t know what, if anything, you’ve read of mine (I’m guessing something, or else you wouldn’t have found my e-mail address), but I would be hard put to find anywhere where I have even attempted at having a go at talking about sexual morality. In fact, I’ve tried to avoid moral theology all together, not having the patience (or the capacity for exemplary living) for it. 

This doesn’t make your question any less pertinent, it’s merely a reflection of why I don’t think I’m going to be very helpful to you. My stuff has been much more concerned with the logical questions of whether the Church’s teaching in this area could possibly be true on general grounds of systematics to do with Creation, redemption, grace, original sin etc. The next question: given that it isn’t true, what on earth are we going to do about it, is one for gay and lesbian catholics over time in their lives, and the question after that: how is the understanding of “what is good” going to fit into whatever we will discover to have been the tradition as what you describe as the current axiom breaks down, is the one for moral theologians. I rather think Mark Jordan has been brave enough to have had a stab at re-thinking sexual morality in this area. Have you come across him and his writing? If not, highly recommended. The Ethics of Sex. 

Hmmm. I’m sure that this is not a satisfactory answer, but then I’m also pretty sure that the axiom only “worked” in a world in which people didn’t talk about their sex-lives. When the components of emotional honesty and ability to talk about actual, rather than theoretical practice, become as widespread as they have now, then males engaged in penetrative intercourse with each other are the least of the problems faced by the axiom...Cheers, James

Perhaps a part of what brings people like me and people like him to different conclusions is about attachment and hope, capacities for living with confusion. Or wishful thinking.
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Blasts from the past

How do I go from watching a 1950's sci-fi movie to finding myself on a website that provides the apostolic succession links of bishops? Damned if I know...

Tis a little known fact that over 95% of the Catholic bishops trace their lineage back to one man, the 16th century Cardinal Scipione Rebiba. Makes him a kind of sacramental Adam.

I checked out the lineage of the bishop who ordained me and in that line are included seven Popes.
--

Referencing Gnosticism yesterday, it's a funny thing about a lot of the contemporary little Gnostic groups that most of them tend to value apostolic succession very highly and go to great lengths to provide proof of their lineages. From the point of view of the Apostolic Churches --Catholic and Orthodox/Oriental-- their ordinations are no more valid than Mormon baptisms because the intention and the content deviate so strongly from the traditional meanings. Hell, for Catholics, even the Anglicans broke the chain by their Protestantism.

And of course one of the earliest witnesses to the hierarchical-dogmatic-sacramental shape that the orthodox Church took was St Irenaeus, whose writings attack "the so-called Gnostics."

She huffed and she puffed

HuffPo worthy Paige Lavender --is that a real name?-- took time out from her busy schedule to chastise two Republican (gee, really?) lawmakers for "questionable" and "insensitive" tweets about the Boston Marathon explosions. Mustn't speak ill of (Muslim and immigrant) murderers. I am so glad that our Liberal masters care that (certain) AmeRicans restrain their politically incorrect language under stress.
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Another HuffPo article describes the brothers in detail...Chechen Muslims...the brothers showing both anti-American and aggressively Islamic attitudes about a variety of things...and the describes their actions as "an enigma."

They're Muslim, but, like, so what?

Boston Bombing Suspects' Muslim Identity Provides Few Clues To Motivation For Bombing

Pretty funny stuff from Jaweed Kaleem.

Yeah, it's so, like, you know, incidental. According to, ahem, "Jaweed Kaleem."

So try this one on for size:

Atlanta Church Bombing Suspects' White Identity Provides Few Clues To Motivation For Bombing.




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More BS from BO

Lecturing us today from the pulpit of the First Church of Non-Discrimination, Minister Barry Hussein:

"When a tragedy like this happens, with public safety at risk and the stakes so high, it’s important we do this right. That’s why we have investigations that’s why we relentlessly gather the facts, that’s why we have courts. That’s why we take care not to rush to judgement, not about the motivations of these individuals and certainly not about entire groups of people.”

Now supposed the two bomber "suspects" had not been immigrant Chechen Muslims, one of whose YouTube page is full of videos praising jihad and sharia. Suppose they had been Harry Jones and Peter Marshall, two native White guys who belonged to the Tea Party.

Or what if, as happened, there was a White police office "acting stupidly" in arresting Henry Louis Gates or if Trayvon Martin happened "to look like my son?"

Do you think that the Great and Powerful O would still be reminding us to discipline our bigoted bad selves?

_____

PS. The surviving brother became a US citizen on Sept 11th of last year. You can't make this stuff up. Wanna bet on who he voted for in November?

A Saturday morning esoteric aside

I have a longstanding interest in Gnosticism, orthodox Christianity's most ancient enemy. Fighting against it, in fact, gave the Christian faith much of its shape. The Gnostics lost. As Jorge Luis Borges wrote in his 1932 preface to their mythologies, The Defense Of Basilides The False:

The Gnostics were vanquished in their battle with the Christians.
But we can imagine their possible victory. If Alexandria had triumphed
instead of Rome, the bizarre and confused stories that I summarize here
would be coherent, ordinary, majestic”. 

Someone characterized it as "the religion of dissatisfied theologian-poets," a description which once would have applied to me [1]. The only thing which has ever really driven me in the direction of atheism is the problem of Job, especially when it became so focused and personal during the AIDS years. Gnosticism is sparked by this problem, too: How can you look at the massive suffering in the world and believe that it was created and is ruled by a God who is omnipotent, benevolent and omniscient?

Gnosticism does not really solve this problem but it certainly alleviates it --at least for dissatisfied theologian-poets. It splits the creator-god of this world from the True God who is utterly beyond and alien to it and then identifies the human trueself with that God. Much reframed mythology ensues.

With typical Gnostic metalepsis,

the serpent in the garden is the hero, not the villain.

Gnosticism is not a unitary phenomenon. Given how it locates the process of salvation in the individual human consciousness, that could hardly be otherwise. But one of its distinguishing characteristics is dualism, the splitting of existence into two opposing and incompatible parts. This dualism can be played out on a spectrum, but if you're gonna be a Gnostic, you have to come to terms with it.

In fact, I find Gnostic dualism pretty consoling. It lets you release your pointless and anxious striving to "build the Kingdom of God" in this world by telling you that this world is inherently and essentially un-savable, the broken creation of a flawed and deranged creator.[2]  It understands the human condition as a condition, a dilemma, an insoluble predicament in which one finds oneself and which is not of one's own making. Or of Adam's.

The local Gnostic bishop is a quite unusual woman and we became friends. The local run of Gnostics, however, were not unusual at all. As with Jungians, I found that they had a predictable group tendency simply to take their quite circumscribed cultural and political beliefs and project them into Gnosticism. Liberal world-saving Obama-lovers, all. Their religion made them feel even more like special victimized outsiders without having the least dent on their actual do-gooder world-view. Which was, to me, bizarre. Even a standard Jewish conservative like Jonah Goldberg knows for sure that politics is not a redemptive activity.

Anyhow, I got a Gnostic link this morning where yet one more practitioner was urging us to sign on board for yet one more progressive political project to fix the world through expanding the power of the federal government. Head-shaking. I guess I am not the only inconsistent man in the world.


[1] I remain dissatisfied, and something of a theologian, but my sense of poetry is much diminished.

[2] Gnosticism is therefore the precise opposite of what philosopher Eric Voegelin described. In a strand of Rightwing thought, "gnostic" is the term of opprobrium for movements or attitudes which seek "to immanentize the eschaton", to find, through special knowledge, salvation within the structures of this world. Gnosticism certainly claimed special knowledge, but that knowledge was the truth that salvation cannot be found in this world! What he describes is better likened to Islam.