Adventures in shallowness

Aging well. I have done that not so badly in the department so far, I'm told. Enjoying it while it lasts. Not everyone does. Age well, that is. On a serious note, people of the same age can enjoy, or endure, vastly different states of health. On my shallow note, we just get older differently. Some folks season well and even improve over time. (I am a big fan of seasoned men.) Others not so much.

Here's two actors in their younger years, both fine looking fellas. To put it mildly. The very well known Alec Baldwin and the briefly known Gil Gerard. Currently, they are not so good, to my eye. I'll spare you the "after" photos and just leave you with the younger ones.



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Why I like Jonah Goldberg

His thoughts on Sarah Palin and Caroline Kennedy.

Best line: "The bowel-stewing self-indulgence of elite liberalism."

AND why I like Charles Krauthammer: "Camelot is not a state."


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Grow up, boyz and ghyrls

The Great O disappoints gays.

LOL!!!!

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Disgusting but unsurprising

Mark Steyn notes a recent decision of the commissars of the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission.

Despite the fact that when Christians criticize homosexuality they can be fined and forbidden to express this opinion for the rest of their lives...yes...when a Muslim thug writes a book in which gays and lesbians are insulted and considered liable to extermination and any non-Muslim is called names and vilified, etc. that is not hate-speech.

You think I am making this up?

The whole notion of hate crime and hate speech leads to this. Vile stuff. And if you know liberal Canadian culture and its state apparatus, perfectly predictable.

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Distraction

Instead posting some irritated curmudgeonly political rant or deep and melancholy philosophical rambling, I'll distract myself with some pictures of Kyle Bornheimer. The guy has "guy" written all over him. I have a weakness for real guys.



And apparently his appeal transcends species.


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Risible also, but

not in an amusing way. Cuts way too close to the bone
in our pathetic nowadays world...

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 01, 2008
RE: Gala Christmas Party

I'm happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will take
place on December 23, starting at noon in the private function room
at the Grill House. There will be a cash bar and plenty of drinks!
We'll have a small band playing traditional carols...feel free to
sing along. And don't be surprised if our CEO shows up dressed as
Santa Claus! A Christmas tree will be lighted at 1 PM. Exchanges of
gifts among employees can be done at that time; however, no gift
should be over $10 to make the giving of gifts easy for everyone's
pockets. This gathering is only for employees!

Our CEO will make a special announcement at that time!

Merry Christmas to you and your family,

Patty

======================================================

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 02, 2008
RE: Gala Holiday Party

In no way was yesterday's memo intended to exclude our Jewish
employees. We recognize that Hanukkah is an important holiday, which
often coincides with Christmas, though unfortunately not this year.
However, from now on, we are calling it our "Holiday Party." The same
policy applies to any other employees who are not Christians and to
those still celebrating Reconciliation Day. There will be no
Christmas tree and no Christmas carols will be sung. We will have
other types of music for your enjoyment.

Happy now?

Happy Holidays to you and your family,

Patty

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FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 03, 2008
RE: Holiday Party

Regarding the note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous
requesting a non-drinking table:

You didn't sign your name. I'm happy to accommodate this request, but
if I put a sign on a table that reads, "AA Only"; you wouldn't be
anonymous anymore. How am I supposed to handle this?

Somebody?

And sorry, but forget about the gifts exchange, no gifts are allowed
since the union members feel that $10 is too much money and the
executives believe $10 is a little chintzy.

REMEMBER: NO GIFT EXCHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED.

======================================================
FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
To: All Employees
DATE: October 04, 2008
RE: Generic Holiday Party

What a diverse group we are! I had no idea that December 20 begins
the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking
during daylight hours. There goes the party! Seriously, we can
appreciate how a luncheon at this time of year does not accommodate
our Muslim employees' beliefs. Perhaps the Grill House can hold off
on serving your meal until the end of the party or else package
everything for you to take it home in little foil doggy baggy. Will that work?

Meanwhile, I've arranged for members of Weight Watchers to sit
farthest from the dessert buffet, and pregnant women will get the
table closest to the restrooms.

Gays are allowed to sit with each other. Lesbians do not have to sit
with gay men; each group will have their own table.

Yes, there will be flower arrangement for the gay men's table.

To the person asking permission to cross dress, the Grill House asks
that no cross-dressing be allowed, apparently because of concerns
about confusion in the restrooms. Sorry.

We will have booster seats for short people.

Low-fat food will be available for those on a diet.

I am sorry to report that we cannot control the amount of salt used
in the food. The Grill House suggests that people with high blood
pressure taste a bite first.

There will be fresh "low sugar" fruits as dessert for diabetics, but
the restaurant cannot supply "No Sugar" desserts. Sorry!

Did I miss anything?!?!?

Patty

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FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All F#$&*ng Employees
DATE: October 05, 2008
RE: The F*%#ing Holiday Party

I've had it with you vegetarian pricks!!! We're going to keep this
party at the Grill House whether you like it or not, so you can sit
quietly at the table furthest from the "grill of death," as you so
quaintly put it, and you'll get your f#&*^%g salad bar, including
organic tomatoes. But you know, tomatoes have feelings, too. They
scream when you slice them. I've heard them scream. I'm hearing them
scream right NOW!

The rest of you f#@*&ng weirdos can kiss my *ss. I hope you all have
a rotten holiday!

Drive drunk and die,

The B* from HE*^!!!!!!!!

======================================================
FROM: Joan Bishop, Acting Human Resources Director
DATE: October 06, 2008
RE: Patty Lewis and Holiday Party

I'm sure I speak for all of us in wishing Patty Lewis a speedy
recovery and I'll continue to forward your cards to her.

In the meantime, management has decided to cancel our Holiday Party
and give everyone the afternoon of the 23rd off with full pay.

Happy Holidays!

Joan

Also risible

Risible in a different and enjoyable way. Not personally relevant, of course, but I liked it.

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Risible

I spoke with a Catholic priest last month, a man who came of age when the Vatican Council and Pope John XXIII coincided with the dawn of the Sixties and the Age of Aquarius. Like so many of his generation, he lived by a dream of how his Church could be one day. It has been clear to me for a long time that that dream was an illusion. Amazingly, he was clear that he understood that, too. He can see what has happened to the Episcopal Church. He still thinks it would have been a good idea, but he knows it's gone, and mourns it, honestly.

Unlike, these folks.

Since the attempted ordination of the Danube Seven --God, what a quaint echo of the long-gone Sixties--- a coven of flower-power feminists have decided to become...Roman Catholic Womenpriests. In spite of the clear papal decision by Rome...and it is the Church of Rome, after all, no?...that females cannot be ordained, these girls have taken that tiresome "prophetic resistance" stand and had themselves "ordained". Now they have their own WomenBishops, too.

Risible. Not quite as ridiculous as the "inhibited" --not even excommunicated---Episcopal priestette, a teacher at a Jesuit seminary (!), who announced she was also a practicing Muslim. But, good Lord, ladies, where's your sense of reality?

It is very clear that part and parcel of this little phenomenon is a deeply feminist ideology which does not want to become part of the Church as it is, but to overhaul it into an improved mode where it would be unrecognizable. They accuse the Pope and the Bishops of "imposing their view" on the Church. What the hell else is a Pope or Bishop for but to impose their view on the Church. That's their job.

The likelihood of the Roman Church welcoming this horse full of Trojanessesjand its "new model of priesthood" into its evil patriarchal abusive bosom so it can be mentored and enlightened and raised up to the level of its highly evolved daughters?

Risible.

Womenpriests? They've even made a new word for it. Roman Catholic Womenpriest. It's like Sunni Muslim JewImam.

Risible.

Man of the West

A piece on the man behind the Muhammad Cartoon phenomenon, Danish journalist Flemming Rose. He is not sorry for what he did. On the contrary. We need more like him. And this is for him.

*****

And I repeat my now pointless point about the folly of Europeans (including the Brits) attempting to integrate Muslims...or other groups of non-Westerners...into their countries. Nations are not blank sheets of paper. America especially, but Canada and Australia, too, are nations which include the integration of immigrants into the national myth. Some South American countries seem to include it, too. It is messy and difficult, but it is part of who we are and always have been. (I am certainly not supportive of Muslim immigration to these Anglosphere places, but that is because of the nature of the immigrant communities, not the issue of immigrations itself.)

But how can a Somali Muslim ever think of himself as a Dane? It's as silly as a expecting a Dane becoming Japanese. The only way the host country can integrate these particular newcomers is by...trying to erase itself and recreate an identity wholly disconnected to its real past and history and culture.

It's like having one of my nieces marry a Muslim some day --God forbid-- and then the whole family ceases to celebrate Christmas or Easter in order not to make him feel different. In order to welcome him, we commit cultural suicide. But do you think he will stop marking Ramadan for us? Nature abhors a vacuum and so does history. And Muslims have no self-doubt about which is the perfect and final religion.

Multiculturalism, which sounds on the surface like good manners and hospitality, is actually a device for subverting and replacing the culture of the host. It is the cuckoo of ideology.
As Francis Fukuyama wrote, in a moment of surprising insight, criticizing European and North American societies for ignoring the cultural struggle going on within them, he says, “many celebrate their own pluralism and multiculturalism, arguing in effect that their identity is to have no identity.”









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Incarnation

When I finally found the courage to say out loud to another human being that I was homosexual, I was twenty-six years old.

I grew up in a world where men like me simply did not exist. We were literally unspeakable. My feelings were strong and persistent, but without language or shape. By my later teens, I had begun to piece together what they might mean. And the only images available to me for men whose eros drew them to their own kind were offputting, even horrifying. The Boys in the Band.

When I finally met someone I could reveal this to, someone who promised me that he would not reject me no matter what my secret was, he was a man my own age. He already knew what I was going to tell him. We sat on a park bench in the autumn chill of a Toronto night and out it came, a sobbing torrent, years of shame and terror, and desire.

Within a few months, I had fallen in love with him, and he with me. But I still had not crossed the bridge from imagination to experience. I was frightened by the power of my desire, which now had a and a local possibility and a name. As much as I was hungry for him, my unexpressed passion felt so large to me that I was afraid I would explode and obliterate us both. But he wanted to cross over with me. So, on the afternoon of December 12th, 1974, he and I made love together. And for all its awkwardness and anxiety, that’s what it was: sweet, stunning, life-altering lovemaking.

We celebrated our new connection by heading off to Burger King afterwards. The light was different. Even fast food tasted new. I felt myself belonging to the world as I never had before. In a way, I finally felt human.

We parted after several years, but remained friends. And each year, on this feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (and I hope She will pardon me for intruding on her day), wherever we were, we would contact each other by phone, a note, or email. He is gone now. He died in 2006, suddenly, in the midst of his life work. I miss him. And I honor him for the wonderful gift he gave me.

If my first experience had been furtive or impersonal, who knows how it might have marked me? As it was, the first time I was fully flesh-to-flesh with another man, it was with a man I loved and who loved me. Since that moment, nothing has seemed more natural to me. In those encounters, especially with a man I love, I can feel wholly myself. And that, as the poet said, has made all the difference.

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