The legendary Yogi Berra, R.I.P.

Lawrence  Peter (Yogi) Berra passed away earlier this week, at the age of 90. This remarkable Yankee catcher had an even more remarkable career, participating in World Series as a player, coach and manager. He was an All-Star selection 15 times. He won his league’s Most Valuable Player Award three times. As a manager, led both the Yankees and the Mets into the World Series.

Yogi didn’t look like an athlete; his somewhat squatty and dense, 5’8” frame made him look more like a construction worker than a professional ballplayer. He had that broad face and those protruding ears. (“You’re ugly, Berra,” a rival catcher told him one day. “I don’t hit with my face,” was Yogi’s reply. Along with a double into the gap.) You could see why one day years later Yogi would inspire a cartoon character. Yes, that famous bear.

Yogi Berra was no Joe Dimaggio, some might say.

But while Dimaggio, the graceful Yankee Clipper, is praised for striking out only 369 times in his entire career,  Yogi, also a power-hitter, struck out only 414 times in nearly 1,500 more plate appearances. Percentage-wise, Yogi tops his legendary teammate on that one. “You could,” as their shared skipper used to say, “look it up.”

Yes, Yogi was an athlete. A great athlete. And one of sports (all sports) greatest winners. From 1957 through 1981, the New York Yankees were in the World Series 13 times. Yogi—as a player, a coach, a manager—was on every one of those teams.

He got more famous later for his “Yogi-isms,” those witty, seemingly spontaneous comments he made (or supposedly made) about life. (“When you come to a fork in the road, take it,” is one often quoted.)  Those funny sayings sold books and t-shirts. They shouldn’t make us forget what an amazing athlete Yogi Berra was.

Let’s imagine a Yankee Mt. Rushmore. Who should be up there? Babe Ruth, arguable the greatest baseball player of all-time (and a giant of a character himself), is so far above everyone else that we’ll let him be the foundation that this Rushmore sits on. On the mountain itself has to be Lou Gehrig, Dimaggio, and Mickey Mantle. We will officially add the fourth right now: Yogi Berra.

Yogi’s talents, his child-like enthusiasm while playing a man’s game, his almost Forrest Gump-like prowess for being right in the middle of so many memorable baseball moments (including calling Don Larsen’s perfect game in the Series of ’56), his ability to embody a baseball  era like few others—it all adds up to quite a career, and a life. Oh yeah, he was a 19-year old American soldier who hit Omaha Beach on D-Day. Yes, there is a lot to say, and to remember, and to honor, about Yogi Berra.

My wife and I operate a Bed & Breakfast in a small town in southeastern Minnesota. This morning, eight new guests gathered around the breakfast table. These first moments can be a little tense, awkward even, for people who’ve never met who are about to share a meal together.

These folks, from Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa, smiled politely and seated themselves quietly. One young man was wearing a Kansas City Royals shirt. Mention was made. The conversation would start with baseball.

“Did you hear?” one woman asked the group. “Yogi died this week.” No prompting was needed. They all knew who she meant. Immediately the early table tension melted. There were knowing smiles all around. “He was so funny, the things he said,” said another lady. Soon they brought up shared memories of that stubby little Yankee catcher with a gift for making people smile. These were not sports fans, baseball fans. But somehow they all knew Yogi. They were Yogi Berra fans.

I was trying to think of another American professional athlete in the last 50 years who could do that for people. (Last century even.) An athlete that ordinary people could relate to, and not just admire, but genuinely like. An athlete who seemed authentic and approachable.  It did help that Yogi was a hugely gifted athlete, one of the best of all time at his position.  But that wasn’t the most important thing about him. It  isn’t what people immediately and fondly recall.

How many of those athletes are there? A handful at best. One was certainly Yogi Berra. And now he is gone.

“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” Manager Yogi Berra famously told his Mets players in the summer of 1973, stirring them to an improbable World Series run. With his passing, it is over. And it’s all a little bit sadder.

The Emmys and the President's Official Delegation for the Holy See: Sin (and perversion) being promoted

Antonin Scalia, in his dissent of the sexual perversion movement's landmark case, made importance in his opening paragraph regarding the configuration of the courts being dominated by elite educational institutions in two hard-left corners of the nation, and how these institutions have an absolute monopoly over an entire branch of the government.  As previously noted by Sean Hannity in a February 2014 broadcast, the entertainment, and we now know, advertising, agencies are completely out of touch with the rest of the nation.  What sells in Hollywood, Stonewall or the Castro District (which seems to be the basis for every acclaimed show or ad) does not play in Peoria, let alone your heartland of America.

The Emmy Awards proved Mr. Scalia's point of elites, as the awards have now become a celebration of the elites and their ideals that cannot win in the heartland, but rely on these few areas to force their way through.  The major awards at the ceremony were given exclusively to premium pay television programming, with broadcast network television being shut out of the show.  The winning premium pay programming (HBO, Showtime, Netflix, Amazon Prime) is complete with themes that pander only to Hollywood values in an attempt to mandate social change that mocks, rejects, and now criminalises, the Bible, while appeasing all forms of sexual perversion as part of the Erotic Liberty push, in effect declaring, as has been wanted by Obama Administration official Chai Feldblum, sexual freedom is the only freedom, triumphing over all other beliefs, even if over 75% oppose.  Acceptance speeches of these winners, whose shows cater to these elites but not watched by the people because of the elite status of premium pay television, were transformed into political rallies of this tiny corner to advance the next cause of these leftists, whether it was to advance socialism, increased government intrusion, sexual perversion propaganda, or attacking those with a Biblical worldview.  Consider the pushing of one such sexual perversion by an award winning series available on premium pay, and how the speech by the show's developers was based around pushing special rights for boorish behaviour.

In the movie industry, film studios cut scenes from movies to avoid an adults-only movie rating, which depending on industry or national authority, will be declared X, NC-17, 18+, or similar rating, since an adults-only rating will be rejected by the theatres, as such movies would force an entire theatre multiplex to be adults only for the day, similar to the Kyle Busch Rule with regards to tobacco.  But on television, the same adults-only rating, known as TV-MA, is now regarded as superior writing and acting, and wins the major awards, despite only appearing on premium pay television.  Why is there such a double standard?

(NOTE:  Kyle Busch was 16 when CART ejected him during the 2001 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Auto Club Speedway since the American Racing Wheels 200 Truck race was part of the CART FedEx Championship Series Marlboro 500 presented by Toyota weekend, and the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement specifically prohibits participation of persons under age 18 years if any event on the schedule carries tobacco sponsorship.  Four CART Champ Car teams were sponsored by tobacco firms that signed the agreement – Phillip Morris (now Altria) and British American Tobacco, meaning Busch could not participate in the event, even though NASCAR sanctioned that race only, CART enforced the federal tobacco regulations.)

The President's official delegation for the Holy See's visit to the nation once again shows how the elites see faith.  It is another list full of sexual perversion, a quasi-victory lap of the Hollywood and academia elites over the entire nation that has voted over 4:1 in many states against the perversion agenda.  Once again, as he has mentioned about the decline of nations thanks to sexual perversion, Владимир Путин is correct.  This Administration is pushing the wants of a few elites in Hollywood as seen in the Emmys, much to the opposition of the entire country, with this list for the Holy See's visit.

Is there any more wicked standard for this President other than the sexual perversion crowd?

Retro TV Friday: The Muppets

S'm not sure if Mitchell will be covering this at the TV blog, but in case he doesn't, take a look at the following:

What were previously sly winks to a grownup audience are now grotesque full-body grimaces, delivered with depressing sledgehammer brutality. In one scene, Animal laments his consequence-free promiscuity. In another, Zoot from The Electric Mayhem is outed as an alcoholic. And then, most heartbreakingly of all, there’s Kermit.

This version of Kermit is absolutely unrecognisable from anything that’s ever come before. This Kermit badmouths fellow celebrities, openly discusses his sex life and, at one point, describes his life as “a living hell”. That’s not who Kermit is. Kermit is the perennial wide-eyed optimist, the figure who grounds the chaos around him in sincerity. Kermit is the dreamer who believes in the power of people. He’s the one who sings The Rainbow Connection. He is most definitely not the stress-eating, coffee-drinking executive that The Muppets paints him as. It physically hurts to see what ABC have done to him.

Rod Dreher points out that all this comes back to Disney, which doesn't surprise me in the least, considering the liberal political attitude of the company and how some of their ABC Family programs include homosexual relationships.  California is due for a major earthquake soon; my question is whether it will be caused by Jim Henson spinning in his grave, or Walt Disney spinning in his.

Throwback Thursday: Talk about bad fortune. . .

KING OF PRUSSIA, PA -- Local resident Harold Ludman says he can’t understand why he was recently fired from his job writing fortunes for the homemade fortune cookies served at Leonard Wang’s Chow Palace.

“My fortunes speak to the human condition,” Jones said, holding a sheet of paper with his most recent saying, "When misery knocks at the door, you don’t ask if it’s made a reservation." I know it’s not cheery, but it’s real life. People need to face up to that once in awhile.”

Other fortunes which Jones said he was proud of included “If at first you don’t succeed, try again, but know that the possibility is great that you might fail again,” and “Every glorious sunset means you’re one day closer to the cold eternal darkness of the grave.”

Jones said he had always hoped to find a profitable use for his Master’s degree in the works of French existentialists such as Camus and Sarte, and considered writing fortune-cookie fortunes to be the ideal job.

Wang, however, begged to differ.

“People look for escapism when they crack open a fortune cookie,” he said. “They want to read things like, ‘You will meet a tall, dark stranger,’ not the depressing crap he was coming up with. I was afraid I was going to have to start offering Prozac instead of after-dinner mints.”

Ludman, who himself had recently undergone electro-convulsive therapy at nearby Pleasant Valley Mental Health Clinic and Sanitarium, was disappointed with Wang’s decision, but sought to put a positive spin on the dismissal. “I was thinking about getting out of the fortune-cookie business anyway,” he said. “To be honest, there isn’t a lot of growth potential in it. I didn’t want to be caught in the bathroom when the last lifeboat leaves the Titanic, if you know what I mean. Hell, I’m not sure I know what that means.”

As for his future plans, Ludman said, “I’ve already sent my resume to Hallmark. There’s always a market for a good greeting card.”

What is it with the Pope, anyhow?

The Pope is in town, in case you haven't heard. Not in Dallas, where I am, but out father East.  There will be a fair amount of fuss being made, much of it over how Good Pope Francis is ushering in the new progressive nirvana, and probably even more about how the evil conservative Catholics, not to mention the evil Republicans, are busy slamming him.

Of course, that's the typical MSM slant.  It is true that many Republicans disagree with the Pope on matters environmental and economic, and it's also true that a lot of conservative - more likely traditionalist - Catholics have been having kittens over his papacy.  If you're a regular reader, you know I haven't been too happy about this papacy either, having gone so far as to suggest that if I were considering converting today (instead of twenty years ago when I did convert) I probably wouldn't do it because I would be looking at a Church that might have truth on its side, but didn't appear to stand for anything.

Now, it's very easy to find political commentary picking a bone with the Pope.  For instance, George Will had this to say:

Pope Francis embodies sanctity but comes trailing clouds of sanctimony. With a convert’s indiscriminate zeal, he embraces ideas impeccably fashionable, demonstrably false and deeply reactionary. They would devastate the poor on whose behalf he purports to speak — if his policy prescriptions were not as implausible as his social diagnoses are shrill.

Meanwhile, at the Weekly Standard, Jonathan Last asks if we should see the Pope as "Menace or Farce" (h/t Fr. Z)

For instance, the Holy Father seems to have a habit of appearing to endorse all sorts of left-wing political causes. There was the time he posed with environmental activists holding an anti-fracking T-shirt. And the time he posed for pictures holding a crucifix made from a hammer and a sickle. And the time he held up a poster calling for the British to hand the Falkland Islands back to Argentina. In each instance, the official Vatican response has been to suggest that Francis didn’t mean to endorse anything because he’ll pretty much smile and pick up anything you hand him, like some sort of consecrated Ron Burgundy.

Now, it is true that there's a ideological dimension to this; there's no question that the Pope is interjecting himself into a political discussion, not merely pointing out the existence of a problem, but offering explicitly political solutions, rather than charging the various legislatures with finding a solution.

There is, however, a spiritual aspect to this as well, and one can make a compelling case that in this religious, as opposed to political, dimension, the Pope continues to fall short.  The website The Federalist had a very good piece on this Monday, with Joy Pullmann writing, among other things, this:

I’m not sure who Pope Francis’s religious advisors are, but it seems they’ve forgotten the Gospel isn’t directly aimed at helping the poor or averting supposed environmental disasters. The Gospel is centrally about saving our eternal souls, about addressing spiritual—not material—poverty. Yes, the material world is broken because of sin, and it will be restored after the Last Day, but that’s an effect, and not the focus of scripture. What’s primary is our souls, not our pocketbooks.

She goes on to write:

In the course of loving our neighbors, as the Bible commands, of course we should seek to meet their physical needs, both through and beyond seeking to meet their spiritual needs. Acknowledging the truth that the world will always contain hungry people is not an excuse for not feeding the people in your life whom you have a duty to feed.

Maybe Pope Francis should welcome the environmental apocalypse he thinks is coming.
But the human condition of sin has ensured that everyone cannot be rich, healthy, and a lover of God. It’s sad, but true. We will never achieve utopia in this world. That’s kind of the central story arc of the Bible: How humans screwed themselves and the whole world up, and how Jesus has and will ultimately put things to right. Getting all the way to a perfect eternity, however, requires first an apocalypse.

So maybe Pope Francis should welcome the environmental apocalypse he thinks is coming. That’s partly a joke and partly serious, because every time I see another Planned Parenthood butchering video I am ready for Jesus to take me and my kiddos right up to Paradise and end this sick, mad world. But at the very least, Francis could do a better job communicating what my Catholic friends keep insisting to me he really does mean.

I get weary reading all this; it grieves me to see the Church that means so much to me disintegrating like this.  I'll say it again: Pope Francis could not be doing a better job driving the Church apart if he'd been sent by the Soviet Union (or Satan, take your pick) to ruin everything accomplished by the last two popes.  And I get just as weary being reminded by henny-penny hand-wringers that you're not allowed to criticize the Pope.  As a matter of fact, that really ticks me off.

Look; one should always be careful talking about the Pope.  The papacy is a divinely-ordained institution, and that's all there is to it.  Not only do I accept that, I wholeheartedly embraced it at the time of my conversion.  I believe it today.  But it also has to be said that the College of Cardinals don't always choose the right man for the office; anyone who thinks that the Holy Spirit divinely chooses the pope not only denies the existence of man's free will, he overlooks such occupants of Peter's Chair as the Borgia Popes.  In other words, one must respect the office, but there is no reason not to look at the specific occupant with a cocked eye.

Let's take this a step further, though.  Not only the papacy, but the basic clerical structure of the Church - bishops, priests and deacons - exists in the Bible.  What goes for the pope goes for them as well; respect the office, if not the occupant.

However, when it gets to the Curia, the governing organization of the Church - well, that's a man-made institution.  No only is there nothing divine about it, even the popes themselves have had to keep a very close eye on it from time to time for their own benefit, not to mention well-being.  The Curia, and the upcoming Synod of Bishops, is fair game as far as I'm concerned - again, as long as you remain somewhat respectful in your words.  Just as I get turned off by old ladies taking me to task for criticizing the pope, I also get torqued by people who behave like rabid Pavlovian dogs whenever Francis' name is mentioned.

Therefore:  I have great concerns that Pope Francis is doing dramatic damage to the Church.  He disrespects those who have fought long and hard to defend tradition; his recent decision on annulments is nothing short of indefensible; his off-the-cuff statements are tiring at best and alarming at worst.  We like to talk about the "brand" today, and Francis has weakened the Catholic "brand" to an almost crippling degree.  Those who are the most impressed are those least likely to come back to the Church, or to defend the Church's traditional teachings.  Those most disregarded, most dismissed by him, are the ones who have fought the hardest and believe most fervently in Christ's teachings.  I don't know about you, but buddying up to your enemies and dissing your friends is not my idea of a successful business plan.

Francis' papacy has been a disaster, and if the upcoming Synod weakens the family further, as many expect it to, going back on two millennia of Church teaching (as well as Christ's words), then we see a real possibility of schism, and if that happens then we're really going to have some questions to ask.  All we know is that at the Last Judgment, we'll all be called to account for my actions.  I will not fare well when that happens, but at least I'd like to think I've tried to defend the Church, in my words if not always my actions.  However, the man who calls himself a "loyal son of the Chuirch" will have to do the same, and all in all I think I'd rather be in my shoes than his.

There's bound to be more to come on this, both from the Pope's trip and from me.

Just how old is your granddaddy, anyway?

All together now, for the thousandth time: Words Mean Things.  Case in  point is this article, posted on si.com yesterday.  In fairness to its author, Ryan McGee, writers don't generally do their own headlines, so he can't be to blame for the following:

We've all heard that old saying - "this ain't your father's..." or "this ain't your grandfather's..." and we know what it's supposed to mean - this isn't the way it was back in the old days. The point of this article is to suggest that the times are a changin', that things aren't the way they used to be.  Well, seeing this headline, I knew right away there was something wrong; I just had to do the math to make sure.

Now, let's say you're 25 years old, a good age to be a football fan.  Le'ts further say your father was 25 when you were born, and his father was 25 when he was born.  That would make your grandfather 75.  Assuming he was a football fan when he was 25, that would make it 1965, 50 years ago.  So, just for the hell of it, let's take a look at college football's top ten for the end of the 1965 football season:

Well, Michigan State certainly was in the top 5.  And in case you're thinking I'm nitpicking about this, let's go a little deeper: Michigan State was #2 the following year, 1966 (the year they lost the title by tying Notre Dame in the Game of the Century).  Just a fluke, you're thinking?  Very well; let's suppose your grandfather's top 5 started in 1960, when he was 20.  Sorry - Michigan State was ranked that year as well.  In fact, they were ranked #11, in 1960, #9 in 1961, #10 in 1963, and #20 in 1964.  In other words, although they were in the top 5 only twice (1965, 1966), they were ranked in the top 20 six times in the seven years that your grandfather might have been looking at.  And in case you think granddad's top 5 might have come when he was older, say in his mid-30s, that doesn't really hold up either: the Spartans were ranked #9 in 1950, #2 in 1951, #1 in 1952, #3 in 1953, #2 in 1955, #10 in 1956, #3 in 1957 and #16 in 1959.

In other words, Michigan State was pretty much a college football power throughout the '50s and into the mid-'60s; it wasn't until Southern schools started integrating, destroying the pipline that Northern schools such as State had built up in the South, that Michigan State dropped from the power rankings. Let's call that the '70s and '80s, which wouldn't be your grandfather's time as much as it was your father's.

Do you think I'm nitpicking too much?  All right, let's look at Mississippi then.  You'll note that in that 1965 poll, Mississippi ranked #17, the eighth year in the decade of the '60s in which Mississippi was ranked in the top 20.  Matter of fact, Ole Miss was pretty good in the early part of the decade, when your hypothetical granddaddy was in his early 20s, finishing #3 in 1960, #5 in 1961, #4 in 1962 and #7 in 1963.  Playing the devil's advocate and going back to the 1950s (as we did with Michigan State), we see that Mississippi was #7 in 1952, #6 in 1954, #9 in 1955, #8 in 1957, #12 in 1958 and #2 in 1959.  As was the case with Michigan State (though for different reasons), Mississippi's decline came much later on, in the '70s, '80s and '90s.

Which brings me back to the beginning question: just how the hell old is grandfather supposed to be?  I know there's always a tendency to look back in the past and think it's father back than it actually is; 50 years sounds like a long time ago, but it was actually 1965.  Taken in the most generous sense, a grandfather usually isn't going to be much younger than 40 when the first grandchild is born, and unless you're about seven years old (and if you are, you shouldn't be reading SI.com, especially when the swimsuit issue is out), you're going to have a hard time proving your grandfather didn't know a time when Michigan State and Ole Miss were in the top 5.

You could have avoided so much of this confusion simply by saying that this year's rankings "aren't your father's top 5."  Is this a case when the headline writer gets so caught up in the story (one-legendary programs making a big comeback, which itself is problematic considering Michigan State finished last year ranked #5 and the year before #3, meaning they aren't all that unfamiliar with the top 5 lately) that they write the headline to fit a preconceived notion?  Is it that the headline writer doesn't know much about football history or is so young that they can't remember the last time these teams were ranked so high?  Or is it that the writer was too lazy to spend five minutes Googling College Football Polls (as I did) to write an accurate headline?

Take your pick, but I wish these headline writers would do their homework.  I'm old enough to remember when Michigan State and Mississippi were highly-ranked programs, and I don't have any grandchildren (yet).  Please, I don't need to feel any older than I already do.

Jon Vickers, R.I.P.

JON VICKERS IN ONE OF HIS MANY FAMOUS ROLES, THAT OF VERDI'S "OTELLO"

A couple of years ago, I quoted the great Jon Vickers speaking about mediocrity:

People will laugh when I say it, but I feel there has been for some years now a ground-swell of demand for mediocrity. They don't want excellence. We don't have positive heroes anymore; they're negative heroes. What do we attack? We've attacked all the great pillars of civilization. We take great heroes of history and so far as we are capable we snoop around in the excretia of some of these heroes until we find a flaw. So because a hero is not perfection, which if he was he would be God himself, then he's nothing more than anybody on the street. 

It's a great quote, relevant to almost every time and place, and reading it this week put me in mind to recall Vickers, one of my favorite opera tenors.  He died back this summer, and although I was quite aware of it at the time, I just didn't have the opportunity to write about it.  However, Opera News had its obituary on him this week, which not only reminded me to write about him, but to ask you to take a moment to go back to an extremely insightful interview with him conducted by Bruce Duffie in 1981.  If you have a few minutes please check it out, for it shows not only why Vickers was so good at his craft, but why the Opera News obituary made a point of discussing how he gave a moral dimension to his work, in a way quite unlike most singers.  A couple of quotes to give you a sense of this.

On the difference between musical comedy and opera:

Unless the human element is constantly portrayed, then opera becomes something that I don't like to think that it is, and that is mere entertainment. I can't stand opera as entertainment. If opera degenerates into entertainment, I would far sooner go and watch a good production of My Fair Lady or Brigadoon because I think it's much better entertainment than opera is. . . . For instance, Lenny Bernstein has wrestled with that all his life. He has striven very hard to believe that a really true American opera would develop out of the Broadway musical, and of course it hasn't. I think that Brigadoon has come closer to opera than any musical I've ever seen, but in my belief it will never happen. I think that entertainment, for the most part, deals with the superficialities of life, and works usually become extremely dated because they relate to a certain society and a certain framework that has developed in a certain society.

On where Richard Wagner fits into the equation:

JV: But I think that all great art deals with fundamentals, and this will surprise you: I'm not sure that Wagner falls in that category. Great art wrestles with the timeless, it wrestles with the universal, and at every point deals with the ever-present argument of what constitutes the fundamental moral law.

BD: Spirituality enters into this also?

JV: No question of it. For that reason, I put a question mark of the validity of Richard Wagner as a great artist. A great genius, yes, but a great artist? I'm not sure.

And later:

JV: There is a dis-inclination to demand of our artists truth.

BD: Are we lazy?

JV: No, I think it is a very long-developing process. I think it's developed possibly over the last 20 years. People will laugh when I say it, but I feel there has been for some years now a ground-swell of demand for mediocrity. They don't want excellence. We don't have positive heroes anymore; they're negative heroes. What do we attack? We've attacked all the great pillars of civilization. We take great heroes of history and so far as we are capable we snoop around in the excretia of some of these heroes until we find a flaw. So because a hero is not perfection, which if he was he would be God himself, then he's nothing more than anybody on the street.

BD: We're wiping out all of the positive?

JV: Of course. And Wagner is very guilty.

BD: Let's probe Wagner's guilt.

JV: (laughing) Well, I mean it's very simple. Wagner was so very much under the influence of Nietzsche and his philosophies, and to a certain extent by Schopenhauer. He was an anarchist. There's very great evidence to support the fact that the character of Siegfried was supposed to represent the great anarchist Bakunin. Wagner wanted to totally revolutionize society. He wanted to attack the whole fundamental basis upon which the structure and the law of music itself was based. He says so in his writings. He stated that it was his determination to reveal the destructive force of Christianity, that Christianity itself had done this enormous destructive thing to mankind in that it divided man against himself. I think that was ignorance on the part of Wagner. I think the division of man against man is a problem that has been wrestled with since the earliest of all writings in the history of mankind. It wasn't new in the Christian era.

BD: Is it ignorance on the part of Wagner, or just short-sightedness?

JV: Perhaps that, but nevertheless, he devoted this gigantic genius to that destructive force. What did he wrestle with? In all of his operas, he wrestled with the problem of being a bastard; he wrestled with the problem of incest; he wrestled with the problem of adultery and fornication; all of the negative aspects of our society. None of which would disturb me in the least - I think it was right, these things should be brought out into the open and discussed. But to come to the conclusions that he came to is demonic and diabolical.

BD: How do you interpret the very end of the Ring?

JV: It has to be the natural conclusion of such a philosophy, doesn't it?

BD: Is there any cleansing at all?

JV: I don't think so. Do you think that the experience of Germany which took that Wagnerian philosophy and applied it to a nation, to the greatest extent that it was possible for one nation under one man to do, had a cleansing effect on the world? Do you think mankind has learned one thing from it? Do you think in history as of this moment that mankind has progressed one iota from that? I don't.

This is wonderfully provocative.  Of course, to an extent this is at odds with Fr. Owen Lee's Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art, in which he is able to separate the man and his work.  I think Lee sees great spirituality in some of Wagner's work, especially Parsifal and Meistersinger.  That's the way I see Wagner as well; I find Parsifal in particular to be quite spiritually moving, and when you consider how Nietzsche abhorred it, you can understand both sides of the argument.  And yet I see Vickers' argument quite powerful as well, and I think it corresponds with the way I feel about other of Wagner's work, even ones with the sublime music.  Because there has to be more to music than feelings, is the way I read Vickers.

In fact, Vickers puts his finger on what's wrong with so much of our culture today; we don't think, we feel.  Certainly great music must make one feel, but there has to be the humanity, the intellectual component as well, or else it is just entertainment.  Bread and circuses, as the Romans might put it.

So I take a moment to thank Jon Vickers not only for his art, but for his humanity, and his intellect as well.  If you get a chance, do read that interview - you'll be enlightened by it.

Flashback Friday: An Evocation for The Day

We Remember . . . Evocation: In Memoriam (9/11/2001)


Originally published September 11, 2012

Coo Coo Never Forgets

MARK BAVIS ARENA IN ROCKLAND, MASSACHUSETTS - NAMED FOR A VICTIM OF 9/11

The (Charleston) South Carolina Stingrays (Washington Capitals AA affiliate) president Rob (Coo Coo) Concannon doesn't forget the stories about his former teammate during his hockey playing days.

The wild "beer league" era of the ECHL is long gone, replaced by developing players, which the Washington Capitals have easily taken advantage in Charleston, even bringing their radio broadcaster to Charleston during the ECHL championship series.  Ironically, that Stingrays radio broadcaster working with the Capitals group has found himself in the Los Angeles Kings' system, in their AHL affiliate, which was the organisation that Mark Bavis was a scout when he boarded United 175, which we saw at 0903 that terrifying morning.

Tomorrow, we remember that teammate, and 2,995 others who perished at the hands of Usama's Henchmen.  And why, oh why, have we allowed New York, California, Illinois, and an entire bracket section of the nation to appease to the terrorists in Iran?

NBC Goes Retro for the Rebel: Even the Peacock Logo Joins the Fray

Postponed from an earlier date because of the ABC Supply 500 tragedy. Writer's note -- this was the article that I have considered would make for some work to include the Peacock logo history, as NBC is using the older logos for the Rebel 500. Maybe the Peacock logo history fits for a further article.

So the MDA has ended their once-21 hour telethon after cutting it to just a few hours on network television.  So it's time to find something new for Labor Day on television, and NBC is doing so with the Rebel 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Darlington Raceway in the Florence, South Carolina region. (Please read here and here in order to understand the history of Darlington's spring race that has been moved to this date for 2015, and why it is referred as the Rebel 500.)

For the Rebel 500 September 6, the first time Darlington Raceway will run on the Sunday before the first Monday in September since 2003, the circuit and teams are promoting various retro-themed promotions.  Various sponsors are using schemes with corporate images from the past, as many sponsors are using logos of the past, and some teams are basing liveries on famous liveries of the past, while Ingersoll-Rand, Competition Cams, Moog Chassis Parts, 3M, among other NASCAR contingency sponsors, are using their past logos for stickers.  Even NASCAR and NBC have joined in the theme, with retro logos being used by both for the event.  But as this blog discusses the moving picture arts of the past frequently, NBC's logo has joined the fray.

The Peacock logo used in this ad is authentic 1960's, but too, the NBC promos for the race include "when Carson was king".  Some are even wanting NBC to use classic logo mic flags for the broadcast to fit with the entire retro theme of the race, the first time the Florentine circuit has organised a race on this date since 2003, when the fall race (now at Fort Worth, Texas, because of Ferko) was run there.  (In 2004, the circuit moved the fall race to November, but lost it after a lawsuit.)  Even some on Twitter are playing fun, asking of Messrs. Scheweiger, Burton, or Letarte will wear 1970's themed clothing to join the entire party.


And this wasn't their first 1970's themed video for the 2015 season.  Earlier in the year, this promo was cut by drivers, featuring another 1970's theme.  Can you identify the 1970's theme in this video?


Welcome Back to the Bygone Era!

Wish I'd written that

When I dislike someone for no reason, I always find it more enjoyable."

Fred Astaire, as spoken in Swing Time

Wish I'd written that

Question: What is TV's greatest need?

Answer: A sense that getting people to buy things they do not need is morally indefensible. One does not ask for Utopia, only a slightly less frantic exploitation of the innocent.

Gore Vidal, as quoted in TV Guide, May 9-15, 1964

Throwback Thursday: The Platinum Rule

Ever heard of The Platinum Rule?

"Treat others the way they want to be treated."

Hmm, you're thinking. It sounds kind of familiar, but there's something just a little off, isn't there?

The Platinum Rule is one of those behavioral style assessments that Human Resources departments are so wild about nowadays. And it perfectly illustrates the point I've made time and time again about the insidious nature of Corporate America, about the growing influence of New Age philosophy in HR departments, and why we ought to be concerned about these trends.

The Platimum Rule is the brainstorm of one Dr. Tony Alessandra, who describes it as follows:

We have all heard of the Golden Rule - and many people aspire to live by it. The Golden Rule is not a panacea. Think about it: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule implies the basic assumption that other people would like to be treated the way that you would like to be treated.

Ah yes, after two thousand years or so, we discover that the Golden Rule (which comes from the Beatitudes, Luke 6:31) just isn't good enough anymore. Alessandra goes on to say "The Platinum Rule accommodates the feelings of others. The focus of relationships shifts from 'this is what I want, so I'll give everyone the same thing' to 'let me first understand what they want and then I'll give it to them.' "

OK, so The Platinum Rule is not some new type of credit card. It's a new way of thinking about life. "Treat others the way they want to be treated." This would be laughable if one treated this with the seriousness which it deserved (or rather, the way in which it wants to be treated). Just think about it for a moment. If I'm a criminal, woudn't I want people to treat me with leniency when I'm captured? Therefore, shouldn't you give me a free pass out of jail?

And that's only the beginning. Suppose you walked into your bosses office this morning and told him, "Boss, I want to be treated like the CEO of the company. From now on, I think you should do what I tell you to do. Now that you understand what I want, don't you think you should give it to me?" He'll give it to you, all right, and pretty soon his HR department's going to be using The Platinum Rule to assess the person taking over your job.

At the very least, Alessandra shows that he really doesn't understand the depth of the Golden Rule, at the layers which go into its true meaning - Tobit 4:15, "What you hate, do not do to anyone," for example. I'd suspect that Christ (who fulfilled the Old Testament, after all) might possibly have been familiar with this passage. If you read this into the Golden Rule, as most sensible people do, then most of Alessandra's arguments fall apart. And as for treating people the way they want to be treated, as St. Augustine pointed out, we must "do many things against the will" of certain people, because they need to be "punished with a certain kind of harshness." (For that passage, thanks to Robert Louis Wilken's review in the November First Things of Robert Dodaro's Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine.)

If people really did laugh this ridiculous theory into oblivion, then we wouldn't have much trouble. Alessandra would be a stand-up comedian, since he succeeded so spectacularly at making people laugh at him, and we'd be on our merry way.

But that isn't the case. This guy writes books, has a speaker's bureau, and influences HR departments and corporate executives. A quick Google of "The Platinum Rule" shows it appearing at sites of groups such as the "School for Champions" that provide keys on how you can "increase your performance" in both your business and your personal life. The subtitle of Alessandra's book is "Discover the Four Basic Business Personalities -- and How They Can Lead You to Success." (In fact, its classification is under "Business & Money") It boasts that you too can:

• Predict the behavior of others and adapt your own for the best possible outcome
• Identify the many "mixtures" -- people whose styles embrace more than one type
• Get people together who enhance each other's potential -- for dynamic work groups, a better balanced staff, better company-client relations, and more "sell by style" -- using five essential Platinum Rule steps
• Defuse conflict and dissatisfaction -- and boost energy, productivity, and profits.

In other words, everything that the modern HR department looks to maximize. Ah, they must love this stuff.

I think my favorite sentence of all, the one that really crystalizes what this is all about, is the one that The Platinum Rule "accommodates the feelings of others." And of course there's the key. In this day and age where we can't offend anyone, where we have to be sensitive to the point of banality, when we serve our love with soft edges so as to not hurt anyone's feelings, it's natural that something like this would catch on. And it's particularly appropriate that HR departments would adopt it for their "diversity" training programs.

We all know that the principal of diversity, as preached by HR, is that everything is equal, that all philosophies, all cultures, all ethical standards, are equally valid. (Look no further than the "Diversity Luncheon" that we encounter every December as proof of this.) Benedict XVI, as Joseph Ratzinger, spoke of the dictatorship of relativism, and the ideas contained in The Platinum Rule are prime examples of this school of thought.

This kind of thing really is dangerous. As Fr. Mitch Pacwa has pointed out, new-age personality tests such as the enneagram are directly contrary to Catholic teaching. And I'm always suspicious of anyone who tries to improve on Jesus' teachings - "well, that Jesus guy, he had some good things to say, but his statements aren't a panacea, you know."

We shouldn't be surprised that this kind of thinking would be popular in Corporate America, where over the last hundred years or so we've seen religion go from being recognized (Christmas Day as a vacation) to tolerated (well, you can have Good Friday off, but you have to take a vacation day) to shunned (no Christmas decorations in the workplace) to scorned (schoolteachers who can't wear green or red during December) to out-and-out hated (employees fired for failing to toe the corporate line on celebrating homosexual "diversity"). (Of course it's no wonder that HR departments are apprehensive toward religion; after all, in God they see a rival to the control they presume to have over the employee's life.) Perhaps Augustine has the answer for why so many people in the workplace seem unhappy, for in looking at the Psalm verse, "Happy the people whose God is the Lord," he concludes, "It follows that a people alienated from that God must be wretched."

It's hard to know how much of a point to put on this; you'd like to think that people can see through this kind of rubbish, but Corporate America has a way of jumping onboard the latest trends, and The Platinum Rule is certainly sexy enough to cause executives to salivate. It reeks of political correctness, which makes it a prize of any HR department - well, not any, because I actually know one or two that take their jobs quite seriously. And it provides another way of assessing personality types that dehumanizes the individual.

But in the end, I get uncomfortable with someone who tries to trump Christ. It's really kind of a zero-sum game, like trying to outdo your Boss. One can imagine Jesus slapping His head, thinking to Himself, "The Platinum Rule! Why didn't I think of that?" And Alessandra, like all ambitious people, should fear the consequences of this game of oneupsmanship. Because when this Boss calls you to His office, it's a one-way trip. And being dismissed from His presence is eternal.


Originally published October 21, 2005

Opera Wednesday: Revisiting the Ghosts

Pierre Beaumarchais is one of the more interesting characters in classical music, or politics, or any other subject you might want to discuss.  From the always-reliable Wikipedia:  Beaumarchais "was a French playwright, watchmaker, inventor, musician, diplomat, fugitive, spy, publisher, horticulturalist, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and revolutionary (both French and American)."  He wrote a couple of plays that were later adapted into operas, which you might have heard of:  Le Barbier de Séville, which became Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Le Mariage de Figaro,  which Mozart made into The Marriage of Figaro.  

One of the more creative operas of recent years is John Corigliano's seldom-performed The Ghosts of Versailles, which is based on characters from the two operas, as well as Beaumarchais himself, who Corigliano and librettist William M. Hoffman inserted as a character in the story.  Here is a clip from the 1994 world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera, conducted by James Levine and featuring an all-star cast including Renée Fleming as Rosina, Stella Zambalis as Cherubino, Teresa Stratas as Marie Antoinette, and Häkan Hagegärd as Beaumarchais This is "Come Now, My Darling."

We've lost another gentle giant

I was intending to comment on a fun 1970's themed promotion that fits within our television blog that NBC has been airing for an event next week, but sadly, I have to postpone that commentary.  As I write this at 2120 hours Eastern time on a Monday night, a message has been sent by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with a press conference by Mark Miles of INDYCAR.  The news conference was requested by Julianna Wilson and her family to be held in Indianapolis, and it was the worst news that could happen following Sunday's ABC Supply 500 at the Igdalsky family's Pocono Raceway.

Mr. Miles announced just after 2100 hours EDT tonight INDYCAR driver Justin Wilson died of his head injuries after his helmet was struck by an errant nose cone from Sage Karam's car that had impacted the Turn 1 wall at Pocono Raceway on Lap 180.

The freak incident that has many, including NBC's Townsend Bell, asking is it time for canopy cockpits, similar to an Unlimited Hydroplane or a Top Fuel racer.   James Hinchliffe was knocked out for a time after the 2014 Indianapolis road course race, and as we know, Felipe Massa had an injury when a spring on another race car penetrated into his visor during the Magyar Nagydij in 2008.    With the tragic circumstances at Pocono, the questions regarding canopies in single-seaters will come up again.  John Surtees (F1 world champion 50 years ago) lost his son Henry to a crash a few years ago when an object struck his helmet in an FIA F2 race.

Mike Joy:  "Incredibly sad . . . within a fortnight racing loses both of our 'gentle giants.'"

A. J. Allmendinger:  "My friend, brother, teammate, and especially to one of the most amazing people I have had the pleasure to be around."  (Allmendinger has posted a Wilson photo on his Twitter profile.)

Sage Karam (whose crash led to the debris that led to the fatal crash):  "I can't find the proper words to describe the pain and sympathy I feel for Justin and his family."

The humility in the paddock tonight is poignant in light of the news.  To the Wilson family:

Réquiem ætérnam dona eis Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Requiéscant in pace. Amen.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

Yvonne Craig, R.I.P.

When I heard the news of Yvonne Craig's death at the too-young age of 78 (and no classic television blog worth its weight could ignore it), I knew there was only one picture I could use for this story. In that one picture, we see Yvonne Craig's two great callings: dance, and Batgirl.

She was a trained dancer the day a chance encounter with a producer made an actress out of her; according to her story, a producer was trying to talk her into acting, an offer which she was refusing, when the son of the great director John Ford, walking past their table, stopped and asked "Are you an actress?" Before Craig could answer, the producer replied, "She is and I'm her manager. What can I do for you?" The rest, as they say, is history. That encounter led her to the movie The Young Land with Patrick Wayne (son of the Duke), and from then on Yvonne Craig, dancer became Yvonne Craig, actress.

Her movie career was nothing too sneeze at - two pictures with Elvis, and a role in Our Man Flint (naturally) among them - and her television roles were numerous and winsome, as in an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. I saw a few months ago. She was cute, vivacious, and she had presence. There were other attributes as well, but this is a family site. And then she wound up on the hottest program on television, Batman. Make no mistake about it, it was a role that was perfect for her.

Was Batgirl a superhero? I'm sure that there's fierce debate about this on the web and at comic-cons; my own opinion is that the very word "superhero" denotes some kind of super power (the ability to fly, to spin spiderwebs, x-ray vision, that kind of thing). According to those standards, none of the crimefighters on Batman were superheros in the strict sense. And Craig wasn't the first ass-kicking female; Honor Blackman's leather-clad Cathy Gale on The Avengers preceded her. But she was something quite different for American television when she joined the show in its third season. As that picture shows, it was an unfortunate criminal who got in the way of that foot.

There's also something so fitting about her character's name - Batgirl - because Yvonne Craig was a girl, in the very best sense of the word.  She radiated youthful energy and a natural charm that jumped off the screen, big or small, no matter what role she was in.  Her characters were always active, always up for adventure, the kind of people you want to hang around with, even if you're in a speeding car with her, watching the world pass by through parted fingers while you cover your eyes..  William Shatner today called her one of "America's Sweethearts"; Lou Grant might have said she had "spunk."  Whatever it was, she had it, and the costars who expressed sadness at her death seemed to be speaking from the heart.

Usually the public only knows celebrities from their, well, public work; Yvonne Craig had battled cancer for a couple of years and was a crusader for free mammograms.  From all accounts, she was a popular costar and a nice person..  Most people would never know that.  Instead, they would know her fondly from her work and her public appearances, and while friends and loved ones will mourn her passing, her fans will have the consolation of her work, which is not a bad way at all to be remembered.


Originally published at It's About TV!

This Isn't Salem Media's First Time in Controversy!

Erick Erickson's dismissal of Messrs. Trump and Carson from the RedState event in Georgia sent an alarm upon past incidents with Salem Media Group, the parent of RedState, which owns numerous conservative sites (Townhall, RedState, Hotair) and religious media sites (The Fish, Solid Gospel, CCMMAGAZINE, and Singing News, all of which promote pop music in the church, which as I've seen isn't always doctrinally sound), with the California company (NASDAQ : SALM) also partnering with CNN in the upcoming second Republican press conference in a few weeks.

As I divulged into this issue, this was not Salem's first time that the heat has been on them in the wake of attempting to control the debate over issues.  In November 2013, Salem radio hostess Janet Mefferd confronted Mars Hill Church pastor Mark Driscoll over his new book, A Call to Resurgence, after Westminster Seminary California professor Peter Jones' content, without being cited, was referenced in Mr. Driscoll's book.  The heated controversy later led to Salem officials purging the contentious interview (which someone else has archived), the resignation of a producer that I've often cited here (and I have the utmost respect for her), and eventually Mefferd from Salem Radio.



(Note that Salem has purged all references of Mefferd's show since she was released by Salem.  Her noncompete expires soon and she will return on another radio network.)

A few weeks later, Mefferd's evidence was confirmed by the publisher of the Driscoll book.  Despite the exoneration, the damage was done.  Salem had pulled all references to the Mefferd-Driscoll incident.

When I saw the RedState incident, I had to remind myself that this was not the first time Salem has targeted someone with controversial incidents.  Welcome, Donald, to the same club as Janet.  This was not Salem's first time embroiled.  We've seen it before, and we're referencing it.  Is Trump being given a Mefferd treatment by Salem Media?

Oh, by the way:  I cannot let this pass through our lines, but two of sports' best known current voices lost their partners from the 1990's -- Al Michaels with Frank Gifford (then at ABC) and Mike Joy with Buddy Baker (then at CBS) -- over the weekend.  Both Michaels and Joy did tributes to their colleagues.


WORKS CITED:

"Famed Pastor Embroiled in Controversy Amid Charges of Plagiarism, But What's His Publisher Saying?," The Blaze, December 11, 2013.

Kate Tracy, "Publisher: Mark Driscoll Improperly Copied Paragraphs from Bible Commentary," Christianity Today, December 9, 2013.

Alex Murashko, "Fallout From Radio Show Host's Allegations That Pastor Mark Driscoll Plagiarized Includes Deletion, Apology, and Producer's Resignation," Christian Post, December 7, 2013.

Frank Gifford, R.I.P.

The thing about Frank Gifford was this: although he was a certifiable part of NFL history - before, during and after it had become America's sport - and had been a broadcaster for, it seems, forever; and though he was sometimes the butt end of jokes about how he wasn't always spot on with his game callas as an announcer, and he'd perhaps overstayed his time on Monday Night Football, and his wife was way younger than he was; despite all this, it didn't seem, at least to me, that he was old enough to die, to be a mere mortal.  It just didn't seem  possible.

***

Frank Gifford was one of the first football players I ever read about.  It was in one of my first "grown-up" books, from the NFL's "Punt, Pass and Kick Liberary" - what we'd today call Young Adult books.  They were real\-life adventures of famous football stars, unforgettable games, strange-but-true moments.  The first of these books that I read was, appropriately enough, entitled Heroes of the NFL, and along with tales of Elroy Hirsch, Eddie LeBaron and the like, there was a chapter on Frank Gifford.

Gifford's one was a compelling story, and remains so.  He'd been a star at the University of Southern California and then joined the New York Giants, perhaps the most glamorous professional football team of them all.  There, he had helped to revolutionize the game by utilizing his multidimensional skills (he could pass, catch, run and play defense) to popularize the option pass, in which he'd take a handoff, roll out to the left or right, and then loft a pass to a waiting receiver.  It helped him win the MVP in 1956, when the Giants beat the Chicago Bears to win the NFL championship.

And then came 1960, and Chuck Bednarik.  It was one of the reasons Gifford appeared in the book, and one of the reasons his story was compelling to me.  Late in the game, with the Giants trailing Bednarik's Philadelphia Eagles but on the move, Bednarik laid out Gifford with a hit that was one of the most memorable in the history of the game, forcing a fumble that the Eagles recovered, giving them the win and a major leg-up en route to winning their last NFL title.


It also knocked Gifford out cold.  Stone cold.  More than one Giant said they thought Bednarik had killed Gifford.  Bednarik celebrated the victory, not realizing the seriousness of Gifford's injury.  The end result was a massive concussion, forcing Gifford to miss the remainder of that season as well as the entire 1961 campaign.  In the interim he went into television, took up broadcasting.  Many thought he'd retired.  His decision to come back for the 1962 season as a receiver was a major story.  He played three more successful seasons before retiring for good in 1964.  He went into the Hall of Fame in 1977.

That was what put Frank Gifford in Heroes of the NFL, and if that was all there was to it, it would have been quite a life.  But in a way, the rest of the story had just begun.

He was a commentator on NFL games for CBS until 1971, when he became the play-by-play man (one of the first former players to do play-by-play rather than color) on ABC's Monday Night Football, along with Don Meredith and Howard Cosell.  The trio became one of the most famous broadcasting partnerships of all time, turning the broadcast into an event, and making MNF into something of a travelling zoo, "coming to your town next week!"  Gifford was cast as the straight man, the only sane one in a chaotic booth with Dandy Don and The Mouth, struggling to focus on the game while anarchy surrounded him.  While many preferred his predecessor in the role, Keith Jackson (on the way to a storied career of his own), and he was often knocked for getting calls wrong, it was probably a wonder, in that environment, that he got anything right at all.

Gifford did other sports besides football; one of his most famous calls was Franz Klammer's gold-medal winning downhill run in the 1976 Winter Olympics, and he was also there to cover Evel Knievel's triumphs and tragedies as a motorcycle jumper.  He was on Monday Night Football until 1997, when he was more-or-less eased out.  He was married three times, the last of which was to Kathie Lee.  He was entrapped by an airline stewardess who had been paid big bucks by a tabloid to catch Gifford in incriminating positions.  As I said, what a life.

***

If you hadn't grown up with Frank Gifford in his various phases of stardom (he had just retired, in fact, the year I first remember watching football), he might have felt to you like one of those celebrities who appear in "dead or alive" spots on morning radio shows.  And yet, as I wrote at the outset, he ever quite stopped being one of the golden boys you thought would live forever.  So it was something of a surprise to hear of his death last Sunday at the age of 84, and when the obituaries started retelling the facts and figures and you realized what a great career he'd had, and then thought back on the longevity of his announcing career, you found yourself a little more surprised, reflecting on those things you'd known about but had forgotten, or downplayed.

Frank Gifford was never my favorite announcer, but he had something of that "big game" sound that I've written about so often.  His voice was a warm and familiar presence that reminded viewers that you were watching an event.  I thought back on that, last Sunday, and reckoned that, indeed, Frank Gifford was one of the heroes of the NFL, and always will be.


Cross-posted to It's About TV!

Seeing red over RedState, or why Erick Erickson isn't welcome here anymore

You might have noticed in the past that I've linked to quotes from a conservative website called RedState, run by conservative activist Erick Erickson (as a matter of fact, I think I did one in the last week or so).  I'm not going to link to them here, but if you haven't read them, you might want to take a chance now, because you ain't gonna see anymore quotes from RedState at this site.

In the circular firing squads that now comprise both the Republicans and the conservatives, Erickson got off a shot last Friday night, when he disinvited Donald Trump to his RedState bash over the weekend, because of comments Trump made about Fox news host and self-shill Megyn Kelly, who did such an execrable job in her part as host of the GOP "debate" on Thursday night.  Erickson was offended by Trump's post-debate comments, thinking them to be in bad taste.   I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail on this because it's all kind of distasteful, plus I have more important things to write about right, things that have nothing to do with either this blog or the TV one.*  However, if you want to read about it from the best possible source, I'll steer you to this wonderful column from Mark Steyn.

*However, dear readers, I'll never desert you entirely.  No matter how busy I am, I'll always have time for a post or two.  Just not too many long ones like this one.  For the time being, at least.

Let me make it clear at the outset: I'm not a supporter of Donald Trump, although I think he's absolutely tapped into the discontent seething inside the Republican Party these days.  (As was well-put by Rush here.)  I'm not really for anyone at the moment, although if I was forced to pick someone, I'd go with fellow Texan Ted Cruz.  My suspicion is that it doesn't matter who anyone votes for at this point; both parties are going to job you.  The Democrats are in full leftist mode, with no room for conservatives and increasingly no room for moderates or even classical liberals.  The Republicans, the party of capitulation, seems far more concerned with maintaining their own position in the status quo than affecting any real change.  Both parties hold the average person in contempt, both parties are run by elitist monied interests, and the only difference in how they want to spend your money is on which of their pet projects and crony capitalist enterprises they favor.  In other words, they both want to spend all your money; they just differ on the specifics.

With that all out of the way, let's get to brass tacks, as it were.*  What is it specifically that set me off on Erick Erickson?

*And what is it about brass tacks, anyway?  Wiktionary says it dates back to the 1860's specifically from Texas (no surprise there)., and may refer to "the brass tacks in the counter of a hardware store or draper’s shop used to measure cloth in precise units (rather than holding one end to the nose and stretching out the arm to approximately one yard)."  In other words, let's deal with facts, not estimates.

Even when I read RedState regularly, there was something vaguely unsettling about it.  Perhaps it was the crudity with which some of their writers addressed the issues of the day, not to mention the fact that many of them simply aren't very good writers.  But there was something more to it as well, an edge of nastiness that didn't really accomplish anything if your goal was to get people to respect, if not agree with, your viewpoint.  I began to suspect that the "Red" in RedState stood more for red meat than red-state politics.

Then there was their habit of banning comments from people who disagreed with them.  This didn't happen across the board, but it most frequently occurred with people who chose to respond to RedState using the same rhetorical flourishes that RedState itself used.  In other words, Pot - meet Kettle.*  I understand the idea that a blog is private property, and that the blog owner is free to do whatever he or she likes with it.  Nonetheless, I've often wondered about people who block critical comments.  Yes, there are times when it's necessary - in the case of organized campaigns by people trying to bring down a blog, for example.  However, in the case of a site as large as RedState, I doubt this is the case.

*Certainly, they're not the only bloggers who are hypersensitive to seeing themselves in the faces of others.  See also: Shea, Mark.

So even when I was a regular reader, there was something that bothered me about the site.  Maybe it was Erickson's increasing habit of using religious, indeed Biblical, allusions in his writing.  Now, I do this myself at times, but I hope when I do, it appears organic and natural, and not as Erickson did, in what seemed to be an attempt to attach legitimacy to his point of view.  You know, when all else fails: use God as a crutch.  There was something unnatural, and not to his benefit, in the way he did this.

It wasn't until this kerfuffle that I finally found out what it was, though, and for that I suppose I should be grateful to Erickson.  You can see a lot of it in this exchange Erickson had with Neil Cavuto on Fox today, when Cavuto chose to read some of Erickson's own tweets on-air - many of them, in fact, coming across as, well, sexist.  Which, as I recall, is what he'd accused Donald Trump of.  Cavuto was joined by fellow Fox commentator Greta Van Susteren, who said that Erickson "has said the worst things about women."  I told you that Erickson was a Fox contributor, didn't I?  Apparently the revolution really is consuming its own.

Then there was this story on why Erickson didn't invite Dr. Ben Carson to the RedState gathering this past weekend (the same event for which he'd disinvited Trump).  In the body of the story is a line from Erickson in which he describes himself not as a journalist, but an "activist."  And there's nothing wrong with being an activist.  But the problem, not only with Fox but with CNN, MSNBC and all the rest, is that all they do is employ activists, whom they pass off as either experts or representatives of a particular point of view, in hopes of setting off some kind of manufactured shout-fest that just serves to turn off even more voters.  In fact, whatever happened to the idea of becoming an activist in order to make things better?  If Erickson was interested in this, he wouldn't be quite so inflammatory; instead, he might actually try and convince people of his positions.  As Van Susteren says, "No one should pay any attention to them – they are not persuasive, they are noise, and in some instances boorish and obnoxious.  I suspect this guy [Erickson] feels that he makes himself relevant or even important if he says or tweets like this. I just roll my eyes and wonder what is going on in his head!"

As if all this wasn't enough, there was this comment Erickson made regarding the Virgin Mary, whom he said, "My wife tells me Mary had PMS on the way to Bethlehem.  Says the Bible says Mary rode Joseph's ass all the way there."

OK, so I'm going to put my religion hat on for a minute, and I hope it doesn't come across the way I accused Erickson's of sounding when I wrote about it a few paragraphs ago.  But as someone who has a particular devotion to both Mary and Joseph, I find that comment not only not funny, it's insulting and offensive.  It borders on blasphemous, as much as "Piss Christ" in some ways.  And it just isn't the kind of comment someone ought to be proud of making in public.  As I've often said, there are some people who just shouldn't be on Twitter.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm not a fan of Erick Erickson's.  I think he's done much to lower the level of discourse in the public arena.  (I'm not a fan of Megyn Kelly's either, but one attack per day is about my limit.)  I will give him credit for one thing, though.  He points out that his blog is private property, which means he can do what he wants with it.  That's true of my blog as well, which means I can do whatever I want.  Including not linking to RedState, or Erick Erickson, again.

The Chase Is On - SPB 1959-2015

The title was inspired by a television show once hosted by the late WCIV weekend reporter who later worked for Fox, Steve Byrnes, who died of cancer in April. #ByrnesStrong

Football is Back - And Fox Adopts Promotion and Relegation for the Presidential Candidates. It's only fitting that with football starting this week, the ads for the Barclays Premier League on the Comcast stations (and other leagues on Al Jazeera, plus Bundesliga on FS1/FS2/FSP), that Fox has split a fuller than full field of Republican contenders for these "glorified press conferences," as the late original host of Fox News Sundaycalled them in an early episode of the show, into football-style divisions for Thursday's press conferences. With apologies to Fox's new rights for the Bundesliga, they are split this way:

Bundesliga: Trump, Bush, Walker, Huckabee, Carson, Cruz, Rubio, Paul, Christie, Kasich

Zweite Bundesliga: Perry, Santorum, Jindal, Fiorina, Graham, Pataki, Gilmore.

Of course, if this was Comcast, I'd have used Premier League and Championship!

Baby Slaughter. The outrage over the selling of murdered children's body parts by "Planned Parenthood," the biggest baby murder mill in the country, is everywhere except for mainstream media, which has become a source of propaganda for left-wing causes. The arrogance of the organisation and even the legislators and Administration in full support of them is now in full colour to see. Why do we fund them, and the Administration probably bullies companies to give to them or lose contracts. Meanwhile, the outrage over the killing of a lion has more exposure than the killing of babies. Why?

Of course, as we should expect the next few weeks, television shows will be scripted to favour Planned Parenthood as planning begins for the binge watching generation who watches all ten episodes of a "season" in one setting on the streaming services. How lazy can you be?

Victory Laps. The sexual perversion crowd, fresh off the illegally officiated left-wing overturning of constitutions nationwide, is now creating a worldview apartheid where the Bible will become criminal as we see in Kentucky and other places. But isn't this an extension of the ban of the Great Compromise at the state level, as Scalia notes New York City's bias in the Supreme Court?

And Speaking of Premium Television. Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson, and James May have joined the premium pay, watch all ten in one revolution. Fresh off their firing from OFCOM-regulated The Beeb, where standards matter, they have signed with Amazon to do a show on their streaming service, likely a watch ten in one show, so they tape all ten shows, then people watch them when they want. Time is not an essence, and content can be as raunchy as they go. What is next?