Fred Astaire, as spoken in Swing Time
Monday, August 31, 2015
Wish I'd written that
Fred Astaire, as spoken in Swing Time
Friday, August 28, 2015
Wish I'd written that
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
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Throwback Thursday: 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.
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
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Opera Wednesday: Revisiting the Ghosts
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."
Monday, August 24, 2015
We've lost another gentle giant
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.
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!
Friday, August 21, 2015
This Isn't Salem Media's First Time in Controversy!
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.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Frank Gifford, R.I.P.
***
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!
Monday, August 10, 2015
Seeing red over RedState, or why Erick Erickson isn't welcome here anymore
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.
Friday, August 7, 2015
The Chase Is On - SPB 1959-2015
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?
Friday, July 31, 2015
Killing them softly
- Erick Erickson, RedState
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Throwback Thursday: "My college actually took me away from logical thinking"
So says Forbes magazine publisher Rich Karlgaard in this article (H/T NRO). His experience pretty much jibes not only with my own, but with many of my friends who sit in "careers" for which they're vastly overeducated.A friend of mine, like Karlgaard a PoliSci major, has never had a job for which his degree meant anything other than that he had a college degree in the first place. "Unless I was actually going into teaching, that degree was pretty much useless from a job standpoint," he told me. "I didn't take it because I thought it would improve my chances to get a job or to make more money. I took it because I liked and was interested in politics, and I wanted exposure to the kinds of thought I would be encountering." Meaning? "Look, I didn't have any illusions that I'd be getting a good education. After all, this was a school where the students cheered when they heard Reagan'd been shot. They had bumper stickers that said 'Reagan in '80, Bush in '81.' If they were any more left, they would have fallen off the table completely. But I figure if you want to be involved in 'competitive' politics (as I did at the time), it's good to know what the enemy's saying about you."
But the point he went on to make is this: "Ultimately, it didn't matter what I studied. I figured a successful school year was one in which I still knew as much at the end of the term as I did at the beginning. As long as they didn't make me stupid, it was a good year. But at the end I had that degree. How many decent jobs can you get now where they don't ask for - demand - a college degree? Even when it has nothing to do with the job itself? It's lazy - they just use it as a gatekeeper to keep out the riffraff. Most of the jobs out there can probably be handled just fine by someone with a degree from a vo-tech school."
I digress with that little anecdote, but only slightly. Karlgaard's point in this article is similar to my friends - that college has become an enormous (and ridiculous) drain on family and individual finances, oftentimes for nothing more than a piece of paper that does little to prepare the student for life after college - and introduce him or her to a lifetime of debt. Karlgaard posits that the average student would "learn more and spend much less at a community college," and it's hard to disagree with that. The money quote:
The U.S., I would argue, is driving itself crazy over early achievement. Expensive four-year colleges are a symptom. They’ve become a costly dream trap for too many kids and families. High school grades are overemphasized, SATs must be prepared for years in advance, youthful intellectual experiments (or pranks of the kind Steve Jobs famously engaged in) are discouraged–and for what? Most kids won’t get into the topflight college of their dreams. Worse, some who actually clear that bar will nearly bankrupt their parents in the process. Or they’ll find life so competitive at Elite U. that they drop down into the Mickey Mouse courses–which exist everywhere, even at Harvard–and end up with a worthless degree.
In fact, it's been my observation that education is really one of the last things the modern college is concerned with. First and foremost is indoctrination, but after that there's the endless quest for prestige, to be able to say "we're the best business school in the world," or law school, or engineering school, or what have you, in the ratings that come out from publications such as US News There's the desire for research dollars from governments and foundations. There's the scam being leveraged on alums to provide financial support for the school. There's a continuing, and growing, alliance with big government and big business to control access to the power in this country.
But don't just take my rantings - be sure to read all of what Karlgaard says, and discuss.
Originally published by Paul Drew on May 7, 2013
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Wish I'd written that
- Charles Pierce, Grantland
Opera Wednesday - Dialogues of the Carmelites
Monday, July 20, 2015
On gratitude for the veteran
We know that all of you appreciate what we do. We know that you support our military forces and that (more importantly) you love our country. We know how patriotic you are…several times a day, every day, you tell us.
But it is now time for all of us to move on.
Coerr goes on to list three reasons why it's time:
1. We're all volunteers. "So everyone you thank for their service is there by choice. The military, in the words of P.J. O’Rourke, “gives people with military-style personalities a place to work.” It also gives the nation a place to focus as it balances its anger at a foreign war against its appreciation for those sent to fight it.
2. Thanking Lets You Off the Hook. "Every time I am thanked for my service, I stop myself from asking, 'And what about yours?' I do not want you to also serve the military, but I do want you to serve our country, your city, your town, the local school. What are you doing to help? Are you volunteering at the hospital? The soup kitchen? Are you helping that elementary-school teacher in the inner city, the one who is buying her students pencils from her own pocket because the school district cannot? Are you donating to the fire department down the street?
We are all of us Americans. Each serves in his or her own way. You don’t need to thank me—your service should be enough."
3. You Are Thanking the Wrong People. "Most of us who have gone overseas, even into a combat zone, have never heard a shot fired in anger. We volunteered, we went, we did our jobs, we came back. And that is pretty much it." [...]
"Take note: most of us are somewhat ashamed of our lack of combat. No matter what you did, someone in the highly competitive combat-arms military has done more. Go and read the interviews with the shy young men who have been awarded the Medal of Honor in the past few years (can you name even one?). Every one of them, to a man, says the exact same thing: I didn’t do anything unusual. I could have done more. All I can think about is the guys we lost that day. The guys around me were the real heroes. They would have done the same for me."
On the one hand, I see where he's coming from. The "Thank You Military!" celebrations that go on have become so trite, so automatic and unthinking, that they may strike many as virtually meaningless. There's more than a little bit of jingoistic, U-S-A! self-congratulation to it all, that it tends to rub the wrong way. As one writer reminds us, not all heroes are soldiers and not all soldiers are heroes. And don't even get me started on these parent-child surprise reunions that we get bombarded with at sporting events and on news programs. Our thanks should not be a made-for-TV event.
In addition, most soldiers - at least the ones I've encountered, and most of the ones I've read about, are very modest people, and I've always thought that the endless parades, singling out, and so on probably embarrass them more than anything else. It's hard enough getting used to civilian life again without constantly being reminded of it.
And yet... while it's true that we do have a volunteer military, the fact remains these people are choosing to join in the defense of our country, to willingly put their lives on the line, for our benefit. Yes, police and firefighters do the same thing - any call they go on could be a fatal one - and they should be thanked as well. They probably aren't thanked often enough. Does that mean we're wrong to thank a soldier? To thank him or her from volunteering to take a job that they know could cost them their lives?
I appreciate the point he makes about how we all should do our part, but that's the very think that sets their service apart - they do this without asking for anything other than being treated fairly, by getting what the nation has agreed to provide them with in return for risking their lives, and for our leaders to be thoughtful about sending them into harm's way. Otherwise, their service is unconditional. I could understand if they expected more from the public than that, but they don't. It's not part of the bargain, and that's one reason why it makes their service extraordinary.
I admit that there's much about what Coerr says that rubs me the wrong way, but I agree with him that our thanks ought to be heartfelt and sincere, that it should be thought out rather than automatic, that it works best in the small ways rather than the grandiose, look-at-me moments. Sometimes the best thanks is a nod of the head - or, even more radically, actually providing the types of veterans' services that the military is entitled to.
Perhaps we still have a collective guilt complex from the Vietnam days and the horrid way in which veterans were treated, even though many of us were either not around then or had nothing to do with it. We probably overdue it as a way of overcompensating for the past, and that's wrong. But it's not wrong for a grateful nation to say thanks; there's something very decent about the kind of selfless service the military as a whole provides, and as long as we recognize it, as long as the military remains true to its mission and its values, gratitude is always in order. As is graciousness in accepting it.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
In Memoriam #ToujoursJules
Mr. Bianchi died Friday at the University Center Hospital in Nice, where he never recovered from the coma after the crash at Dunlop Curve just past the East Course shortcut. It is also the first fatal race incident at the Japanese circuit since the 2012 World Touring Car Championship race where a driver was killed during a local sportscar event that is equivalent to the SCCA's Pirelli World Challenge series, and the second foreign driver to die at Suzuka (NASCAR Safety Car driver Elmo Langley was the first, of a heart attack in 1996 during safety car runs).
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.
Statement from the Bianchi Family
Nice, France
Saturday 18 July 2015
02.45hrs France │ 01.45hrs UK | NOTE: 20.45hrs US EDT Friday
It is with deep sadness that the parents of Jules Bianchi, Philippe and Christine, his brother Tom and sister Mélanie, wish to make it known that Jules passed away last night at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) in Nice, (France) where he was admitted following the accident of 5th October 2014 at Suzuka Circuit during the Japanese Formula 1 Grand Prix.
Jules fought right to the very end, as he always did, but today his battle came to an end,” said the Bianchi family. “The pain we feel is immense and indescribable. We wish to thank the medical staff at Nice’s CHU who looked after him with love and dedication. We also thank the staff of the General Medical Center in the Mie Prefecture (Japan, where the Suzuka Circuit is located - Ed.) who looked after Jules immediately after the accident, as well as all the other doctors who have been involved with his care over the past months.
"Furthermore, we thank Jules’ colleagues, friends, fans and everyone who has demonstrated their affection for him over these past months, which gave us great strength and helped us deal with such difficult times. Listening to and reading the many messages made us realise just how much Jules had touched the hearts and minds of so many people all over the world.
"We would like to ask that our privacy is respected during this difficult time, while we try to come to terms with the loss of Jules.”
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Dog star
*Yes, I'm still calling it a planet.
Pluto has existed as a planet for my entire lifetime. I remember reading a book about it when I was in grade school; one of those Scholastic publications, I suspect. I found the story of Pluto's discovery to be strangely gripping, and I can still remember the names of the scientists who made up the story: Percival Lowell, who thought there were canals on Mars and had pioneered the search for what he referred to as "Planet X," and Clyde Tombaugh, the man who finally discovered the planet.
 |
| Left: Pluto from 476,000 miles away; Right: Mountains on the surface, from about 7,600 miles. (Source: NASA) |
*In the same way, perhaps, that I liked the baseball player Yogi Berra because of Yogi Bear.
As critical of Neil deGrasse Tyson as I've been in the past, I think his book on Pluto is wonderful, and his description of Pluto as "America's favorite planet" is both perceptive and endearing. The decision to change Pluto's status to that of a dwarf planet may be technically correct, but at the same time it points out why science fact is so much more boring than science fiction: it completely lacks any sense of romance, of mystery. It seems likely that the fact Pluto was discovered by an American had something to do with it's downgrading.
But what does it prove, other than that Holst's work can be performed as originally written? Not a thing to my mind. Pluto remains, for me, a planet - period. The sent back by the New Horizons spacecraft - taking more than nine years, and traveling over 3 billion miles - have made the tiny planet so immediate, so real. Looking back at it - from that paperback book I read nearly 50 years ago to the tiny specks of light visible in the night sky - it is still amazing that something so far away and so dead can become so alive. What Lowell and Tombaugh would have thought had they seen those pictures! Dwarf planet, my foot!
This week Pluto came full circle, from one astronomer's distant dream to another's discovery of a speck on a photoplate to a planet that has become every bit as real as our own moon - more real, in its way, than most of the other planets in the outer group. No wonder that, next to Earth itself, it remains my favorite planet as well.
Monday, July 13, 2015
The sinister moves
Based on historical references I had researched, I informed him that the deconfederatisation movement has its roots in the denazification efforts of post-WWII Germany in 1946, but more sinister was Mao Tse-Tung's Cultural Revolution in the 1960's. Mao purged anything that was against the Communist empire, as we learned, and following a further discussion on The Kelly File, a guest noted the deconfederatisation effort's roots within Soviet Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, ironic considering one top organisation leading the new Cultural Revolution of the Left is the Americans United Against Militarism (as it was known at founding), which protected Bolsheviks.
He was shocked and said there was no reason for the deconfederatisation efforts. What I know now was the Soros activists began the movement with signs placed near Mother Emanuel in the days after the shooting, trying to blame everything on a flag, and create racial tension when the real problem was, as we previously mentioned here, nihilism, a worldview of nothingness, which proved itself because the target was a church. And with the sad state of affairs after the New York Court (as Justice Scalia called out for its one-city bias), the worldview of the atheists was in control of the nation. When our Governess was soundly defeated in court to protect the state's constitution against Soros and other Bolshevik minions, and the pressure was up again, she sadly caved and let other cities push deconfederatisation.
Now the pressure is turning up with victory on one end of the deconfederatisation efforts where the next stage – removing Confederate monuments, including names of places, and even war venues, including Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, Bull Run, and historical places such as the CSS Hunley – is beginning. As I've read over the years, the next stage in the left's revisionist history is to develop new heroes to fit their narrative – and advancing the sexual deviancy agenda that lost in 30 states and could only win with the President and his minions in packed courts to overturn majorities over 75 percent is one such way. When our Civil War dead, war tactics that were 50 years ahead of the Germans (see the CSS Hunley), the first ironclad battle between the CSS Virginia (fka USS Merrimac) vs USS Monitor, Battles of Fort Sumter, Bull Run, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg, the Burning of Atlanta (where the Calgary Flames' nickname is sourced), and even Memorial Day (for Union War Dead) are purged from our history books under this effort, the replacement will be to advance the sexual deviancy elites' agenda down where a certain sexual deviancy leader's birthday would replace Memorial Day, as seen in California already.
Will the Gettysburg Address be banned because of its Civil War reference and be replaced by Dear Leader's celebration of throwing Christians to the Lions?
What type of whitewashing are we allowing with deconfederatisation? The flag is only the beginning. Do not be fooled – the sinister gooool is an elimination of all Confederate heroes and leaders – Davis, Lee, Stevens, Jackson, and other heroes of the Confederacy. No wonder the Left demands “Stonewall” refer to a sexual deviancy bar that turned into victory for their movement when every Southerner knows Stonewall is the nickname for General Thomas Jackson, whose death on May 10, 1863 is observed as Memorial Day in many states.
Are we headed to 1924 Russia, where Petrograd and Yekaterinaburg, among others, had their Czar names replaced by Communist leaders' names, which was prominent in all of the East Bloc (Chemintz, and Saigon are two other cities where such Communist whitewashing happened – Yekaterinaburg and Chemintz has since been restored to its original name, while Petrograd has since been restored to its pre-World War I name)? I fear that every Confederacy related name and battle field will be purged for the celebration of the current Dear Leader and his social justice efforts.
Kyrie eleison. Why the hate of the Civil War? Are people trying to associate the war with racism as in this shooter's moves? By doing so, they are associating the Confederacy with the shooter – which was never true. Enough with this false narrative in order to push a new revisionism.
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Friday, July 3, 2015
America the damned
It's been a few years now since I've paid the Fourth any attention at all, and this year will be no exception. I can't celebrate it anymore, because in my opinion there's nothing to celebrate. Over the course of these last years, we've seen America go straight to Hell, and last week's obscene Supreme Court decision just emphasizes the fact. It's not only the decision itself, disordered as it is; it's this whole idea that the American Experiment has finally come to an end. States' rights are going, if not gone; a relentless political correctness, from which dissent is not tolerated, governs our public discourse, as companies and special interest groups increasingly punish people simply for expressing their own thoughts; religious freedoms are not only done away with but scoffed at; police forces are increasingly militarized; in the name of national security, the Federal government becomes more and more intrusive in our lives; our very history is either forgotten or airbrushed. Increasingly the world revolves around international financiers, investors more concerned with the bottom line than the High Altar. To them it is money that makes the world go around, not the laws of gravity. They've succeeded in reducing man to a statistic in a budget, a mere number that represents not a human soul but a profit/loss statement. To them things such as gay rights are ideas to be pandered to; they see them not as troubled individuals but consumers with money to spend, and that's the only kind of morality that matters to them. The poet Allen Ginsburg, in his epic Howl, called it Moloch, as is so evocatively illustrated here:
And who is there to turn to? Not the humans running the Church; as rights are stripped away and depravities are legalized, we get lectures on climate change. Not political parties: the leftist Democrats, held captive by fanatical extremists, are the driving force behind many of these changes, while the timid Republicans, more interested in retaining power than doing anything with it, stand idly by. Besides, the parties are just flip sides of the same coin anyway; they both want our money, the only difference being what they plan to do with it.
Man, that is depressing, isn't it?
We're all to blame for it, in a way, thanks to Original Sin. We've allowed marriage to be corrupted through our own actions, just as we've played our own roles elsewhere. There's more to it than that, of course; the Devil is alive and well in this world, in these United States, and he's finding many a willing disciple. This doesn't mean we're helpless, though. The pessimistic (but realistic) Rod Dreher has advocated what he calls the "Benedict Option," which involves groups of orthodox believers gathering into what might be called community support groups, where they exist to strengthen each other's faith, families and future. It's not a retreat from the world, as some would have it, but a circling of the wagons. And it's necessary because, as Dreher puts it, things are not going to get better. Others advocate a more activist approach, attaching the issue head-on and refusing to be pushed around. Still others think things can be turned around by electing the right individuals, that America at its heart is still a conservative nation. The number who believe in that last category grows smaller and smaller, and if you're inclined to believe it I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to discuss with you.
In short, America seems to have devolved into a Godless, licentious nation, consumed with hedonism, basing everything on feelings rather than any kind of logical thought. Not the sex you want to be? Easy - just change. Feel like marrying two or three other people? Well, why not? Think killer whales are human? They probably are. If you even bother to believe in God, you can create Him in whatever Image you want, knowing that He just wants you to be "happy," whatever that means nowadays. What's frightening is not the question of where it all ends; it's that, deep in our hearts, we already know what the answer is. It's not just America, of course, but the whole world. The whole world isn't celebrating July 4th, however, and I'm not sure how we can, either.
In this atmosphere, watching a movie such as 1776 where we witness the birth of the republic, seeing what all these men were willing to risk their lives for, and then to look at what that cause has become, is beyond depressing. To see an immoral lifestyle legalized (in the process overturning state laws passed by citizens) by a group of nine unelected officials, the same group (if not the same individuals) responsible for legalizing the murder of unborn human beings, all based on supposed rights that can't be found in the Constitution - well, if I was one who cried, I'd have shed more than one tear over these last few years.
I mentioned above that what's really scary about this is that in our hearts we know where it all leads. A priest, talking about the various natural disasters that have befallen California recently, remarked that "When you keep giving God the finger, pretty soon he's going to grant your wish and leave you alone." It's tempting on the one hand to look at anything bad that happens and see in it the finger of God, just as it's tempting to look at those same events and decry the idea that God would punish people indiscriminately, the innocent as well as the guilty. But as we're reminded in Matthew 5:45, it rains on the just and the unjust. The fact that there may have been innocent people living in Sodom and Gomorrah did not save the cities from being destroyed. In fact, the Bible is replete with natural disasters as a sign of God's displeasure.
Speaking of which, it's worth noting that while some conservatives today suggest God is withdrawing His protection of America as a once-special country, there are others who would point out that America was founded on dubious propositions in the first place. Such are the probing questions asked in Christopher Ferrara's provocative book Liberty, the God That Failed, which suggests that from the very beginning, liberty was a chimera, "the false god of a new political order." Much the same message can be found in Hans-Herman Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed, So perhaps we've been thumbing our noses at God this whole time, and that the Hell we're going through was predestined to happen at some time or another; it's just our lot that it's happening in our lifetimes.
And yet - it's all been part of God's plan that we are alive here, now. There's obviously something we're meant to do, some role we're intended to play. It's not likely we'll be able to determine that on our own, which means we have to keep our eyes and ears open and our prayers constant. We must live lives that are good and pious, to the best of our abilities. We must try as best we can to influence those close to us: friends, family, neighbors, workmates.
Most of all, I think, we must realize that we cannot be both Christians and Americans. We can no longer live this hybrid, hyphenated life. We give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, following the words and examples of Jesus, but we can no longer excuse what America does simply because it is America. We pray for our country because patriotism is, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, a virtue, but we cannot go down with the ship - instead, we must head for the lifeboat created by Our Savior for our protection.
So in this weekend of rote patriotism, when for some of us there seems nothing left worth celebrating, try to remember that the things we truly celebrate are those things that are scorned by the rest of the world. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ reminded us thusly: "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
That reward is greater than any nation, any flag, any political or judicial victory. It is the hope which we carry to ward off despair, the true joy that protects the soul from depression, the light that shines in the darkness. If indeed America is beyond salvation, then damned she will be; our victory will be greater than that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
