Eric Johnson: October 2004 Archives

Giant turd Michael Moore must be so happy — not only is "Fahrenheit 9/11" the favorite movie of Hezbollah and little Jimmy Carter, he's given Osama bin Laden new ideas, too! Moore was the first person to popularize the clever "My Pet Goat" critique, which criticizes President Bush for continuing to read to kids after he was informed of the World Trade Center attacks. Apparently, he was supposed to leap up, rip off his clothes, and fly through the air to stop the other hijacked planes, instead of waiting for the Secret Service to arrange an emergency trip to the airport.

Senator Kerry (D-Fallujah), running on behalf of angry liberals and jihadists everywhere, must be even happier. For most of the last year, he and the Democrats have been saying that President Bush has made America less safe because we've made the international terrorists angry at us, whereas if we hadn't invaded Iraq (and, many said, Afghanistan), the terrorists would have started making rugs or driving a cab or whatever it is that terrorists do when they switch careers.

Well, it turns out that Osama believes the same thing, and as a bona fide international terrorist, he ought to know. "Your security is in your own hands and each state which does not harm our security will remain safe," he says to the American people. In other words: act like Spain, back away from the war on terror, and we won't hurt you again.

We didn't find difficulty dealing with Bush [the elder] and his administration due to the similarity of his regime and the regims in our countries....Here he is being influenced by these regimes, Royal and military. And was feeling jealous they were staying for decades in power stealing the nations finances without anybody overseeing them. So he transferred the oppression of freedom and tyranny to his son and they call it the Patriot Law to fight terrorism. He was bright in putting his sons as governors in states and he didn't forget to transfer his experience from the rulers of our region to Florida to falsify elections to benefit from it in critical times.

Chris Core, a host on our local station WMAL (and a Catholic convert), said he was shocked that Osama seemed to be cribbing from the giant turd's movie. (If you doubt that he could get a hold of "F9/11," know that in the Mideast you can get any movie on a pirated DVD for about $5). I'll give Moore some credit: he isn't smart, but he is crafty. He's fooled a lot of people into thinking that his cheap shots are arguments, and now even a megalomaniacal mass murderer has endorsed his views. Now that's something to put on a résumé!

I'm sure this will be widely debated in the next few days, but I think Osama, even though he doesn't say it explicitly, has endorsed Kerry for president. He agrees with Kerry's approach to national security, which boils down to playing nice with people who want to slit our throats. There is nothing al Qaeda wants more than for us to "leave them alone," free to destabilize and then subvert Middle Eastern governments until they can set up gangster states fueled by oil money, and then realize their fondest dream: completing the Final Solution.

Maybe this is one endorsement that Kerry should refuse.

Showing the spunky can-do spirit that got him out of Vietnam eight months before he was supposed to leave, Senator Kerry (D-Fallujah) imagines that military wives are whiny and hopeless:

Conjuring up the image of a woman walking into a voting booth thinking about her husband fighting in Iraq, [Kerry] said: "On Tuesday, you have the choice to give her hope. You have the choice to give America a fresh start."

I've got a great idea, Senator: why don't you try selling that line at Fort Bragg or Camp Lejeune, in front of a group of military wives? Why don't you ask them what they think about a candidate who undermines their husbands' mission, thus encouraging the murderous thugs they're fighting? Maybe you could finish the trip with a visit to a military hospital, where you can explain to the Purple Heart recipients -- and I'm talking about men with real injuries, not the little boo-boos you got -- that their sacrifice was meaningless and wrong.

Gosh, she isn't even First Lady, and already she's tiresome.

In all likelihood, she's living in sin with her "husband," who refuses to document his supposed annulment, even though he says he's "in good standing" with the Church. (He does think annulments are funny, however.) Lord, deliver us from these proud, ridiculous people.

An American living abroad recently contacted me to say he has located a statue of St. Lawrence for my newly-renovated kitchen. But first I'd like to tell you about a trip to Europe I took with four friends 14 summers ago, after we all graduated from high school.

I don't remember why we ended up in Lugano. I think Mike had been to Switzerland when his father was stationed in Europe, and remembered it was beautiful. It couldn't have been any worse than what we had experienced thus far.

We had slept in a churchyard in Wimbledon, in a grimy industrial area, the second night we were there. Mostly, we had slept on trains and marginal hostels. In Ireland, we stayed at the Kinlay House, where we discovered that the Irish government warehoused homeless drunks in youth hostels. One of them woke up Mike at 2 a.m., asking him if he wanted to share a shot of whiskey. Mike declined.

After leaving Paris, we planned to stay in Rome, but we couldn't find a room because the city was hosting the World Cup, and apparently soccer tournaments are quite popular with Europeans. So we had been traveling for about 24 hours straight without hardly any sleep when we dragged ourselves and our backpacks from the train station to the hostel.

Things were certainly looking better for us. It was a brilliant, sun-soaked day, with mild temperatures and a cool breeze coming from Lago di Lugano. The hostel rooms were sparse but clean, and since we were with about 10 other backpackers in bunk-beds, the place was cheap, too. That day, we all walked to the shopping district, and bought bread and cheese to eat while we strolled. For dinner, we splurged on a restaurant with outdoor seats, where we could eat our pizza, laugh and argue, and revel in being 18 years old.

I remember that a bunch of obnoxious Germans stole 80 marks ($50) from my wallet when I left our common room -- or at least I assume it was them, since nobody else was there.

I remember eating in a Burger King near the lake, and being shocked that a meal cost $10. Just outside the restaurant, I called my parents collect and talked to them for about three minutes. The call cost $37.

I remember Denis and Mike thinking it would be funny to jump out of the little boat we rented, even though it was forbidden. When he saw them swimming, the guy who ran the boat rental place yelled for us to come back. On the way there, the boat's propeller struck a rock and nicked one of the blades. The rental guy called the Swiss police, who calmed him down by having us write our U.S. addresses on a piece of paper, and promising we'd pay for the engine if it was broken. I remember the officers had Glock 9mm pistols in their holsters.

There is one last, luminous memory I have of Lugano. My friend Andy, whom I had known since the fourth grade, wanted to go to daily Mass near the hostel the next morning. I think they were having daily Mass, but I'm not sure. At the time, I was Lutheran, but I was happy to tour any church, particularly during a liturgy. That's what the building was built for, right?

I don't remember the Mass itself or the interior of the church, but I do remember it was one of the string of aesthetic experiences that lead me ultimately into the arms of Holy Mother Church. I have a vivid mental image of the emerald trees shuffling their leaves in the gentle wind, including the palm trees which seemed out of place, and the church's bell tower pointing skyward with its pointed dome, a suitable compliment to the green-carpeted mountains in the distance.

When I started typing this post, I was just going to post the images below of the St. Lawrence statue, and ask everyone your opinion about it. After shipping it to the U.S., this statue will cost about $400. It looks like a high-quality piece, but I wanted to ask people if they thought that was too much to spend. After spending $9,000 modifying our kitchen to accomodate our growing family of five, what's another few hundred dollars?

Then I was looking at the name of the place Jeff said he found the statue: Lugano. It took me a while, but I finally remembered that I had been there before. I wondered what the cathedral, named after St. Lawrence, looks like? Google showed me:

It was the same church, unless there's an identical one in the same town of 52,000. I looked up hostels in Lugano, and found the Hotel Montarina, a few minutes from the train station. A map of Lugano showed that it was close to the cathedral. The interior pictures showed it was the same place where we stayed in 1990.

To summarize: a kind stranger thousands of miles away sees my post on an obscure blog. He checks his cathedral, and sure enough, they have a 12-inch statue of St. Lawrence, the perfect size for the wall niche I'm going to build. That cathedral was one of the beautiful things God showed me as I turned toward his Church. (Incidently, the statue has been there for 12 years, unsold.)

I don't think I need your opinions -- I pretty much have to buy this thing, don't I? I mean, it's not exactly miraculous, but I did pray for guidance about whether to spend the money. If this isn't one of God's small signs, then tell me I'm crazy. Meanwhile, check out the statue:

Slate magazine thinks you do. Read my fisking of their novelists' forum on the election over on CommentaryPage.com.

As I was walking through the halls of the Nameless Entity that I work for, I passed by a TV tuned to CNN. The caption under the talking head read "STEM CELL RESEARCH," and the head was saying something about the quality of stem cell lines available to researchers. The head belonged to Mr. Jennifer Aniston, a.k.a. Brad Pitt, one of the world's foremost cell biologists.

God help us all.

I would like to find a statue of St. Lawrence to put in my kitchen. I'm going to carve a small niche out of the wall for him, and perhaps also flowers and/or another statue. Anyone know where I can get one? This is the only one I can find, and it's pretty good, but a little small (2.5").

Two entries on the Drudge Report, as of 10:09pm:

Administration will seek additional billions early next year to fund Iraq, Afghan wars, WASH POST reporting in Page One lead story on Tuesday, insiders tell DRUDGE... Developing...

New legal opinion by Bush admin concluded for first time some non-Iraqi prisoners captured by US forces in Iraq not entitled to protections of Geneva Conventions, NYT set to lead in Tuesday editions, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE... Developing...

Can anyone make the case that the media are not biased? Those items are not news. Of course the administration wants more money for overseas operations -- do you think the military can get along without money?

All I have to say about the second item is: it's about freakin' time. Men who deliberately attack the innocent, who do not fight in uniform or obey the laws of war are not legal combatants. They are the "pirates and brigands" singled out in moral theology as those who wage private wars, and legitimate authorities have the God-given duty — yep, I said God-given, just like St. Paul said — to deter and punish them. Morally, they have no excuse. Legally, they are not entitled to Geneva protections and can be executed when they are caught.

Today, the NY Times published a story on some nasty explosives that disappeared because George Bush is an incompetent fool. (I'm paraphrasing.) Turns out they have no idea when the materials disappeared, and it's likely they were removed before the war started last year, because the site would be bombed at the beginning of hostilities.

This wasn't "news" in the sense of being new -- plenty of people have known about this matter since last year. Besides, the explosives were gone by the time American forces reached the storage bunkers, as NBC News reports.

Why are so many formerly prestigious news organizations willing to sacrifice themselves on the pyre of Senator Kerry's presidential ambitions? I can hear a voice in the back muttering, "Legal abortion...stigma-free extramarital sex...child-free consumerism...freedom from God's laws...."

Al Qaeda's favored presidential candidate speaks up against the little guys:

I know there are some Bishops who have suggested that as a public official I must cast votes or take public positions - on issues like a woman's right to choose and stem cell research - that carry out the tenets of the Catholic Church. I love my Church; I respect the Bishops; but I respectfully disagree.

My task, as I see it, is not to write every doctrine into law. That is not possible or right in a pluralistic society. But my faith does give me values to live by and apply to the decisions I make.

That's straw-man argument: the Church does not, has not, and will never teach that secular legislators are supposed to "write every doctrine into law." Either he's 1) misinformed; 2) stupid; or 3) setting up this straw man to mislead Catholics into voting for him.

Senator Kerry can't possibly be misinformed — he keeps telling us he was an altar boy, which means he knows every jot and tittle of Catholic doctrine, and has never forgotten any of it. We know he isn't stupid, because he's managed to become a senator and marry not one, but two mega-rich heiresses.

That leaves misleading. I have little doubt that Kerry knows what the Church teaches; I am less certain that he knows why she teaches it. His forays into Biblical exegesis, Catholic catechetics, and recent Church history (remember "Pope Pius XXIII in the Vatican II"?) leave one with the impression that he sees the doctrines of Holy Mother Church as obstacles to be avoided.

Kerry's public words and deeds indicate that his morality is guided by his own personal political advancement. In contrast to President Bush, who has shown that he can apply extra-political reasoning to moral issues (read his August 2001 stem cell speech), I defy anyone to show an example where he took a potentially unpopular view and stuck with it for any length of time.

Defending the unborn against direct assaults on their lives, is not (for the millionth time) a "Catholic" issue. It has nothing to do with the faith revealed by Jesus Christ and passed down through the apostles and their successors. Neither is embryonic stem cell research. Both involve the willful eradication of innocent human beings, and these truths are fully knowable to anyone with an adult. No divine revelation required.

When the Catholics of Massachusetts were busy betraying their faith by voting out pro-life Democrats in favor of pro-abortion Democrats, if John Kerry had stood up for the unborn, I'd respect the heck out of him. Instead, today not only will he ignore the Church and natural law, he promises to nominate only judges who are committed to allowing abortion under every circumstance. The hollow man lurches on, seemingly untroubled in his imitation of Judas (using Christ when it's convenient, then selling him out when it looks like fidelity might endanger your own fortune.)

Maybe someday in my lifetime, one of the major parties will nominate a good Catholic presidential candidate. Until then, I'm sticking with the good Protestant over the bad Catholic.

One of my pet theses is that journalists generally treat non-white people as forces of nature, not as morally accountable human beings. Thus, the Associated Press can repeat an outrageous statement like this:

"Last election, 27,000 of us voted, most of us for brother Al Gore," said Rev. Tom Diamond, of the Abyssinia Missionary Baptist Church. "The Republican Party threw out 27,000 African-American votes. By all rights brother Al Gore is the president-elect."

The Rev. Diamond is, of course, one of the Darker People, so reporter Mike Glover doesn't even bother to explore this "fact." Under normal circumstances, a journalist would start asking questions such as: Where does he get the number 27,000? Does he have 27,000 parishioners? When did the Republican Party "throw out" those votes, and when did they do it? Who did it? Et cetera, et cetera.

White politicians (and the good reverend is nothing if not a politician, at least part-time) get those kinds of questions because they're, y'know, normal people. Republican minority-group members get treated like normal people too, because they forfeit their privileges. But the Darker People aren't normal. They have emotions (they are often "angry" or "outraged"), but asking them to back up their statements with facts is nonsensical. To most journalists, that's like like asking the wind why it's blowing northeast, or the clouds why they are raining today.

NRO has an essay attacking Senator Kerry (D-Fallujah) for his ham-handed use of the Book of James. The Protestant writer, Quin Hillyer, assails the Cafeteria Catholic senator for equating "good works" with spending Federal money. In this, I agree with Hillyer (although I am uncomfortable with his view that almsgiving is per se an individual and not a corporate endeavor. The Old Testament prophets, to name one example, collectively excoriated the Chosen People for not taking care of widows and orphans.)

However, I think he misunderstands James, for the formulation "faith without works is dead" isn't a comment on a person's quality of faith — rather, it says that a faith which produces nothing is no faith at all, that it does not exist.

Mr. Hillyer says, "St. Paul's repeated assertion that men are 'justified,' or saved, through faith alone." Show me once in the Bible where it says that. It's true that a famous Christian said that we are saved "by grace, through faith, apart from works of man," but that Christian was Martin Luther, as I learned in my Lutheran confirmation class. Nobody thought that before he did.

Now, Hillyer is certainly free to accept Luther's formulation, but he also wants to drag the Catholic view of salvation into his argument. He's better off sticking to the meat of his critique, which is that wealth-transfer programs are a secular project that are unlikely to produce any spiritual benefits for the recipients.

A few weeks ago, I bought a Bush/Cheney t-shirt from a street vendor in downtown D.C. As I was riding my bike home that day, wearing the shirt, I got several dirty looks. One young woman stuck her tongue out at me as she rode by. A scrawny, butchy-looking female biker made a big show of shaking her head in disgust as she passed.

This is the kind of immature resentment I expect from Democrats these days. I've attempted to engage Bush-haters in conversation, and they always start with the hyperbole: "He's a fanatic, he lies, he is the WORST PRESIDENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY" -- you know the tiresome song. Then when I ask them for evidence to back up these statements, one of two things happens:

1) They back off, and admit that they have policy disagreements with the Bush administration, but maybe the president isn't quite the Antichrist; or

2) They get freaked out and continue the diatribe, which often includes a rant against me personally for being a brainwashed right-wing snakehandling freak. (In reply, I point out that I have never handled snakes.) If they do have any "facts," they almost invariably include references to Halliburton and dodging the draft. They also make wild, demonstrably untrue claims, such as that the country is in a recession.

Now, let me say that not all Democrats are Bush-haters, and not all of them have gone off their rockers. Joe Lieberman, for example. Or...um...my two Democrat friends named Brian. And...let's see...Zell Miller! The list gets a little thin after that.

Many Democrats are suffering from Moore's Disease, a new viral infection that spreads from intimate contact with an infected person, from reading The Nation, or from watching that giant turd's movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11." People whose political immune system has been compromised by attending a liberal university are especially susceptible to Moore's Disease.

The malady makes you do strange things that cause non-infected people to avert their eyes. Take Algore, for example. He used to be an intelligent man without an original thought in his wooden head. Now he reads weirdo Web sites and repeats their "ideas" without attribution:

I'm convinced that most of the president's frequent departures from fact-based analysis have much more to do with right-wing political and economic ideology than with the Bible....

It is love of power for its own sake that is the original sin of this presidency....

Truly, President Bush has stolen the symbolism and body language of religion and used it to disguise the most radical effort in American history to take what rightfully belongs to the American people and give as much of it as possible to the already wealthy and privileged.

So the president is stupid ("departures from fact-based analysis") and evil ("love of power"). Haven't heard those critiques before, have we? If anyone can explain what "body language of religion" means, please tell us in the comment box. Does President Bush genuflect before boarding Air Force One?

Algore is entering the advanced stages of MD, where your body begins to bloat like the giant turd himself. When you see him wearing a baseball cap in public and he grows that weenie beard again, you will know he has succumbed to the disease.

MD sufferers even infest my suburban neighborhood. For three weeks or so, we've had a Bush/Cheney sign in our yard. On Sunday, I discovered it was stolen. Coincidently, that morning the Washington Post ran a story called "The Great Divide," with a photo of a Kensington, Maryland woman whose Kerry/Edwards yard sign was stolen.

Nor is it a shock to Carolyn Roth and her husband Ira Chaleff, a management consultant, that their prosperous Kensington neighborhood just outside the Capital Beltway in Montgomery County votes Democratic.

"We're open-minded and thoughtful people," says Roth, a 54-year-old special education tutor and artist. She drives a Volvo station wagon with a "Peace" bumper sticker in three languages. "It's probably easier to believe what you hear in church and to believe what your leaders are telling you. But I don't understand how anyone who is thinking can support this administration."

In place of the stolen sign, she put another sign reading, "IN 2000 THEY STOLE THE ELECTION. NOW THEY STOLE MY KERRY SIGN." Note the paranoid use of the word "they." Also, look at the lettering and keep in mind she calls herself an "artist."

I'm not saying she deserved to have her yard sign stolen because she is a pretentious, arrogant elitist. What irks me about the article, aside from her haughty dismissal of religious believers and Republican voters, is that the sign-stealing and intimidation is coming mostly from Democrats, as David Frum alludes here.

Republican campaign headquarters have been shot at, and union thugs have broken into the offices and harassed the staff. Remember the photo of the chubby union thug tearing up that little girl's Bush sign? That guy was a Kerry supporter.

If I met the Bush supporter (assuming that it was a Bush supporter) who tore up Carolyn Roth's sign, and he was boasting about it, I'd tell him he was wrong and he ought to return them. I don't get the impression that the MD sufferers would say the same thing to the bum who stole my yard sign, because they've bought into the idea that President Bush is uniquely evil, and therefore extraordinary means are justified.

More ominously, the subtext of these actions -- trespassing, petty theft, physical intimidation, verbal abuse -- is that you have no right to express your opinion at all. This has been a standard tactic of the Left for decades.

Someday, I'll write about my college experiences with the friendly left-wing champions of tolerance who smeared my name in print, insulted my girlfriend (now wife) for dating me until she was on the verge of tears, and threw away stacks of the conservative student magazine I edited. However, right now I am going to put up a sign that says "A DEMOCRAT THIEF STOLE MY OTHER BUSH/CHENEY SIGN."

I know I have some fans out there who are wondering, "Where has Eric been?" This post is for both of you.

I have taken a new job with The Man, a.k.a. the Federal Government. (As opposed to The Moon, which was my previous employer.) My new position is with a large government agency that I will call the Nameless Entity, because a) most of my work will be on classified computer systems; and b) I don't want anyone googling me by searching on the agency's name, and returning this blog. Basically, I don't want to get into trouble.

The change is a good one. For one thing, I don't have to be "on call" in the evenings and weekends, which my wife appreciates. It's a little more money, not a huge amount, but I certainly won't complain. My building is in a good location and my commute was shortened by about 10 minutes, unless they move my desk to some other building (The Man always likes to keep you guessing.)

I'll post more soon, I promise.