The population of Massachusetts is half Catholic. Now they’re the first significant state to legalize gay marriage. Granted, this is judge-imposed legislation, but I find it shameful that Catholics have succumbed to the Culture of Death to such an extent. What are Catholics doing up there? Or in the rest of the godless north, which is the one of the prime nurturers for the CoD? Seems like many, if not most of them are complicit.
I’m sure Richard is going to comment on this, so maybe he can chime in with some hopeful news.
Author: Eric Johnson
Running out of bad words
Sage words from the U.K. Loony Left:
[Mayor of London] Livingstone says Bush is ‘greatest threat to life on planet’
ONE IN THREE BRITONS THINK BUSH IS STUPID – POLL
In other news, one in five Britons said Bush had “cooties,” while one in eight called him “Mr. Poo-Poo Head.”
The Left, on both sides of the Atlantic, has chosen screaming hyperbole as its normative mode of expression. Practically every leftist movement — feminism, environmentalism, trade unionism, and the rest — is shot through with Marxist historicism, the belief that History-with-a-capital-H is moving inevitably in the direction they intuited. In the last two decades, especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it has been harder to argue that state socialism is the wave of the future. Since Sept. 11, 2001, it has been rather more difficult to say we live in a world “beyond good and evil.”
If you’ve been caught up in the fantasies of the Left for your whole life, as Red Ken Livingstone has, it must be a difficult existence. A rational mind would adjust his theories to fit reality, but the committed leftist drinks deeply from the wellspring of irrational faith: that lo stato can solve every problem without resorting to force, and that human ingenuity can father a perfect world without God’s assistance. The first and foremost reason the Hard Left hates Bush is because he’s a committed Christian who believes in God’s providence. They thought his type was on the way out, what with modern science and all; it enrages them to think that not only do committed Christians still exist, but they seem to be making a comeback.
The same wounded roars come from Catholic liberals, too, as they watch their “Spirit of Vatican II” novelties dissipate like a puff of smoke in a strong breeze. Younger Catholics, and especially younger priests, aren’t “progressing” in the way they had hoped. A faithful man who sees things going amiss can say o tempora! o mores!, but ultimately lay the matters in God’s hands. The secular man cannot abide any setbacks, as the real, ultimate battleground is in the here-and-now; thus the impatience and rage when things don’t go his way.
“Love Actually,” actually not loved
In this cynical, hardened world, it’s kind of refreshing to see a movie that presents the most dreadful clichés without a hint of apology. A man proposes marriage to a woman with whom he has never held a conversation — and she accepts, and the band conveniently behind her starts to play. Another man falls in love with a subordinate because she’s cute and vulnerable, but they have absolutely nothing in common.
“Love Actually” has these tired motifs, and so many more. I kept expecting the filmmakers to wink at the audience, letting us know that they know we’ve seen this a thousand times. No wink was forthcoming. Either they didn’t know they were recycling these plot points — an improbability — or they didn’t care.
The cast includes all living, non-retired British film stars. A half-dozen plots are packed into this two-hour movie, and since many reviewers have commented on the hanging plot threads, unnecessary characters, and phony “love stories” that would never work in real life, I won’t repeat it.
“Actually” is more proof that we are reverting to the pre-Shakespearean mode of storytelling where writers needn’t provide any psychological motives for their characters. In “Erin Brockovich,” we never learn why the Evil Corporation is poisoning the population of a small California town. They are a corporation, they are big, ergo evil. Similarly, in “Actually,” the script juxtaposes several men and several women together. Like positive and negative ions, they are attracted to each other and they bond. No explanation necessary.
(Thankfully, they spared us the gay subplot that is becoming de rigeur these days. That’s the only thing for which the scriptwriter needs to be thanked.)
Still think Saddam wasn’t a terrorist?
The Weekly Standard has an article detailing the link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Why this hasn’t received more coverage this weekend, I do not understand — it’s not even on the Drudge Report — but it certainly merits attention.
The information is based on an extremely detailed, careful memo from an undersecretary of defense to the heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee (including Sen. Rockefeller (D-Dogpatch), the inspiration for the Foghorn Leghorn cartoon character.) It details the extensive contact that Saddam and Osama had, and alludes to the strong possibility that they collaborated on the U.S.S. Cole attack.
The article sticks to the topic, not even mentioning the indisputable fact that Saddam sponsored the Palestinian suicide-murder bombings, and carried out terrorist attacks on his neighbors, particularly Iran, through groups he funded and/or founded.
Perhaps Sens. Rockefeller and Kennedy will stop their geriatric rages against the “misleading” Bush administration. Ha, ha! Sorry! Just a little Sunday afternoon humor.
“Leave no stone unturned”
The vision of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report was prescient: the Washington Metrorail system is going to turn into an ad-saturated, visually overwhelming mess. Remember the scene where Tom Cruise goes on the Metro while he’s being pursued by government agents? And the ads in the station are calling people by name? That’s only a little short of what they’ve got planned for our beloved Metro.
If you’ve never been to D.C., the Metro is the only thing in the city that works, as everyone agrees. It’s clean: drinks and food are banned. It’s also fairly safe, although there is the occasional pickpocket. The cars’ interiors are quieter than churches — everyone is reading, napping, or perhaps talking quietly (except for some obnoxious mobile phone users). A fun fact: the producers of the movie “No Way Out” filmed Kevin Costner in the Baltimore subway, even though he was supposedly traveling on the Metro. They thought viewers would never believe that a subway train could be that clean.
Compared to driving the nasty streets of this area, the Metro is a refuge for sanity, a place where other riders and I can get 90 minutes of reading done instead of navigating through the dismal, traffic-clogged streets twice a day.
The Metro management has nurtured this genteel culture since its creation three decades ago, but now they are going to throw it out the window with great force. They aren’t just going to have some advertising. Oh, no. We must have huge banner ads in the stations…and televisions blaring ads on the cars! Not only that,
…Transit officials also plan to drape advertising from the sides of parking garages, hang commercial banners from banisters inside the busiest stations, hoist advertising signs on light poles in station parking lots and sell ad space on bus shelters. “We want to leave no stone unturned,” said Leona Agouridis, Metro’s assistant general manager for communications.
Why is all this happening? Money! God forbid any public space not be turned over to Mammon, just because the Metro system is losing some money! Distilled to its essence, Metro wants to
Drive everybody crazy. No longer will we be able to relax on our way home. We have to be little captive rats for the ad agencies.
Raise the prices. They just hiked fares this year, and now they’re going to do it again.
Screw their best customers. Aside from the increase in fares, they stopped giving 10% bonuses when riders put $20 or more on their farecards — in other words, the very people who ride Metro frequently. Also, they used to have reserved parking for a monthly fee, with the parking fee included. Now you have to pay the reservation fee, and the regular $3 a day fee on top of it.
When music companies saw that CD sales slumped, they announced price cuts increase sales. Metro saw ridership decline, so they jacked up the price of their service. Does that make even a little bit of sense?
Economics aside, destroying what little peace there is in our public areas is unconscionable. No wonder Americans find self-reflection so difficult: no matter where they go, somebody is trying to sell them something.