First Catlick Blogger to Blog on Bin Laden Is...

I used the catholic blog search engine to find the first mention of bin Laden's death and it appears to be a Margaret in Minnesota in a post dated 10:35pm (presumably Minnesota time):

The kids were tucked into bed and kissed, and the finishing touches were put on this post. News in the background...Bin Laden is dead...which is weird and unexpected and great, I guess, but also uncertain...and I know that this day, this post, this life, that cake...everything is a gift and every moment, to be cherished.

Among the Catholic blogosphere there is mention made of the irony of our worst enemy dying on Mercy Sunday, and much mention of the Vatican's statement that we not celebrate anyone's death.

My own reaction seems so bloodless. I felt ... nothing. Neither exultation nor relief nor much dismay over the celebrations. I was a bit discomfited and taken completely by surprise by the celebrations that ensued (including OSU students jumping shirtless into Mirror Lake). Had mixed emotions since I liked the patriotism it seemed to exhibit but obviously felt that the call to love our enemies appeared not being practiced.



After the surprise wore off I thought about how this means Obama will be that much more likely to be elected in '12.

Quick Takes (Now 55% Longer!)

Osama bin Laden was living in a mansion not far from the Pakistan capital and right next door to the military academy? Pretty far from the conventional wisdom he was living like a hermit in caves and subsisting on grasshoppers and wild honey.

* * *

I don't get the paranoia on the part of the right or the left concerning George Soros and the Koch brothers (respectively). Rich people have free speech too and can spend their money on political causes if they want to.

* * *

The sky is full of spring poignancy and coolness; the wind picking up in anticipation of (yet another) potential rain. It feels so fresh and full of potential; May means never having to wear a coat (or at least rarely). I look at a sky so tall and inwardly grin at the distinctions made among houses: 8 ft v 10 ft v 12ft ceilings. One can go outside and achieve more than hundred-foot ceilings!

The visually rich corner of the backyard is the fountain flanked by flowers and I set my chair towards it instead of towards the green blankness of the flat-grass. How rarely do I face east or west. If necessity is the mother of invention then surface appearances are the mother of convention: it simply looks better to have the chairs facing towards the back lawn instead of towards the house. So inertia means that I usually just look into the green abyss.

* * *

Yesterday felt special given the ceremony making Pope John Paul II blessed. I am surprised but gladdened by the attention it’s gotten in Catholic circles and elsewhere given that it’s not a canonization but a beatification. It got mentioned by our priest today at Mass and, slightly more surprisingly, by ABC’s “This Week”. A priest on television said that declaring someone “Blessed” means we are sure they are in Heaven, but I thought that’s what canonization was. Regardless, I’m heartened by the recognition of the late Pope and feel like maybe I should’ve taped and watched the EWTN coverage of the beatification. Al Kresta thinks that the reason Princess Diane’s death got so much more coverage than Mother Teresa’s was that the world doesn’t recognize Christian values and priorities. It seemed a trifle unfair given that a) Pope John Paul II’s death received massive secular news coverage and b) Princess Diana’s death was so shockingly unexpected compared to Mother Teresa’s. I’m far from a defender of the secular media, but new editors respond to the unexpected with more coverage.

* * *

Can’t seem to put down a book located in German Village and subsequently purchased on Kindle. It’s the age-old story of the fall of the Roman empire. The author doesn’t seem capable of a dry page; he cuts to the chase and writes interestingly if not exactly sympathetic to Christians. He suspects the reason that the empire fell was that due to losing land and tax revenue at a time when they couldn’t afford either. He makes the point that for Rome the defense budget was THE budget, to a certain extent, and there wasn’t our huge health and education spending. Thus any decline in revenue meant fewer mercenaries could be hired, or troops paid. Not good when you’ve got Vandals and Goths at your back.

* * *

Am strangely addicted to Twitter on iPod. Such a colorful, succinct aggregater of real-time micro-posts. It’s full of little aphorisms and inspiring words by those more spiritual than me, as well as links to interesting news articles. It’s so addicting that here I was half-tempted to buy a whole ‘nudder instrument (color Nook) in order to enjoy it on a bigger screen (7inch versus 3.5 inch). Of course with an iPad I could have the additional option of having a writing instrument. (Ah...I recall the days when a ‘writing instrument’ was a simple as a pen and paper!)

Was pleased to listen to the sermon at Westminster for Kate & William, as well as the beautiful music from the boys choir before and after. Sublime sounds such that I headed over to iTunes to see if there was a royal wedding soundtrack. Nope...

Another From NR

Interesting 1967 National Review piece on the hippies:

But, above all, it is in their orgiastic wallowing in enjoyment and love that they recall the Adamites; for the Adamites, despite Scripture which tells us that Adam and Eve were put into Paradise to “keep and to tend it,” in other words to work and cultivate it, always insisted that Paradise was for “bliss and joy.” The hippies, I imagine, are not much on the Bible or the Christian tradition (they prefer Krishna and the Buddhist sutras), and so they probably do not see the connection...

Perhaps the most shattering comment on the hippie love-mystique was made long in advance by that well-known protagonist of the Old Left, V. I. Lenin. It is a familiar hippie slogan, as an expression of love, love, love, that “if it moves, fondle it . . .” Keep this in mind. An anecdote is recalled about Lenin, years before the Revolution. Lenin was passionately fond of classical music; and, one day, as he was listening to something from Beethoven, his favorite composer, he turned to his companion, and said: “What greatness, what beauty, men have produced. One feels like patting them on the head for such marvelous achievements. . . .” Then, suddenly, he caught himself and exclaimed: “But be careful! They’ll bite your hand off!”

Saint Angustine somewhere says very much the same thing. And when Augustine and Lenin agree on something, it is surely a something well worth taking note of.

That Glowing '50s Economy

A National Review columnist, not surprisingly, differs with liberal Paul Krugman on the reasons the economy was great during the '50s and early '60s:

My motivation in writing about political economy is, in some ways, much like Krugman’s. But rather than seeing that moment as primarily the product of policies like unionization, entitlements and high taxes, as is Krugman’s view, I believe that it was primarily the product of circumstance. We had just won a global war, and had limited competition; we had a huge wave of immigration, followed by a multi-decade pause; oil was incredibly cheap; a backlog of technical developments had yet to be exploited and scaled up, and so forth. We can’t go back there, at least not exactly.

Ye Old Kindle Sale

Time to sell my old first generation Kindle since I'm quite pleased with my second generation. It's surreal that sellers are asking between $110 and $1,100 for something that is now in the third generation and goes for $114 new.

I put mine up for $105, since dropped to $85:

Quick Takes (Now 25% Quicker!)

Read an interesting line from a Peter Daly column about giving up things for Lent and how that can discipline you but it doesn’t change your attitudes, the internal things that make us unclean like anger, lust, envy etc... Of course the two aren’t mutually exclusive as Heather King pointed out in a post; the discipline of fasting carried over into the discipline of not engaging in gossip or judgmental talk.

* * *

I hunger now for some Donald Hall lyricism as a rare stretch of sun gleams in the bookroom window. I look at the great diversity of trees out front and think how I underrate the front porch; the back patio overlooks a maple, a peach tree and thirty evergreens. The front yard overlooks a panoply of trees of every description and, blessedly, only one evergreen. I like pine but one there’s a uniformity to them that eventually bores. In spring one wants to see the excitement of change, and the pines change not.

I was on the front porch earlier and a fine rain sent white petals drifting in the wet wind. A few land on my face and arms, sent from a neighbor’s dogwood.

* * *

Lent is over, which feels shocking. It comes to such an abrupt halt. Our early lives are like a long Lent; we may look back and say, “I could’ve done more, been more charitable, prayed more, …” and I look back with similar sentiments on Lent when Lent ebbs.

I devoted some time to Fr. Groeschel’s book about the history of devotion to Christ in the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox variations. Was dubious about the value of the book for me, but it’s full of little histories of the only thing that matters: faith. And I feel I have a better feel for some of the issues of, say, Russian spirituality. What makes the Russians who they are? (The quote goes that Russians are like everybody else, except more so.) Why has their beautiful liturgies not availed? The short story is that liturgy got linked to the state and cruel tsars and the Faith never does well when linked to state. (Perhaps we see a bit of that with Ireland, which seemed to be the exception until the recent freefall.) Also there’s no substitute for a more personal, mystical relationship with Christ.

* * *

I’m surprisingly sanguine about the Noah-ic rains and storms. I feel like I have the whip-hand on nature; the relentless march of the calendar is on my side this time. The tide has turned, the calendar can’t lie much longer and the cold and gloomy weather will be as temporary as crayon tattoos. Perhaps I’ll even miss it when it’s gone.

The gentle, ceaseless rains make for good sleeping weather. I drink gallons of sleep! I have an ocean of it, and it’s full of dreams and soothing restfulness, my limbs like tree-trunks.

I rather like the inclement weather. It makes me feel grounded. Sometimes I sit out on the front porch and smell the wet wind and enjoy the somber air. I feel no pull to travel when the sky is grey and cloudy. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than at home, on the porch or in the comfort of the recliner, the reading light on.

* * *

A few weeks ago I'd won free tickets to the foreign film Of Gods and Men. It was, proper to its subject matter, suitably intense.

Reminiscent of Into Great Silence - right down to the lingering on the faces of the monks - only this time the film had a plot.

The monks themselves, or actors playing the monks, did a good job in showing sanctity doesn't result in copy-cutter saints.

There were a few gut-wrenching lines delivered when they discussed whether to become martyrs. "No servant is greater than his master," quotes one monk, ominously. Another said,"A wildflower moves not to the sunshine...but remains where it is." "We are nothing but birds on a branch here," said one monk and one of the villagers replied, "we are the birds and you are the branches."

The film opens with a quotation from the Book of Psalms, Psalm 82:6-7: "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes."

One of the monks wrote in a farewell letter, “Here it is mayhem and violence. We are in a high-risk situation, but we persist in our faith and our confidence in God. It is through poverty, failure and death that we advance towards him...May we meet again, happy thieves in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. Amen.”

Sundry Thoughts

I often tempted to see the miraculous as the sole means that God - or the saints - express love towards us. And I've fallen into the bad habit of thinking that love "wears off" over time, such that the reason no one claims a miracle from St. Perpetua or St. Augustine anymore (but do claim one from St. Therese or John Paul II), is that those older saints have lost interest in us, have "moved on" to an even higher version of the beatific vision. (St. Jude being a notable exception.)

All of this is deeply heretical but it's hard to remove these sorts of obstacles because I tend to equate presence with the miraculous, rather than to see the Presence as the miraculous.

Not long ago I was trying to imagine what Jesus was saying to the sinners and tax collectors he ate dinner with. And it suddenly dawned on me that it was less what he said than the very fact that he was there. That spoke volumes. The poor sinners of Christ's time were used to the Pharisees wanting nothing to do with them, and so the fact that here a holy man, a rabbi, would eat with them made them feel like a million bucks. Made them feel loved. And it's just as amazing and miraculous when he comes to us today in the form of the Eucharist.
* * *
As a child I had not a thought for the thieves and their pain. They must’ve done something horrible, I thought, to deserve such a death. Something far more than just stealing a hubcap, or the first century’s equivalent to it. I would never be in that situation, I subliminally thought, and so I didn’t identify with the thief. I just thought that when Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” that that was quite generous.

Now I look at the thief differently. I see how justice is often applied unjustly and have little trust in human law. I also have much more respect for the pain and agony of crucifixion and consider no one deserving of that; I find such suffering to make the victim inherently worthy of sympathy. (For good or ill, I am a creature of this age when it comes to pain.) I'm also much more impressed with what the thief said to Christ. As a veteran of a million COPS episodes, it's amazing - a miracle? - to see admission of guilt.

Truthers to the Left of me, Birthers to the Right

The great national issue of our time - whether Obama was born in the U.S. and whether the non-continental U.S. counts - has been decisively settled. And I'm proud of the birthers because they humbly proved, to the great satisfaction of the MSM, that conservatives can be conspiracy theorists blinded by hatred just as much as liberals. Somebody had to step up to the plate and sacrificially offer themselves to the world in order to show that we're not all William F. Buckleys or George Wills here and thus remove any sense of superiority. God bless 'em.

And just as liberals were unrepentant Fenian bastards when it came to admitting they were wrong about x, y, z (where x, y, and z are a nearly infinite supply of facts beginning with the fact that Communism didn't work out well), so too are some of the birthers incapable of admitting error. One I know helpfully supplied a link of Michael Savage asking that Obama now turn over his passport, kindergarten records and rectal thermometer readings. I kid you not, except about that last part.

And, of course, MSNBC, terrified of losing its subject du jour du year, culled its rolodex and found the Last American Birther, a woman who saw through the long form certificate Obama produced. Chris Matthews didn't even have to tell us he had a thrill up his leg while he was interviewing her.

Personally, I've started to stray from my previous obsession with the "rule of law". With Clinton I was right there with the congress folks who wanted him impeached because of the perjury committed. But ultimately the whole crisis seems overblown, if in retrospect.

Much more important in developing my new attitude was what came next: the Iraq war. I understood the reason we were going to be Saddam Hussein's flouting of the ceasefire conditions of the Gulf War. But today, after all the blood and treasure spilt, including the side effect of the demolition of the Iraqi Christians, it feels a very, very hollow thing, that of trying to attend to the letter of your word, in this case concerning the Gulf war ceasefire. A Pyrrhic victory.

Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts:

Frankly, I'm perfectly happy Obama released his birth certificate. I always thought that the only thing worse than the birthers being wrong would be the birthers being right.

Igniting a whacky constitutional crisis because Barack Obama spent a few weeks or months in Kenya as an infant seemed like madness to me. Throwing out the first black president in the middle of his presidency would be absurdly difficult, painful, and counterproductive in every way, dredging up a level of biliousness this country has rarely if ever seen. And at the end of the process, even if a "birther Congress" could have successfully impeached and removed the guy for being ineligible, we would have . . . President Joe Biden.

(By the way, I've long pondered what a Biden presidency would look like. I think the Lloyd Bridges character in Airplane! gives us a good sense of what Biden's presidential leadership style would be.)...

What Took Him So Long?
I got a lot of grief from the usual types for asking why Obama dragged this out as long as he did. I still think it's a perfectly legitimate question.

It seems to me that if there was no "there" there this whole time, the responsible thing would have been for a junior deputy assistant press secretary to release the thing over two years ago.

Think about it. Liberal surrogates in and out of the press and the administration have been saying for two years that the birthers are discrediting the Republican party. They're racist. They're nuts. They're trying to tear down the president and the country with their paranoia. And yet Obama could have put the whole thing to rest with five minutes of paper shuffling. The White House only asked Hawaii for the birth certificate last week. And this was after we'd been told incessantly that Hawaii couldn't find or couldn't release the long-form birth certificate.

(Never mind that we never heard anything like the same level of outrage and dismay over the "truther" conspiracy theories, which A) were more widely held on the left than birtherism has been on the right and B) were far, far more repugnant. One theory held that a politician was hiding something on his birth certificate for political reasons. The other theory held that the United States government from the president down systematically planned and carried out the worst terrorist attack in American history and then successfully covered it up with the help of nearly all of our elite institutions.)

It seems to me the strategists around Obama liked it this way. They thought they could exploit the birthers the way Clinton exploited the militias. Keeping the story in the news by letting the birthers drive themselves nuts helped them. The press helped, too. Did you ever notice how whenever a Republican denounced the birthers or dismissed the issue, the press would often cast it as a tactical move to win moderates, not an act of conviction?

During the week of news coverage that Obama says was dominated by the birther issue, you were something like 35 times more likely to hear about the subject on CNN or MSNBC. Do you think those outlets framed the issue in a light favorable to the birthers or to the president? (Even now, the only media types really eager to prop up the birthers as a serious force are MSNBC hosts and their freelance producers at Media Matters & Co., who want to use the topic for guilt by association.)

Trump changed the equation. As odd as it is to me personally, Trump is a mainstream figure and his birtherism wasn't discrediting the GOP because he's not identified as a "real" Republican. And given the awful economy and the general pessimism out there, the birther thing had more salience culturally (which is unfortunate).

But also, Obama has been cultivating his image as the "grown-up." The White House has been trying to position Obama as the adult in the room, above the squabbling parties. Releasing the birth certificate now and having the president denounce "silliness" and "distractions" was a great way to get that message out there.

Or at least it seemed that way. My hunch is that Americans are starting to figure who Obama really is -- and the answer, as always, has nothing to do with his birth certificate.

Art Museum Tour Redux

Two visionarily dulcet hours in the Cincy art museum on Saturday. It felt downright vacational. The magic of Onstar made the route there painless despite the pouring rain, and the museum tour began with Greek and Roman art, some from the time of Christ (and therefore Pilate who is the subject of my latest read). I was bedazzled by the new addition, a Cincinnati-themed wing that featured various and sundry old paintings of Southwestern Ohio, a replica of the Fountain Square statue and a naked-as-a-jaybird “Eve Disconsolate” (later there was another Eve Disconsolate statue, also naked as a jaybird. What is this fascination with Eve at this art museum?)

The Cincinnati entrance wing had a quoted (on the wall) an august figure of the time (whose name now escapes me) who remarked in 1840 on the plethora of artists the city has produced. “What is it about Cincinnati that produces such artists?” he asked.









Upstairs there was a mix of the sacred and the profane, of medieval religious art to an exhibit titled, revealingly, “The Way We Are Now”. The modern art exhibit showed pictures of naked women with wolves heads photoshopped on, and a television with a nude black woman dancing and chanting or singing, I can’t recall which. I can’t think of a better way to say, “our society is in trouble” than that modern art exhibit. “The way we are now,” seems more accusation than anything else.

Driving from the museum, I’ve noticed that for all its prominence in the life and geography of Cincinnati, the Ohio River tends to be elusive. The hills and valleys seem to hide it, for there were only occasional glimpses accorded to me as I drove around. How different, it seems, from lakes or oceans which often have a flat, ocean-view road you can drive along. No such thing for dense cities like Cincy & Pittsburgh which live along a river.

Into Your Hands Excerpt

From Fr. Stinessen's book:

If we are subject to trials here on earth, if we must struggle to say Yes to God, it is because in eternity God wants to say to us: 'You have given me something. It is not only I who give, but rather we give to each other. I give myself in gratitude because you have given me something that you could have refused to give. Now you can no longer give me anything, but at one time you did, and it has an eternal value. I never forget.'

Theology has always taught that we cannot 'merit' anything, either in heaven or in purgatory. To "merit", that is, to do something for God, belongs to our earthly life. In heaven one is like a straw that is carried by the ocean. There is love, an overflowing stream of love, but no voluntary giving. One is taken, filled, in ecstasy, but one does not actually "give", or, better said, one gives because one has once given, once freely said Yes to God, and now is fixed in that Yes forever.

We would have to be God to be able to give ourselves totally, in absolute freedom, without any possibility of saying No. Freedom and necessity coincide perfectly in him. To give is his nature, a nature that he has not received but that is...if our Yes is inevitable, we cannot say that we give anything to God. A compulsory Yes would in itself be a gift from him and not, as it is with God, something we have of ourselves. And if we cannot give anything to God, we do not have a share in his Spirit, who by his very nature is Gift...

If God had let us behold his face from the beginning, we would have been fixed in a definitive state of mere receiving. But he wanted us to be like him and live in both giving and receiving. He could not shown us a greater honor!

This & That

John Zmirak at Inside Catholic on Good Friday:

It's always a testy issue, how to celebrate Good Friday. Those of us who have the day off wonder whether we're really luckier than those who have to work: At least those people have got their penance already, and can mark the day properly by stepping out at noon to say the rosary, perhaps in a nearby church. Some parishes have evening liturgies, where working stiffs who've put down their daily crosses can gather to mark Christ carrying His, then trickle back home to a sober evening, perhaps spent watching a film that fits the day, while feasting on bread and water -- something like Quo Vadis or The Passion of Joan of Arc.

* * *
Parody is Therapy updated to address the ultimate question for birthers: was Obama born at all?

* * *
I remember why I rarely hit Drudge's site. It's a source of irritation. I'm especially unduly irritated by non-sequitors like Manson's take on Obama. That the LA Times decided this was news was bad enough, but to get picked up by Drudge is ridiculous.

* * * It’s Holy Thursday and a middle-aged man’s thoughts turn to God. Specifically to two related pieces of information recently garnered.

The first was a review in NR praising the film “Of Gods and Men”. The film showcases Algerian monks who were later murdered by Muslim terrorists and how they (the monks) debated whether to leave and save their lives or stay and lose them. They wanted to live. They loved life and the goodness of creation. The reviewer makes the point that there’s a such a difference between gnosticism, seeing the world and flesh as inherently evil or burdensome, and the monks’ sensibility.

The second bit of information was reading Fr. Stinessen’s explanation of free will in Into Your Hands. To paraphrase perhaps very roughly, he says that God is all about relationship (the Trinity is all relationship) and the quintessential aspect of relationship is giving and receiving. Thus we (and the angels) were created such that there is a period of time in which we can give to God. Once in Heaven, it’s all receiving and no giving. The only time we can actually merit something is now, before Heaven. God gives us the privilege to give Him something and thus be imitative of Him.

* * *
Trying to decide which, if any, magazines I want to subscribe to. I'm currently hooked up (er, can I use that phrase these days?) with National Review and First Things but I seem to have fallen out of the habit of reading them. Wish they were available on Kindle because I think the additional accessibility would help. There is an NR digital subscription, with a pdf I could send to my Kindle.

Haven't subscribed to Time or Newsweek in years due to their overt bias. My subscription to National Geographic has long been fallow.

Other magazines that entice include but don't preclude All About Beer and y Gilbert!, the magazine of the Chesterton Society. Also for something along the lines of The Atlantic or The New Yorker, both of which I've subscribed to in the past and both of which I thought let me down in various ways. Still looking for that "perfect" magazine, which likely doesn't exist.


Librarything.com now has a feature that calculates how tall your book stack would be. Of course I have a good number on Kindle, so it's not entirely accurate but..



* * * I liked the title I came up with for a post the other day: “Boehner’s Boner” (for the milquetoast budget deal). Like most of my “discoveries”, it’d already been discovered before. A quick Google revealed a decent number of fellow title-holders. It’s part of the fun of the internet age to coin a neologism or fun phrase and see how many beat you to it.

Christendom Review Up

Fine issue here with a rich poetry section that included:

Astronomers
Thomas DeFreitas

Some like to study distant galaxies;
Some like to look at Jupiter and Mars:
I tell you, though, this young black woman’s eyes
Could make astronomers forget the stars.

Gods and Politics
Lee Evans

We have so much in common, you and I;
Yet not enough, it seems, to make us friends.
The music, books and politics should end
In an intense communion of our lives,
Instead of this indifference that belies
The interests that we separately pursue.
Not even our religious creed can fuse
Our wills together—what does that imply?
“All things are led by thought”: this much is so;
But just a thought is not enough to share,
Unless its current joins all lives that flow
Toward the same great ocean: Loving care
Unites us more than only thought can do,
Though all our gods and politics refuse.

Bill Luse also has a fine piece in thus edition.

PowerPoint Decree

From McSweeney's:

In Xanadu Did Kubla Khan a Stately PowerPoint Decree.
BY Mike Lacher

- - - -

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately PowerPoint decree:
For VP of Logistics, Stan
And key stakeholders of the plan
For scaling in Q3.

So ninety slides so media-rich
With animations on every switch.
And here were slides rife with sinuous clip art
Where blossomed many a stick figure with a key;
And here a line, pie, scatter, and bar chart,
Enfolding watermarked stock photography.
But oh! that massive romantic flowchart which raked
Down multiple slides athwart notes of automation!
A savage place! as convoluted and opaque
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By a manager wailing for best practices for escalation!

And from this flowchart, with ceaseless sound effects blasting,
As if the typewriter noises were everlasting,
Mighty WordArt momently was star-wiped;
And in faux-3D metallic letters was typed
Huge statements of "scale" and "ROI"
And colorful encouragements to "reach for the sky!"
And 'mid these dynamic calls-to-action
Came a Family Circus cartoon with relevant caption.
Five questions marks with a blinds-in animation
Representing the questions the audience surely had
Then reached the answer to make them glad
That what they need is team-based innovation
And 'mid this slide came to Kubla's attention
Ancestral voices prophesying higher rates of client retention!

The shadow of the PowerPoint slides
Floated across the conference call
Where was heard the muffled asides
From Denver and St. Paul
It was a miracle of device,
A PowerPoint with graphics so nice!
A damsel with a laser pointer
In a vision once I saw:
It was a Senior Logistics Strategist,
And with her pointer she never missed,
Highlighting key takeaways.
Could I revive within me
Her slick presentation,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with slides and presenter notations,
I would build that PowerPoint in air,
That sunny deck! Those slides so fine!
And all who heard should see him there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His swirling text, his Aeron chair!
Snap your laptop at its joint,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of PowerPoint.

Of Polls and Gravy Trains

Tis a truth that can be widely attested: no one likes to feel manipulated. We at least want a wink & a nod from our would-be manipulators when called out on it.

Yesterday received a push poll from the school district, and the caller wouldn't wink, nod or admit it was a push poll despite my asking why the question, "Do you feel property taxes are too high?" wasn't included (she said now that would be a push poll.) All the "questions" were heavy-handed groaners about the goodness and belt-tightening of the district. Given my smugness of seeing through it, I expected to be praised for my astuteness, which shows how much "astute" I lack. I loathe these sorts of tactics and told them that this call will make me LESS likely to vote for the levy.

Of course they wouldn't tell me who funded this "survey" but gave me a number to call. Which told me all I needed to know. The "survey" is a way to get their message out without our realizing they’re getting their message out. Despite the propaganda sent in the mail and columns from the superintendent in the newspaper, we need to be further edumacated.

I sense a bit of vindictiveness in my desiring to see the teachers’ gravy train end. I don’t have it hard enough, personally, to not let them live in their faux world, a world of artificially high wages and small class sizes created by the all powerful union and threat of strike or the pulling of sports. Why begrudge someone a good gig if you can afford it? And I can. Teachers in our district make surprisingly good money and unparalleled job security. Sure they’re overdue for a comeuppance, for a brush with reality. But aren’t we all, in the spiritual world if not material? Where’s the mercy, not justice?

“Charity,” said Chesterton, “isn’t charity if it’s deserving,” or words to that effect. I’m too much the conservative, which leaves me slightly uneasy.

Boehner's Boner