WSJ’s Daniel Henninger asks, “How about a good Catholic story?”
Tag: Blithe Spirit
Heywood H. Broun on appeasement
Here’s a good one from Canada-based Liberty quotes:
“Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will turn vegetarian.”
— Heywood Hale Broun (1918-2001) American sportswriter, commentator, and actor
H.H. Broun is a hero of U.S. newspaper unionism, led formation of The American Newspaper Guild — later renamed The Newspaper Guild (I’m not sure why), which gives an award named after him.
He might be saying this in re: Iranian mullahs or N. Korea these days, where hope and change reigns.
Dems lost in PA?
One good reason, please, for preferring to see the glass half full in Pennsylvania:
Mark Critzis a “Rush Limbaugh Democrat” who campaigned against almost everything Obama and Murtha support.
No SEIU line for him?
. . . [H]e was more conservative than the McCain campaign of 2008 and was more apt to criticize Obama than is, say, Lindsay Graham.
Hmmm. To get elected he did that?
This was hardly a race that can be celebrated by the Democrat leadership today. Critz is the type of Democrat that Nancy Pelosi was hoping to lose in November.
Good. An anti-Pelosi congressman? Replacing one of her faves? My glass runneth not over, but it’s half full!
About those immigrants
Tom Roeser resurrects this from Teddy Roosevelt:
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else—for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American and nothing but an American.
“…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American but something else also isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag…We have room for one language here and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
That’s rough riding over open-border enthusiasm.
Pleeeez talk to us, your highness . . .
[A]fter [Obama] signed the bill [promoting press freedom around the world], and as the press “wranglers” began aggressively herding us out of the room, I asked if he still has confidence in BP [whom he excoriated on Friday, taking no questions]. He ignored the question so I tried this: “In the interest of press freedom, would you take a couple questions on BP?”
That did elicit a smile, and he told me I was free to ask questions. Someone else shouted, “Will you answer them?”
He said he’s not holding a press conference today as we were escorted out the door.
Look, he’s a very superior fella, in every way. Can you get that straight?
Justice, law, and endless variety
Consider this, that envy lies at the root of all “social justice.” People want what others have.
And this, that the slogan “no peace without justice” is a prescription for endless war.
And this, the venerable folk saying, “Ain’t no justice,” is a not bad description of the world as she is — and will be.
And this, “There oughta be a law,” once a joke line, has become something big-govt. people are dead serious about.
And “There are good and bad of all kinds” is your perfect contribution to a discussion of group hostility.
Another thing: When you get down to it, the bishops and others who condemn enforcement of immigration law want open borders. How else explain their repeated support of amnesty?
Also: Back when the bishops, led by Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, condemned nuclear war and he made the cover of Time Mag, to what extent did they not support belief in Divine Providence?
Pro-aborts losing?
What do you know? The younger you are, the more pro-life!
Americans in the 18 to 29 age bracket are now more likely than their elders to believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, according to the data released last week, and generally oppose abortion in greater numbers than Baby Boomers.
That’s Gallup Poll numbers.
Something’s working.
And try this on for size:
Republican candidates now hold a five-point lead over Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot, a further narrowing of the gap between the two parties to the smallest margin this year.
That’s from Rasmussen.
Kass on Palin
Must beg to disagree with Chi Trib’s John Kass today. His column is devoted to Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, whom he praises, making a case that I buy.
But distinguishing him from other Republicans, he cites Sarah Palin as one of “a parade of Republicans sucking up to the tea party movement in some symbolic washing of its own past sins” whom he finds “nauseating.”
She is moreover “the erratic conservative now favoring leather tops [who] seems to be campaigning for tea party house mom, brazenly eager to appropriate it as her auxiliary.”
Not boldly? And leather tops? What’s that got to do with it?
Thing is, can you imagine the admirable Daniels defining national debate as Palin did with her “death panel” Facebook phrase? Or coming up with this line in Arizona:
“It’s time for Americans across this great country to stand up and say, ‘We’re all Arizonans now,”‘ Palin said. “And in clear unison we say, ‘Mr. President: Do your job. Secure our border.”‘
Reading that in the Trib, I yelped to see the references to John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” and Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” — each in Berlin, a city under siege, which is how most Arizonans feel, to judge from their support of their current much-discussed law.
A line is a line is a line, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, but in a continent-wide democracy, the ability to make people take note is crucial. And whom would many if not most Republican candidates want plumping for them, Palin or Daniels?
That said, Daniels talks sense about the Tea Party movement, which he said “must be authentically separate and spontaneous,” not to be “tainted by too close of a relationship to either party” and whose “creative hell-raising on behalf of freedom” he considers “a good thing.”
So does Palin, if in more overtly encouraging fashion, and I don’t see what the problem is. One can be too conservative, that is, too cautious, in these matters. Or too readily put off by style and dress.
Morale officers, take note
“Being a saint is God’s main goal for you,” Rev. James Martin SJ told Wheeling (WV) Jesuit U. graduates, but it was downhill from there:
The key to becoming a good saint for God [he added] is to always “remember to be yourself.”
“God celebrates diversity,” he said. “We are meant to be ourselves.”
But what if yourself is no damn good? You routinely lie, cheat, and call people bad names. Will “Be yourself” do it then?
Other advice landed better, if platitudinously:
“You are called to lead holy lives in your own way – in your own careers,” he said. “I can do something you can’t do, you can do something I can’t do – together let us do something for God. In our diversity, we can do something for God.
Diversity, eh? That’s the burning issue? No prayer and meditation?
“The biggest barrier to overcome is thinking you have to be someone else,” said Martin. “You are overlooking the beauty of what God has created.”
I do not think that’s the biggest barrier, being much inclined to give higher rating to putting Number One first, to the exclusion of other blokes.
In closing, Martin told the graduates the key is to “bloom where you are planted and be holy by being yourself.”
And go sweet-smelling off into the sunset, yeah!
Tales from the sauna
I’m sitting there, guy comes in all togged out for handball. I think, so? he does the sauna that way. Doesn’t shower, as the sign on the “Y” wall says. I have it wrong. He drops his ball on the grate, comes back, gets it later. I take notice, he says it warms the ball up, makes it livelier.
That was a few days ago. Today another guy comes in naked but with a bulky gym bag. He begins to put his handball clothes on, I get it, say, Headin’ for the courts? Yep, he changes here to get warmed up, he explains.
Makes sense. Sauna warms up ball and player. On with the games!
Blithe Spirit 