Contra Mozilla

Friday, February 28, 2014

Two Culture War Links

I'm working on a longer post on the recently vetoed Arizona religious freedoms bill, but time has been a scarce resource for me this week. However, here are some comments about the propaganda surrounding (and against) the bill.

Meanwhile, in Canada, there's this.:
Barbers in Toronto who refused to cut a woman’s hair have become the target of a human rights complaint, in a case that pits religious freedom against gender equality.
When Faith McGregor went into the Terminal Barber Shop requesting a short haircut, she was told the shop only grooms men.
The reason, co-owner Omar Mahrouk said, was that as a Muslim he could not cut the hair of a woman who was not related to him.
But for McGregor, the rejection of her patronage amounted to sexism.
“Fundamentally, my hair is the same as their male clients, so why would they have a problem with that,” she told CTV News.
“I felt like a second class citizen, like it was hard to hear that they refused and there was no discussion."
So the 35-year-old filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
Under the law, business owners aren’t supposed to discriminate based on gender, but Mahrouk felt he had religious rights.
It is rather clearly a precept of his religion to not cut the woman's hair, and in a saner society she wouldn't have a leg to stand on. I may disagree with the precept (and the religion), but in this case there is clearly no harm being done, and the state does not have any particularly compelling interest to force practicing Muslims to violate their religious beliefs in this way. I also haven't a clue as to what the woman's being a lesbian has to do with anything.

Stay tuned...

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

A Few Good Links (Vol. 12)

Hump day, hump day, link dump day!
  1. Many worlds: NASA "Unveils" 715 new planets, many of which are smaller than Neptune. Actually, it's not surprising that we are finding many planets which are little large than earth--it is, however, impressive that we are able to do it.
  2. A federal judge (who else) has ruled that Texas' constitutional amendment banning "gay marriages" is unconstitutional. No gay marriages will be performed here yet--or ever. Oh, they'll be legal, but declaring something "legal" doesn't make it "real," "moral," or "ontologically possible."
  3. In a related vein, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed the bill which would allow Arizona businesses to refuse services to gays on religious grounds. Her stated reason is that it was "broadly worded" and could "have unintended consequences." I made similar comments in my initial assessment. With that said, the logical consequence of vetoing it for being too "broad" is that a narrower bill should pass and be signed.
  4. Of course, there may have been some financial motives as well. Several big businesses weighed in against the bill. I suppose that those who like to vote with their wallets should take note and act accordingly. Hopefully a narrower bill will pass and be signed. Real freedom does mean allowing others to make some decisions with which we disagree--that includes business owners.
  5. One more link to post on the same subject, then I'm done (for now). Ok, two. "It’s not that business owners want to 'refuse service' to gays simply because they’re gay; it’s that some business owners — particularly people who work in the wedding industry — don’t want to be forced to employ their talents in service of something that defies their deeply held religious convictions." This is it, in a nutshell. We either have this freedom of conscience, or we are not free. Ditto regarding the tyrannical HHS contraceptives/abortifacients/sterilization mandate.
  6. Theological "chatter" has its various victims. By this, I mean unguarded speculation by those in authority. Speculation is fine when its understood as such, but it's not meant as "pastoral advice" (or whatever).
That's about what I have time for right now.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Quote of the Day: Modernity's Idols and the Aztecs

"At least when the Aztecs sacrificed you to their gods you got to visit a nice ziggurat.  Modernity’s gods are so much more clinical." From the Zippy Catholic.

The moderns may have ceased believing in God, may claim to have dispensed too with gods and idols and demons. But they still offer their sacrifices, often human ones, to these deities. It just goes by another name.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Meet the New Inquisitors

I would say that these are the same as the old inquisitors, except that their death toll is much higher (once you count abortion). Oh, and it is carried out by people who loudly brag about there being no such thing as heresy. History may not repeat itself, by it certainly manages to look a lot alike under the surface.

Update: Ace has some thoughts of his own on the inquisition of the Left.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

TMM: Turning Away the Gays?

My co-blogger posted a short link about a recent law which passed the Arizona legislature. I also didn't realize that this was a thing. Who would have thought there'd be enough politicians in both parties in any state and at any level to pass something like this?

I actually have mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, I too think that religious liberties are important enough to deserve further protection. I noticed, furthermore, that just because a right is "guaranteed" by the Constitution doesn't mean that some collaboration between the different branches and levels of government won't find some way to effectively nullify it. The First and Second Amendments have been under especial attack of late, but I think we can find examples of just about any right enshrined in the "Bill of Rights" which has taken some hits in the last couple of decades.

What are my concerns about this law, then? Assuming that it is not vetoed, I have two. The first is the one mentioned by my co-blogger, namely that this will be a Pyrrhic victory. In effect, it gives people with religious qualms some protections in a few states (apparently, this couldn't even pass in Idaho). These will ultimately be short-term, and will eventually be thrown out by the courts (if not repealed first). In the meantime, they will galvanize the homosexualist lobby to push the envelope even further in any state where these laws are not passed first. We've already seen lawsuits over refusals of service from bakers, photographers, hotel/reception/wedding cites (really, anybody in the wedding or honeymoon business); there have even been rumblings of jail-time for some people who have refused their "services."

It's not a far stretch to see anti-discrimination laws of the sort used to sue business owners combined with so-called anti-bullying laws (who says those should be limited to kids?). The result might be legal repercussions not only for businesses and business owners who refuse service based on "sexual orientation" [1], which refuse but for anyone who says anything bad about homosexuality in public. Thus, a business owner who provides services under protest might still face fines, not for refusing service, but for simply stating that he disapproves of the gay lifestyle. Not only will the beds-and-breakfast which refuse to host a "gay honeymoon" be punished, but also the church which refuses to host a "gay marriage/wedding" ceremony.

This is speculation, of course, but it really isn't that far-fetched. It may be that this issue plays out similarly to the abortion issue (a long, protracted battle in which the tide turns first one way, then another), or it may be a long march to defeat for people of good conscience. It will be ugly, and Christians will be made to suffer at least in the short term (that is what we ultimately signed up for by our Baptism and Confirmation).

This brings me to my other concern. Not knowing the exact wording (and thus, scope) of the law, and having only heard reports (given the sources, quite likely biased, possibly exaggerated and probably propagandistic), my gut feeling is that these laws do go too far. There is, after all, a definite difference between (say) protecting Catholic Charities' rights to place children only with families consisting of one father (male) and one mother (female, married to the father) and allowing a Catholic hospital to refuse to treat a gay man's injuries or illness [2]. For that matter, there is even a difference between allowing a florist to decline to provide flowers to a "gay wedding" ceremony and a restaurant refusing to provide a meal to a gay man upon learning that he is gay.

And then, moreover, there is a difference between what conscience prescribes and what the government declares legal. I tend to favor the rights of conscience for the most part, even in some cases where I think that a man's conscience may err.




---Notes---
[1] Scare quotes around "sexual orientation" because not all these service refusals have actually been about "sexual orientation," whatever the lawsuits have alleged. For example, there is the florist who was sued after declining to provide flowers for a "gay wedding", despite having provided flowers on many other occasions to one of the pair who wanted to tie the knot. The fact that the many was gay wasn't the bar to providing service in this case.

[2] Of course, it's pretty rare that a Catholic hospital would actually turn away a patient in need like this, so this scenario is a bit farcical).

Friday, February 21, 2014

Turn Away the Gay

I didn't realize that this was a thing. Apparently, Arizona passed a bill which allows businesses to refuse service to gays on religious grounds. This is the natural backlash against a militant homosexualist movement which has waged a scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners campaign against religious liberties.

Is this bill and overreaction? Perhaps and perhaps not. Is it a Pyrrhic Victory? That's probably likely. If so, then the bill will have a downside.

Three Culture War Links: A Brave New World

Here are three quick links pertaining to the culture wars: I leave it as an exercise to the reader to see how they are related to each other.

First, on rights, responsibilities, and the idol of the idle.

Second, this post by Ross Douthat, which I am still working through myself. I do not agree entirely with Mr Douthat's assessment, by the way, but he raises a number of good points.

Third, this post about propaganda for the sexual revolution on Matt Walsh's blog (caution: some graphic content, NSFW). A key quote:
The results (of the social engineering in Huxley's Brave New World) were a society where people learned discipline and self-control. But tyrants do not want a citizenry with these kinds of characteristics. That’s one of the central themes in Huxley’s novel.
It’s terrifying to think of all the modern progressives who read this excerpt and nod their head in agreement with the Director. Huxley wrote Brave New World to be a nightmarish vision of a Dystopian future – they read it like a practical outline of their domestic agenda.
That’s why I chuckle whenever a radical progressive professes to have read and loved this book. It’s like they don’t realize that the entire thing is one long, stinging, merciless indictment against their ideology and worldview.
Such is where we are heading.

Monday, February 17, 2014

More Entertaining Commercials: BMW Films Edition

Apparently, BMW is bringing back an old ad campaign: brand-integrated short films. The originals were entertaining car-chases, as in "The Transporter" (etc.):


Product placement is nothing new, but there are few good-quality and entertaining videos which are built around a product (unless you count cartoons built around children's toys, and few of those are really high-quality). In the age of YouTube (etc.), such commercials might actually make sense in a way that they probably didn't a few decades ago.

Quick Links and Quotes: Guns and Freedom

Some links, but one requires a password/invitation to view so I'll excerpt.

First, there's civil disobedience in Connecticut over gun registration. I'll leave it up to the reader to decide if this is a bad thing, because it weakens the government's ability to pass laws which help preserve an ordered freedom, or a good thing because this is a bad law which should be resisted.

Second, guns really do defend freedom (and not only lives and property):
"a widespread insurrection against the government wouldn’t take the form of a massed militia marching against the US military...Politicians would be easy targets, except for a few who could surround themselves with a ring of steel.  Roads and railroads would be blocked and destroyed.  Water and electrical systems would be constantly disrupted, as would the provision of everything from medicine to food.  Loyalist citizens would inform on their rebel neighbors, with the rebels in turn killing those suspected of informing.  Criminals would prey on everyone who was too weak to resist.

It would be dreadful, regardless of who won in the end. And in that terrible scenario, the personal firearms protected by the second amendment would be very effective.  A drone beats an AR-15 or a Glock, but the drone needs fuel, and an airfield, and an operator who likely has a home and a family.  Civil war is an awful thing, but the threat of a desperate populace resorting to it provides a check on the government."

Actually, that "Criminals would prey on everyone who was too weak to resist" is generally true. There is a saying that when seconds count, the police are just minutes away. We see it especially in high-crime areas: hello, Chicago and LA; hello, US border towns (and farms, etc) which get drawn into the Mexican Drug Cartels' ongoing wars; and hello, anarchy in New Orleans immediately after Katrina.

It's not that those of us who support Second Amendment rights live in a state of paranoia. Rather, we live in a state of preparation, not necessarily for revolution (wars are ugly things) but for the very real possibility of being victims of a mad gunman or a violent criminal or a drug enforcer; or, indeed, of the increasingly common infringement on our rights brought by the militarized police state (etc.).

The statists' desire to see us disarmed and helpless really is as much about the latter as it is the former. Make us helpless before any threat, and the citizenry will beg for more government to solve its problems. The fight over firearms also has this at its root, because if we give up our ability to self-defense (including potentially lethal self-defense), our only alternative for "safety" is to have a well-funded and well-oiled police-state, which then conveniently can be used to keep the citizens in line.

Friday, February 14, 2014

How It Works

Happy Friday.

How to Get Out of Jury Duty

For those who want a way out of jury duty, this seems promising:


Of course, I don't necessarily want out of jury duty. And it would be nice to use jury nullification, if it is actually possible) against laws which are meant to persecute people of good conscience (e.g. cases in which homosexualists go after Christians for refusing to go along with "gay marriage" if such ever end up before a jury). I suspect that this is a pipe dream, though, since convincing the rest of the jurymen to do the right thing in these cases would be a bit difficult. Not to mention avoiding perjuring oneself to get on said jury to begin with.

This Brings Back Memories

My friend Shawn Nelson has uploaded his very first production movie to YouTube. I remember when they screened it in the MU. Brings back some memories:



Happy Friday.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Sometimes the Courts Get It Right

This includes even some of the more Left-leaning courts. Hopefully this ruling stands. I especially hope this, since there is a large (and unfortunate) chance that I will have to live in California at some point.

On the other hand, there are always loopholes, which I expect to be found in states like California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, etc.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Palate Cleanser Commercial

If you need a palate-cleanser after the super bowl commercials from a couple weekends ago, here it is:


Tells a nice story in two minutes? Check. Morally wholesome? Check. For something worth buying? Check, I think, though I've never tried that particular brand of Scotch.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Of Safety and Satire

Probably the most entertaining satirical video you'll see today: a citizen vs the nanny-state (city council edition). Ass-shland city council is considering an ordinance against open-carry of firearms (which is legal in Oregon). One citizens steps up in an epic way:


I've had my fill of government bureaucrats and other busybodies who are interested in enacting pointless and ineffectual laws against such things as our right to bear arms (openly or concealed), thereby punishing the majority of citizens who are at least somewhat responsible, sane, level-headed, etc. while making us all easier targets for those who are not sane, level-headed, or who are just plain sociopathic. But guns represent freedom and responsibility (even if they would be ineffectual in, for example, an actual rebellion), things that Leftists and other Statists don't want to encourage.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Seven Quick Takes Friday (vol. 8): Some Quick Links and My Reactions


--1--
In the early part of last month (I never claimed these would be new links), Wall Street Journal published an article which identified many (not all) of the problems with a university education. After doing this, the authors concluded that the "university bubble" would soon burst, which is not a farfetched conclusion per se. Nor is it necessarily a bad thing (way too many people are getting university degrees, many without really wanting the degree or ultimately needing it). However, the authors' ultimate conclusion/solution bothered me a bit.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who was bothered by it. Professor Budziszewski wrote a pair of blog posts responding to it (scroll down to Posts 14 and 15):
Medieval students had to master seven elementary studies before going on to advanced degrees.  The first three, called the trivium, were grammar, or the laws of language; rhetoric, or the laws of argument; and dialectic, or the laws of clear thought.  The next four, called the quadrivium, were arithmetic, or the laws of number; geometry, or the laws of figure; music, or the laws of harmony; and astronomy, or the laws of inherent motion.

Why these seven?  Because medieval universities were organized around the view that the universe makes sense, that knowledge is grasping that sense, that the mind can really grasp it, that all knowledge is related, and that all of its parts form a meaningful whole...

Having abandoned the vision on which the medieval university was built, what are modern universities organized around?  The answer is “Nothing in particular.”
They are queasy alliances of interest groups which have no ultimate commitments in common.
Among the more respectable things the university tries to be are a job training center, a place for technological research, and an accreditor of fitness for employment.  But universities don’t do any of these things well, and each of them can be better and more cheaply by other kinds of institution....

The things universities do which other institutions can do better eventually will be done by other institutions.  The things they do which don’t need to be done will eventually lose public support.  I will not mourn these changes.  They are overdue.

I will mourn the loss of the one thing universities can do well, which was done in medieval universities, but which the modern university no longer believes in:  Pursuing the vision of the coherence of reality and its friendliness to the mind, and forming minds which are capable of sharing it.
Would that universities embrace this vision. They could at the very least take their own mottoes more seriously. For example, the University of Texas (where Budziszewski is a professor) has as its motto, "[A] Cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy." Before that, and still printed on the main building, it was "And ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set ye free."


--2--
A woman responds to a pro-abortion (let's not lie and call it pro-choice) email, and her response is beautiful. She also brings up some interesting points, including:
I was once like you. I was once told that aborting my children was the answer to my life. I was once told that my boyfriend too would have to drop out of the University he attended, and I wouldn’t be able to attend the following year after I graduated from High School. The funny thing was, because of my son, my ex-boyfriend and I qualified for several grants and scholarships. In fact, I’m one of the few people I know that was able to go to school without taking out student loans. Which is probably why I’m a home owner at 26.
That's on the purely facts and logic side of the argument. Children are a bit of work, but they don't necessarily mean that you must give up on all your hopes and dreams.


--3--
Here is a critique of the New Evangelization in the US by an apparently faithful (and orthodox) Catholic Millennial:
From my admittedly limited vantage point, the gravest dangers for us seem to be not legalism but antinomianism, not intellectualism but sentimentalism, not scrupulosity but laxity, not despair but presumption, not all-out retreat but all-out assimilation, not pharisaic ritualism but anti-liturgical iconoclasm, not missionary timidity but evangelical over-hastiness, not self-referentialism but self-forgetfulness (and not the good kind), not stifling uniformity but disjointed miscellany, not clericalism but, for lack of a better word, laicism.

Unfortunately, the New Evangelization here in the United States is often presented in contrast only to the first half of each of these dichotomies, set off against those errors that I am arguing are least relevant to our own cultural circumstances. We hear that the Church is not just some monolithic administration but is rather a home for loving personal relationships. That is absolutely true, and no doubt we sometimes need the reminder. But from where I’m standing, it looks like the Church in America is actually doing pretty well when it comes to individual relationships of love and care. Where we seem far less secure is in tending to our common institutional foundations. Our characteristic error is not that of idolizing structure, but of overstressing emotion....

In the same vein, it seems to me that we are doing far better at apologetics right now than at catechesis. Strikingly, our catechists these days often just use apologetics tracts as their textbooks for catechism class, giving the faithful mere leftovers of what was actually prepared for others who do not yet share our faith. It is as if we contemporary American Catholics take the patrimony for granted, forgetting that it must be constantly shored up against the erosion of history. Leaving the ninety-nine to search for the one is Biblical and laudable. But spending a lifetime playing hide-and-go-seek with the one while leaving the ninety-nine to their own devices? Not so much.

This pretty much nails most of my frustrations with the Church in America (there are a few others which are not unrelated). And no, we cannot say that this is all Pope Francis' fault, even if at times (not always) he seems to bring a perspective which suggests that he is responding more to the Church in Latin American than the Church in the US (and Europe, for that matter). Note also that this is not to say that the New Evangelization is a bad thing, or is doomed to fail. It does, however, have a tendency to focus on the wrong set of problems, that is on problems that the Church in America largely does not have. More importantly, this means that it has a tendency of not addressing (and even at times of worsening) those problems which we do have.


--4--
Gaining new converts is good, and evangelization will do that; so, on the other hand, will proselytism, which is unfortunately one tendency of the New Evangelization as practiced here. We need good catechesis as a part of good evangelism, and vice versa. The New Evangelization gets the latter right, but not always the former. And we also need good apologetics (so Saint Peter tells us in his first letter), but this is a supplement to and not a substitute for either evnagelization or catechesis.


--5--
The dark side of the Super Bowl--aside from the propaganda both subliminal and liminal in the ads and the halftime shows--is the sex trafficking. There is often an uptick in this surrounding the event. The good news is that a sting operation rescued 50 women and 16 minors (teenaged girls) from sex trafficking; the bad news is that they couldn't catch everybody.


--6--
More financial ruin is wrought by buying into Keynesian economics than any other system--unless you count outright Marxism. Here are five examples of Keynesian failure. This is the theory which is overwhelming supported in the halls of the academy, and of most governments. And it has a lot of simple appeal, since it appears to "do something" as opposed to "doing nothing." However, sometimes doing nothing really is the best approach.


--7--
I began with an article that I agreed partially with, and so I will end with the same. Matt Walsh has a very good post which falls just short of great. It is very good, because it rightly identifies divorce as being a death knell to the institution of marriage. No-fault divorce is killing marriage as a civil institution, and that harm spills over into the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. However, just because one disease is killing an organism does not mean that another can't speed up that death; euthanasia is still wrong even in the face of chronic illness. Similarly, the so-called "gay marriage" campaign is an attempt to euthanize marriage, a seemingly dying institution. While Mr Walsh commendably focuses on the cure, he does seem to brush aside the problem of "gay marriage," which will at best retard any ability of actually fixing the institution of marriage, and (more likely) will become a club with which to beat any individuals and institution(such as the Church) which might hope to affect a real cure of what ails marriage in our society. Strengthening the permanence of marriage while removing its foundation will not fix the institution.


-----

Seven Quick Takes Friday is hosted by Mrs Jennifer Fulwiler at her Conversion Diary blog.

The Most Brilliant Parody Blog I've Seen in a While

At least, I'm assuming that's what this is. Unfortunately, there are some people who take it at least a little seriously, so I guess Poe's Law kind of applies. But yeah, it's a brilliant parody of modern "radical" feminism, as embodied by such protesters as FEMEN etc.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

The UN is Thoroughly Useless

Corrupt, too, but in this case it's just plain evil:
SPUC was responding to a report published today by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child which attacked the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion under the guise of a critique of the Church’s handling of child sex abuse cases. As SPUC informed LifeNews by email, the UN report, among similar things, recommends that the Catholic Church identify “circumstances under which access to abortion services can be permitted” (section 55) and “overcome[s] all the barriers and taboos surrounding adolescent sexuality that hinder their access to sexual and reproductive information, including on family planning and contraceptives” (section 57a).
John Smeaton, SPUC’s chief executive, who is in New York with Peter Smith, one of SPUC’s UN lobbyists, commented: “The committee has overstepped its mandate by making demands well beyond the scope of the actual wording of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. There is nothing in the Convention which requires the Catholic Church or any other body to facilitate abortion…” 
“There is a great deal of hypocrisy in the committee’s report. Under the cover of seeking to protect children against sexual abuse, the report promotes damage to children – the destruction of unborn children through abortion and the destruction of born children’s innocence through the promotion of contraception…,” Smeaton added.


Shocking, but not surprising, as the saying goes.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Bias? What Bias?

I've heard it said that reality has a liberal/progressive/Leftist bias. If anything, the opposite is true, though in any given election the general public may lean left. What certainly does have a liberal or progressive slant is the mainstream media:
The Congressional Budget Office estimated on Tuesday that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the number of full-time workers by 2.5 million over the next decade. That is mostly a good thing, a liberating result of the law.
The paper (or channel) which reports that it's a good thing that 2.5 million more people will lose their jobs as a result of the pet policy of the Beloved Leader is not acting as an unbiased news agency, but rather as a cheerleader. This is not "some jobs are disappearing/going over seas as new jobs come in to replace them," but rather just "jobs will be lost in an already down economy, and that's a good thing because we cannot make the One look bad." Jobs are lost, and so people make the best of a bad situation, but the papers will make the job loss seem like the good situation and ignore that the people who are making the best of it would (mostly) rather be employed.  They might as well write "The chocolate rations have been increased from thirty grams to twenty five grams!"

The Purpose of Public Schools

Once upon a time, public schools were established to ensure that we would have something resembling and educated populace. Increasingly, they are being used as just another laboratory in which to inflict the state- or union-approved ideology on students. The school may not be free, but they can ensure its free of education (with a few notable exceptions).

If that's not reason enough to make parents look for alternative option, a school in Wisconsin has come up with a new reason to homeschool. Children may have an older brother, but there's no Big Brother present:

A middle school in Marinette, Wisconsin got a group of 5th-8th graders together and organized a really fun game that asked students to step forward to answer “yes” to a series of highly personal questions...

I think we can all see how easily this could go sideways. This collection of information from unwitting children could be used to instigate social services investigations, to find out which parents are using their 2nd amendment right to own firearms, whether they’ve complied with Obamacare, what their lifestyle choices are, how they practice their religious beliefs, what the family’s political beliefs are, or to single out kids for forced medical or mental health treatment against the wishes of their parents. We need only look at all of the zero tolerance hysteria to see how quickly this could get out of hand.

Most kids don’t understand the greater ramifications of sharing this type of information, and that is exactly what the administrators are counting on. They are taking advantage of a relationship of trust between students and faculty, and exploiting that for their own purposes. So many things are illegal or illicit now that it’s impossible for a child to judge whether what he or she is saying will get someone into trouble.

I would ask "What could go wrong?," but that question only works if the possibility of something going wrong isn't at least a little intentional.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

In Case You Missed It--The Big Lipinski

I'm not normally a huge fan of ice-skating, but sometimes I can make exceptions:



I think I'll go for a white Russian now.

How Many Scientists Really Believe in Anthropogenic Climate Change

...apparently a lot fewer than claimed. I've found that many people who believe in man-caused global warming (or cooling, or the less specific "climate change") do so because they like the solutions and not because they understand (let alone agree with) the science.

The Devil Abroad

The devil walks abroad, and stalks a broad. Demoniacs exist, but who will believe they are possessed? Alas that there were no exorcists on hand.

Closer to home: a woman can't afford her own birth control, but somehow can afford to run for Congress. That's not really demonic activity, though it becomes diabolical when said woman's supposed inability to buy her own birth control leads to attacks against the freedom to follow the Church's teachings on the matter.

Closer still, and less obvious too: it's eery the number of formerly good, faithful Catholics and other Christians have suddenly decided that they were same-sex attracted and, shortly thereafter, have ceased to practice Christianity. Same-sex attraction happens and provides a tough struggle for the person involved; so do all other temptations, though we spend a lot less time celebrating certain of them, and I can name few (which is not none) others which have had such a tendency of rejecting all of Christian Truth (or, on a smaller scale, merely Christian morality) upon being discovered.

Is there demonic activity here? Perhaps it is the whisper which finds the excuse to abandon Christian morality in whole because some part of it has become difficult. That is a temptation faced by everyone, in differing degrees and kinds.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Super Bowl

I didn't watch the game, I didn't watch the halftime show, and I didn't watch the commercials. From what I've been hearing, I didn't miss much.

Well, unless you count this epic commercial, but since I don't live in Georgia, I wouldn't have seen it anyway.



Whoa.

Aside from that, I am told that there wasn't much worth watching. The only other commercial I've heard bantered about is the Coke commercial celebrating homosexual unions. I don't drink much Coke anyway (I prefer the HEB brand sodas, since they use cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup), and honestly don't see this as being nearly as militant as, say, Starbucks.

The Super Bowl is considered one of the major cultural "events" in America--along with Grammys and Emmys and Oscars and Golden Globes--so it has naturally become one more venue to try pushing the envelope in the culture wars. For that matter, a pair of homosexuals holding hands while the song America the Beautiful [1] plays is hardly the most grievous example of envelope-pushing out there, especially given the context of an ongoing "gay rights" boycott of Coke over its sponsorship of the Winter Olympic Games.

Be that as it may, there usually is a bit of envelope-pushing associated with these things. Since we're not generally allowed to push back (except when we are)--and more importantly, since we tend to be on the side that isn't backed by wealthy companies which can afford to run such ads--there is only one other alternative: vote with our wallets and our eyes and tune out. I'd prefer pushing back, of course, since I hate to be culturally marginalized. But if the former doesn't happen to greater degree, the latter certainly will (and worse).


[1] God shed his grace on thee/'til selfish cause and unjust laws/no longer trouble thee.