Blogular updates

Great graphic comes courtesy YELLOWDOG GRANNY.



Blogger has unexpectedly monkeyed with the process of posting photos. Again. As stuffy Evelyn Waugh (disgusted with Vatican II and Mass in English) famously remarked: The same again, please. Those of you who have had your favorite soap or frozen burrito or bra discontinued, never to be found again, can totally relate... as can middle-aged bloggers who finally mastered something, only to find it CHANGED AGAIN, and NOT for the better.

So, now I must copy and paste my old photo-format and insert the new URL of the photo in its place, to get it to look the way I want. Growf.

The same again, please!

Which reminds me. Ratzinger, I mean, Pope Benedict XVI, is abdicating at the end of the month, which we discussed on the radio show. On Gregg's Friday podcast, he went into more detail. (Specifically: What type of crimes is the Pope allegedly seeking immunity from? Is it for protecting pedophile priests or Vatican bank-laundering dirty money?) I am personally hoping for an African or South American pope this go-round, although I am unsure if that would have any appreciable effect on doctrine. Still, we see that an Eastern Bloc pope had the undeniable effect of helping to take down the Soviets; Vatican funds were funneled directly to the Solidarity union in Poland. Might an African pope get some of that Vatican cash for a similar fight against tyranny? Certainly, the possibilities are endless.

And speaking of religion: I have started reading an intense, smart fella named Dan Fincke, who is my kind of atheist. His blog is named "Camels with Hammers"... apparently, Dan has not read my smug young critic of last summer, who confidently assured me that Nietzsche is totally YESTERDAY, man. Direct quote: "You do know that he was discredited ages ago, right? Only alienated teens take him seriously any more."--just like the Beatles, one assumes. Is that a bummer or what?

You are hopelessly OUT OF IT, Mr Fincke! (But a very entertaining writer.) If I EVER get around to fixing the broken blogroll (something else Blogger supposedly "made better" and instead, made horribly worse)--I will be including you posthaste. Please accept this friendly mention in the meantime!

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I forgot to re-post THIS on February 17th: my account of the lynching of Willie Earle, which took place here in upstate South Carolina, 66 years ago. I DID remember the date (rather late in the day) and posted a link on Twitter and at the South Carolina Progressive Network page on Facebook.

Please pass it on... its my own small contribution to Black History Month.

Pope trashes capitalism for the New Year

At left: I know he is technically Pope Benedict XVI, but to me, he will always be Cardinal Ratzinger, ideological hit-man for the Vatican.

And today, he did some ideological sermonizing that few expected. Now, this is the kind of New Year's Day sermon I can get behind.

Lots of people are surprised, quoting and misquoting right and left (if you'll pardon the expression) and so I went to the Vatican website to get the actual text verbatim:

[The] world is sadly marked by hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism, as well as by various forms of terrorism and crime, I am convinced that the many different efforts at peacemaking which abound in our world testify to mankind’s innate vocation to peace. In every person the desire for peace is an essential aspiration which coincides in a certain way with the desire for a full, happy and successful human life. In other words, the desire for peace corresponds to a fundamental moral principle, namely, the duty and right to an integral social and communitarian development, which is part of God’s plan for mankind. Man is made for the peace which is God’s gift. All of this led me to draw inspiration for this Message from the words of Jesus Christ: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ (Mt 5:9)

...

The splendour of the face of God, shining upon us and granting us peace, is the manifestation of his fatherhood: the Lord turns his face to us, he reveals himself as our Father and grants us peace. Here is the principle of that profound peace – “peace with God” – which is firmly linked to faith and grace, as Saint Paul tells the Christians of Rome (cf. Rom 5:2). Nothing can take this peace from believers, not even the difficulties and sufferings of life. Indeed, sufferings, trials and darkness do not undermine but build up our hope, a hope which does not deceive because “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (5:5). May the Virgin Mary, whom today we venerate with the title of Mother of God, help us to contemplate the face of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. May she sustain us and accompany us in this New Year: and may she obtain for us and for the whole world the gift of peace. Amen!

The reviews are coming in fast and furious; some predictably stating that the Pope's New Year's address "left many scratching their heads"... while others approvingly quoted his words and nodded in agreement.

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In other news: Carolina kicked Michigan's ass! (You shoulda heard the whooping and hollering in the Mellow Mushroom today.) And Georgia beat Nebraska, which was welcome news in my household.

It's going to be an interesting year. :)

Odds and Sods: The bitter edition

Someone left a Jack Chick comic on my windshield! I figure this has something to do with the Pope's visit to the US.

The frame at left is from This Was Your Life, one of his most famous, and the exact one left on my car. It's been years since I've read the whole thing, so I was tickled pink to get it! (I heartily suggest the Jack T. Chick Parody Archive, for an afternoon of fun!)

And speaking of the Pope (great segue!) I confess to being an unabashed fan of Politico's SHENANIGANS, where this week, Anne Schroeder Mullins tells us:

Scalping tickets to see the Pope — oh, the irony. But it's goin' on. A quick search has the price up around $100 a pop. We asked your thoughts:

*"Seems fairly sinful, but I think if you leave face-value of the tickets in the plate on Sunday you're cool." — MSNBC's Willie Geist

*"If you want the Hallmark moments you got to pay ballpark prices." — Dem Hill staffer

*"The Pope hasn’t played Washington since ’79. It’s like the Stones returning to Baltimore after 40 years.” — Senate staffer David DiMartino

*And, "Of course there is scalping, he’s the Hannah Montana of religious leaders." — High level senate staffer, understanding free market economics.

This explains so much!

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Meanwhile, the media continues ravaging Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for his much-repeated (and rather tepid) statements about how some working class people are "bitter" and cling to religion and guns. I didn't initially blog about this (like a lot of lefties, I notice) because I didn't regard it as any big deal and assumed all related foofaraw would blow over quickly. I mean, everyone knows this, yes? Didn't Pat Buchanan build his entire presidential campaigns (in both 1992 and 1996) on these same proto-populist, anti-NAFTA sentiments? Hasn't Ron Paul said as much?

Ohh, wait. I get it now. THOSE ARE WHITE PEOPLE!!!

The Angry Black Woman breaks it down, in a piece aptly titled Is it still an insult if it's true? She discusses a fascinating book (that I've just ordered)--Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War, by a fellow named Joe Bageant:

[Bageant] points out, for example, that the American educational system was initially designed to produce good workers — specifically, people who were just educated enough to handle complex industrial labor, but purposefully not educated enough to question authority. Educational methods which would promote critical thinking have historically been de-emphasized versus rote learning, and few American school systems have endorsed subject matter that gave equal time to global versus local knowledge, complete versus Eurocentric history, etc. We’ve heard this before, of course; IMO, it’s the main reason America’s schools are crap, and yet too many are blaming that poor performance on immigrants and PoC. What Bageant points out is that this “teach them to be good, unquestioning, America-first workers” trend disproportionately affected rural and small-town communities, simply through scarcity of resources. After all, a 2000-person town can hardly support both a Montessori school and a regular kindergarten. It’s not going to have the wealth of options that larger cities provide via charter schools, etc. And since fewer parents in such communities went to college versus parents in cities (where often there were low-cost educational options available, like New York’s CUNY system, which was free until 1975), the likelihood that those parents would then encourage their kids to seek higher education was low, versus the population in cities.

The result of all this, according to Bageant? People from rural, poor communities have been virtually programmed for generations to listen not to their own reasoning, but to whoever speaks loudest and most authoritatively on any subject. They respond to simple, emotionally charged messages — even when the the issues that the messages involve are complex and nuanced. They resent, and therefore distrust, those Americans who had greater access to education, or who were taught to question as they were not; Bageant believes this is less about anti-intellectualism/anti-elitism than it is simple schadenfreude towards the more fortunate. And they’ve developed the perfectly reasonable survival mechanism of listening to whoever seems willing to help them, regardless of whether those people actually are helpful. Bageant notes cases of conservative politicians who visited rural areas and shared a beer with poor constituents — then turned right around and instituted policies that made health care, housing, food, and education unaffordable for those same people. Frequently these politicians got elected multiple times in spite of this. Loyalty, after all, is one of the values their constitutents were taught in school.

She links a bunch of people, so go over there and read the whole thing.

Similarly, Nicholas Von Hoffman brings the facts and figures over at THE NATION:

Last week Barack Obama, destiny's tot, suggested blue-collar Americans are feeling bitter about their financial condition, which has been on a bit of a decline during the last five, ten, fifteen, twenty years or so. Rival politicians immediately pounced and they've been whaling on him ever since.

How dare Obama suggest people are bitter? Americans are not bitter! Americans are happy, proud, peppy, content and optimistic!

Maybe. But if millions of them are not bitter and/or angry at this point, there is probably something wrong with them.

Hoffman's piece is titled Bitter? You Should Be! Why Obama Is Right.

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Octogalore defends feminism! She makes it clear why it must be done. I just love her for it:

I hurt when I hear someone I respect opting out of the principle that says: these people deserve better.

Because that’s all it is. That’s all feminism is. There are tens, hundreds of different varieties. But feminism is very simple. No matter how dominant-seeming, no matter how vocal, no group can define for any individual woman what comes along with believing she is equal.

YES, YES, YES!

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Listening to: Uncle Tupelo - Chickamauga
via FoxyTunes