Questions

For all who cannot discuss the current resident of the White House without taking blood pressure medication, I have a few questions.  Not to worry, I have some for those who feel it necessary to be defenders as well.   I will probably zero out my followers, my statistics, and eliminate all friends and possibly family when I'm finished.   President Trump seems to have a gift for creating a wall in a metaphorical and philosophical sense, if not in reality.   No one is luke warm.

Question #1:  Regarding the election.  Why would Trump claim election fraud if he was aided by the Russians in securing the office?  Why would he even bring it up?  Caveat, you can't claim he's sly like a fox  and dumber than a bag of hammers in the same breath.

Question #2:  How would targeting the DNC and hacking into their system, affect the election?   I get that the CIA and FBI and Obama administration and members of congress briefed on the matter all agree, Russia backed Trump and attempted to hack into the DNC and gather information from said emails to support him.  I can't say leading up to the election, that I saw any public/media based information to indicate Trump would win.  Here's the best and most complete discussion I've found on the issue. 

Question #3: If through harrassment, public social media trashing, and extreme vetting as it were, all individuals tapped for the task of leading a cabinet are destroyed, as are their families, only the unscrupulious and the lone wolves will be left, those who need not worry or care about public opinion.   How do we attract people of good character to the administration, if their character even solely by association with President Trump, regardless of their own personal faults or history, becomes instantly the social and moral equivalent of slime, putriousness and muck?  How do we preserve our government if as a people, we think it is okay to destroy people when we disagree?How do we get anyone to be willing to serve, if the cost is all peace all the time?

Question #4:  I know people who are convinced, the President should be impeached. On what grounds?  Here's a reasoned discussion, and here's a fact check of what's happened thus far, and here's what keeps people I think feeling keyed up...a quick google reveals nearly an article a week from a major media outlet, Politico, Huffington Post, Salon, Independent, and Chicago Tribune since the election, either advocating it happen or declaring it's a slam dunk certainty.  As I recall, there was a great anger over the use of impeachment on the President (Bill Clinton) as it could be used to weaken the executive branch and should not be engaged for mere political points.  This goes back to the real question, why should he be impeached?  On what grounds?  Most people are willing to say yes, I will take the consequences when there is no sacrifice on their side.  My question is, what are the consequences if this tool is used in this manner?


Question 5:# What would be the principle which would break the social contract between the government and the people?  If we chaffed (and many of us have) at executive orders under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama, we ought to still be agitated now.  We ought to recognize, if conservative principles mean anything, they can't be abandoned when it is convenient.  (See article I cited above).

Here's one of the better articles I've read recently discussing the issue of how necessary priciples are before politics or politicians. 

Question #6: What are the principles we're going to cling to regardless of party?  Regarless of power?  What will we stand for?  If we're going to be a good people, and not merely prosperous, we can't let parties determine our moral values.  Parties have only one objective, power.   Principles are the first thing to go when the option is principle or power.  

Question #7: Are we only talking and not listening?  Are we only saying, "It's our turn now?"  The goal of checks and balances, of divided government, of a democracy, is to create the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people and to be as universal as possible, as fair as possible, as ideal as possible.   Are we?   If not, why not?

It will require of us a higher level of vigilance with respect to this and every subsequent executive who takes power.  We can't only listening to those who agree with us or presume those who disagree are either ignorant or willingly deceptive.  We also have to not go nuts everytime something is said which seems outrageous.  In other words, "Verify, then trust."   That goes for the executive, legislative and judicial branch and media.  

Through the Looking Glass to See No Evil

I have been told I am wrong to be upset with Fr. Pavone by no less than the internet; that there is no difference whatsoever between we display on a crucifix, and Fr. Pavone's altar.

Arguing that Sacred art depicts realities, even ugly ones that God made redemptive like the martyring of Stephen, the Pieta and every image of the crucified Christ whereas displaying the naked crushed body of an infant to prove Abortion is ugly is to shock, I was told, this was a minor difference.

The difference between stone and flesh is easy to see unless one wills one's self to have a stony heart. However, I don't believe that anyone really thinks there isn't a difference between sacred art and an actual dead body.  

We would be horrified and rightly so, if someone took dead bodies to depict a scene from scripture and called it art.  We would be horrified and rightly so, if someone profaned sacred art.

Using the body of a child to make a political point, ignores the moral reality of what we are called to do as Catholics for the dead, and what he was called to do as a priest when entrusted with this child in particular's, body.  He gave a 45 minute lecture on abortion with a baby's remains exposed on what looks to be an altar. It is meant to look like an altar, even if it is not an altar.  Oddly enough, it is a warped version of what horrified everyone when Dr. Gosnell was arrested.  Displaying rather than properly caring for the remains, is inappropriate.

Someone said, "Well, what about open caskets and wakes?" Those incidents are grieving processes for those who mourn the loss of a loved one.  They aren't done as a stage for a political/moral platform.  They aren't done for a youtube video to stump for a candidate or a political position the day before an election and I won't defend it even if I agree, and I do, abortion takes a life, it is always wrong.

But again, I don't for a moment think people don't recognize a difference, I think people want to defend a priest they love, and a position they hold dear.

This child was discarded by his or her mother as thing, destroyed by an abortionist as a thing, and then (however temporarily), used by the priest, as an illustration of abortion.  People are NEVER things, and we can NEVER use them as such, without committing great harm to our own souls and those who find themselves agreeing, the end justifies the means.

What about relics? I've seen Saint Anthony's tongue.  I asked and did research, "Relics and incorruptible bodies are testaments to the saints." He was buried, and when they cannonized him, they dug him up (30 years after death), they found his tongue incorruptible.  This sign of santification, of holiness, led to the veneration of his tongue.  We need the relics of the saints, because we are physical beings.  We need to know the saints were flesh and blood, real, not esoteric philosophical constructs created by imaginative manipulative scribes or poets.  Pieces of the true cross, the Shroud of Turin, the Tilma, hairs of Saint Maximiliam Kolbe, these things bring us into touching distance with Our God, with the Blessed Mother, with saints.

I've already seen the next layer of the argument, "Some of these were not saints before they were made into relics."

I do not feel I must fend every argument to still state, this was not a good act.

This baby was to be buried.  The baby should have been treated as one would any other baby brought for Catholic burial.  In not treating this infant like any other infant one would bury, this was forgetting the moral underpinning of the Pro-life position, which is to treat every child, all children, regardless of age, developmental status or capacity, with absolute dignity.  Exposing any other child naked and deceased to the internet, would be unthinkable.   This child deserved the same dignity afforded any other child one would mourn.  Love this baby first, and let that be your testimony.

When we hate something, we sometimes get so zealous, we can become a parody of the very thing we hate.  In reference to Fr Pavone's wrong decision to place a child on the altar so as to highlight the evil of abortion, you cannot justify a bad action (which this was) to bring about a good (end of abortion).  This was an inappropriate witness as a priest and as a person who professes to be pro-life because it did not put the actual child's dignity first.

Far more compelling a witness to the dignity of life would be to give that child a name, to dress him or her, drape in a blanket, and give a mass for the child.  Open casket if he likes, and invite all to pray for the souls of this child's family.   There is a temptation, when we seek a political solution for a moral issue, to put the movement before individuals. It is an understandable temptation, when people feel frustrated or powerless, but that is a secondary failing of despair because things are not happening according to a fast enough schedule.

So please, pray for Fr. Pavone and for his Bishop who must counsel him and for all who might want to not see how this act is wrong and fails to properly witness to the world, all humans are made in God's image, and all should be treated at all stages of development, with dignity.

November 7th, 2016

Every day I find the internet getting, less willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to neighbors on matters where the Church has in its wisdom, indicated, there can be room for disagreement amongst people of good faith.  Every day I see people pounding the drums, “I’m Catholic! I’m Catholic!  I’m Catholic so I can’t vote for Trump or I’m enabling men to objectify women! He’s an evil incompetent bigoted narcissist!” and “I’m Catholic so anyone who votes for Hillary is collaborating with Planned Parenthood and ensuring there will be no respite from the encroachment on Religious liberties.  She’s a corrupt manipulative lying power hungry robot!”

Serious accusations.  Serious subjects, being discussed in a most unserious manner.    

We are busy being cheerleaders for teams we don’t love, but faking it with greater intensity than ever before.  The stakes remain unspeakably high, and they shouldn’t be.   Be less than rapturous about Trump?  You want Hillary to win! Dare not to spend all your energy hating Trump? You MUST LOVE HIM!  Anything less than correct fealty, renders an excommunication.   

I won’t say it’s the worst ever, for if I scroll back to each political season, I see pieces by good thinking, moral people discussing how politics demand we presume all those not in our camp, are either ignorant or not acting in good faith.  Like moral kudzu, the sin of presumption about both where all who aren’t with us will end up after death, and the virtue of our own decisions with respect to eternal consequences runs rampant every four years.    If we would be a united people or a people of hope or even better, both and, we have to stop doing the if you…then you must be a…game. Neither of these candidates nor parties should hold so much sway given their track records, to hold greater loyalty than friendship or family. 

The Catechism hasn’t changed, ergo discernment about which party to vote for, or which candidate still remains a question of trying to become informed, pray, and act.   One can weigh all the priests and bishops on both sides of the discussion and still come up with the reality, we each have to live with whatever decision each of us makes, and face the consequences of whatever moral reasoning we employ.    Voting Trump or Hillary or not voting Trump or Hillary remains not a question of settled moral doctrine. 

The reality is, we have two candidates named Barabbas, and they are always Barabbas, and our whole nation is engaged in the measuring not of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but how much evil we’re willing to overlook in order to not let the other side win.  When Catholics are discussing how much they can ignore, or what morals don’t matter, they aren’t being Catholic, they’re being political animals.   It’s easy to get caught up in the crowd, it’s happened before, it happens all the time.  Jesus even tells us, that there are a lot of us with beams in our eyes, pointing out each other’s splinters.  We know it in Holy Week, when we all say “Crucify him!”  and we know it at every mass when we say, “Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.” 

I don’t know about anyone else, but I look at this election and think, “I need a shower,” mentally, morally and physically.   The phrase, “Put not your trust in princes.” rings over and over again in my head I’d love to say I’m above it but my blood runs as hot as anyone else’s.  When all’s said and done, what we don’t want at the end of any day, regardless of the outcome, is for people to see our discussions, online and in person and think, “Look how they hate each other.  They cannot be Christian.”  

Fasting Wednesday

Everyone who reads this knows I'm a big fan of Fr. John Riccardo of Our Lady of Good Counsel. He's calling for people to pray and fast for our country as we prepare for the upcoming election.  Here is his first talk, but I recommend listening to all of the ones he's presented as part of the discussion.

Pray and Fast Why?

I know fasting and prayer are recommended to us as whens, not ifs, of a vigilant Catholic prayer life. I also know I stink at it.  It seems like nothing, but it is not nothing, for as Saint Therese of Lisieux says, "to pick up a pin for love can convert a soul." My fasting tends to be of the pin variety.  If I go without diet coke, it will be a fast, because I do seek it daily and often.  But it is as a friend of mine, Larry D once wrote, a cross of toothpicks. (I love that phrase), and the soul it will most likely work on, is mine.

The rest of his talks on fasting for this nation are available here.  I've put off doing this in part because I've usually heard about this after I've not only had breakfast but usually lunch.  However, diets, prayer regimens, writing regimens, budget plans, fasting, any thing we want to pursue seriously, can start at the moment our heart answers.  Anything else, is an excuse, a delay, a triumph of sloth over the opportunity for grace.  Any quitting because we messed up or forgot, is also a form of mini despair, and again, the hooks of despair pulling the soul away from the possibility of greater grace and growth in virtue.  

I hope others will join me, I hope we get a collective not just of Catholics, but of all patriots for this nation, to consider offering something up, surrendering some habit, some gift, for the good of the nation, and that all of us pray for the candidates we have, will grow in discernment, grace, wisdom and charity.   Pray especially for the candidate you despise.  Fast for him or her.  Give alms.  Offer masses for them.  Offer rosaries, offer holy hours.  We're going to need them, whoever wins, to be blessed, be graced, and be touched deeply by God, so that our nation may be a people of hope, a people of generosity, and a people of peace.

What would Rick from Casablanca Do?

I don't know why I didn't post this back when it was written, I think the actual electoral process was too surreal to add anything, but it's funny and so I give you a freshly thawed archive from the election cycle that was 2008. 


You Must Remember This...


The political landscape continues to grow more confusing with each and every primary. Ergo, being American, we need a quick fix, an easy way to discern who is the right person, man or woman, for the most powerful job on Earth? I have the solution.

W.W. R. B. D?

What would Richard Blain, American Do? To answer this probing question, via the miracle of Forest Gump like technology and the blogosphere, we located Richard Blain of Casablanca at his Cafe American. He agreed to a short interview to answer some key questions for the voting public.

Me: What political party are you affiliated with?

Rick: I’m a drunkard.

Me: That makes you eligible for both parties, I’ll put you down as independent.



Me: On the subject of terrorism, you know about what is happening in the world. Who do you think will win the war?

Rick: I haven't the slightest idea.

Me: We are looking for a chance, looking for a leader. Can you imagine Guilliani as President? Can he take Florida?

Rick: Well there are certain parts of Miami I wouldn't advise him to invade.



Me: What about the economy?
Rick: We can last. In the meantime, everyone stays on salary. A bribe might work, it has before.


Me: Do you think the handshake deal between Congress and the current president will hold?
Rick: Certainly not! But since they’re in a hurry, the stimulus package will have to do.

Me: What about Hillary? I know you were never interested in any woman other than Ilsa, can she be President?
Rick: She’s not just any woman, but we went all over this with her husband. It's no deal.

Me: What about Edwards, Ron Paul and Romney? Do you despise them?
Rick: If I gave them any thought I would.


Me: But that leaves Huckabee, Obama, Hillary, Guilliani and McCain. How are we supposed to pick from this field. It's a crazy world, anything can happen.

Rick: Don't you ever wonder if it's worth it? I mean what you're fighting for?

Me: It was your cause too! In your own way…

Rick: I'm the only cause I'm interested in now. So I'll make you a counter offer. Instead of these petty candidates, suppose you put up a politician who really says what he or she means, that would be quite a coup for the USA wouldn't it?

Me: Yes it would, the Voters would be very grateful.

Rick: Then write in me. The republicans will eat their own, Hill and Bill get away, and the third party will help eliminate at last, all these petty annoyances.

Me: Why would you run?

Rick: Why not? The candidates make fictional narratives about their lives as part of the vetting process, why not put up an entirely fictional character for a candidate? At least then, the voters would know what they’re getting. They wouldn’t be “shocked. Shocked! To find corruption everywhere.”

Me: Why are you so interested in what happens to us?
Rick: I'm not. Your business is politics, mine is running a saloon, but I am interested in what happens to me.

Me: You? But what makes you think something would happen to you?
Rick: smoking a cigarette. I run a bar. I smoke. I serve liquor, I foster gambling. I'm in love with another man's wife, and I'm only a poor business man. I also happen to represent America at its best in cinematic fairy tales.

Me: You sound like most of the politicians in the race.

Rick: Sherry I don't want to shoot you but I will if you say one more word. You call the press and tell them I’m running for President and remember, this gun is aimed straight at your blog.

Me: That is my least vulnerable spot.

Call the press, round up the usual suspects!This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship…”

RICHARD BLANE FOR PRESIDENT IN 2008!

I Am Sarah Palin

I'm mad.

A lot of people who consider themselves smart, bought the Tina Fey package version of Sarah Palin.

The reality is that most of us are much closer to Sarah than we are to Barrack Obama. We didn't go to ivy league schools. We didn't spend our whole career orchestrating our way into the White House. Most of us were busy living our lives and like Sarah, in some situation, saw a problem and determined that if no one else was going to tackle it then we'd better.

Most moms who wind up Presidents of the School Board or Dads who wind up managing the finances for a volunteer organization, do so not because they have the training or the background but because they were willing to take risks and put themselves out there to do things. They trusted that their natural wisdom and enthusiasm and ability to listen to others, would guide them through the bumpy parts of taking on unexpected or difficult tasks.

Even now, as the election is long since past, political pundits smear her experience and intelligence. Since when is being a Governor or a mayor for that matter, such a paltry accomplishment? Many of the critics can't claim even to have been elected dog catcher in a town smaller than Wasilla.

As a side note, (before she announced her resignation), Sarah Palin worked in her state to manage things such that while there are countless states struggling to meet their fiscal obligations, Alaska is not one of them. Her FY Budget 2010 passed and was signed into law and ballanced by spending less than in FY 2009.

Apparently all the clever beautiful people in California can't be expected to manage a budget even with all their experience and better pedigrees and better management of the press.

This is what real people (leaders), do when money and situations get tight. When families need to save money, they cut back on extras like gym memberships or maids or yard service or subscriptions. They get their house in order by making sacrifices, by doing what will actually work (spending less money), rather than opening up a wallet and charging a credit card to the max to go on with buisness as usual in a time of crisis.

I don't know if Sarah Palin is planning to run for President or if she pulled out because the daily pain of fending off snarks from SNL and Vanity Fair and the countless frivilous law suits that have been ginned up by willing political hacks and attack dogs, cost her family financially and personally.

What I do know is that the harpies that hated her before she announced her resignation, hate her no less now.

Given the tenor of the Senate, House, White House and soon to be court, not to mention the entertainment industry and media, why does this one woman merit all this bluster and rage?

Answer: She doesn't. There must be a bigger reason for all this anger.

It's the 46 million who voted for her.

As one of them, I consider attacks on her person to be disengenuous and politically motivated attacks on me too.

One woman resigning cannot merit this much gleeful hate.

The hate must be for the 46 Million didn't vote for the current president or his party. Destroy this woman as much as possible, and others who think as she does, won't have the courage to speak or act on their convictions. They won't want the same treatment for themselves or their families.

So to them, I have one thing to say, "I am Sarah Palin."