I may well write for the paper in future, but not three times a week on staff. So far as I have any gifts at all, I will apply them in what remains of my life to argue for the Catholic religion, and defend nobility in every humane form, according to my faith and conscience. But I may no longer belong in "mainstream media;" may never have belonged, and must be on my way.. |
Supporting his family through his daughter’s illness has afforded Crawford a deepening of faith. “This has been the hardest time of my life, my wife’s life,” he says. “I came to God through this experience in a more personal way. I’ve been trying to get closer and nurture that.”
It’s a belief the Avett Brothers all share—each member supporting a personal relationship with God over one driven by culture. However, each member also adamantly insists that theirs is art made by Christians—not “Christian art.”
It’s easy to cheer on the thugs when they’re thuggish in your name. [...] It’s not about marriage, it’s not about gays, it’s about a basic understanding that a free society requires a decent respect for a wide range of opinion without penalty by the state.
But Damian, you need not be "struck" by this. That is how Catholicism works.
[B]oth O’Connor and Benedict write for a similar audience, an audience that for the most part, thinks that Christian belief is absurd.
Being an admirer of both writers, it has struck me that there is a deep connection between them, that as Catholic Christians, Flannery O’Connor and Benedict XVI both ground not only their work, but their very lives, in belief in the Incarnation, and that both O’Connor and Benedict are unapologetic in working to bring their readers to a fuller understanding of and appreciation for the specifi city of the person of Jesus Christ.
One problem with peace, especially in handsome Europe, is the illusion of economic prosperity. Life looks good. The restaurants are open. Nice clothing is available. If amid this seeming plenty, a profligate young man dissipated his life into ruin, all would call him a wastrel. Centuries of European schoolchildren once learned virtue and self-discipline from the fables of Aesop or Fontaine. "The Emperor's New Clothes" comes to mind. Alas, no one writes fables for nations, and so a whole continent can dissipate the productive wealth of its people year after year on wastrel public spending and no one will notice.
[...] One may ask: Would a European electorate, if given an honest chance to choose self-salvation rather than the bleed-to-death choices they've been given the past two years, vote to save themselves?
We look back down the centuries and wonder how anybody could possibly have imagined that watching a man being hanged or beheaded could constitute an afternoon’s enjoyment.
The pageant was magnificent – British seamanship, which many might think had disappeared as a skill along with most of our Navy, still seems to be thriving. There were superb oarsmen, beautiful crafts of different sorts and sizes, lots of energetic young people. The Royal Barge was splendid. All along the river, church bells pealed – that most glorious, most beautiful of sounds, English bells on English air, and this time mingling with the shouts and cheers of a great many happy people.It makes cultural restoration worth working for.
The unions’ defeat marks a historical inflection point. They set out to make an example of Walker. He succeeded in making an example of them as a classic case of reactionary liberalism. An institution founded to protect its members grew in size, wealth, power and arrogance, thanks to decades of symbiotic deals with bought politicians, to the point where it grossly overreached. A half-century later these unions were exercising essential control of everything from wages to work rules in the running of government — something that, in a system of republican governance, is properly the sovereign province of the citizenry.
Why did the unions lose? Because Norma Rae nostalgia is not enough, and it hardly applied to government workers living better than the average taxpayer who supports them.
Governors across the country quake in their boots when it comes to direct confrontation with the unions. You don't mess with them because they have gobs of money, incredible organizing skills, and very low moral standards. If you are dumb enough to directly confront the unions, You. Will. Lose..
Scott Walker just proved that wrong.
Saskatchewan is shaking one of the pillars of union power in Canada.I've been asking myself why Scott Walker's win in Wisconsin makes me slightly giddy and hopeful (besides the fact that it made delusional Big Labour wingnuts cry on TV).
Canada’s notorious Rand formula, which forces deduction of union dues by employers even for workers who decline union membership, could be vulnerable.
Canada remains a jurisdiction that grants unions great power and limits individual freedom to refuse to join unions or to decline to pay dues to unions. [...] Canada could use a little Saskawisconsin..
Clear off, you twerp. I don’t want the state to have a “mandate” to “educate” the citizenry about their thought-crimes. NROOh, and Mr. Garrison: there is a way for ordinary people, all on their own, without any help from the gubmint, the HRCs, or the CHRC, to avoid reading ungoodthink online: on PCs, it's a little X up in the corner of the webpage; on Macs, it's a little red dot. You just click it and the ungoodthink disappears.
Silly parents. Remember: “A” isn’t for academics. It’s for “agitation” and “advocacy.” We must never forget the words of former National Education Association official John Lloyd: “You cannot possibly understand NEA without understanding Saul Alinsky. If you want to understand NEA, go to the library and get Rules for Radicals.”[...]
Educators must be “teachers of unionism,” Peterson preaches. “We need to create a generation of students who support teachers and the movement for workers rights, oppressed peoples’ rights.” Because, you know, asking teachers to contribute more to their pension plans is just like crushing freedom fighters in Iran, Egypt, and China.
Uncertainty reigned over Wisconsin as both sides braced for a possible recount on Tuesday night. But from their first unhinged salvos 16 months ago in the state capitol right up until Election Day, the union bosses have made one thing clear as a playground whistle: It’s not about the children. It’s never about the children. It’s about protecting the power, perks, and profligacy of public-employee union monopolies..
The first spring day that's warm and dry enough for the wearing of sneakers still makes me think of Douglas Spaulding in Dandelion Wine. Streamlined silver cars remind me of the beetles in Fahrenheit 451. Stories about advancing automation call to mind the house in "There Will Come Soft Rains". I regularly check for unexpected changes in my bank balance - and Mr. B.'s heartbeat - because of "Marionettes, Inc." 
Farley said Monday she never intended the book to reflect current official Catholic teaching. Rather, she said, she wrote it to explore sexuality via various religious traditions, theological resources and human experience.Because if there's anything you expect Catholic nuns to be doing on any given day, it's:
So today, on the day of your commencement, you are presented with certain challenges. We hand you an economy in shambles, mountains of debt which you cannot hope to repay, a massive social safety net into which you will be required to pay more and more but will likely never get to enjoy the benefits, a massive government equally voracious of your money and your liberty, and a culture of death that has already killed half of your generation.
But what is a commencement if not a call to begin. You need to begin to fix these things. You need to establish some fiscal and personal sanity in government and your lives. You need to begin to wrestle back the freedoms we willingly gave up, even at the cost of blood. You need to establish a culture that respects each and every life from conception to natural death. And the only way you can begin to do these things is by putting your faith in a God we never taught you about.
So commence, you have your work cut out for you. Best of luck. We are all rooting for you. If you need us, we will be in Florida.
