Here come the Bishops! Here come the Bishops!
Remember how we use to continually be amazed by the phenomenon of everything reminding Rod Dreher of the malfeasance of Roman Catholic Bishops? Well, nothing has changed. The piece starts out quoting Thomas Frank on financial crises and impending economic doom. Then in the midst, out of nowhere, we get this:
Isn’t that how nearly all our elite institutions work? Isn’t that why not a single Roman Catholic bishop — save, arguably, Boston’s Cardinal Law — lost his post as a result of the abuse scandal? United we stand, or divided we hang.
And then, laughably, he writes this in the conclusion.
I think many of us must imagine these people sitting in their Ivory Towers of government, academia, media, banking, etc., and making decisions they consciously know are wrong, or corrupted. Maybe some do, but the key point here is that many, even most, of them don’t realize at the time how social, emotional, and psychological factors corrupt their own judgment.
But not your judgement, Rod, oh no.
He begins that last paragraph with a ridiculous false dichotomy that you can either be a good poor person or a bad rich person. And he's about to get a seven-figure advance for writing a book about his dead sister. Is Rod Dreher not the biggest laughingstock at this point? I, for one, feel absolutely vindicated for all the work I've done over the years in trying to expose him for the fraud he is. And Jonathan, Diane, Kathleen et al — you should all feel vindicated as well.
He is no different then the Hollywood hypocrites profiled in Jason Mattera's book.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Hypocrites-Jason-Mattera/dp/1451625618/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332254083&sr=1-1
Don't be surprised if becomes like Jon Bon Jovi who has a Bee farm so he can avoid paying state taxes.
Jonathan, you just put a smile on my face, buddy. I had no idea that JBJ has a bee farm. He gives beekeeping a bad name, lol.
ReplyDeleteThe "catholic bishops" are merely a writing device for Dreher now. And in turn his writing is just a mechanized attempt at deflecting attention (his own as well as others' ) from his own issues. Writing is a way to hide in plain sight for old RD. And since the writing appears to be a lifetime project, I can only imagine what it is he's trying to hide/avoid.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Rod should take up beekeeping. Bees have no bishops, no popes. They have a total matriarchal society, though, and that might freak him out.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I've been listening to Dennis Miller's show at 9pm on WHK1420 and it is a RIOT. I advise everyone to check it out.
" They have a total matriarchal society, though, and that might freak him out."
ReplyDeleteYeah, matriarchy seems not to ring his bell. ahem.
Maybe some of you haven't heard, but Rod Dreher is a Truth Teller. If you didn't already, you know this now because he pounds you over the head with the mighty mackerel of his allegiance to The Truth right here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/2012/03/21/mike-daisey-david-sedaris-truth/
an epistle longer than the Declaration of Independence but shorter than the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, just the right length so that you instinctively know that it just has to be True.
Naturally, in light of this revelation many of you will need to radically adjust what you previously thought of the Bishops, but, that done, in the future, when Rod tells you of the private conversations he had with his sister, the brave Ruthie, private conversations shared only between the two of them, you will understand how all the little embarassing flaws and defects no one else had ever heard about her before when she lived actually make her more Human and Endearing in Facing Death, at least if you look at them just the right way.
Otherwise, of course, they might just end up looking like the post mortem abuse a corpse gets on the table, ripped open with a Y incision and looted of any remaining dignity she might have otherwise maintained if a Truth Teller hadn't got his snout up in her innards and started rooting around inside her cavities to slake his unsettled emotional needs. But then to imagine that would be, to use a phrase Rod uses frequently, such an unfortunate "misreading of him".
Luckily, though, in death, where she herself can no longer speak, Ruthie will have Rod to speak anew for her. Rod, the Truth Teller.
New Anon
Reading that link is pretty funny in light of the multiple variations in his tale of 9/11, aka THE DAY DREHER WAS THERE.
ReplyDeleteto wit
ReplyDeletehttp://concrunchy.blogspot.com/2006/09/911-day-that-rod-was-there.html
As I read it I kept thinking about gonzo journalism and how Hunter S. Thompson eventually went nuts and committed suicide. The guy was admittedly a poor journalist and, to my mind, a substandard story teller, so he created a bastard form, sort of an "operatic version" of events. He constructed an island where he could be king of all. Of course it was the sixties where anything new and unique was considered brilliant.
ReplyDeleteYes, I can see it, Pauli.
ReplyDeleteIf in place of Thompson's bourbon, acid, and human adrenochrome you substitute Dreher's random religiosity, unpredictable moralizing, and schizophrenic, infantilized sexual squeamishness, you get
"Fresh Vaggies"
Why, "The joke writes itself"
New Anon
Uh, yeah....
ReplyDeleteYou know I think I'll ad a blog post just on that Truth post. It's apropos for this season since the whole thing appears to be a channeling of Pilate's famous quip: "What is truth?"