Catholic Christmas 2009: Christmas carols are yuck

All through Advent I was wondering why we weren't singing Christmas carols at mass. Turns out Christmas carols, kind of like GW Bush and mainstream conservatism, don't quite cut the Catholic mustard. They're just not special enough. Nevermind that their lyrics are theologically appropriate and consist of melodies that have stood the test of time -- the fact that these carols are played at hall in the dens of iniquity known as shopping malls makes them inappropriate for mass. So no, your kids won't learn these carols by singing them in church. Instead, said carols will be familiar only as tinny piped-in music at your local Target (should you be confused enough about the true "reason for the season" as to take your children to a big box store).

OK, so Advent is off limits .... I thought maybe when Christmas finally arrived we'd get to sing "O Come All Ye Faithful". But no -- my local Christmas mass (the "children's mass") was turned into a Suzuki violin recital. Four children violinists played all through a very lengthy Christmas communion with no congregational singing. And throughout the rest of mass the only kids allowed to sing were the ones who joined the "children's choir". Everyone else had to sit silently because they didn't pay obeisance to the music director gods by hauling their overscheduled kids to "choir practice" or violin lessons at the local Suzuki mill.

As a violin teacher myself, I was left to wonder a) why the particular violin students didn't sound, um, better, b) why the leader of the student violinists thought music from Suzuki Book One had anything to do with Christmas, and c) who decided that Christmas mass is a great opportunity for a violin recital. But the church and our musical/spiritual betters are always a step ahead. Glad someone is thinking about this stuff.

F

You have to read the British press to get anything resembling common sense about Obama. In this scathing take-down, Toby Harndon gives the big guy a failing grade in counter-terrorism.

In his studied desire to be the unBush by responding coolly to events like this, Obama is dangerously close to failing as a leader. Yes, it is good not to shoot from the hip and make broad assertions without the facts. But Obama took three days before speaking to the American people, emerging on Monday in between golf and tennis games in Hawaii to deliver a rather tepid address that significantly underplayed what happened. He described Abdulmutallab as an “isolated extremist” who “allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body” – phrases that indicate a legalistic, downplaying approach that alarms rather than reassures. Today’s words showed a lot more fire and desire to get on top of things – we’ll see whether Obama follows through with action. In the meantime, he went snorkelling.

Can you imagine the rage which would have been directed at Bush if he was goofing around while everyone was reeling from this wiener bomber's failed terrorism attempt, which wasn't stopped by the "system", but by passengers plus a bad case of projectile dysfunction?


I'm especially disappointed with Jan Nepalitano. I figured any chick that butch would be a little tougher at getting these guys, especially dudes obsessed with their phalli. It just goes to show you the danger of gay stereotypes.

Jonah on Obama's Failure

Beautiful and on the mark! Excerpt:

Consider his signature domestic priority: healthcare reform. After a year of working on it, his progressive base is either profoundly disappointed with him or seethingly angry. His Republican and conservative opponents are not only furious, they are emboldened. And independents -- who've been deserting the Democrats in polls and off-year elections -- are simply disgusted with the whole spectacle. Most important, an administration that once preened over its people-power roots, can't even claim that Americans like what he's doing.

The bill does have its supporters: inside-the-Beltway pundits and Capitol Hill deal-makers, the pharmaceutical industry and the supposedly rapacious insurance companies (don't take my word for it, just ask Howard Dean -- or your stockbroker).

Under the Clintonian paradigm of governance, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson's parlaying of his pro-life objections to the Senate bill into a windfall for his state and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' leveraging of his socialist principles for billions in special deals would be dramatic twists in a conventional story of LBJ-style arm-twisting.

Here's another great line: "He promised the oceans would stop rising but delivered a nonbinding something-or-other in Copenhagen." That's what I ask my wife to give me each year for Christmas. A something-or-other with a twist of lemon and an ice-cube.

Then we end with the devastating conclusion:

Obama's rhetorical audacity breeds cynicism, because utopianism always comes up short. Obama has many victories ahead of him, but his cause is already lost.

Well said, mate.

Ollie North: Obama is "Man of the Fear"

Here's a good rundown of Barack Obama's historic fear-mongering in his first year as President. Excerpt:

Nine days after his Inaugural address, the President said: “These urgent dangers to our national and economic security are compounded by the long-term threat of climate change, which, if left unchecked, could result in violent conflict, terrible storms, shrinking coastlines, and irreversible catastrophe.”

On February 4, 2009, speaking of the urgent need to “stimulate” the economy through massive government spending and debt, Obama told us, “We know that even if we do everything we should, this crisis was years in the making, and it will take more than weeks or months to turn things around. But make no mistake: A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future. Millions more jobs will be lost. More businesses will be shuttered. More dreams will be deferred.”

Five days later, in Elkhart, Indiana, he warned of dire damage if he was not given “the tools” he needs to “fix” our problems: “Economists from across the spectrum have warned that if we don't act immediately, millions of more jobs will be lost. The national unemployment rates will approach double digits not just here in Elkhart, all across the country. More people will lose their homes and their health care. And our nation will sink into a crisis that at some point we may be unable to reverse.”

By June 17, the President was hyping the catastrophic consequences of failing to enact more onerous government controls on the U.S. economy: “millions of people have had their lives profoundly disrupted by developments in the financial system, most severely in our recent crisis. These aren't just numbers on a ledger. This is a child's chance to get an education. This is a family's ability to pay their bills or stay in their homes. This is the right of our seniors to retire with dignity and security and respect. These are American dreams, and we should not accept a system that consistently puts them in danger.”

The presidential fright-mongering continues unabated. On September 9, he boldly promised a Joint Session of Congress, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits.” He then threatened, “if we do nothing…our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it the most. And more will die as a result.”

Along the same lines, I've been thinking about how the vague and lofty Obama campaign promise to unite everybody in the country and be "post-partisan" will be served by passing his small "s" single-payer health care system. After all, pro-lifers like me will get to finance abortions across the not-so-fruited plain and the radical envirofreaks will get to finance healthcare for my family of seven while we devour resources like bulemic locusts. Everyone will have so much to be happy about, and we'll all give the Big Guy an A minus during his next appearance on an Oprah-clone show.

Lux Lex

Something bright on the longest night
I met this little guy--
Alexander Maria Fry
Yeah, another guy--
Number five.

That's a short bit of poultry for you. Not quite Shelley, but he was a vegetarian. Anyway, he was born this morning at 5:40am and weighed in at 7 pounds 10 ounces. Nineteen inches. Mom and baby are doing fine, sleeping, sleeping. The other four are over at our friends spreading their germs around. I'm strung out on adrenaline.

Mitch McConnell on Obamacare

From the Washington Examiner:

As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said, "They want us to vote on a bill that no one outside the majority leader's conference room has even seen. That's right. The final bill we'll vote on isn't even the one we've had on the floor. It's the deal Democrat leaders have been trying to work out in private. That's what they intend to bring to the floor and force a vote on before Christmas. So this entire process is essentially a charade."

So for a Republican, voting on this would be sort of like giving up and letting the arranged marriage just go through. I advise running away.

GW on GW

Gerald Warner on Global Warming, that is. Rush Limbaugh is reading this on the air currently and I'm dying laughing. Excerpt:

When your attempt at recreating the Congress of Vienna with a third-rate cast of extras turns into a shambles, when the data with which you have tried to terrify the world is daily exposed as ever more phoney, when the blatant greed and self-interest of the participants has become obvious to all beholders, when those pesky polar bears just keep increasing and multiplying – what do you do?

No contest: stop issuing three rainforests of press releases every day, change the heading to James Bond-style “Do not distribute” and “leak” a single copy, in the knowledge that human nature is programmed to interest itself in anything it imagines it is not supposed to see, whereas it would bin the same document unread if it were distributed openly.

After that, get some unbiased, neutral observer, such as the executive director of Greenpeace, to say: “This is the single most important piece of paper in the world today.” Unfortunately, the response of all intelligent people will be to fall about laughing; but it was worth a try – everybody loves a tryer – and the climate alarmists are no longer in a position to pick and choose their tactics.

But boy! Was this crass, or what? The apocalyptic document revealing that even if the Western leaders hand over all the climate Danegeld demanded of them, appropriately at the venue of Copenhagen, the earth will still fry on a 3C temperature rise is the latest transparent scare tactic to extort more cash from taxpayers. The danger of this ploy, of course, is that people might say “If we are going to be chargrilled anyway, what is the point of handing over billions – better to get some serious conspicuous consumption in before the ski slopes turn into saunas.”

This “single most important piece of paper in the world” comes, presumably, from an authoritative and totally neutral source? Yes, of course. It’s from the – er – UN Framework Committee on Climate Change that is – er – running the Danegeld Summit. Some people might be small-minded enough to suggest this paper has as much authority as a “leaked” document from Number 10 revealing that life would be hell under the Tories.

Kind of long, I know, but it's hard picking a best part.

Nature is a language -- can't you read?

How many songs mention Luxembourg? Or buck-toothed girls?