What should Rod Dreher believe today?

With the most recent overwrite of the cultural thumb drive that is Rod Dreher from "the arrogance of Seth Rogen" to the lonesome courage of George Clooney, I've become firmly convinced that our Working Boy is not just an easily spun weather vane ideal for generating blog clicks but might also prove serviceable as a cultural-political-religious Build-A-Bear® ideal for holiday giving.

So what should your BUILD-A-ROD-BELIEF-BEAR believe today? Don't worry, you can always build a new BUILD-A-ROD-BELIEF-BEAR that believes completely different, even diametrically opposite things tommorrow.

Some belief options you can choose:

Cars are good:

• Yes
• No
• Not sure

The best way to know God is through:

• Architecture
• Catholicism
• Orthodoxy
• Oysters
• Ignatius Reilly

Dante:

• Saved me
• Will save me if my book is ever published
• God, if you save me from this Dante book, I promise to write a book about You

My political party of choice is:

• Democrat
• Republican
• Neither
• Which political party do you belong to, and have I told you about my Dante book?

I love eating because:

• My body is a temple
• I've already gotten that sex thing out of the way, thank God
• Food tastes good
• Even I get tired of the sound of my own voice

I love my home town of St. Francisville because:

• I'm a localist, and it's where my roots are
• I made a million dollar advance from a book about it. What's not to love?
• The Muslims can't find me here
• If I can sell my Daddy's land in time, I'll have more time to research my next book about kohlrabi

Well, that's only a glimpse of the many, many featured beliefs you can choose to include in your very own, unique BUILD-A-ROD-BELIEF-BEAR for putting under your own tree or giving to others this holiday season.

And the best part is, in addition to those you choose above, you can also add your own featured beliefs the moment you think of one!

So why not take your very own personal BUILD-A-ROD-BELIEF-BEAR for a test build below today?

Tough Words But True

I've been meaning to post a link to this for awhile now. I think it is good medicine from a lady, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, who has been fighting the good fight against queers, liberals and pagans for some time now. Excerpt:

Some of you are hysterical over the Synod, as though the Holy Father were plotting to change Church doctrine. Haven’t you seen this report from the National Catholic Register? The four American bishops said at their press conference, “There must have been two synods, and the four of us must have happened to be at the wrong one.”

I don’t know what in the world you kids are thinking. You certainly realize that the Holy Father has no authority to change Church doctrine. And he knows it.

Some of you are upset because all the wrong people seem to like the Holy Father. I realize there is a battle to capture the symbolic value of the Papacy. The “Progressives” who want the whole Sexual Revolution, would love to claim the moral authority of the Papacy and the Catholic Church for their team. But do you realize that every time you repeat the liberal media talking points like this, you are scoring for the “Progressive” team?

You kids know me well enough to know that I don’t generally go around scolding people. As a matter of fact, refraining from scolding is how I get away with my unabashed presentation of Church teaching on marriage and sex, in front of non-Catholic and Catholic audiences alike. (Check out this and this, for instance. Surely you will not accuse me of soft-pedaling Church teaching!) Scolding people is not very attractive. And I like to keep my powder dry for situations that really call for a full-on Mom-Mad.

I don't think she is talking so much here about people like William Oddie or Father Longenecker who have presented constructive criticisms of Pope Francis. I think she mainly means the hysterical slashing of people like an acquaintance of mine who suggests in his rant emails that surely all true faithful Catholics realize that Pope Francis is a heretic and probably the anti-Christ, or least a sub-anti-Christ under President Obama.

I realize that Pope Francis is not necessarily your style. He talks about issues you would rather not discuss. He talks about things in a way that is alien to you.

Too bad. He is still your father, even if you don’t like everything he says or does. You owe him the respect due to his office, as father.

I insist that you respect your father. That’s what good moms do.

I have made a point of publishing this column on a non-Catholic website. Can you imagine how we look to our Separated Brethren? Do you realize that many of them wish us well? Faithful Evangelicals know their lives will be a lot harder if the Catholic Church goes soft on the sexual issues.

Pope Francis is not a "conservative" by temperament, but ideologically and theologically he's the same as the last two Popes. I don't think any thing is going to change either of these realities.

Look at Archbishop Kurtz’s blog, where he talks positively about the Synod. People don’t become Catholics because someone literally or metaphorically bludgeons them into submission. People become Catholics because they are attracted to the person of Jesus Christ.

Your basic question should always be: am I drawing people closer to Jesus Christ? If the answer is yes, you are doing something right. If the answer is no, you need to do something different.

If you are going to wear the Catholic label on your forehead, kindly make yourself as attractive as you can. Moaning and complaining and tearing each other down is NOT attractive.

I think all her points should be taken by Catholics. Even if they then want to explain how Pope Francis has fallen short, in their humble opinion. Recently there was a total bullshit story about the Pope saying that your dead pet dog will end up in heaven. The thing was sewn together out of whole cloth and fragments from a story about remarks from Pope Paul VI.

The moral is to not believe anything you hear about the Pope until you verify it from a real news source. Everyone hysterical about Pope Francis has forgotten all the supposedly awful things that Pope JPII did in the way of introducing Satanism, Wicca, Alchemy and Altar Girls into the Catholic liturgy. This was 20 years ago when I joined the Catholic Church, and obviously it was all either a bunch of crap or, as in the case with altar girls, it didn't split the Church the way the traditionalists predicted (or hoped in some cases). The non-factuality of all the lies didn't stop the haters from spewing them; plus ca change.

Beauty, Simplicity and Understatement

...from two great American musicians with diminutive names.



It gets cut off at the end, but I'm pretty sure that what Petty says is "Elvis is King, but Bo Diddley is Daddy." I'm not sure who he thinks is the Holy Spirit of Rock and Roll. Maybe Aretha Franklin? Unclear. On the other hand, Mona denotes one-ness, so perhaps he is a monist.

Here's how you shut down those inappropriate films Keith watches

Threaten to kill every one of their patrons

Hey, works in every organized crime-protected neighborhood in every city around the globe.

Why not let North Korea set a new MPAA standard for us all to follow?

We can abbreviate it "Rated NK" - for "Not for Keith", of course.

Double Shot

This is just what I needed this morning. Love the music, but the wardrobe? I'd prefer violent revolution, fighting in the streets, fading away, etc. to seeing that pink shiny outfit again.



After this show, Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood conducted a seminar backstage called "How to make your own high-end wifebeater t-shirt."

Jeb bluffs Mitt; 3 to 4 Republican governor potential

"I'm actively exploring the idea of running, Mitt, actively, you hear, so don't you get too confident just yet" - or words to that effect.

So this cycle, and following eight years of a community organizer-in-chief, we can look forward to a potential surfeit of at least three Republican chief executives in the running, four if you count Bobby Jindal (which I don't). If my bias isn't clear, I'm of the opinion that chief executives generally make the best chief executive.

To my mind, Mitt, if he runs, offers the richest combination of correct thinking and hands-on CEO bench depth (for those with misgivings, keep in mind that he will suffer no shortage of outside ideological advice and guidance).

So, for better or worse, who vs. Hillary does 2016 appear to be shaping up for to you?

How the faux-conservative marketplace works

 At the risk of inducing Dreher Fatigue™, my little mini-series on TAC's year-end fundraising would be incomplete without this little gem courtesy of one of the rubes herself. A commenter calling herself grumpy realist tells us:

Rod, even though I’m totally on the other side from you I just donated as well. If I had more available would donate more. Mainly because I’m a cranky old bitch that appreciates great writing and thinks that we need to have good thinkers on all sides.

 I’m skeptical about conservatism because I see it used far too often as justification used by privileged people to keep themselves on top and not share the goodies. But if I argue with conservatives, I’d rather argue with conservatives who use reason and logic, rather than some screaming talk-show host who flails around and calls me a “feminazi”.

How iconoclastic! A dedicated liberal donates to a "conservative" blog! And what does she get for her donation?

Why, the faux-conservative Dreher immediately sells the watch she has just paid him to take right back to her again:

Best motivation for a TAC donor ever! From a reader of this here blog:

Rod, even though I’m totally on the other side from you I just donated as well. If I had more available would donate more. Mainly because I’m a cranky old bitch that appreciates great writing and thinks that we need to have good thinkers on all sides.

I’m skeptical about conservatism because I see it used far too often as justification used by privileged people to keep themselves on top and not share the goodies. But if I argue with conservatives, I’d rather argue with conservatives who use reason and logic, rather than some screaming talk-show host who flails around and calls me a “feminazi”.

Bless you, COB. You complete me. I know this was Beatrice Arthur from beyond the grave.

Oh - she does get an additional gift: he characterizes her as the dead Bea Arthur.

So let's break down the mechanics of the ideological daisy chain we've just witnessed:

• A liberal - here grumpy realist - wants to feel she is being diverse by engaging with conservatives.

• But the porridge served at true conservative sites is too hot and burns her lips.

• So she searches until she finds a site with the word "conservative" in it that conforms perfectly to her liberal needs and sensibilities - TAC, "The" "American" "Conservative".

• And gives them money, thus validating her perceptions with meaningful action. Certainly grumpy realist wouldn't donate money to a counterfeit conservative site, now would she. Of course not. As a critically discerning liberal she's just too smart for that.

• And as if her own donation were not proof enough for her, her "conservative" host further legitimizes her decision by selling her comment right back to her. Diversity and reason in action, head to tail!

So, here's how to make money online as a faux-conservative:

• Find out what your liberal and fellow faux-conservative marks want to hear - maybe something about "the arrogance of Seth Rogen" in not being sensitive enough to Sony Corp.'s potential bullying by Kim Jong-un. All good liberals and faux-conservatives always appreciate a bullying narrative anyway.

• Give them some resistance to overcome: in addition to making their commenting a hard-won privilege, frequently say stupid things deliberately so they will feel compelled to correct you. Let them comment, but shoot a Jew behind them in the field from your balcony every now and then both to keep them on their toes and to further validate their experience.

• Regularly sell their comments back to them as posts they or someone else has to pay for. As we've already noted, this has the mutually useful effect of making them feel their time has been well spent and validating your faux-conservative credentials as genuine - because you made them feel their time had been well spent, and only a fool would feel that way if the site were not genuinely conservative to begin with.

• Finally, urinate on their heads a little bit when you're finished - compare them to Bea Arthur - to keep them in their place. Because their whole underlying impulse to begin with is actually to serve you, they will never fell properly satisfied if they themselves are the finally or completely victorious parties in the engagement.

That's the way you do it: money for nothing and your clicks for free.

This Way to the Egress! =>

Jingle Bombs

"Don't laugh at me or I KEEL YOU!"