Hang ten

Here be some more uplift. My wife just sent me this link from a barefooting group. Reading stuff like this most likely helps her retain some sanity as she raises four Y-chromosome people. So I'm all for that.

Here's part of their mission statement:

TO PROVIDE A FRIENDLY FORUM to share experiences, thoughts, feelings, and tips on bare feet and barefootin'; to provide a "support group" for members encouraging and helping one another to get along in a shod world.

Shod and rather "shoddy" if you asked me.

Poetic Inspiration

How about a poem to adjust the mood around here?

Creation

It cost God but a thought,
And, lo! the stars were wrought.
He dropped them, spark on spark,
Into the primal dark.

It costs God but a thought,
And, lo! a soul is wrought.
A soul excelleth far
The beauty of a star.

— William V. Doyle, S.J.

Words fail me

Warning: Read this at you own risk.

I believe this may be the sickest, vilest thing I've ever seen. It might make you sick, it will definitely make you angry.

Funny Stuff: Dogs' Knowledge and Flying Saucers

There's a couple new posts about abortion mill protests versus nuclear plant protests over at CAEI:

Post 1 -- combox 1
Post 2 -- combox 2

I link to them not because they represent anything very interesting, but because there is some classic comedy in the comboxes.

For example:

Folks:

This type of things happens every day at at least one facility in the Western World. Most incidents do not get reported. Back in the Dark Ages the USAF Security guys in the UK had to deal with a community of middle aged Lesbians who camped year round in RV's on facility (RAF Base) property.

By handling things patiently the facility gets a lot of good press and sympathy from the public. Maybe I missed something here but I am surprised that the protesters got arrested.

God bless
Richard W. Comerford

...and...

Thank you for your kind reply wherein you posted in part:

"Some group of nitwits asks permission to protest on the grounds of a freaking TOP SECRET NUCLEAR RESEARCH FACILITY."

I reply: Well, it is not top secret. That is the problem. Every man and his dog knows what is going on in there. These facilities attract protesters, the mentally ill and alien flying saucers like flies. It is the price of doing business. In the Dark Ages we had all sorts of drills to deal with different types of intruders.

Quite frankly the worst thing we the security force could do would be to create "martyrs". We used to have designated trespass zones in which a protester could be seen from the outside (and have his picture taken) trespassing but the protester was not in the way. Everyone was happy.

I was just a grunt doing external security but my bosses would have handled this differently. IMO the protesters won this round.

God bless
Richard W. Comerford

I think the "man and his dog" was as funny as the flying saucer remark. Then I think a Comerford-imposter posted a comment about the sci-fi channel, but it was funny albeit fake. (That wasn't you, Mark A, was it?)


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"In the Shoes of Peter"

Commentator James posted a good remark to Rod Dreher's latest bishop bash.

I think you too easily put yourself in the shoes of Peter without any thought to the responsibilities that the Holy Father has for all the souls placed in his care and that includes the souls of the victims as well as the offending priests and bishops. We would be foolish to think that one should not feel anger at such injustices committed against the innocent young men and women of the Catholic Church. We have a right to be angry, but the ultimate question comes down to what would rectify such injustices. Revenge is hardly a helpful motive in these times. One must tread carefully and patiently as the Lord Jesus himself no doubt would do. Who knows what private communications have occurred between these bishops and the Vatican? What benefit would it be for the Holy Father to excoriate the bishops? So lay people who are upset would feel better? Is that what its going to take to make people feel better again? Public admonishment? Would that make you feel better? What does such an exercise of scolding do in the end? Nothing really. For those who are hardened of heart, it does nothing.

Emphasis mine. well, exactly. Rod's rants often remind me of my grandfather's insistence that the Steelers were not practicing because he didn't see it on the news. "That's why they lost the Superbowl to the Cowboys! And I watch a lot of TV, believe me." If I was a lawyer, maybe I could have put together a class-action for Steeler fans. But I doubt that would have satisfied my grandfather, may he rest in peace.

When Bishop Wuerl traveled to Rome to ensure a bad priest would be defrocked, it wasn't big news. The situation was handled perfectly. When things go right, it's the opposite of news and credit is not assigned where it's due.

Likewise whenever Bishop Pilla was basically asked to resign by the Vatican it wasn't big news. But it was taken care of. Everybody knew he'd screwed up. Nobody I knew — least of all practicing orthodox Catholics — wanted him to be dragged out and pilloried publicly any more than he had already been in the courts. Of course, to anti-Catholics who had left the Church it might have been another matter entirely, and that's who we're often dealing with in the complaint department.

Were Bishops to blame in the clergy scandal? You bet. Did it deserve news coverage? Of course. But it seems media elites like Dreher will never think this is getting enough coverage, ever, and they'll never accept that any discipline is being done by the Pope unless it is done publicly with lots of press passes handed out.

Barack Obama Is Pinned Again

Oh, well. Good to see Old Glory back on the dude's lapel. If he really wants to be President he's going to have to adopt accepted traditional modes of showing patriotism, not abstract notions of "telling us what you believe" or some-such.

Here's Obama's original statement:

You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.

Actually it's more likely that his wife threw the pin away before she got proud of America. Or maybe his preacher yanked it off during a particularly fiery "God damn America" sermon. In any case, I think the man is pinned between a rock and a hard place.

David Bereit "Live Blogging" the Papal Visit

David Bereit is posting live "play-by-play" podcasts of the Pope's visit to the Whitehouse. It's supposedly the biggest shindig GWB has thrown yet.

Me old band

As part of my ongoing obligatory mid-life crisis — and as a service to the few people who might care — I've been working on getting all the tracks recorded by my old band available for download. Well, it's finally accomplished, and you can sample and download everything from Stinging Rain's three recordings over at CD Baby. The best place to start is to go to our main page over there. And as of today it's all available on iTunes as well.

I also started an "unofficial blog" a couple months back just to kind of "get the ball rolling", at least in my own mind. I also wanted to try to get our Google rating up and see who's hitting us. The blog has pertinent links and photos from the old days PLUS my usual attempts at humor, all music-related. There's also a post about what it takes to get major digital download coverage, but I'm too lazy to find that link for you now. Suffice it to say it's pretty easy; all you need is $55 and a Sunday afternoon. CD Baby takes care of everything else.

It's been pretty cool "reliving" some of those wild and heady days. This thing was a significant part of my life at one point, and when we called it quits in 1993, we pretty much dropped everything like firefighters hearing a siren and dispersed to go pursue other agendas. Aside from the rumors, nobody even knew we had called it quits for months; we never officially sent out a mailing to our fan base (What do you say? "Hey, we quit! Yeah, we're losers. Thanks for the memories.")

At least once a year, the lead singer and my closest friend, Nate, gets several calls for a CD or two. And we do get Googled sporadically as I've recently learned. So it's nice that we can say the stuff is available now and will be really forever, or until someone decides they don't want to make a few pennies a year from our download sales. In the digital age, "shelf space" gets cheaper every month, so you don't really have to convince Mr. Havana Smoker that your stuff is going to fly off his shelves rather than sit and collect dust and cobwebs in his warehouse.

Another cool thing is that you can listen to 2 minutes of all 26 recordings over at CD Baby. I had the option of making all, none or some of the tunes available for sampling and I went for maximum exposure. So if it's not your bag, no skin off your butt. It isn't the best rock ever created, but I don't think it's the worst either and we turned a few original hooks.

Oh, yeah, one last site. You can hear three entire songs on our Purevolume page, one from each album.

"That's when you takes a bathroom break dogg"

Some of my homeys here had been goofing with Gizoogling emails for a couple days, so I fizzigured I'd be the Double O G and Gizoogle this post about Jizzonah Gold-dogg.

Here's the resultin transizlation. It's kind of cool because all yizzle comments get transizlated to the G I double-zoogle in da house.

Official ADW Papal Visit Site

Good stuff over here from our friends in the Archdiocese of Washington — a few of whom read this humble blog — in regards to Pope Benedict's visit. I was perusing this document entitled "Core Theology of the Papacy" — good material for Catechesis.

Everything Gets Gated Now

The flap over Obama's latest comments has been christened "Bittergate". I was thinking that maybe the Larry Craig bathroom scandal should likewise be called Shittergate.

But everything is a gate now. Is this the media's attempt to convince people that Richard Nixon is somehow the father of the American scandal? Of course, the right went to town during the Clinton years coining Travelgate, Monica-gate, etc. So everyone shares blame for the shorthand.

If the current Secdef keeps his nose clean over the rest of his tenure we won't be forced to endure "Gates-gate". But if Hillary doesn't get her way in Michigan and Florida we'll have to hear about "Delegate-gate and "Superdelegate-gate-gate".

Luckily there are over a thousand words for prostitute, so we won't run out of labels for the Springers and Spitzers of the world. After Hookergate, we still have Tartgate, Hogate, Floozygate, Hussygate, Strumpetgate and for those batting for the other team, Midnightcowboygate.

People might forget where it all started. We'll know they did if there's ever another scandal at the famous hotel and it earns the title "Watergate-gate".

This should all put us in mind of the words of Christ who said "Wide is the gate... that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." (Matthew 7:13) We all fall down on the job, so to speak. But the object is to get back up, not to attempt a cover-up.

Men with hats

We need to get back to wearing hats, guys. Hats rock.

My guess is that she's a Hillary Clinton supporter

I was just thinking of one of my old friends from Pennsylvania. Her mom was an active Democrat and a stalwart member of the NRA. I don't think she was particularly religious.

Obama's remarks were like a shotgun blast with a wide dispersion pattern. There was enough in those few sentences to offend a lot of people with different backgrounds, traditions and viewpoints.

New Poll: Guns and/or Bitterness

In response to Barack Obama's elitist comments, I'm conducting a poll about guns and bitterness. If enough of my readership is bitter and packing heat then good -- I'll have an excuse to buy some more guns. And possibly a brand new Bible as well.

Here's the meat of what Mr. More-highly-evolved-than-y'all said about you cross-eyed neanderthals in Smalltown USA:

"It's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations...."

I guess Obama forgot for a moment that he is supposedly "anti-trade" this year as well.

Now we can only hope and pray for a picture of this guy in a hunting outfit.

Frankly, my dear, Spengler doesn't give a damn

A forceful bit of commentary from Mr. Spengler. If you are a Neo-con(federate) it will probably make you very angry. Spengler equates the apologetic formulas used to justify the Confederacy with those used by black liberation theologians such as Barack Obama's minister, Jeremiah Wright. In making his case, he compares the narratives romanticizing the Civil War south in films such Gone with the Wind with the glamorization of drug-related crime in the urban community as evinced in gangsta rap videos and films such as Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Excerpt:

From this great suffering arise two genres of American popular culture, the Gone With the Wind ilk of Civil War epic, and the "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" brand of gangsta tale. Both try to take the edge off the revulsion and placate the dishonored dead by turning them into folk-heroes. That is understandable, but also unfortunate, for America still has a great deal of killing left to do around the world, and might as well get used to it.

"Get Rich or Die Tryin'" would have been a good epitaph for the Confederate dead, who fought for land and slaves, not for "states' rights" or the sanctity of their soil. Slave-owners along with want-to-be slave-owners had it coming. The Union general William Tecumseh Sherman who said after he burned Atlanta, "I fear the world will jump to the wrong conclusion that because I am in Atlanta the work is done. Far from it. We must kill three hundred thousand, I have told you of so often, and the further they run the harder for us to get them."

Given the sad history of racial oppression in the South for a century after the Civil War, the only thing to regret is that Sherman didn't finish the job. I stopped watching the film version of Gone With the Wind after Scarlett O'Hara saved her plantation from the tax-collector. I wanted her to pick cotton until her back broke.

I know, I know... it's a Dixie-thang and I just wouldn't understand.

The biting a few paragraphs down is worthy of Hannibal Lector.

The self-pity of the South pervades American popular culture, from Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, to The Band's bathetic song, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". It is best known in the cover version by Joan Baez, an old civil rights campaigner. Such is the pull of identity politics.

After reading the conclusion where he quotes one of the boldest, sanest and most clear-thinking black commentators out there, Bill Cosby, I was fairly convinced that the purpose of the rest of the article was just a two-by-four to get the attention of black racists and white racists alike, since they are all alike if not identical. Cosby is almost the anti-Wright, stressing personal responsibility as the answer to the black crime epidemic, not radical revolutionary ideology. Barack Obama was more apt to get in touch with his inner Cosby a year ago, and by most appraisals, that's what resulted in much of the support he received from moderate voters who are sick of the Jackson/Sharpton "challenger" model (Shelby Steele's word). Maybe the Illinois Senator should be asked what he thinks of Bill Cosby's message now that he's caught between the rock of personal responsibility and the hard place of black victimology.