This tune was in my head this morning

So allow me to put it into yours.

Ed Peters on the Perpetual State of Collapse

Ed Peters provides a useful antidote to the pessimism that Rod Dreher wallows in, and it's based on historical perspective as well as Christ's promise about the Gates of Hell. Excerpt:

Consider: Dreher ably traces the unraveling of Christianity in America, as represented in a special way by the battle over “gay marriage”, to a 1993 article in The Nation, springing from forces formally noticed in a 1966 book, in part unleashed by the Enlightenment in the late 18th century. He paints a plausible scenario. But why stop at the Enlightenment?

What was the Enlightenment except an exploitation of the disorder sowed by the Protestant Revolution? What was that religious revolution except a misdirected reaction to corruption in the medieval papacy? What was that papal corruption except a pernicious consequence of Papo-caesarism? What was that unbalanced ecclesiology but a short-sighted way to protect the Church against invasion by civil rulers? What was that regal invasion but . . . and so on and on and on—all the way back to Adam’s choice to believe what was nothing less than Satan’s Lie?

Simply put, the world is always in a state of collapse. Century after century after century. Catholics, or at any rate the Catholic Church, know this.

Then Peters goes on to say that capital-C Christianity isn't threatened by all the gay nonsense and that our marching orders to remain faithful are clear-cut, never mind the odds. Peters attitude is that of the soldier, and it's the one I'm trying to live. It's hard; pessimism is easier. Throwing in the towel is much easier than continuing to throw punches. Peters concludes:

Toward the end of his essay, Dreher holds out some hope for a recovery of moral senses, but it’s not much hope, and it is easy to miss his point. So let me sum up my way: things don’t always turn out as badly as we think they will turn out, and even if they do, so what? Our job is to shoulder on.

I'm not off base about the Cleveland police

Yesterday I posted about the A. Berry, G. DeJesus, etc. case, and I mused "[I]mmediately I thought 'Does this say something about law enforcement around here?'" I don't like saying that; I like cops around here in general. Even when they burst into an old office I used to lease because some lunatic biddy reported that I'd broken in, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. "You guys are just doing your job," I told them, amid their apologies. And I told the kids when I was pulled over for speeding that the policeman was right and I was wrong.

Well... wow, turns I'm not being paranoid or anti-cop.

Cleveland Police missed something. That much is clear. Despite the department's obviously extended effort to find the victims, the sheer volume of tips that would have led them to the Castro home is starting to looking pretty condemning. While some are calling the USA Today report "mostly hearsay," it's hard to believe that so many different neighbors would've made such similar calls. Some reported inexplicably large amounts of McDonalds being carried into the house by Ariel Castro, one of the three brothers and a school bus driver. Others reported seeing women standing in the windows of the Castro house and at least once incident of a woman pounding on a window, after which they called the police.

The leash stuff really is twisted, though. "[Neighborhood] women told Lugo they called police because they saw three young girls crawling on all fours naked with dog leashes around their necks," the report reads. "Three men were controlling them in the backyard. The women told Lugo they waited two hours but police never responded to the calls." Again, this is just one of several incidents that neighbors say they reported to police, incidents that the Cleveland Police didn't follow up on. It's not just the USA Today piece that's making these claims either. Local news outlets are issuing similar reports.

Despite the volume of reports — The New York Times published a similarly condemning story after USA Today's — Cleveland Police not only say they did nothing wrong. A police spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday that they never even received any calls. Hard to believe? You bet. Understandably evasive? Sure. But it's certainly no get-out-of-jail free card. (Pardon the bad pun.) As Reuters' Jim Roberts put it, "Hard to see how this Cleveland story ends well for the Police Department there."

The stories are going to get worse. Wait until these women recover enough to give statements. Ten years of freaking HELL, take out to go.

The Little Way of Foghorn Leghorn

Funny collection of FL's rants.



"I never tied down no pumpkins!"

Well, we're all happy

I couldn't believe the news when I heard it this morning. And I was happy, obviously, we all thought these women were long gone. But immediately I thought "Does this say something about law enforcement around here?"



Charles Ramsey seems like a great guy, and a good guy. But why does he go racial at the end? They should have cut that. Irritating. My kids aren't afraid of people with dark skin, and they're as white as Edgar Winter.

Sorry, Toibin

I think the reason that so many of us Catholics love Bill Donohue is because he states what we are all thinking. Especially about the sort of irreverence displayed in "The Testament of Mary":

Bill Donohue comments on “The Testament of Mary,” which ended its Broadway run yesterday:

The play, based on the book by Colm Toibin, opened on April 22 and was scheduled to run through June 16. But instead of lasting 12 weeks, it lasted only two. On the day it opened, I said, “it is not easy to see who is going to be drawn to this play.”

The play bombed. That’s why it closed. Quite frankly, there aren’t enough people who want to spend their evenings watching a dark performance about a fanciful Virgin Mary who rejects the divinity of her son. My only regret is that we don’t have the results of a psychological battery of tests performed on those who like this kind of stuff.

The Irish Times’ Fintan O’Toole is furious that the play bombed. He blames capitalism. “The most basic truth about Broadway is that it’s about money. It is the raw, ruthless marketplace to which some people would like to reduce all artistic endeavour. It is a primal form of capitalism: enormous risks in pursuit of enormous rewards.”

In O’Toole’s world, plays he likes should have a long run on Broadway, even if no one wants to pay to see them (no doubt he would like to get some stimulus money to subsidize his leisure). But one of the great things about capitalism is that it accurately gauges public sentiment, rewarding what people want, and discarding what they don’t. A market economy, I am happy to say, doesn’t necessarily reward what the elites want. Which is why they hate it.

Sorry, Toibin. Looks like there aren’t enough O’Tooles out there to enjoy your angry discourse on Catholicism.

So you take libel about the Blessed Virgin Mary, turn it into slander and when it bombs you blame capitalism. "Sorry" is about the only word we have for you, or for people who spend years studying and promoting Esperanto as a language.

Natives React To Rod Dreher's Ruthie Leming Book

Kudos to Keith for this valuable link. Kathleen predicted this last year, maybe even a year ago, that not all was going to be hunky dory with the natives of Starhill and St. Francisville once the book came out. Here are some highlights:

I don't think people in Starhill & SF realize how Rod is painting them to the rest of the country on his AmConMag blog. Basically as quaint, eccentric goobers from Hooterville, or Honey Boo-boos in the making, or the next Buck Wild. Rod's pals all over the north and easy coast eat this stuff up & he's feeding them all they can chow down. Nothing like the ever changing adventures of the little wogs in their native environment. Reading about SH & SF is like visiting the zoo. Heck, maybe others can get a swamp people reality show and make some big bucks clowning for the nation like Rod has.

Woah! Feel the love there. Then the commenter, billfr, is pressed for a link to support his claim and he posts this one, which I guess is supposed to be a picture of countrylad, one of Rod's cheerleaders and the original poster of the Topix thread. Billfr goes on:

I just kind of feel bad for the people. I grew up in a parish not far east of you but I've spent many a happy day fishing False River and Old River and camping out up over Thompson's before they put all those houses out there & been through SF a bunch of times. It's just too bad the people there don't get portrayed as the good solid people they are rather than having some carpetbagging blogger paint them as one-legged strippers and goofballs just to score Ripley's believe it or not points with the east coast university crowd.

It's your town CL you do what you want with it. Maybe you can make some money off of Ruthie Leming too.

Then we have Openyoureyes:

And making so much money by portraying the community to look like a bunch of backwoods rednecks. Says something about a person who exploits the death of a loved one for a pocket full of money.

Ten pockets full, more like. I'm telling you, this is the way all normal people view this book, especially those who know a little about Rod Dreher. Ruthie's death is a vehicle to transport the standard Dreher sermons and get a big paycheck in the process. Commenter readthebook concurs:

I too thought the book was a little "preachy". It seems he took his sisters death and his popularity with the right people and made a book deal. People lose loved ones everyday but books aren't made about it. She wasn't gone long and he had already had a book ready to be published.

Figure it out chimes in:

I have been seeing Rod Dreher in various print and just this morning I heard a story about "him" on National Public Radio (83.9 FM). It appears to me that Rod is more interested in promoting himself than he is in eulogizing his sister or trying to promote his little book. He has always had a high opinion of himself. I just didn't realize that it has reached stratospheric proportions.

You realize that this following comment from beenthere is accurate if you read the book. There is a lot of tattling of this sort under the guise of "showing the human side" or whatever.

Yeah, everything he's blogging now is about how he was so misunderstood by his daddy and sister. Now he gets to try her in the court of public opinion without having to worry about her talking back. A few faint praise compliments. A lot of how human and not a saint. Backhanding her with sweet faint praise.

Of course we know this isn't the first time that tendency has been exposed by Dreher. Finally...

He is making money off of a terrible situation. He didn't have a relationship with his sister and anyone else as I recall. He always thought he was better than anyone else in school. I am in awe that he is being promoted with this book about a wonderful and loving person. Ruthie was a piece of St Francisville and a piece of our school. Rod would never know that. He left because he was BETTER than the hicks here. Everyone loved Ruthie and Mike. They are Good people and represented what a REAL family looks like. It absolutely disgusts me and makes me sick in my stomach to think one would use a family members passing to make money. I guess old relationships don't change.

We're in awe, too, selfishRod.