The Law of Permitted Free Speech

"Somebody's cut the string in two."

Could gay terrorists be suppressing sales of Dreher's Ruthie Leming book?

Are gay terrorists working secretly behind the scenes to suppress sales of Rod Dreher's The Little Way of Ruthie Leming? We know from Rod's own lips that sales have been disappointing, if not disastrous, and his fragmented tour of odd and isolated venues only confirms that. What other explanation could there be?

I saw this hysterical post on Dreher's blog today, and I immediately thought what he was desperately hoping to be was Bluto rallying the troops in Animal House:

Maybe it really is over, ya mo-rons. Maybe this time Wermer really has dropped the big one.

The only problem is that corporations, even liberal outfits like Mozilla, just don't work that way: it simply isn't the case that a few rinky-dink protests pop up on social media, and the board of directors then gather, pull their knives, and put Caesar down to please Pinkus, the one gay Roman who thought he dressed unfashionably.

No, in the real world populated by critically reasoning adults (which may, admittedly, exempt many of the adjunct professors populating Dreher's blog) this sort of action, reaction, and follow through only really happens if things are much more problematic at Mozilla and the gain from pleasing Pinkus is already greater than or at least equal to the loss from sacking Eichus Caesar.

So who wins with Eich stepping down? Everyone, probably Eich most of all.

For this to ever have come close to happening, Eich would have had to have been on thin ice as CEO already, for whatever reason. Corporations just don't change CEOs the way Dreher changes religions; they are actually too valuable to them to add or subtract frivolously. But now Eich can leave as a martyr instead of as a publicly humiliated failed CEO. Mozilla wins by looking even more progressive. And Pinkus wins by walking away with the delusion that his robe stayed on the floor where he dropped it because he commanded it to. Pinkus may come to learn that things don't always work that way.

And how does Dreher win with this post? Obviously it's good red meat, always good for blog hits. But in the time-honored Dreher tradition, it's also something else: the wrapper concealing a different payload.

Despite Dreher claiming "Yeah, it’s personal for me", it's nothing of the sort. He's already retreated back to his boyhood home, a boomerang child with jarringly age-inappropriate thinning hair, where no one can get to him to pull his pants down, and he's already abandoned any real interest in corporate journalism with his confessional wildings on his TAC blog over the past year. But most of all, as we've all pointed out here time and again, Dreher has never gone fully on the record against SSM in any way that could seriously get him in trouble: he already carefully OKCupids himself in advance of every blog post.

If you are already good with first getting the permission of others before speaking freely as the passive-aggressive Dreher does - the assumption underpinning this whole post - you are already their bitch.

Willingly.*

So how does Dreher win? The subliminal, implicit payload inside the wrapper.

This Eich thing is so historically hideous, second only to the fall of Constantinople - no, wait, the fall of France is a much better analogy - that it can logically only be the tip of the iceberg, so there's probably already a vast Pink Illuminati stalking Dreher in order to thwart everything he attempts.

Which is the only way to explain the inexplicable. Given his obvious talent as a writer and the obvious draw of spilling the beans on his dead sister, the poor sales of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming can only be explained by mystical evil forces implicitly, invisibly already at work.

And Eich's resignation is why you should begin to think so. Dreher doesn't need to tell you so outright; you can already figure it out for yourself, ya mo-rons.

Because it's only logical.

*Keith's Law of Permitted Free Speech, minions. Spread it far and wide throughout all lands. I'm a little behind on the internet meme-coining scale, you know.

Good news about our next meetup

Okay, gang - I like to call you gang because it has that fruity-phony sound to it that makes me feel I'm doing a better job of emulating my idol, whom I got it from - some good news about our next View From the Hood of Your Car meetup.

As you'll remember, an unfortunate event precipitated by but not the fault of  Reader M. left the Blue Rhino butane refill stand unusable as a VFTHOYC meetup spot. But Blue Rhino's loss has proved to be our gain.

Our destination this time is a spectacular tropical resort which lies in a lovely South American country abutting Venezuela and Brazil in which - how convenient is this - English is the official language.

Not only will it be a VFTHOYC meetup, but much, much more. There will be seminars and panel discussions covering every aspect of a book I got at a garage sale, including Orv and the Mystery, Biceps Beach, Ann and the possum, the China-Nepal-Bali triangle, and the Fountain man. Not to mention endless opportunities to pre-order my proposed book on certain multi-level marketing opportunities in newly emerging nations. And something new I'd like to explore, which for now I'm calling the Crank Option.

When you order your tickets - they're a flat $100, by the way - be sure to give our operators your full credit card number, expiration date, and that little 3-digit security code on the back.

For the finale Saturday night, we'll be having a special feast featuring several different types of the local seafood carefully prepared in the traditional native manner, all washed down with an absolutely wonderful tropical fruit drink, the specialty of the resort, which I'm told is to die for. Because my doctor has just recently told me to temporarily avoid wonderful tropical fruit drinks I won't be having any myself, but that just means more for everybody else, right?

Our spectacular tropical meetup will be held Friday evening, June 6, 2014 through Sunday morning, June 8, 2014, or maybe earlier, depending.

Again, be sure our operators have your full credit card information on record in advance, number, expiration date, and that little 3-digit security code on the back.

"Free us, O Lord, from all disordered attachments..."

Father Estabrook's homily last Sunday was excellent. Excerpt:

True wealth, one writer put it, is not determined by how much we have, but by how little we need. Christians know that we need so little, we are free to give away even precious gems because we have already received the greatest treasure, the most precious gift.

In talking with the school kids about what they were giving up for Lent, I am always a little saddened when I challenge them to give up video games and television, and they say, “no, I couldn’t live without that.” It’s not like the human race survived and flourished without iphones for thousands of years or anything.

Lent challenges us to examine those things from which we derive inordinate joy and to practice detachment from them.

"I wrote the [bleep] song, all right"

Jimmy Swaggart never got the whole tongue in cheek thing.



"Mr. Sting, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Sting, man."

Wonderful Precision of the Miraculous ObamaCare Signup Number

And polls continue to show the public still hates the law. So despite their cute and loud cheerleaders, their team bites. I hope they lose big.

Good News is No News

Apart from going unreported, good news is also a relative term in the world of the mainstream media; that's why we must turn to alternative media like the Media Report for coverage on Catholic clergy abuse reports when the drive-bys go silent.

In a newly released annual audit of abuse by independent experts, it was reported that there were only ten contemporaneous abuse allegations made against priests even deemed "credible" in all of 2013 (out of some 40,000 active priests) and that the "fewest allegations and victims" ever were tabulated since annual reports were first compiled in 2004.

This is obviously good news. But predictably, the mainstream media is notably silent about this very positive report, even though in years past when the numbers were less encouraging, the media fell over themselves to breathlessly report any unflattering statistics which they could dig up.

A search of news coverage about the Church's new annual report found that not a single secular news outlet (e.g., the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune etc.) reported on the study.

Someone recently told me I should feature more links to alternative media where we could get the facts not reported anywhere else. So this article couldn't be more timely. The Media Report is an excellent source for coverage of what is really going on vis-à-vis the soon to be defunct scandal industry. You can sign up for their newsletter near the bottom right of the site page, and I suggest that all EQE readers do so.

Here are some good bullets points listed in the piece to fire at those who still clutch at the abuse scandal like Linus with his security blanket.

• 40% of all identified priests who were accused in 2013 were already long deceased;
• 78% of all identified priests who were accused in 2013 are either already deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicized, or simply missing; and
• 90% of all abuse accusations last year allege incidents from at least 25 years ago.

It is obvious that the abuse narrative is now merely a media obsession as the article states. Unfortunately, too often obsessing leads to lying, and the lies continue to do harm:

The facts are the facts: Bogus accusations abound

And a closer look at the study further uncovers another issue that the mainstream media adamantly refuses to report: that bogus accusations against Catholic priests are rampant, and the vast bulk of accusations are either demonstrably untrue or simply unprovable.

According to this year's numbers, a staggering 80% of the 2013 cases in which an investigation had been completed fell into the categories of either "unable to be proven" or "unsubstantiated." Only a mere 14.6% of all 2013 cases were even deemed "substantiated" by the liberal standards of review boards.

Indeed, we have long reported on the pervasiveness of false accusations against priests, but no one in the mainstream media has the courage to pursue a counter-narrative story. The time is long overdue.

Check out the Falsely Accused Priest tag link. It's a gold mine for truth-seekers on this topic. It references the link to the WSJ article by Dorothy Rabinowitz The Trials of Father MacRae, a must read to provide balance and to unmask the predators who pretend to care about actual victims of real crimes. If these criminals and ambulance chasers really cared about the victims of abuse, they would move their operation to a place in which there was evidence that abuse was actually occurring.

You got to mix it, you got to fix it

Invited 1,400, Going 53, Maybe 29

What's this, you ask? The guest list for Hell on a merciful day?

Au contraire, foolish but lovable devotees of me, that's the box score this morning for CorkyFest, aka the Walker Percy Weekend in St.Francisville, LA, the tax-subsidized crawfish and bourbon party Rod Dreher is throwing for himself.

I would be going myself, naturally, but I had already promised to give Crank a thorough dip to help ease his mange. Maybe one of you has an extra 100 bucks and a plane ticket to burn and can go in my place. Ever eaten outdoors in South Louisiana, in June, in the evening? That's right, Spanish moss is only a humble tillandsia, not a romantic, naturally cooling insect repellent.

So maybe my first sentence wasn't that far off. Or maybe this event is really just the soft opening for Danteland.