More Menacing Mannequins in the Macabre Moonlight

Latest installment of Caspar & Lonnie is here, folks, and in this one we meet a Non-Domiciled Indigent Person. Every great story from the Holy Gospels to Happy Gilmore features a Homeless Dude, right? Here's a teaser:

"Don't worry, Lonnie. They are just mannequins." said Caspar with relief. His excellent "sixth sense" told him that no demons were possessing these laughing mannequins, and there was nothing to fear. And Lonnie didn't feel anything tingling in his hands. Nonetheless, both ghosts were very unnerved by the horde of mannequins who, in the weird lighting, appeared as if they were laughing at them for their misfortunes.

I am sure that once Hollywood acquires the film rights to this excellent story of mine, the screen writers will probably juice up parts of it to make it more terrifying. So I imagine that here they would turn it around so that the mannequins Caspar and Lonnie saw were all demon possessed as well, and consequently they would all start walking towards our two friends in the most menacing way possible. And this would be a spot where the CGI lab could add gee-whiz special effects to accentuate the terror of it all. But really, nothing like this happened in this case. Sometimes the mannequins are just mannequins.

[other posts on Oengus Moonboones.]

"It's not even close."

I feel somewhat like I'm waking up from a weird dream, an alternate reality. I've been driving to western Michigan and back every week for five months. It has kept me extremely busy. I wanted to spend every spare moment with my wife and kids and my weird hobbies which have nothing to do with scribbling on the internets. Now this contract is ending and I have all these thoughts in my head, like puddles after the rain, from the first half of 2014 which I never commented on here, though I wanted to. So forgive me if some of this stuff is "old news", old by our modern news-cycle standards at any rate.

Here's the first thing I wanted to remark on. Yes, Bloomberg is quite a thing. And obviously his new anti-gun project is something which I detest and I hope turns ultimately into a huge waste of time, money and resources. So I was going to opine that I suspect my hope is correct. There are plenty of Democrats who detest gun-grabbing and I believe this group is playing to a rather small gallery.

But when I got to the last two paragraphs, I thought I'd wandered into an amateur comedy club. The focus of my derision shifted as Bloomberg went full retard into religion:

Mr. Bloomberg was introspective as he spoke, and seemed both restless and wistful. When he sat down for the interview, it was a few days before his 50th college reunion. His mortality has started dawning on him, at 72. And he admitted he was a bit taken aback by how many of his former classmates had been appearing in the “in memoriam” pages of his school newsletter.

But if he senses that he may not have as much time left as he would like, he has little doubt about what would await him at a Judgment Day. Pointing to his work on gun safety, obesity and smoking cessation, he said with a grin: “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

Stand back, St. Peter! The former Mayor of New York is heading straight in!

Al E. quipped that two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. Then he added the disclaimer that he wasn't sure about the universe. I'm wondering something. If you could earn a place in Heaven―and I don't believe you can―would you be able to if you weren't even sure Heaven existed? In other words, you weren't sure there was a God to be worshiped on earth? And if everyone in Heaven knows everything there is to be known as perfectly as each of their minds can grasp knowledge, will there be interviews at the Pearly Gates? Even with people as important as Michael Bloomberg? Possibly; journalists and video crews who make it there might not know how to do anything else.

I hope Bloomberg does go to Heaven, but I don't think he'll like it. There won't be any government and no ability to run anything or ban anything. There will be smokers there, no doubt, and obese people like St. Thomas Aquinas and plenty of firing of guns for fun, since they won't be able to hurt anybody. (Trust me on this last point.) But maybe Bloomberg's first meeting with G. K. Chesterton would be worth capturing on video.

He desires to no longer be Catholic,

therefore he isn't.

Wannabe anti-individualist individualist Catholic rejectnik Rod Dreher, still confused and lost in a dark wooden head.

Just my speed

Believe me, I'm into anything which can save my life and if I can pull it off for half price, that's even better. So I picked this book up at Half Price Books earlier today.

It's a graphic novel version of The Divine Comedy by the famous award-winning cartoonist/artist, Seymour Chwast. Virgil and Dante are both wearing fedoras and there's stuff like typewriters and machine guns in it. So I suppose it's a little bit updated, but not too much. Also it's competely written in English. So he either translated it from the original Italian, or he might have merely pulled some pieces out of the English cliff notes version. It's very abridged, to put it mildly, but it hits the main points, e.g., magicians have their heads on backwards, sodomites get their faces erased, Judas, Brutus and Cassius are in the middle, etc.

I've read it for about 15 minutes and I'm halfway through. I am feeling a little bit healthier, but I still need my glasses to see. My favorite thing about it so far is how natural Chwast pulls it off. Dante is dressed like a gumshoe detective, the whole bit with the overcoat and Virgil is wearing a tux. It just feels right to me.

Obama sinking further in the polls

A new poll reveals a serious erosion of support. From the article:

“Whether it’s [Vladimir] Putin, Ukraine, the VA hospitals, Bowe Bergdahl, the events have controlled Obama, rather than Obama having controlled the events,” Hart adds. “He may be winning the issues debate, but he’s losing the political debate, because they don’t see him as a leader.”

...

But it shows an American public that has grown dissatisfied with President Obama on foreign policy and national security decisions.

Just 37 percent approve of his handling of foreign policy, which is an all-time low in the survey, while 57 percent disapprove, an all-time high.

What’s more, by a 44 percent-to-30 percent margin, Americans disagree with the Obama administration’s decision to secure the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five imprisoned Taliban fighters.

...

President Obama’s overall approval rating in the poll is at 41 percent, down three points from April. That’s tied for his all-time low in the survey.

And his favorable-unfavorable rating is upside down (41 percent-45 percent) after being right-side up two months ago (44 percent-41 percent).

Perhaps most troubling for the president, 54 percent think he is unable to lead the country and get the job done, compared with 42 percent who believe he can.

Is the press finally going to grow a spine and stop propping up this loser? Let's hope so. I think the approval numbers would be more like 12% if people really had all the info.

He read the tea leaves...

...and he doesn't even drink tea. Romney from 2007:



On the other hand, we have Joe Biden's, uh, "prophecy" from 2010:



If Mitt Romney was President, do you think he'd be fundraising and golfing at a time like this?

H/T IJ Review.

Orthodox Barbara-Marie Drezhlo schools Rod Dreher on motes and beams

Matthew 7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Pauli had previously posted about Rod Dreher using both scurrilous news reports and outright fabrications to take another revenge swipe at the Catholic Church, a 2,000-year-old institution he left not long ago for somehow failing his needs in ways that Dante hasn't quite yet (with Dante there is still hope for a book deal). Tom Piatak of Chronicles and Red Phillips of Conservative Heritage Times each took note and called him out on it, and Dreher was forced to recant - or at least forced to be as honest as he is capable of being short of an outright waterboarding.

Now none other than Barbara-Marie Drezhlo whips it out and takes a shot at that soaking, forcing Dreher to at least dab a little sanctimony behind each ear with respect to Stanley Brittain and 'fess up:

Thank God they’ve put this wretched man behind bars. He should have been defrocked years ago. Why? According to a 2011 internal investigative report in the Orthodox Church in America (PDF here), Metropolitan Jonah reassigned him even though he sexually harassed a Reader at a church in Alaska (the details of the case are pathetic), and was allegedly discovered seeking out online gay hookups after he left for Australia in the company of his former bishop. The internal (SMPAC) report was right to hold Jonah responsible for allowing the depraved monk Brittain to serve in that Oregon parish, but what the internal report did not say was that Bishop Benjamin of the OCA’s Diocese of the West specifically requested that Brittain be released to his care and supervision. As I wrote a couple of years ago...

Whatever. Because Dreher offers no corresponding link to his own writing, however, frankly I have no idea whether what he goes on to say was actually written a couple of years ago as he claims or more conveniently dashed out only a couple of hours ago to neatly fit current needs. Or maybe he's just fuzzy on the details. Something in his eye, perhaps.

In fact, a casual reader only skimming Dreher's post might even be misled into thinking the perp was just another representative of the Catholic Church: the word "priest" immediately pops up as the tenth word encountered in the post. Seven paragraphs later "Orthodox" finally emerges as the 200th.

Other readers are encouraged to fill in the timelines more completely here. Where was Dreher and what was he doing with respect to the enabler Metropolitan Jonah in 2011?  I think it's safe to conclude, though, that the only reason Dreher is now admitting that there are problems in his own Orthodox Church is that the episode in question happened in the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), the Orthodox communion he tiptoed away from without a peep, certainly without the wailing tantrum he delivered when leaving the Catholic Church, not in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) communion he has since affiliated his handmade backyard St. Francisville church with (when you order your new priest online yourself, I'm pretty sure that counts as handmade).

So why did Dreher order up a different Orthodox communion when putting together his personal Orthodox church several years ago? Why not just stick with the OCA? And, loquacious as he is, why not tell us all why, over and over and over again?

But while motes and beams may periodically clog his vision, as long as Rod Dreher remains religiously nimble enough there will never, ever be any flies on him. Wannabe religious hustlers and cult leaders out there take note: this is the model you want to study and follow. This is once again a master at work.

Caspar & Lonnie Meet a Demon

Another chapter in the exciting serial of Caspar and Lonnie by our friend, the inimitable Oengus Moonbones.

You may have missed the 2nd episode, Evening at the Mall, which I link here for your convenience. It came out shortly after my initial post on which I mentioned the series. I only hope the man continues this intriguing saga.