A sad day in Benedict Option history

Goodnight, sweet Benedict Option Prince

Prince Rogers Nelson - "Prince" - has died, supposedly of complications from the flu, at his home in Minneapolis. He was 57.

As the creator of the Benedict Option tries to cope with the loss of this keystone of his Benedict Option life he had this to say, "He was 57 years old, but really, he was ageless", clearly one of the immortals in the cultural foundation upon which the Benedict Option is built (did I just mix architectural metaphors? I believe I did.)

The death of Prince follows upon the death earlier this year, also at age 57, of his spirited protege, Vanity, famous for the Benedict Option cultural staple, "Nasty Girl".

One of the Benedict Option creator's commenters, a Sam M. cautions its Prophet about the influence of his icon:

Once we’re done grieving, we will of course have to have an intervention with Rod to make sure he doesn’t bring his record collection to BenOp Acres. Little Red Corvette has to be at least as bad for kids as Grand Theft Auto.

But it was so damn good! Which has to count for something.

To which the Bishop of the BenOp tartly responds,

[NFR: Heard “Kiss” lately? It’s as smokin’ hot as the first time you heard it. Not many people can pull that off. — RD]

Not many indeed, no doubt.

But the tragedy doesn't just stop at its impact on the BenOp magisterium. What about the cultural thickening of the children in the ways of the Prince?

[NFR: That’s a question we deal with all the time. My kids don’t know any Prince, but I want to play some for them. Thing is, how can I expose them to the greatness of “Kiss” without making them sit through the awful “Darling Nikki”? One feels one’s way through this carefully. The only total solutions is play NONE of it for them, or let them listen to ALL of it. Neither of those solutions is acceptable to me. — RD]

And so it is abundantly clear that the Benedict Option will be anything but a simple retreat into the wilderness to quietly seek the wisdom and the Grace of God, made even more complicated with the falling of such a shining star from its cultural firmament.

(A disclaimer: because I've never actually heard Prince, I cannot possibly grasp the depth and profundity of loss the Benedict Option community is now suffering from. The best I can do is report what I read from the epistles of its founder.)

GRATUITOUSLY ADDED: The Benedict Option, because you can't offer an alternative that's not the same old, same old, can you.

I'm actually a fan of this type of argument. Take for example, Keith's World Famous Di-Hydrogen Oxide Pills, crucial to staving off Alzheimer's and death in one's later years. Sure, you can criticize, maybe even mock, maybe, if you're really reckless enough, not even buy them. But what's your alternative? So be forewarned: the consequences of non-acquiescence are on you, and God help you if you attempt to sway minors to your foolish ways.

Self-revelations or Lies?

If the anonymous author of the Benedict Post is actually Rod Dreher as we've assumed in the past, then I don't know what to do with this excerpt from a recent post.

Like Scalia, I am a former high school debater, a product of a Jesuit education, a traditionalist-minded Catholic, a conservative, and a lawyer. To see someone so similar, in that prominent of a position, not only saying it’s okay to think this way, but this is the way you should be thinking about the law was incredibly inspiring and motivating. As one of the many conservative legal minds who had (and will have) the privilege of learning the law from you: thank you, Justice Scalia.

Obviously Rod Dreher is none of these things, although an argument could be made that he is a conservative since many people think he is, including himself. But he is not any type of functional conservative, not any more than he is a functional ice cube. (Oh brother, Pauli, do you really want to bring up your support for that loser Romney who very losingly lost the 2016 Presidential election? Sure; if Donald Trump gets the GOP nod, I'll vote for his sinking ship over HRC.) So if this is Dreher's sock-puppet site, he is being extremely deceptive in claiming to be a Catholic lawyer with a Jesuit education. Of course, he has a history of doing this as we know.

This post goes on seemingly forever, quoting and commentating upon practically everybody's farewell tribute to Scalia. I don't know if anyone who reads here is bored enough to compare the quotes with Dreher's TAC tribute — I assume he wrote one — to check for matches, similar patterns, etc. The other angle might be to skim through the writings of His Crunchiness to identify traditionalist-minded, Jesuit produced, former debater, "conservative" friends for whom Dreher provides a name. I'm thinking of people like the rich guy who he drank beers with in Europe who is tired of fast-food joints and dumb-ass Republicans. He might be a lawyer who doesn't want to lose clients by admitting he actually buys into this Benedict Option balderdash.

The possibility exists that Dreher is the author and is simply lying about law degrees and Catholic cred to throw people off the trail. I wouldn't be naïve enough to rule that out. But there are so many nuts out there, like my font abuse friend whom I've written about (and more recent news about him later), that I don't doubt this person could be a separate individual from Rod Dreher. He could be just another self-righteous, politically-homeless dude with a blog, a permanent scowl and a desire for a Christian ghetto apart from all those pesky Christians.

Subtitles for the Benedict Option book

Not a crow, a penguin sentinel guarding the approaches to your thinking

UPDATE (as they say): Apparently Rod Dreher's brilliant, Svengali-like agent, the one who got him the million-dollar advance for the now-remaindered book about Rod's sister Ruthie, has found some pickings yet within the greater fool theory of publishing.

I say apparently because, OTOH, no one from Penguin Sentinel has actually called me to confirm this while, OTOH, you would just not believe the zetabytes of anonymous email I myself receive praising not only my posts but my very existence as well. So there's obviously an issue of credibility to be resolved here with respect to this alleged Penguin Sentinel publishing contract. But enough about me and any hypothetical eating of any hypothetical crow over this hypothetical Benedict Option book ::cough::.

Anyway, now Rod wants subtitles for his, as Pikkumatti has aptly described it, vaporware.

I've already offered one suggestion:

The Benedict Option: Revenge of the Nerds

based on my analysis that, at bottom, the only religion which can adequately fulfill all the conditions with which Rod has circumscribed his concept is the one within which he has now taken refuge, Russian Orthodoxy, and from which Safe Space he now wages the good fight of Mean Girl snark against all other practitioners as he routinely characterizes them: those MTD Protestants, those pedophile and laissez-faire Catholics, and obviously those Christ-denying Jews alike.

Hey, if you're not an Orthodox Christian, according to Rod's consistent blogging you're obviously not a real orthodox Christian, and you're just not going to pass through that narrow eye of the needle into the kingdom of the select BO.

But an equally useful subtitle might be

The Benedict Option: Though Your Personal Faith in Christ and Christianity Have Failed You in Our Current Age, Fear Not: I, Rod Dreher, Am Here To Show You a New Way

Because if your personal faith in Christ and Christianity were sufficient, why would you need a Benedict Option to shore them up?

Okay, that's two from me. What are your suggestions for faceless editor Bria Sandford, FNG and lowest member on the Penguin Sentinel totem pole, tasked with selecting a subtitle for and otherwise rendering Rod's hypothetical Benedict Option book?

What the Benedict Option is like

If anyone knows what the Benedict Option is like it would be Rod Dreher, the man who invented it and lives it out day after day. So what's the Benedict Option like?

Let's let Rod tell us in his own terms.

Luxury hotel on Lake Louise, CA courtesy Rod Dreher

Isn’t that something, that view? That beer belongs to Peter Leithart, who was sitting to the left of the frame. I was drinking the same kind. What a gorgeous, gorgeous place. A group of us went walking in Johnson Canyon, part of Banff National Park, in the Canadian Rockies. Then we dropped by to see Lake Louise, which is still frozen over. We had a beer at the hotel on the lake.
:
Man, did I ever have a great time with these Lutherans up here!

Man, I'll bet you did, Rod! Sign me up for the Benedict Option today!

Banff National Park has got to be one of the most beautiful vacation destinations ever, and you, too, can access it at its most spectacular if you play your cards right.

You just need to make some arrangements there that have a plausible connection to your business or church doings, then, while "thickening" yourself on a delicious craft beer, write off your expenses as tax deductions against your income or business revenue.*

Now, granted, Rod has the original Benedict Option book-to-be-written-somewhen as his hook, so you'll need to develop a derivative Benedict Option Tax Option of your own.

Maybe pretend to write a book about Rod's pretending to write his original Benedict Option book-to-be-written-somewhen, following in his footsteps as he himself followed Dante's on the Dante Trail when he vacationed in beautiful Italy. And then your friends could pretend to write a book about you pretending to write a book, and so forth. Naturally, as you can see above, there will be necessary expenses involved.

Or maybe something entirely different. You're really only limited by your imagination and the gullibility of the IRS.

The main thing to understand is - just as Rod tells us, over and over - the Benedict Option is not about pulling roots out of the ground and eating them raw in a field behind some nameless monastery outside Rump, Indiana like Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu. Dude! No way!

No, as you see can plainly see here, the Benedict Option is about cannily harvesting God's blessings as revealed through the U. S. tax code and living large - in praise of Him, of course.

The Benedict Option: Dum vivimus, vivamus, dude!

 *Note: nothing in the post is to be construed as offering professional tax counseling. See your own tax professional, and soon! April 15 is almost upon us.

A reason to really like Ted Cruz

Here is a reason to throw your support behind Ted Cruz for President. He is being advised by Frank Gaffney from CSP, Clare Lopez, Andrew McCarthy — in other words, people who really get it right with regard to our war against radical Islam. Excerpt:

Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has worked to distinguish radical Islamist ideology from moderate Islam and has dismissed the “Islam is a religion of peace” line – essentially the bipartisan position of the American political class since the Bush administration – as simplistic.

In fact, he noted in a 2014 forum that he found it “annoying” when President Bush spoke that way, and that the “average American thinks this is crap” because of the carnage they can see roiling the Islamic world.

Other names mentioned in the Bloomberg View article are three members of Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy, former CIA officers Fred Fleitz and Clare Lopez and former Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Jim Hanson, in addition to former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy, who was one of the prosecutors of the first World Trade Center bombing.

Trump Roundup, Volume 1

Stephen Hayes's sensibilities which determine why he cannot vote for Trump are largely the same as mine. If I lived in Maryland or Texas where my vote didn't matter one way or another, I'd probably vote third party like Hayes says he plans to if the Donald is nominated. Excerpt:

....I care most about the two issues that directly threaten the continued viability of the American experiment: national security and the debt. My views on individual politicians are shaped mainly by their positions on protecting the country and reforming entitlements. Accordingly, the most promising policy development over the past decade was Paul's Ryan victory over the GOP establishment and its determined opposition to entitlement reform and the most worrisome was Barack Obama's abandonment of the war against the global jihadist movement.

A Trump presidency would be disastrous on both scores. Trump opposes entitlement reform, and it's unclear whether he even understands the central role entitlements play in our mounting debt. Trump claims Republicans lost the presidential election in 2012 because of Ryan's reforms. "He represented cutting entitlements," Trump said last month, pointing to the selection of Ryan by Mitt Romney as "the end of the campaign." Trump has said repeatedly that he won't touch entitlements. "The only one that's not going to cut is me."

On national security, Trump says he'll be strong and frequently pronounces himself "militaristic." But he doesn't seem to have even a newspaper reader's familiarity with the pressing issues of the day. He was nonplussed by a reference to the "nuclear triad"; he confused Iran's Quds Force and the Kurds; he didn't know the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah. The ignorance would be less worrisome if his instincts weren't terrifying. He's praised authoritarians for their strength, whether Vladimir Putin for killing journalists and political opponents or the Chinese government for the massacre it perpetrated in Tiananmen Square.

Then Hayes basically reminds us of the steaming pile of crap and dead guts that represent the tip of the manure pile which is Donald Trump's thought process. The John McCain remarks, the Megyn Kelly remarks, the Carly Fiorina remarks, the Kovaleski remarks... He especially gives some insights to Trump's remarks about John McCain by relating that Trump's response to Hayes's question about "whether he'd read any accounts of McCain's time in captivity or was otherwise familiar with his experiences as a prisoner of war." Trump said "It's irrelevant." Really, he did.

If anyone wonders why Trump can't get to 50% anywhere and only wins open primaries, there's your answer. And speaking of 50%... For anyone out there who thinks that Trump's issue with women voters—which I blogged about earlier—is not a big deal, guess what? It's gotten worse. The Very Unfavorable camp has increased by 10 points since October. Excerpt:

Real estate billionaire Donald Trump’s coarse rhetoric has won him some fans, but there’s at least one large group in America that is increasingly unimpressed: women.

Half of U.S. women say they have a “very unfavorable” view of the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, up from the 40 percent who felt that way in October. The survey was taken from March 1-15, and included 5,400 respondents.

I'm hoping Kasich stays in the race. He can take more of California away than Cruz can. I want to see an open convention at this point. Barring some type of strange intervention of Fate or something, he can't win.

Coulter: Trump campaign is like an "outlandish business idea"

No, not Trump-groupie Ann Coulter. Please. Mike Coulter is a friend of mine who I've known since we were in grade-school, and today he wrote a very practical piece explaining why Donald Trump would likely lose the general election if he is nominated. Excerpt:

But Trump claims—and Rush Limbaugh affirms—that he’s drawing independents and Democrats. He’s getting some of those voters, but the polling data suggest that it’s going to be very hard for him get enough independents and Democrats to win in the fall. A January poll from Gallup indicated that Trump had the worst favorability ratings among any Republican candidates among independents and Democrats. Trump was net -27 among independents (that is, his unfavorability rating was 27 points higher than his favorability rating) and -70 among Democrats. No other Republican was so far underwater with non-Republicans (Trump’s -97 combined was far worse than Huckabee, Cruz, and Bush, who were around -40). It’s not enough to get some independents and Democrats. For Trump to win, he gets a majority of independents and at least 20 percent of Democrats.

Trump, the businessman, should understand you need a plan for winning. When an entrepreneur seeks support for a new venture, he or she has to show how the business idea will attract enough customers. In presidential politics you need a plan for winning a majority of electoral votes because there’s only one winner. Attracting a dedicated minority of voters wins no prize.

The Trump campaign is like one of those outlandish business ideas, like personal travel to the moon, that has some potential customers, but it doesn’t have a winning business plan.

If you don't live in Ohio, don't read this

I'm voting for Kasich in the Buckeye State. And if you live here, you should to. Strategy is everything. Excerpt:

"I'm just stating the obvious," Conant argued. "If you are a Republican primary voter in Ohio and you want to defeat Donald Trump, your best chance in Ohio is John Kasich, because John Kasich is the sitting governor, he's very close to Donald Trump in some of the polls there."

Rubio later echoed those comments himself at a news conference in West Palm Beach, FL.

"Clearly, John Kasich has a better chance of winning Ohio than I do, and if a voter concludes that voting for John Kasich is our best chance of stopping Donald Trump, that's what they'll do," Rubio said.