ST. PAUL, MEET FATHER DAN MALLETTE…A MAN AFTER YOUR OWN HEART

9/27/12




Father Dan Mallette, pastor of St. Margaret of Scotland Parish since 1977, and still pastor until Sunday, September 30 of that parish on the eastern stretches of my old neighborhood, is being forced out of the rectory by Cardinal George. Father Mallette contends that the Cardinal promised that Father Mallette and his dog Tuffy would be able to live at St. Margaret for life. “I love it here and I love the people.” Now, however, according to Father Dan, the Cardinal says the rectory at St. Margaret is unsafe and needs to be repaired and, according to Archdiocesan spokeswoman Colleen Dolan “his (Father Mallette’s) safety has not been assured there in recent years.”

So suddenly the rectory at St. Margaret needs to be repaired; it’s strange that the need to repair the rectory did not seem urgent until a new pastor is due to be installed. And as for Father’s safety not being assured, one would have thought the Archdiocese would have figured that out when two thugs broke into Father’s bedroom in 2002…and were promptly dispatched by the then 70 year old ex-boxer. Or maybe it should have become apparent last December, when two other thugs broke in and beat Father Mallette to within an inch of his life. The safety, or the need for repair, of the rectory was not an issue then, even for the man most directly involved. But now, when Father Mallette is being pushed out, the rectory, in which Father wants to live out his life, is in disrepair and Father is suddenly in danger? As Father Mallette said, “Bull----.”



A few stipulations before I go on:



--I know Father Mallette. Though he has never been my pastor, he has done wonderful things for me and for people close to me throughout the years. Though we live about fifty miles from St. Margaret and the church we normally attend in the old neighborhood is Sacred Heart, not St. Margaret, I make it a point to get to St. Margaret’s each Good Friday to pray along with Father Mallette and the parishioners who get there on that solemn day. The Church has done a lot of hurtful and harmful things of late, but this one is personal for me.



--No one is arguing that Father Mallette should not retire. He has been a wonderful pastor for his largely black, but, thanks to Father Mallette’s connections, charisma, personality, and efforts, still very diverse congregation. But he is 80 years old and has been pastor for 35 years, well beyond the mandated 12 year tenure for pastors. The issue is not his retirement but his ability to stay in the parish, in the home, and among the people he loves.



--Father Mallette has been described as “a living saint.” Though he would probably argue with that description, those of us who know him wouldn’t. But his being a living saint does not mean that Father Mallette is not a tough guy who can be irascible, stubborn, and, at times, profane. Those of you who read the New Testament will recall that St. Paul had the same qualities.



--The Cardinal is currently battling with cancer, so it is difficult to criticize him at this juncture. However, he did decide to stay on the job despite his cancer and thus cannot be exempted from criticism that comes with the job.





So what to make of the Cardinal’s being forced out of his residence at St. Margaret’s?



--The new pastor, a Father Bill O’Donnell, is stepping into some giant shoes and I can understand his wanting to establish his own identity and his desire to step out of Father Mallette’s giant shadow. However, a deal’s a deal and if the Cardinal said Dan Mallette and Tuffy could live at St. Margaret for life, they ought to be allowed to live there. The Cardinal, through his spokeswoman, Ms. Dolan, questions Mallette’s claim that the cited promise was ever made before launching into the now standard and incessant drivel about Father Mallette’s “safety” that has suddenly become an issue now that Bill O’Donnell wants to run his own show.



So whom do we believe, Father Mallette or Cardinal George? I know Father Mallette. I trust Father Mallette. I don’t know Cardinal George and I don’t reflexively trust anyone even if he is a Prince of the Church. For this, I have been accused of “not being a Catholic.” I disagree, but I digress. The point in this case is that I believe Father Mallette, not the Cardinal, or, rather, his spokeswoman.



--I don’t know Bill O’Donnell, but, given the type of guy who seems to be getting ahead in the Church of late, I am forming a pretty good picture of him in my mind. That Father Mallette has said of Father O’Donnell



“What I don’t understand is why he has to be so mean…he’s a genius at being a pain in the ass.”



only fortifies that image. Perhaps the old rectory on Throop needs refurbishing only because it is not up to Father O’Donnell’s expectations of the type of place in which a priest is entitled to reside.



--Yes, the rules say that pastors should serve only twelve years, but, as I said before, no one is arguing that Father Mallette should not retire, only that he should be able to live out his years among the people he loves, as he says the Cardinal promised him. Why would that be so hard? While it’s unusual for a pastor to stay on at his old parish, it’s not a completely foreign practice. And when one considers that, without Father Mallette, there may very well have been no St. Margaret of Scotland at this juncture, can’t the tough old guy’s wishes be respected after all he’s done for the church…and the Church?



If Bill O’Donnell is such a weakling that he can’t operate in the admittedly formidable shadow of Father Mallette, maybe he should get a nice, quiet parish in the suburbs somewhere. St. Margaret, with its many challenges and its diverse congregation, needs a tough guy like Father Mallette, just as the ancient church at Corinth, with is many challenges and diverse congregation, needed a tough guy like St. Paul.







For more of my thoughts on politics and the ironies that permeate life, along with a healthy dose of what some call cynicism but I call realism, see my other posts on The Insightful Pontificator.


For more of my thoughts on political issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Political.


For some of my thoughts on financial issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Finance.

THE FEAST OF THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS; ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, PRAY FOR US

9/14/12




This morning I went to Mass, as I try to do a few times during the week, unaware that it was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The deacon, a different deacon from the one who preached the Assumption homily I found so egregious (See my 8/15/12 post THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION: MARY, THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD, PRAY FOR US) was going along pretty well, commenting on, among other things, the miracle that followed the discovery of the Cross of Christ and the popularity of the cross in today’s culture when he let out his whopper:



“The presence of the Crucifix, the cross with the corpus, or body of Christ, is a sign that the church in which it is located is a Christian church.” (Emphasis mine)



Huh?

If the deacon had used the term “Catholic” instead of “Christian,” I would have gone along with it. But most Protestant congregations do not use or display the Crucifix; they stick with simple, unadorned crosses, sans the body of our Lord. So one supposes that, in the estimation of this homilist, those churches that display only the cross are not Christians; it is only we Catholics, who display the Crucifix, who are Christians.



One might think that I am making too much of this, that this was a poor but unintentional of words. Given the attitude displayed in the Assumption homily on which I commented (Same parish, different deacon.), in which Mary, the very mother of our Lord, was used as a cudgel to beat up on non-Catholic Christian denominations, this was not an oversight at all. As one who attends Mass a lot, it is becoming clear that this attitude is permeating not only this particular parish or the Diocese in which it is located, but most of today’s Catholic Church.



Throughout the entire post Vatican II portion of my life, the Church has spoken of its devotion to ecumenism, or Christian unity. For many of those years, it was apparent that what the Church had in mind was the Protestants’ finally admitting they were wrong all along, accepting all aspects of Catholic doctrine, submitting to the rules (of course), and then maybe, just maybe, being granted re-admittance to the one true Church. But then, for a few years there, it looked as if the Church were becoming more open to genuine reconciliation of Christian congregations, with each of us considering others’ beliefs in the context of what gets us closer to Christ and the way He wants us to live rather than what complies with the traditions and doctrines of men.



Sadly, though, a “new” attitude seems to be ascending in the Church toward ecumenism that is really the old attitude. It might best be described by using the very secular expression “My way or the highway.”





For more of my thoughts on politics and the ironies that permeate life, along with a healthy dose of what some call cynicism but I call realism, see my other posts on The Insightful Pontificator.



For more of my thoughts on political issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Political..



For some of my thoughts on financial issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Finance.

THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION: MARY, THE MOTHER OF OUR LORD, PRAY FOR US

8/15/12




Today is the Feast of the Assumption in the Catholic Church so, naturally, I went to Mass this morning. The homily I heard from one of our deacons (I don’t know his name; for reasons that might become clear as you read this, we don’t go to what is still considered our parish much any more, opting to go to either my childhood church or to one of the other parishes in Naperville.) was deeply troubling to this Catholic, Christian, and devotee of Mary the mother of Jesus.

The deacon started off by saying that the Assumption was defined, and the Feast declared, in 1950 by Pius XII, who was speaking ex Cathedra (i.e., with Papal infallibility) in making the declaration. He also pointed out that this was the first ex Cathedra declaration by a pope since 1854, when Pius IX defined the Immaculate Conception. He was right on both counts. But what he said next was shocking, and, while I don’t have a photographic memory and wasn’t writing anything down, I can quote with only the risk that perhaps an article or two may have been changed:



“Here we have the nucleus of our faith.”



Huh? The nucleus of our faith, at least as I understand it, is that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that Jesus is the second Person of the Holy Trinity, that He died for our sins, and rose from the dead, and that, by faith in Him and in His resurrection, we have been granted eternal salvation with Him in heaven. (Some Catholics might argue with the section of that sentence after the comma.) That is the nucleus of our faith; from that nucleus spreads plenty more. But the nucleus of our faith is neither the Immaculate Conception nor the Assumption; they are among the other things that spread from the nucleus of our faith. Indeed, the Church was around, and souls were being saved through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for over 1,800 years before the first of those doctrines was declared.



The deacon went on to say that, again, closely quoting:



“Many of our brother Christians accuse us, wrongly, of worshipping Mary, but this is untrue. Worship is reserved for God.”



Right on both counts: We don’t worship Mary (though I suspect a lot of Catholics don’t know that.); we venerate Mary. A nuance, maybe, but an important one. And, correct, many Protestants do accuse us of worshipping Mary, but one can see how they might think that we do.



Then came the real whopper, enough to make me say “C’mon!” in a sufficiently hushed tone to be polite but to be audible by those around me. The deacon said, again closely quoting:



“Many of our brother Christians say ‘There is nothing special about Mary.’”



Huh?



Which Protestants say “There is nothing special about Mary”? Maybe, and only maybe, one might be able to find some backwoods, spin-off, rogue fundamentalist sect in the backwoods somewhere that might say things like “There is nothing special about Mary,” but “many of our brother Christians”? C’mon! One of the foundations of the Reformation, and hence of virtually all Protestant faiths, is sola scriptura, roughly translated “The Scripture Alone” or “Only the Scripture,” and it holds that the Scripture alone is the foundation of our faith. According to sola scriptura, Church tradition plays no role in the faith, contrary to what we Catholics believe.



Hence the Protestant faiths adhere to the Bible with varying degrees of strictness. Anyone who adheres to the Bible has read the first few chapters of Luke and Matthew and John 19: 26-27 and thus thinks that there is plenty that is special about Mary.



The Protestants clearly differ with us in our approach to Mary, and there is plenty to debate about her role in our faith and in our lives. Setting up straw men does nothing to advance that debate.



I have had a lifelong devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus, but that does not mean that those who don’t are somehow deficient in their dedication to her Son. And I strongly suspect that Mary is not happy about her being used as a cudgel with which to beat our fellow Christians over the head.







For more of my thoughts on politics and the ironies that permeate life, along with a healthy dose of what some call cynicism but I call realism, see my other posts on The Insightful Pontificator.


For more of my thoughts on political issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Politics.


For some of my thoughts on financial issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Finance.

“DADDY, CAN WE GO TO THE BALL GAME?”

8/8/12




Some people call themselves cultural Catholics; i.e., they were born and raised Catholic but no longer go to Mass or have much at all to do with the Church, other than perhaps going to Mass on Easter if sufficient pressure is applied from still active members of their family. Yet they still consider themselves Catholics. By that measure, I am what you would call a cultural White Sox fan. Explaining this phenomenon takes some background.

I was born to parents who both grew up within walking distance, albeit long walking distance, of Comiskey Park. My father saw Babe Ruth play at Comiskey when he (Dad, not Ruth) was a kid. And he remained a Sox fan until what I still refer to as the new ownership pulled what seemed at the time to be perhaps the most bone-headed move in the history of sports: taking the Sox off free TV because one of the owners (Eddie Einhorn) was a pioneer in cable television. This induced legions of fans, including my Dad, to become Cub fans because perhaps more salient than my Dad’s enthusiasm for the Sox was his legendary tightness with a buck. (And, no, the apple doesn’t even fall off the tree, let alone fall very far from it.) My Dad took to watching the Cubs, which he could do on good old free Channel 9, WGN, for years. When he finally broke down and subscribed to cable, mostly at the behest of my Mom, his allegiances had changed permanently. While he would still follow the Sox box scores the day after the game, and perhaps even genuinely tried to relight the old flame, it was too late: my Dad, the kid born on 41st and Artesian and who spent all his formative years within a three mile radius of Comiskey Park, had become a Cub fan and remained one until the day he died. Very sad, but this was in keeping with the desires of the new ownership: when they bought the team, they made statements to the effect that they had little use for the old blue collar legions of Sox fans; they were aiming their promotion at the upscale North Shore/Hinsdale/Gold Coast crowd, the type of fan who is willing to spend real money, as they said.



My Dad did pretty well in life despite his very modest (Today we would call it “underprivileged” or point out correctly, that he had been raised in a single parent household. In an even earlier time, we would call his background “hardscrabble.”) upbringing and lack of much formal education. Eventually, after years of working at some not at all glamorous jobs in and around the Stockyards, he and a group of partners owned a couple of (what else? This was Chicago in the ‘50s and ‘60s.) meat packing plants, the larger of which, a half block south of the southern border of the old Stockyards at Racine Avenue, enters into this story later. For now, the relevant aspect of this story is that the business had six tickets to the Sox games, upper deck, first row, right behind the visitors’ dugout on the first base line. Forget behind the plate or the first row behind the Sox dugout (the Mayor’s seats), and all that nonsense; M&D Provision’s tickets might have been the best seats in the ballpark, at least from a true fan’s perspective. The great part of this story for yours truly was that, when "no customers wanted the tickets," the employees or the partners got to use them to take their kids to the ballpark. So I started going to a few games a year when I was about four or five years old, when I couldn’t seem to make it to the end of the game and had to ask my Uncle Tony to wake me up when the fireworks started. (Bill Veeck had by then sold the Sox to the Allyns, but one of his legacies, the Friday night post game fireworks shows, had remained.)



Going to the occasional game at Sox Park was only part of my Dad’s efforts to insure that his love for the White Sox endured at least until the next generation; he was nearly as assiduous in this insistence as he and my Mom were that I go to Catholic schools and attend Mass at least each Sunday. So I grew up completely imbued in both the Church and the Sox. A few weeks ago, I amazed a buddy who grew up within easy walking distance of Comiskey, and hence spent much of his youth there, with my knowledge of the ‘60s Sox and the largely fruitless exploits of Minnie Minoso, Luis Aparicio, Pete Ward, Gary Peters, Ron Hansen, Moose Skowron, Hoyt Wilhelm, Pete Ward, J.C. Martin, Smokey Burgess, Nellie Fox, et. al. I grew up actually thinking that the White Sox were the big team in Chicago and that the Cubs were the “other team,” the team that would have been perennial cellar dwellers had it not been for the New York Mets. This distortion of reality should give any Chicagoan, forever subjected to the endless news of the futile efforts of the Lovable Losers while the always in the race Sox get the benefit of an afterthought, at best, even in the local news, an idea of how deeply imbued I was with all things White Sox.



This love of the White Sox started dying out in high school and was briefly awakened in the late ‘70s when Bill Veeck bought the team again and gave us the South Side Hitmen. The season I most remember was the ’77 season, when I was 20, the drinking age was 19, and Comiskey Park was dubbed by their then broadcast team (the very greatest of all time, bar none) Harry Carey and Jimmy Piersall “the world’s largest open air saloon.” But there were other attractions besides beer. At one point in the season, the Sox had 8 guys who were batting .300 or better, a couple of sluggers like Oscar Gamble and Richie Zisk, and absolutely no pitching. The result was plenty of games with scores of 15-12 or 18-10. Plenty of excitement in what I was increasingly seeing as a boring game.



After college, my enthusiasm for baseball petered out to the point at which, today, I don’t like baseball at all. In fact, I will do just about anything to avoid watching or going to a ball game. Like the cultural Catholic who says he is Catholic while having nothing to do with the Church, I, a cultural White Sox fan, say, when asked, that I am a Sox fan but can name maybe, on my best day, three guys on the team and probably can’t spell their names. Let’s see: Pierczynski (a name anyone from Chicago should be able to spell), Konerko, and Peavey. How’s that? I digress. At any rate, let’s stipulate that, as much as I once loved baseball, I no longer like the game at all. Others do, and I certainly don’t begrudge anybody his or her pleasures; I like plenty of things that others consider excruciatingly boring. That is what makes a market, as they say. But the gist of what has become a long winded post would remain the same whether I still loved baseball or have the feelings toward the game I do today.



We went to the White Sox game last night because my oldest daughter, who is somewhat following her grandfather’s legacy, wanted to go and it was Big 10 night, so we got a great deal on the tickets. (All five of us went for $65, and the seats, while nothing like those of my youth, weren’t bad.) My children are perhaps the only people who could persuade me to go to a game and pay the still outrageous prices to pay the brobdingnagian salaries of the largely mediocre ballplayers and even more energetically line the pockets of the owners who effectively told people like my Dad to take a hike. My wife could also persuade me to go to a game, though I can’t imagine her wanting to go to a game, and hence making any effort to persuade me, but, again, I digress.



Since I only go to see the Sox when I absolutely can’t avoid doing so or attending the game presents the only opportunity to see friends in town for the day and wanting to see the visiting team (usually the Yankees), I am truly surprised and amazed at what goes on in Comiskey Park (er, sorry, U.S. Cellular Field) nowadays. What is most amazing, besides the prices for everything and the incredibly rude and backhanded way the management treats the fans who inhabit the cheap seats, is that NO ONE watches the game. The “game” is a three ring circus, with grating aural assaults called music (Where is Nancy Faust nowadays?), strange special effects on the scoreboard, “guest” performers who do things completely unrelated to baseball, and other assorted “attractions” to divert people’s attention from what is going on on the field. The ballpark itself is a tribute to nostalgia, to players of the past, many of whom have been named already in this post. The ballpark is also something of a maize, designed to keep the average fan (many, including yours truly, descendants of the “blue collar” fans for which the new management had, and apparently still has, such disdain) away from the truly paying customers. When one is seated in the 500 section, one gets the distinct impression that one is in the steerage section on an ocean liner of the early part of the last century.



What truly amazed me, however, as an economic and financial observer, was how much money was being spent on…nothing. Two examples will clarify this:



First, there were signs, even in steerage, for a bar of sorts that opens “at 11:00 a.m. every game day for ticket holding fans.” There, ticket holding fans can have “their favorite beverage” and watch the game on TV.



What? If one wanted to watch the game in a bar, why wouldn’t one simply watch the game in a bar? Why buy an outrageously priced ticket to sit in a bar in the ballpark and pay equally outrageous prices for drinks? I think beer was $7.00 +, but I don’t pay as much attention as I used to. Thank God; at that price, if I were to keep up the pace of 1977, the beer alone would cost me $63.00. But I digress. I simply don’t understand why going to a bar at the ballpark is any different from going to a bar on Western Avenue to watch the ballgame, except that the bar on Western Avenue would end up costing the patron about one fourth what the bar in Comiskey would cost and that it would be easier to pay attention to the game at said bar.



Second, there is a section of the ballpark called “Fundamentals,” or something like that, in which kids can practice hitting, throwing, pitching, etc. while their parents watch them practice hitting, throwing, pitching, etc.



Huh? You pay the ridiculous admission prices at a big league ballpark to have your kids practice baseball? Why not go the local park? Or, if you insist on being regarded as some kind of big shooter, to some “training facility,” which, despite being a monster rip-off, must still be cheaper than paying to go to a ballpark and paying big league prices for concessions to watch your kids toss the ball around while you ignore the “action” on the field.



Two conclusions can be drawn from these observations:



First, people still have a lot of money to excrete away and simply cannot fathom saving any of it by applying even a modicum of common sense. To do so would somehow, in their minds, make them less important and would deny them an opportunity to display their wealth, faux or otherwise. Thus we are doomed as a society. This is, of course, a recurring theme in all my blogs.



Second, the new ownership was right in showing people like my Dad the door. Sure, he was a lifelong Sox fan who, as a kid, would do just about anything to scrape together the pittance it cost at the time to see his beloved Sox from the cheap seats. And, sure, he and his partners were long time box owners…before there were “luxury boxes” and “owning a box” meant owing a block of season tickets. But when he went to the game he would buy maybe a beer or two and coke and peanuts or popcorn for me and my siblings. He was not a poor man by any measure, but he felt no need to play the big guy by buying tons of crap, edible or inedible, to impress people whose opinions meant nothing to him. And he couldn’t imagine paying big money to go to Comiskey to sit in a bar or to watch me take batting practice; he could do the former at West Beverly Liquors and the latter at Kennedy Park. And when he watched the game on free television, he added no marginal revenue to the coffers of Reinsdorf/Einhorn and that despicable crew. So what good was he to the new ownership? It was a good business decision to throw him and his ilk over the side for the gormless types who see throwing money around as an ego enhancing necessity of life.



Despite my feelings regarding what has happened to our national pastime, we had a good time last night. We got into the city early (We get everywhere early when my wife has anything to say about it.) and had dinner at one of our two favorite Italian restaurants, Bacchanalia on 24th and Oakley, about four miles from the ballpark. (The other is Clara’s in Woodridge, which I would love even if it weren’t owned by one of my favorite families in the world and operated by its most culinarily gifted son, who, ironically, lives within walking distance of Sox Park. This talk of Clara’s has nothing to do with this post but I never fail to put in a plug for the place.) The electricity was out, but the great people at Bacchanalia could still accommodate us if we wanted to stay, so we did. It reminded me of that episode in the Soprano’s when the Soprano family went to Artie’s restaurant in the middle of a storm when the power was out, but Artie still took care of them and Tony expostulated on the value of these perhaps little things families do together that give life its sweetness. Since we had plenty of time after eating until the game started, I took the family past some of my favorite places in the vicinity of Comiskey: the house where Richard J. and Sis Daley raised their family and at which the senior Daleys lived until their deaths, the old Stockyards gate and the industrial park that now occupies the old Yards area, what little remains of the old International Amphitheater, site of five national political conventions (including THAT one, the ’68 convention), the headquarters of the 11th Regular Ward Democratic Organization, the site of the church where Susan and I were married, and…the site of M&D Provision, my dad’s old plant on 47th Place just east of Racine. Happily, the site is still occupied by a concern in the meat business called The Chicago Meat Authority.



I wonder if the guys who run the place have season tickets at U.S. Cellular and take their kids to the game when "no customers want the tickets."






For more of my thoughts on politics and the ironies that permeate life, along with a healthy dose of what some call cynicism but I call realism, see my other posts on The Insightful Pontificator.


For more of my thoughts on political issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Politics.


For some of my thoughts on financial issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Finance.

KATHY LEE (SP?) AND THE TODAY SHOW GIVE US ANOTHER REASON TO FEAR SUPERGOVERMENT

7/26/12




My wife surprised me for our anniversary with a day trip driving the back roads of western Illinois and eastern Iowa. While I generally hate to travel (See what is now regarded as perhaps the best post in the long history of the Pontificator, my more than seminal 7/11/11 piece ODYSSEUS, AENEAS, AND ME.), I love



• driving back roads anywhere

• western Illinois and especially eastern Iowa, and,

• even more than the prior two, spending time with my wife.



So it was a GREAT trip in every way. But I digress.

After visiting the last stop on our trip (The Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa), we spent the night in LeClaire, Iowa, a Mississippi River town hard by the I-80 bridge over the River. We approached LeClaire, on this trip, from the north on a back road, which made it even more interesting. I highly recommend a stop, or even an overnight, in LeClaire, especially if you are interested in antiquing. We hate antiquing (Why buy somebody else’s throwaways? New is better. I’m serious.) but still had a great time exploring this intriguing town. LeClaire is also known as the home of Antique Archaeology, the store run by the now famous pickers on “American Pickers” on The History Channel. My wife is a big fan of the show, while I find it more than tolerable, which is saying a lot for me regarding any TV show. But enough of the advertisement for LeClaire and American Pickers.



Bed and Breakfasts are huge in LeClaire but are for too cutesy-pie for either my wife or me, so we stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in LeClaire, since there is neither a Hampton Inn nor a Country Inn and Suites in LeClaire. In yet another digression, I would point out that, judging from our experience, Holiday Inn Express is acceptable but not up to the standards of either Country Inn and Suites or Hampton; this stay did nothing to alter that perception either way.



But, finally, enough about hotels and towns. Now for the meat of the post:



Holiday Inn Express offers a no extra charge (Nothing is free.) breakfast to its guests, and it was quite good. The room in which breakfast is served is, as is the custom in such places, bookended by two television sets. One had CNN on, the other one of the networks. I noticed on the network TV, for lack of a better term, that there was an obnoxious sounding, half-hindquartered band playing its, I’m supposing, usual aural assaults. I asked/observed to my wife something to the effect of “What the he(ck) is this garbage? Who needs such visual and verbal dissonance and displeasure while trying to eat?” She pointed out that this was “The Today Show” and that the “Today Show” from time to time features a band that is either hot at the moment or has somehow wormed its way into the good graces of the show’s producers. My reply was something to the effect of “Harrumph.”



But it got worse. That was apparently the tail end of “The Today Show.” After it was mercifully terminated, some very attractive young woman came on accompanied by a sort of male sidekick. These two excerebrosities yakked on and on about such vital issues as her kids’ ability to find a Lego Land on any trip they undertake. If I were given to the hip lingo of the social network, I would have said something like “OMG.” But I’m not, so, instead, I said “Who the he(ck) gives a rat’s (hindquarters) about this woman’s kids’ affinity for Lego Land?” My wife identified this particular helping of mental detritus as something to do with somebody named Kathy Lee or Kathie Lee or Cathie Lee or who knows or who cares how she spells her name (the latter words mine, not my wife’s). To say that this show was annoying would be such a monumental understatement that even yours truly cannot find the word to describe the enormity of its ability to inflict displeasure and dyspepticity on anyone of reasonable mental capacity within earshot of it. I suppose if one were to completely turn down the sound and merely take in the comeliness of its hostess, one might be somewhat salved, but certainly not sufficiently.



To further elaborate on my reaction to this piece of mental fluff, I have come up with three musings:



First, there are millions of people who fritter away valuable time watching such dreck. There are perhaps millions of those who consider this intellectual cotton candy a source, maybe their only source, of news. Such people are allowed to vote in this country and their vote is as good as yours or mine. No wonder that money, and the 30 minute dashes of saccharine laced bull excrement it can buy, is so influential in our nation’s politics! We are, ladies and gentlemen, doomed. Doomed.



Second, on sober reflection, and some counseling from my (for what should now be obvious, if they weren’t already, reasons) sainted wife, I considered that, yes, we had such silly shows back in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, the twilight years of American greatness. Think of such shows as “The Merv Griffin Show,” on which the host, despite his considerable financial acumen in real life, did little more than utter inanities like “Oohh, Zsa, Zsa” as part of a continuing effort to adulate not only to his most frequent guest but to others who matched her in worthiness for viewers’ favorable time. Think of “The Dinah Shore Show.” Or “Art Linkletter’s House Party.” Or even the earlier “The Today Show,” which I think goes back that far. “Face The Nation,” “Meet The Press,” “Firing Line,” “The World at War” (my two particular favorites in my high school and college years), or even “Jack Paar” or “Dick Cavett” these were not. And the Republic survived.



On the other hand, I have to think that, from my faint memories of those years and the few minutes of my early, somewhat but not overly precocious childhood I wasted on such shows, they couldn’t possibly be as silly as what I witnessed Wednesday morning on “Today” or on “Kathy Lee” or whatever she calls herself. And, even if they were, perhaps such mental novocain was indeed planting the seeds of our society’s self-destruction that are currently bearing abundant fruit. Perhaps the wanton self atrophication of our own brains that is tearing our nation asunder on such silliness as today’s popular talk shows started back then with Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore. Perhaps my mistake is being too easy, rather than too hard, on the ongoing intellectual and moral suicide our society continues to commit.



Third, people have asked me why I have the peculiar political views I have, views that I can’t even describe. As any hard core libertarian would be quick to point out, I am not a full blown libertarian. But I do have some very libertarian tendencies, and I explain that I have these views because what conventional political thinkers now derisively refer to as “libertarianism” once was the prevailing philosophy in this country back when it was great, what we are doing now clearly isn’t working, and I can’t come up with a better solution, at least one that I could get away with.



But maybe there is a better reason I am in favor of limiting the powers of government: I am what some, but not true believers, might call libertarian in my thinking because I know what I would do if I had anything approaching the total power that comes with supergovernment. Besides, among other things, deploying portable electric shock mechanisms, or worse, for those who text while driving or don’t use their turn signals, I would employ some kind of device that would monitor one’s television viewing. If one spent too much time watching things like “The Today Show,” such activity would be noted and the viewer’s ability to vote would be immediately, and perhaps irrevocably, revoked. (Of course, in my benevolent dictatorship, such votes would be largely meaningless and perfunctory exercises in rubber stamping the wise and insightful leadership of the supreme leader, but that is another issue.) Perhaps such stupefying, stultifying, and supercilious shows would be banned altogether and replaced by programs that actually would provide some nutrition, rather than parlous and purblind pabulum, for the mind and spirit.



So, yes, it is keen awareness of what a powerful regime, with the likes of yours truly in charge, would dictate that, at least partially, drives me toward a deep affinity for reining in the power of government. Perhaps I have, in the process of writing this particular piece, recruited a few of you to the virtues of limiting the purview of government.





For more of my thoughts on politics and the ironies that permeate life, along with a healthy dose of what some call cynicism but I call realism, see my other posts on The Insightful Pontificator.


For more of my thoughts on political issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Politics.


For some of my thoughts on financial issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Finance.

TOUGH TIMES FOR CHRISTIANS IN SYRIA

7/23/12




For an insightful piece on the plight of Christians in the Syrian conflict, see today’s post, TOUGH TIMES FOR CHRISTIANS IN SYRIA, at Mighty Insights at Rant Finance.

NAME WITHHELD IN THE INTEREST OF DECENCY

7/20/12




Here is a WSJ News Alert that arrived in my inbox at 7:49 AM Chicago time this morning:



A gunman wearing a gas mask opened fire early Friday at a Colorado movie theater on the opening night of the latest Batman movie, killing at least 12 people and injuring at least 50 others, authorities said. Federal law enforcement officials say the suspect is James Holmes, a 24-year-old white American.



What if I had left out the last sentence? Or maybe not left out the last sentence but changed it to read:



Federal law enforcement officials say the suspect is a 24-year-old white American.



Would you know any less of any importance if you read the second, modified sentence rather than the first?



My point, of course, is to ask why the media insist on reporting the name of the creep who shot up the movie theater. Who, other than his family and a relative (to the millions, maybe billions, who will become aware of this story) few who know the guy gains anything worth knowing by learning the guy’s name? One of the reasons, indeed, maybe the major reason, that hapless losers and degenerate misfits like James Holmes commit these horrific, unspeakable atrocities is the worldwide attention it gives them. So why include the name of the perpetrator when reporting on a crime, or at least on such a horrendous crime? Including the names of the “suspects” in such situations adds nothing to the story but does achieve what is clearly one of the major goals of the monsters who commit these crimes—the eternal fame that comes with mercilessly taking the lives of innocents. In this instance, everyone will know the name of James Holmes for a long, long time.


The media fulfill these monsters’ most fervent wish by reporting what is to just about everybody a completely useless piece of information.




For more of my thoughts on politics and the ironies that permeate life, along with a healthy dose of what some call cynicism but I call realism, see my other posts on The Insightful Pontificator.


For more of my thoughts on political issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Politics.


For some of my thoughts on financial issues, see Mighty Insights at Rant Finance.