Safe Haven

 Apparently, Hank Williams, Jr. said in a song, "If the South woulda won, we'd have it made." I'm sure that ignorant hillbilly believes it, too. Just a recap: The Confederate States of America fought for actual white supremacy. They fought for the continued slavery of Black people. I'm thankful every single day they lost the war. The sheer number of men who fought bravely and died causes us to have more compassion than may be warranted. After all, brother literally fought against brother. All that said, I'm happy to be cited for a noise violation for playing "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic" at full volume. I won't even try to say that President Lincoln was a perfect man. Not even close. But he's ranked by every poll of presidents at the top, and if you're not gonna argue for President Washington, you don't really have a case. Sidebar: Presidents' Day used to be for Washington and Lincoln's birthdays. It's not meant to hon...

 A word on “political”: When people use it pejoratively, they mean “partisan.” And when we say “partisan,” we mean something like, “imbued with a party spirit such that truth, honesty, and even common human decency are set aside.” By the way, you can read it in the comments of every New York Times article. A sneering, left-wing, “our opponents are stupid, and probably poor” sentiment. They can hear and see. You know that, right? After I saw “Rethuglicans” for the 50th time, that pretty much decided that I couldn’t be a Democrat, no matter how sad, mad, and horrified I got at Donald Trump and the Republicans. Then again, I just teach. I don’t have time for team sports. And how to live and flourish together—a good definition for the meat of politics—deserves better than to be treated like an SEC football rivalry. Inevitably, I write about politics and culture here. The life of self-governance is possibly the second-most important universe of questions, after, “Who is God? Who am I? W...

 He’s not by any means a “clean” comedian, but then again, his language isn’t so foul that he couldn’t perform in such a setting. Besides that, what you notice is that he believes in the permanence of marriage. He’s got a bit about the difference between dating and marriage that’s tremendously funny. He says: “If you’re dating, it’s a stressful night. You actually care how this goes. If you get in a fight tonight—maybe over something I’m about to say—the whole thing could be over tonight. The relationship could end tonight… My wife and I could get into the same fight—it could be the worst fight in the world—and we’re not going anywhere, because we don’t have that option.” It’s quaint and beautiful, in its own way.

 I don’t interact with Pastor Tim Butler on the Twitter that much directly, but what happens is that I usually find him arguing with a crazy person who’s enmeshed in political dark arts (racists, Nazis, misogynists) and I will say something brief, hopefully to turn that person around. So I just said, “Europe is nearly godless. Why would you want to replicate that?” You see, liberals and progressives these days usually spend most of their time lecturing people, and trying to demonstrate how much better they are than the great unwashed. Ironically, this drives people deeper into the scary places, because scary people will say to them, “No, you’re right. Mainstream people don’t hear you out, but I will.” I don’t know if that dude was reachable. I think “the Great Replacement” is a stupid thing to worry about. I don’t care what skin color someone has. The United States was founded on ideas, not race or ethnicity. I don’t necessarily agree that Charlie Kirk was a “normie Republican” as ...

 Our automated overlords informed me that the original airdate was March 4, 1973, almost a full 7 years before I was born. But great art really does stand the test of time. It seems to me that the popularity of murder mysteries--and Columbo, that's never a mystery at all--has led us in a certain way to be desensitized to the brutality of murder in the real world. On the other hand, Columbo is better than most in this regard. Laurence Harvey, who played "Emmett Clayton" (the murderer) portrayed a wretched character, who has very little to redeem him. The victim, "Tomlin Dudek," played by Jack Kruschen as a likable, friendly Eastern Bloc chess champion who comes out of retirement to play a match against Clayton. Clayton has only ascended to his height of popularity by the voluntary retirement of Dudek, whom he has never beaten. They hilariously shut down a French restaurant nearby their hotel by playing a chess match with the restaurant condiments on a checkered t...

 This is St. Paul instructing us on the Eucharist/Lord's Supper, one of the central mysteries of the Christian faith. If you didn't know, this parish was messed up. Back in chapter 5, St. Paul says he knows there's a guy sleeping with his father's wife. The context seems to indicate that sexual ethics was going to be challenging for these people. Sex cults devoted to various gods and goddesses in the Greek pantheon were not uncommon, even in these latter days long past the heyday of Alexander the Great. Let's remind ourselves that this was literally in human terms just a letter at first. What we know now as the Bible is--in the New Testament--four accounts of the life of Jesus, believed to be the Messiah hoped for in the Hebrew Scriptures, and a bunch of letters to churches that sprang up for the purpose of adoring Jesus as this Messiah. St. John the Evangelist, the fourth Gospel guy, clearly believes this Jesus is God in human flesh, and fair to say that the conver...

 Some “rabbi” is “gutted” that a euthanasia law didn’t pass somewhere. He says the opponents have denied people hope. You don’t get hope from death. Hope comes from the defeat of death, and the changing of death into life. The idea of the resurrection of the dead is actually in Daniel, in the Hebrew Scriptures. Pain isn’t fun, and I won’t sugarcoat that. But medical science is amazing regarding pain management now. And getting better all the time. You know what probably doesn’t advance that cause? Voluntary death. Meanwhile, euthanasia gets coercive toward the most vulnerable, because we already feel we are a burden. Apparently, people feel we aren’t genociding ourselves fast enough. Liberal religion is also stupid. Join UNICEF or Doctors Without Borders instead. If God always agrees with you, that ain’t God.

 You want less of them. That’s the reason. You may find that it’s too hard to stop people from doing the thing, literally blood, sweat, and tears trying to prosecute people, but that’s a different thing. We can decide that a pothead doesn’t deserve to rot in prison until he’s dead. Full legalization is a different matter. Most people are stupid. Better said, most people are simple: if the government says something is OK, they do it if they want to. If it’s illegal, that’s all the coercion most people need to never do whatever it is. As much fun as it would be to play poker with Larry Elder, Neal Boortz, and the ghost of Ayn Rand, the charming belief that most people decide for themselves what is right and wrong regardless of what the government says is the most utopian nonsense ever. Despite his liberalism, Ken Burns and his friends do the best historical documentaries I’ve ever seen. The one on Prohibition is amazing. William Wheeler, who spearheaded the effort to make alcoholic b...

 Unfortunately, I can’t say I haven’t ever thought about it. September 14, 2019 was possibly the worst night of my life. I literally thought, “I need to make sure that I don’t have too many pharmaceuticals in here, because I don’t trust myself right now.” What was odd and hard about that was that I’m possibly the most optimistic person I’ve ever met. I’ve been through really hard things. REALLY hard things. But that stuff about stressors is not BS; I had given everything, and it blew up in my face. For those few hours, I didn’t know what the point of my life was. On the other hand, I knew what it was, and I gave myself permission to be really sad, and I believed that if I could see the sun the next day, I would be fine. I was meeting Bryan Cross the next day, and we were going to Kentucky that day to hear Wendell Berry. I have lived the luckiest life. I truly have. I had to give myself instructions out loud to do things, though I lived alone. “Brush your teeth.” “Flip that switch.”...