Safe Haven

 You know, the Zac Brown Band song. I love that song. I like songs like it. Maybe I’ve been sad a lot in life; I don’t know. I understand that I’m sappier than a forest of maple trees. I knew Aaron The Rat would know it. For all you know, he wrote the bloody song himself. It’s just one of those songs. Fairly sure I know every word. Though the second word in the first line is “trade,” not “take.” It sounds like “take.” Though that would mean he would have said “take” twice in that first line. So OK. Zac Brown is the kind of guy who’s been listening to James Taylor all his life, and became a musician. (In fact, they sang “Colder Weather” with James Taylor on an awards show.) Ordinarily, dance-pop doesn’t break your heart, unless it’s a-ha. I digress. Here’s the first line of “Colder Weather”: “She’d trade Colorado if he’d take her with him.” — It’d better be a good song, because it’s not “Baby One More Time.” This ain’t “Rhythm Of The Night” by DeBarge. As soon as he starts, you are ...

 Precisely one day after the pope reaffirmed CCC, 2267 on the death penalty--especially in light of the justified furor of the US president and the Department of Defense (not blessing the name change) announced they're going to livestream the execution of the Ft. Hood shooter--the pope announced that he's got a concerning nodule on one lung, and that doctors advised him to let them remove it. I never actually saw The Butterfly Effect, but it was a film about how a small action can have a totally unexpected impact on others and things. Far be it for me to guess at the workings of Providence, but it seems like this struggle for Pope Leo has provided many Catholics and separated Christians another opportunity to love and pray for him. As a side-note, when I say that I don't care what other Christians say about ethics or doctrine, I don't mean it strictly; I only mean that we're the Church founded by Jesus Christ; Peter is going to lead, even if other scattered disciple...

 Chris Coghlan is a British Member of Parliament for Dorking and Horley. The Liberal Democratic Party. There was apparently an assisted dying bill there. I assume that all the Catholic faithful were warned not to support it, and especially not elected officials. He did it anyway. Not that euthanasia has been a mystery for any of us for a couple hundred years. The Catechism is the most publicly available document ever, perhaps. I know Coughlan has WiFi, if he doesn’t want to read it in book form. Let’s cut the crap: these Catholic-flavored pagans the world over just want the Church to mind her own business. They like Christmas and Easter Mass. They might even enjoy talking about how Catholic they are. They can go on about all the parish events they’ve gone to, or how many years they went to Catholic school. But as soon as the powerful money people come around, these major issues become “wedge issues” and “divisive” and these folks need to “listen” to “other voices.” This particular ...

 The other aspect of all this discussion that gets missed is if I say, “I agree with the Church; the popes are clear in saying something that I should pay attention to, and in fact, that I understand,” I am not saying that I have a fondness for particular defendants, or a particular antipathy toward anyone who prosecuted them, etc. In fact, that’s how principles help us: passions can deceive; faith guided by reason cannot. I don’t know about you, but I always hated when someone said with abortion, “I’m pro-life, but…” We’ve all known that everything after the “but” would be unreasonable. You can’t decide moral issues on vibes. I’m not saying abortion is equivalent to capital punishment, because it isn’t. I am saying that if I understand capital punishment to be inadmissible, if that’s the ethics of the Church in light of human dignity, I don’t have to go case-by-case. We’re just not gonna do this, we’re not supporting it, and my emotions either way don’t matter. I know even a lot o...

 I never want to forget that he was my favorite player. Tom Brady eventually inspired joy, awe, and respect, and few dare even to doubt his place in the GOAT discussion. But before Brady, there was Favre. He was literally the people's quarterback. Even the fact that he's the all-time leader in interceptions thrown didn't seem to bother us. I think I liked him more. By the way, I feel the same about Favre as I do President George W. Bush: Don't bother me with criticisms, because I don't care. I'm not his priest or the pope. Mrs. Favre hasn't abandoned him, so I figure I don't have to dig deeply into his life. I usually don't get down about being disabled and a wheelchair user anyway, but Brett made me forget it all, anyway. And if it was effective propaganda, it worked. I felt a part of every success he had. With apologies to Peyton Manning, Brett Favre should have been the NFL MVP in 2009. If memory serves, he threw 33 touchdowns and 7 interceptions,...

 In the end, the guilty man is certain to die. It’s not my role to advocate to save his life. The Catholic Church now stands against capital punishment. I have no problem assimilating that reasoning and its conclusion into my thinking. I was a dedicated abolitionist 5 years before I submitted to the Bishop of Rome, to that faith, and to the philosophical tradition that undergirds it. None of the popes in my lifetime have opposed it for frivolous or personal reasons. Even were I unbound by anything in that ordinary magisterium, I should still prefer the pope’s opinion to my own. I have family members who disagree, but their place in Heaven is far from assured, for one. For another, “I love you” and “Your commitment to reason is in question” are not mutually exclusive. And we stand to be changed for the worse by this outcome, and especially if we watch it. And I believe God will hold anyone who celebrates it to account. Even in the days before the Christian teaching stood against it,...

 Catholics can have conversations among themselves concerning the ingenuity of a living Magisterium that can answer higher order questions that the Bible text itself cannot answer, because the purposes of it and parts of it are legion. But as a matter of faith, the relevant questions are these: Did Jesus establish a visible Church united in governance, sacraments, and profession? Is your local Catholic parish a current outpost of that Church? What might I expect to find if the answer were "yes"? What would invalidate the claim, or at least serve as a significant rebuttal to the claim? You see, it doesn't actually matter if one paradigm of the story of God interacting with humanity has features that someone finds appealing or advantageous. The only real question is whether Jesus established that putative Church and the features that are helpful, advantageous, or however you might describe them. Christianity and religions related to it presuppose that God reveals things tha...

 I’m not fond of loud noises. I have CP, and it gives me a startle response for sounds at 85 decibels or even less. Guns, buzzers, even squeaky HVAC systems. I’ll even mute Caitlin Clark and the Fever, if the substitution sound is “wrong.” I definitely could have enjoyed a Nuggets game with Tom Darrow, but only with earplugs. Good on them and others for creating “quiet rooms” for autistic people with sensory issues. I don’t have that diagnosis, but there’s some overlap. If I ever meet up with the “Mafia” in Iowa, the lot of them will probably go shoot guns, and I will meet the Crosses in Cedar Rapids. Aaron The Rat definitely knows his way around a firearm. C’mon. He even looks like a guy who teaches gun safety courses. We’re definitely making him drive to Iowa. I can’t think of anyone better to sponsor him as he (hopefully) will be assimilated into the Borg—let the reader understand—than Bryan and Carol Cross. Bryan’s fine, obviously. He’s a dear friend. But do you remember how Mi...

 I’m liberal enough, with enough awareness that the American involvement in transatlantic slavery—even pre-USA—was uniquely bad enough that it still has an impact today. It’s not wrong to feel bad about it; it’s not wrong to wish it never happened.  I’m conservative enough to think that the outcome of your life—insofar as you have agency—is down to you and no one else. Saw a thing on the Twitter of someone asking for opinions on interracial couples. To be clear, the picture was of a conventionally attractive white man and Black woman. No one seems to care if Asians marry non-Asians. I don’t think there’s much fuss about what Hispanic people do, though I could be wrong, and bigotry is horrifying. It was illegal in the United States for a man and woman in a mixed-race couple to marry until 1967. A person born in 1967 isn’t even old yet. My Mom spent most of that year being 11. So it’s not odd to me, but it’s still novel. If that a—hole Ray hadn’t killed MLK, there’s a chance you...

 When he played that 2007 US Open final against Novak Djokovic, he’d just turned 26. (Born August 8, 1981) I took him for granted in these prime years. We’re so used to speaking of his elegance and shot-making, but that narrative was cemented by him in his 30s and 40s, when his anticipation and variety hid the downtick in the savagery of his athleticism. You have to go back that far to find Novak Djokovic out of sorts. Roger was behind the whole time, but he knew the younger Djokovic would crack. This title was during his run of 5 consecutive US Open championships. When he lost to his rival and good friend Rafa Nadal at Wimbledon in 2008, Federer was contending for his sixth title there, consecutive. Remember that he won again on the grass in 2012, and again in 2017 (!). Even so, he lost 3 times to Djokovic there, culminating at Wimbledon 2019, at age 38, when he needed just one more shot to win his 9th title at the All England Club. The GOAT argument cannot be settled, and it neve...

 The Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis is suing ICE because they are denying priests access to those requesting sacraments in detention. That’s Missouri, by the way. Not Laredo, Texas, or southernmost California. Before we go on, I would like to add that I believe in law. I don’t believe that deportation is, of itself, wrong. But if I wouldn’t deny sacraments to a condemned prisoner in his or her last moments, what sense does it make to treat an illegal alien worse than a murderer? People seriously would rather be “conservative” (or liberal) than Christian, it seems. This whole focus on immigration itself seems wildly disproportionate, and certain federal officials seem intent on dehumanizing anyone who doesn’t serve their ends. Unless the Mississippi River is beset by hundreds of barges full of illegal aliens who embarked off New Orleans, it’s not obvious why ICE operates a detention facility in rural Missouri anyway, but I digress. I remain much more sympathetic to anti-Islamic i...

 If anyone deserves to die, it’s this guy. A US Army officer, he started shooting, killing 13 people and injuring 32 others. And it’s terrorism. He probably became persuaded of the eventual conquest of the decadent “Great Satan.” Whatever. By the way, I don’t care if there happened to be a mosque in my neighborhood. We’re the land of the free, and the home of the brave, not the home of the paranoid. More than likely, someone first got here from the Middle East or Iran or even Africa to get away from the “Islamic” terrorists. If someone accepts our pluralistic society in general and dare I say liberal values—with apologies to Patrick Deneen and Bryan Cross—it’s not my concern. I’m more worried about progressives not accepting our way of life than Muslims, to be frank with you. You know, I am not really worried about dating myself, but I get curious about what people are saying. I started following this cute girl (woman) because she said she was a matchmaker. About 2 weeks later, I f...