Safe Haven

 I don’t know anything about psychology, and obviously he does. I think I have dropped enough similar bombs on the far Left that I don’t need to become a poster boy for the Right like he did, or at least I felt he did. Probably from his perspective, he sees and saw his field in general being used for the destruction of self-efficacy, especially among men. I can appreciate that. He said something a few months back in a video that sticks with me as a teacher: The biggest thing a teacher does is set the inspirational frame for learning. I think he’s right. I think what I can do better is draw direct connections with the content knowledge and our near-inevitable bond as learners together. (That is, some of my friends have said that I am especially skilled at creating bonds of friendship with kids; I don’t think so. I just think a lot of people don’t feel seen, especially as they grow up. Try a little, you end up with strong loyalty.) If you don’t know something, you can find it out. Bu...

 I know Scott Stapp and those guys were trying to beat the Christian allegations, but especially the period from 1997-2001, why try? It’s a hard rock trip through the Psalms. As for music critics, what do they know? I always do reparations for “the words” in “My Own Prison”—I’m definitely a Christian, after all—but I have seen some things, man. Imperfect but real spirituality resonates more with me than a lot of “church people.” Moreover, every genre of music deserves stuff that’s radio-friendly. Make what you want, but if you try to tell me that you’re a musician and that you wouldn’t trade places with Taylor Swift in half a second, I’ll call you a liar. Besides The Joshua Tree, if it’s not a Creed record, give me the Make Believe LP from Weezer. It’s Eastern, but get over it. We can and will “baptize” anything. If I’m completely honest, “Christian” music usually isn’t good because I just don’t believe what they’re selling. Pathos and ethos, man. How many of those CCM bands had pe...

 The Spotify algorithm knows me well. 1980s and 1990s pop and R&B. It was a time when pop and adult contemporary were the same songs. Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis made their bones in this time, somehow making a mark as songwriters and producers contemporaneously with the legendary Babyface. (Kenneth Edmonds) Jam and Lewis introduced the music world to Janet Jackson principally, though that is in no way exhaustive of their contributions. They wrote and produced the ballad “Let’s Wait Awhile” from the 1986 LP Control. It concerns a young woman telling her boyfriend that she isn’t ready to have sex. Now, the younger sister of Michael Jackson was only 20 years old in 1986. Doubtless many of her fans were younger. The question is, why? What are we waiting for? A lot of scary red pill types go on and on about not wanting a woman who’s “ran through,” but what’s the point? 20 is too young, but 22 would be fine? The Christian ethic is direct: the permission for sex for both men and women...

 I’m not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch. I thought and think that COVID-19 was deadly and dangerous. I wore a mask the whole time, and got the vaccine as soon as I was permitted to. I’ve received three doses so far. All that said, I have no need to put my spikes in the ground to defend Anthony Fauci. In fact, I have known a few people who got MPH degrees to wonder if the whole racket is in creatively lying to the “ignorant” public for ideological purposes. High US officials knew the Chinese were literally making bio weapons at the Wuhan lab. We funded it. It was not a bat or a pangolin or anything at a wet market. If that right-wing nutjob Jon Stewart (sarcasm) can joke about it on late-night TV, it ain’t the fever swamp, my friends. And look, I started fights on social media trying to get friends and loved ones to get vaccinated. Basic math said the older you get, the less likely you were to bounce back unaided. That’s still true. It’s not in the news, but it could still kil...

 Obviously, I didn’t know Glen. But I knew his work, especially “Once” and the music associated with the film. It’s legitimately a great film, and the song “Falling Slowly” won an Academy Award. Marketa Irglova played a fellow musician who agrees to help him make an album. There is some romantic tension in the film, though Irglova’s character was married. It was a real Kris Kristofferson-Barbra Streisand situation, and the actor-musicians actually were dating during the making of the film. It’s a good enough story to have spawned a Broadway musical, and if you’re not aware, that’s a compliment from me. Hansard really did play his guitar on the street for money, and even after “Once” he wasn’t likely to be the opening act on the Eras Tour. He loved music, and he loved to play it for people. With the Lord’s permission, I would like to say that auto accidents and plane crashes are stupid. Actually, I can think of a few other ways of dying that seem senseless. Suffice to say that he’s ...

 I suppose that a person who is not an adherent of Christianity would be literally ignorant of certain details, but does any American who lives in Kentucky of all places really not understand why Christians would be sad if you said you’re not a Christian and you don’t want to attend their church? [People are idiots, and some people on social media pretend to be idiots for money.—ed.] Fair enough. Being Catholic is somewhat easier, in the sense that we don’t anxiously worry about the souls of those practicing other faiths, because God doesn’t condemn ignorance and can lead them to His Son via his own workings. That said, if a Muslim walked straight up to me and demanded to know about Jesus, I won’t miss that hanging curve. Some crazy fundamentalist wandered into our parish one night before Saturday Vigil Mass, and tried to preach us out of the Catholic Church. I was almost sad that the usher dragged him out. Dude, you’re standing in front of your Beloved right now. Your Savior is ri...

 Did I watch it a fair amount? Sure. Did I laugh sometimes? Absolutely. And he's not without his charms. Our ages are close enough that we lean into pop culture similarly. I've never met anyone who dislikes The Lord of The Rings book trilogy. His wife is more interesting than he is. But let's cut the crap: the show was too political and too liberal to have and keep a big audience. He got his start in Jon Stewart's satirical orbit, and his rise may have sown the seeds of his own destruction. Of all the really strong criticisms you can make of Donald Trump, I guess I never have hated him enough to be sad that Colbert's show was ending. The Left thinks its satire reflects reality, and that's exactly why they keep losing. To paraphrase James Carville, you can't beat someone you don't take seriously. Political satire has a long tradition in our country, but the secret sauce of political comedy gold is that (almost) everyone has to laugh. We've hit a point...

 People who have been actually abused have a good reason to do something like that. And if an otherwise healthy and accountable person doesn’t respect boundaries that you want to set for your own family and children, well, I can see saying something like, “These are our expectations. Meet them, or leave.” I think that Catholic Answers piece was overstated on this point. You can still will the good of any person—the definition of love—and still rightly decide that being physically and emotionally close to someone is everything from undesirable to highly inappropriate. My parents are and were great. Not perfect, mind you. I’ve had to forgive and let go of things. I don’t want to give a eulogy any time soon for my mother, God willing. But in the end, it would be an honor. I couldn’t even attempt a eulogy for one stepfather. See the first paragraph. But I did give one for the other stepfather, and I meant every good word. I honestly hope I don’t become “The Eulogy Guy.” Because I feel ...

 Obviously. Because in order to defend it, you have to defend the idea—whether you realize it or not—that only people who are strong enough to defend themselves have rights as people. All that babble about power imbalances is rendered as unserious, because the most powerless people on Earth are the unborn, and the infants they will become.  Prenatal testing as a regime heads toward genocide. “Death with dignity” will start voluntarily, and become involuntary. If the government controls health care, they will tell you if you live, or if you die. You can easily say Big Insurance already does this, and I won’t argue the point. But the lot of you have no idea what “medically necessary” means. Some of you have trauma keeping you from seeing the numbers on elective abortion. I’ll grant a full one percent to various disasters that may arise. I know it’s not even that high. But if 99 percent of something is indefensible, you don’t cling to the one percent, unless you’re nuts. And the ...

 My delightfully nuts internet friend Aaron “The Rat” Nelson posted a sign from Lima, OH that oddly enough said, “No child has two moms. No child has two dads.” With rainbow colors, just to apparently stick the rhetorical knife in. Now, I am 46 years old, unemployed, crippled, and I already had a big mouth, so my first reaction was, “Tough cookies, you cowards. That’s true.” But I figured an explanation was in order. Especially given the fact that I 1. Arguably hate no one, besides arguably John Kerry, for being astonishingly self-important, being inarticulate, and being wrong about everything important anyway. 2. Have no malice I am aware of involving ordinary people who practice homosexuality, and 3. Have no plans in any case to set up Rainbow Gulags or any similar thing in the happy event that I become Dictator of Jasonistan, formerly known as the United States of America. Now that all the foregoing is established, I explain thusly: People are created when a man and a woman have...

 I think it’s weird and stupid that Christian morality is the only one people are somehow allowed to be frightened of. The nature of government authority is coercive. That’s how governments work. Christianity isn’t special in its possibility to be terrifying. In fact, I will happily argue that full-blown Christendom was objectively the best thing to happen to humanity, ever. People are so soft that they’ll act like the Salem Witch Trials will break out because some Republican happened to say that it might be wrong to murder your own children. I just think it would be more honest if people said the truth: they don’t mind government telling everyone what to do, as long as all the coercion happens to people they don’t like. Maximum freedom doesn’t work; we know that. We rely as much on social conventions and social mores as we do on government. That’s why Sam Harris ends up looking so foolish: it’s what an avowed unbeliever looks like when he grew up in a Christian culture. If you don...

 Tommy Lee Jones, if memory serves, is an Academy Award winner who has been charming audiences for ages. He’s probably best as a police officer or a soldier, ordinary guys forced to be extraordinary and heroic. He’s one of my favorite actors. He’s been the big lead, but he’s a character actor, and that’s probably the highest compliment I can give as a film and television patron. Men in Black (1997) is a sci-fi buddy comedy that has way more pathos than it has any right to have. The sequels are still watchable because of Jones and the great Will Smith. Agent K (Jones) convinces Smith’s NYPD detective James Edwards to join MIB. Edwards finds out that he’ll never see family or friends again, and it will be as if he never existed. It’s a heavy moment, and Agent K gives him until sunrise to decide. Edwards asks, “Is it worth it?” K answers, Oh, yeah. It’s worth it.” He pauses for a beat as he’s walking away and adds, “If you’re strong enough.” Someone added that clip to a reel showing a...

 On the one hand, he actively dislikes and is confused by social expectations that others don’t seem to mind. His wealth and position insulate him from the repercussions of his social discomfort and people put off by his lack of conformity. He is very blunt with his close friend Charles Bingley. Bingley definitely moves in social situations easily, and speaks positively about others, both by natural disposition, and by the mores of that culture. In his interactions with Elizabeth Bennet, it’s not hard to imagine that Elizabeth views their interactions as “witty banter,” whilst an autistic Darcy views his replies as explaining her mistaken perceptions of his motivations thoroughly. There are a lot of situations where Darcy clearly indicates that he feels he has to pretend, to “pass” when he clearly doesn’t understand why people expect him to do or to feel certain ways. And if Darcy actually were autistic, he wouldn’t be bothered per se by negative perceptions about him, but he would...

 What people are doing with the heterosexual/homosexual binary is (whether intentionally or not) suggesting that both sides of it are morally the same. One is not better, just different. That’s exactly what the activists were doing. They do it with even stupider words like “cishet” and “fem-presenting.” Activism and jargon, all the way down. And left-Christians rush in to apologize for slights or even violence that—if it happened—don’t happen to the degree that the activists need it to. The streets need to be stained with gay/whatever else blood. Of course, leaving people alone and not being the language police are barely an option. Pete’s sake, Sophie Cunningham is getting called “MAGA Barbie” for being conventionally attractive and daring to suggest that biological men shouldn’t compete in women’s and girls’ sports. Here’s the bad news: I’ll bet you a million dollars that she’s more Left than I am. Not that it matters. Someone white and male will get blamed for the incest between...

I’m tired of seeing “by suicide.” Frankly, I would rather see,  “X committed suicide.” Maybe enough of us know Latin, and that the word literally means killing oneself, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s an effort to deflect responsibility and agency from people. Important people want to do that so they can justify telling us how to live. If we’re all just feeling beasts with no decisional capacity, some class of betters can tell us where to go, what to eat, where to live, and when to die. We can still have context in these tragic cases when someone takes his or her own life. Far be it for me to tell the God of mercy and justice what to do. But it doesn’t just happen; it’s not a disease process, in the strict sense. What do you tell people who are angry in the aftermath? They don’t want to hear that some anthropomorphic Depression took down their loved one. They didn’t contract Ebola or COVID or tuberculosis. They decided—under duress perhaps—that dying was preferable to liv...