Bookworm Room

I have some familiarity with Church history and doctrine, owing to my background as a European history major.  I am woefully ignorant, however, about modern Catholicism — or, more specifically, modern American Catholicism.  I therefore have a question for those of you who are Catholic:  Does it matter to a critical mass of American Catholics [...]

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I’m too much of a self-control freak ever to have been attracted to recreational drugs (or even alcohol, for that matter).  Add to that the fact that my first childhood memories involve the Haight-Ashbury after the Summer of Love fell apart, when the neighborhood had turned into one giant, drug-ridden tenderloin district, and you’ll appreciate [...]

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I’m pleased to announce that I discovered, purely by accident, that one of my neighbors is a Republican.  She thought she was the only one in the neighborhood; I thought I was the only one.  Now we’re two, and wondering if there are more.

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Up in Arms, from 1944, was Danny Kaye’s break-out movie. The musical number supporting the war effort starts at 4:30:

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I have felt a great heaviness and sadness this week. Five separate news stories have been an unpleasant reminder about how depraved and amoral the human being can be and how elusive is justice. Like many others, the death of Ted Kennedy has reminded me of his culpability in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. [...]

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Kennedy’s treasonous conduct in the 1980s is finally getting some play (see here and here, for example), but this email is a sufficient indictment of the “liberal lion” even without the treason. Honest to God, you’d think that Democrats would want to elevate a different standard bearer for their party: As soon as his cancer [...]

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During the November 2008 election, Black Panthers appeared on video standing in front of polling places with billy clubs: Eric Holder, however, was unconcerned, and dropped the voter intimidation case against the Black Panthers.  Having learned that they get a free pass for egregious behavior antithetical to democratic government gets a free pass, I wonder [...]

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The original video says that socialized medicine is great: The rebuttal interlineated video shows all the errors in the argument: I want to throw two more things into the mix:  First, the fact that, in a head-on comparison, the government is vastly more inefficient, dollar-for-dollar, than private business — and that’s despite the dreaded profits. [...]

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Apropos my post about patriotism during Hollywood’s golden age, Bruce Kesler sent me this great video showing both Jimmy Cagney and Mickey Rooney doing their George M. Cohan impressions: Since I’m an avid fan of old musicals, I may, for a few days, scatter throughout my posts video links to patriotic songs and dances from [...]

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If I ran for office, whether state or federal, my promise to my constituents would be to cut one government program per month for my entire term of office.  The New Editor reminds me that another useful promise might be to cut wages as well, to make them commensurate with the market sector.  Of course, [...]

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I am extremely fond of Vera Lynn’s music.  I was therefore delighted to read that (a) she is still alive and, at 92, looking wonderful and (b) she is still a chart topping hit in England: Dame Vera Lynn yesterday became the oldest living artist to make it into the Top Twenty. At the age [...]

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Hollywood and the media establishment as a whole are inescapable parts of American and, indeed, world culture.  It’s fascinating, therefore, to think about the type of patriotism our American media now espouses and that which it embraced in the past.   Depending on how one defines patriotism, whether as love of country or love of a [...]

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I’m still recovering from a day spent running errands with the kids and taking care of my mother’s health needs.  (Mom’s okay but, after a brief hospitalization, needed some help sorting out meds.)  The straight-jacket reference isn’t to my mom’s situation, though, it’s to being the sole target of unrelenting kid energy.  I’m still shaking.  [...]

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Tell me honestly that this video wouldn’t have been the butt of a thousand MSM jokes and video replays if it showed either George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Dan Quayle, Gerald Ford, Betty Ford, or any other Republican White House occupant doing precisely the same thing: I am, of course, sorry for any pain [...]

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Ohio State is trying to start something good.  Check it out here.

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I Will Not Convict is an internet petition expressing solitary with the CIA operatives who have become the target of Eric Holder’s political witch hunt.  If it appeals to you, please fill out the form, and then forward a link to your friends.

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This month marks the third anniversary of Gilad Shalit’s long imprisonment with the Palestinians who kidnapped him.  Although it doesn’t seem to show up in American press, German and Israeli outlets are reporting that the Germans (!?) have brokered a deal for his release.  Here’s Der Spiegel: Three years ago he was kidnapped by Hamas. [...]

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Obama spouted a maudlin mess about Kennedy today.  He didn’t even bother to mention by allusion to Kennedy’s “flaws” that little problem at Chappaquiddick: Today we say goodbye to the youngest child of Rose and Joseph Kennedy. The world will long remember their son Edward as the heir to a weighty legacy; a champion for [...]

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My friend Zhombre was at the bookstore perusing the shelves when he came across a Penguin Press book entitled “The Inaugural Address, 2009.”  That’s well and good.  I’m sure there are some in America who want to clutch this banal speech as tightly to their chest as Chinese citizens were forced to do with Mao’s [...]

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This morning, I sort of glossed over the story of Representative Diane Watson (a Dem, of course), singing Castro’s praises to high heaven, as part of a broader attack against all of the One’s racist enemies, who are trying to destroy America just to destroy a black man: Here’s the money quote: It was just [...]

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The American people and the media are both souring on Barack Obama, but there’s a very different tone to the changed attitudes. American people were promised, and voted for, a post-racial, post-partisan black man who was politically moderate and sufficiently brilliant to handle an executive job (tho’ he’d never had one before).  (And it helped [...]

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This is an interesting video, in which a police officer tells a protester to remove his anti-ObamaCare sign from public school property.  A “helpful” bystander explains that the Supreme Court has barred this type of speech.  Frankly, without doing even minimal research, I do not know what the rules are for protest when you’re on [...]

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The news lines are aflutter with the fact that the Vatican has kept mum about Kennedy’s death.  This is scarcely surprising given that Kennedy, although raised a Catholic, took (and sought to use his political power to impose on America) political positions that are anathema to the Church: Edward Kennedy, it can be said, was [...]

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It’s such a little thing, but it’s such a big reminder that Obama, hectorer in chief, really does feel that he is above all the things that he tells the little people to do: President Obama took a bike ride with his family today in Aquinnah, on Martha’s Vineyard. The First Family cruised along Lobsterville [...]

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I used Stephen Hawking as an example, not of Britain’s failed health care, but of the fact that, under socialized medicine, famous people and politicos always get the gold standard.  Charlie (Colorado) kindly pointed out that I’d erred.  In fact, Hawking got sick before he got famous.  That is an interesting point, since it implies [...]

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