Saturday, June 30, 2018

The End of History--Again


A member of my neighborhood foreign policy group has sent a query about NATO, Trump, Russia, Putin, etc... asking for comment. I append the questions raised at the end.

Hi D. et al,
    
Somewhere in the back of my brain is this recurring thought: "This is the true end of the twentieth century"; Meaning that we were mistaken in thinking that 1990 and the collapse of the Soviet Union was the end, and that back then we were sailing into the twenty-first century.

By the end of the 20th century, I mean the post-WWII world that came to grips with all the horror that began with:
1. the First World War, the reorganization of central and eastern Europe (i.e., the end of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires),
2. the economic dislocation of the twenties and thirties, and the economic reorganization of the fifties and sixties,
3. the rise and fall of Nazism, (Hitler, etc.),
4. and the reorganization of the West into a more global arrangement beginning with the Marshall Plan, the UN and all of its committees, NATO and other international military arrangements, and the beginnings of global economic institutions.

Not everyone, probably some of us, think all of this worked so well for the  developing world and for marginal First World countries. But in a shambling way it worked.

The reformation of Germany was an important, perhaps key, element in these developments, obviously in the French-German rapprochement and the emergence of the EU. Germany was destroyed along with its dream of military hegemony.  The unification of East and West Germany after 1990 was seen to be part of this new order.
******
What we are seeing today is a threat to all of that, or in some quarters the dimantling of central parts of the post-war agreements and understandings.  I have tried to pay attention to Angela Merkel's efforts because I think she is a firm believer not only in the EU but in the "reformed" (mostly demilitarized) Germany. She is to my mind the anit-Kaiser Wilhelm; she is not paranoid, not ambitious for new lands, and not a nationalist.  Germany is the centerpiece of the European land mass and critical to the future political and economic cohesion of "Europe." I think she is trying to maintain that role. She is under serious constraints from her own government.
******
Donald Trump is an ignorant and aggressive destabilizer. He knows little and seems to care little about all that was achieved after the slaughter and upheaval of the two world wars. Equally ignorant advisors surround him. The EU (Donald Tusk), Merkel, Macron, the Spanish, Portuguese, Ireland, the Low Countries, the Scandinavians are the back stop to everything Trump is doing in ignorance.  I will not fulminate about Britain and their Prime Minister.
*******
Russia is playing all of this to its own advantage. And Trump is playing kitten to an intelligent, knowledgeable, and cunning Putin. Whatever Putin or Russian intelligence has on Trump, I think it's money, but it could be sex tapes, as well. The money is probably illegal money in large amounts (Russian oligarchs sending their "profits" abroad), and Trump (and Kushner and Britain) are beholden to them. It was a deal with the devil and the devil (whether or not that is Putin) is collecting.

Glad you asked; sorry to go on at such length!  Peggy
********
The Original Question from "D":
I would like to know what you think about the upcoming NATO and Putin-Trump meetings in July. Brian Lehrer this morning hosted somebody billed as a national security and counterterrorism analyst—Malcom Nance. Nance described a 2-hour meeting that Trump had in Moscow in 2013 with Russia's top oligarchs, after which he formed his subsequent fawning attitudes toward Putin and his henchmen as figureheads for global right-wing Christian values—catnip to Trump and his supporters—and his steadfast refusal to condemn Russian meddling in ours and other countries' elections. https://www.wnyc.org/story/kremlin-messages-president

Nance predicts that at the NATO meeting Trump will continue to bray his pro-Putin, anti-NATO line. A line, by the way, that Katrina Vanden Heuvel's husband continues to support in the pages of The Nation, no less.

Do you find convincing the belief that Trump's unshakable obeisance to Putin is more likely to be attributable to this 2013 meeting than to his fear of revelations from the long-discredited Steele dossier?

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Justice Kennedy's Retirement

I'll bet Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's impending retirement will steal center stage from the Red Hen.  Not that it was unexpected, he is 81 and had already spoken of retirement.  But it will roil the waters for some time to come.  The present political reality guarantees that appointments will be fraught with drama.  Another justice to watch is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  She is 85, and a cancer survivor.

Songs Sung Blue (and Red and White)


I’ve been reading song lyrics. Nothing like song lyrics to get people worked up.

 OK, I have been efforting creatively to avoid thinking about the pudgy guy who is threatening to impose cruel and unusual taxes on a motorcycle company for disobedience and who hogged the spotlight at a Medal of Honor ceremony to proclaim that the widow voted for him. I’ve been reading Pray Tell, the liturgists’ Web site. Deacon Jim turned up there today, by the way.

 What I’ve been looking at are a claim of inappropriateness for Marty Haugen’s "Gather Us In," and what today escalated into a charge of heresy against Lee Greenwood’s "God Bless the U.S.A." In both cases, the liturgical use of the songs was the starting point of the discussion, and in both cases the offense was given by the lyrics.

 Heresy first. The blogger recalled marching from her school to the church in 1991 for a lecture about the Gulf War. The ceremony started with the playing of a recording of “God Bless the U.S.A.” The author was proud to sing it then, in the aftermath of 9/11, but it sticks in her throat now in the presence of the policy/non-policy/Democrat law at the southern border.

WWJD at the Red Hen?



Now this is more like it.  Sam Sawyer, SJ, an executive editor at America, weighs in with a fresh point of view on the Sanders / Wilkinson / Red Hen kerfuffle.

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Authenticity

The Washington Post has interviewed Stephanie Wilkinson, the owner of the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, VA who triggered a much bigger furor than she probably anticipated when she refused to serve Sarah Huckabee Sanders because the latter is a collaborator in a presidential administration that Wilkinson considers to be deeply immoral.

The Red Hen Has a History



    In the tale, the little red hen finds a grain of wheat and asks for help from the other farmyard animals (most adaptations feature three animals, a pig, a cat, and a rat, duck, goose, dog, or goat) to plant it, but they all refuse.
    At each later stage (harvest, threshing, milling the wheat into flour, and baking the flour into bread), the hen again asks for help from the other animals, but again she doesn't receive any help.
    Finally, the hen has completed her task and asks who will help her eat the bread. This time, all the previous non-participants eagerly volunteer, but she disagrees with them, stating that no one helped her with her work. Thus, the hen eats it with her chicks, leaving none for anyone else.

    In popular culture

  • A Disney-produced Silly Symphony called The Wise Little Hen uses this tale as its basis. This version features Peter Pig and Donald Duck (in his debut), instead of the cat and the frog from the folk version, as the ones who decline to participate in the preparation of the bread.
  • Politically-themed revisions of the story include a conservative version, based on a Ronald Reagan monologue from 1976. The farmer claims that the hen is being unfair if she does not share her bread with the other animals and forces her to share her bread with those who would not work for it. This in turn removes the hen's incentive to work resulting in poverty for the entire barnyard. An alternate version reimagines the tale as a satire on capitalism, with the hen promising slices of bread in return for work, but keeping the largest share for herself despite doing none of the work. Mavina Reynolds gave a twist to the story by making it a pro-work, anti-shirk socialist anthem, with the worker hen retaining all the fruits of her labor: "And that's why they called her Red."
  • The Little Red Hen was featured in episode 14 of the animated series Super Why! In the book, the animals who decline to help the Little Red Hen make corn bread are a dog, a cat, and a duck. Super Why changes the ending by having the three animals help the Little Red Hen bake the corn bread for her chicks and later joining her in eating the corn bread.
 From Wiki...

Monday, June 25, 2018

Cardinal McCarrick and verifiable rumors

You probably have heard the news that Cardinal McCarrick, one of the most prominent American church officials over the last few decades, has been removed from ministry.

Can't We Play Nice, Part 2, Henpecked

 Charles Pierce responds to the sudden distraction of the Red Hen meal Sarah Sanders was not allowed to eat. He can speak for himself.

 But the money graf:

 It would have remained a shiny object unworthy of pursuit had it not roiled up a good portion of official Washington, which seemed grateful to be discussing anything except hijacked migrant children. Suddenly, just as the issue of the hijacked children was beginning to bite the administration* severely in the ass, here was an event over which the elite political media could do one of its favorite traditional fan dances: the Question of Civility.
The media, which responds to distractions the way mold responds to dampness,  has yet to find out if Trump's new "block that border without due process" policy violates international treaties (I think it does) or the Constitution or the law of the land. Geez, finding an international law expert on a weekend is hard, but Red Hen, Red Hen, Red Hen! Cluck, cluck, cluck.

Friday, June 22, 2018

Can't we play nice?


  Sunday night at the Tony Awards, Robert De Niro dropped an F-bomb on Donald John Trump. This produced a few mild cases of the vapours in the usual quarters, including The New York Times. The reaction was nothing like what, for example, George McGovern produced by calling a lady a “horse’s ass” on an airplane when she acted like one. We've come down in the world.

 De Niro provoked the Times to write a story about the coarsening of American politics, a process that has been going on forever but took a giant leap when the Republican candidate for president made vulgarity as legitimate a political tool as dirty money and gerrymandering.

 The Times thought we would heal better as a nation if we’d be nicer to each other. That reminded Charles P. Pierce of Esquire of why he disagrees.

Home Adventures

One damn thing after another...or so it seems with the preposterous leader...if not our enemy Canada or the pretense of a nuclear disarmament, then it's tearing children from their adults. The end of the world--as we know it!

Such were my preoccupations when one damn thing after another started up at home. Of course, it is embarrassing to be preoccupied by the mundane when the world is shuddering for fear of what might come next. But there you are. Several electric sockets have gone kaput in our household; the ones that feed the coffee maker, the toaster, the dishwasher, and one air conditioner. The remedy so far promised is a rip down of various kitchen walls of plaster and lathe in our hundred-year old building.

And then.. having lived in NYC for 55 years: for the first time, an elevator I was on stopped in mid-travels. I was astonished. After the fact, I am still surprised I didn't go bonkers (claustrophobia and all that). A strange calm came on. Studying the remedies offered on the control panel, I pushed the button that said phone. Of course, I got an answering machine at the repair company. Scratch that. Then I pressed the "alarm" button. Quite loud. Soon the voice of a neighbor promising to seek help. Thank you. I decided to not go into action whatever that might entail, but to sit on the floor, cross my legs, breathe deeply and say a Hail Mary. I was in no danger, I told myself. Something would happen...even if the oxygen ran out! Really it turned out to be only fifteen minutes...one of the men in the building arrived with a crow bar, pried open the door, and thank yous all around. Neighbor happy to see me alive! Me happy to be breathing!  Etc. So, here's to the mundane, at least for today.


Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Weaponizing the Bible


Many thanks to Katherine for drawing our attention to the (im)morality of the Trump Administration's policy of separating immigrant parents claiming asylum status from their children, sometimes for months at a time, with no visible process for ensuring they would ever be reunited.  United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions piqued some interest, and also raised some eyebrows, when he recently defended that policy by citing a biblical passage.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

False Equivalence

To their credit, many Republicans are rejecting and distancing themselves from the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy regarding illegal immigration. In implementing this policy the administration puts asylum seekers in the category of criminals and follows the practice of separation from children as a deterrent.
However, many Republicans, including President Trump, have not rejected this policy and in fact have doubled down on it with specious arguments, prevarications, and false equivalence.  His defenders and water-carriers parrot his arguments and invent some of their own.  One of the prime justifications and examples of a false equivalence is the one which says, "If a citizen commits a crime and is incarcerated, they are going to be separated from their children.  How is this any different?"
From this excellent article by Doug Mataconis:

Sunday, June 17, 2018

From mustard seeds to full-grown plants

This is my homily for today, June 17, 2018, the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time in Cycle B (the Gospel of Mark cycle).   And today also happens to be Father's Day.  The readings for today are here.

Retirement and stress in the 21st century

Sounds like several of us in here have moved into our golden retirement years, so here's a riff on retirement, stress, and stressors.

Friday, June 15, 2018

University of Chicago drops standardized test scores as an admission requirement


Standardized testing is a big deal in our local high school district.  All high school juniors are expected to take a college-entrance standardized test -  for all of my kids, it has been the ACT.  In addition, the students are encouraged to take the test as sophomores so that when they take it "for real" as juniors, they're familiar with the format, and have a year to address any standardized-test weaknesses.  Standardized testing is a major pillar of the school district's emphasis on college preparation.

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Why the president is loathed and feared



The president has proven distressingly adept at smashing cherished symbols and principles.

Pro-life feminism

Commonweal has published a review, by Bria Sandford, of a new documentary film entitled Pro-Life Feminist.  The documentary describes a group called New Wave Feminists which aspires to be both feminist and pro-life.  It seems the group had its 15 minutes of fame when its participation in last year's Women's March on Washington was revoked.


Monday, June 11, 2018

Family Separation as Government Policy

Living in the time of the Trump Administration sometimes has a surreal quality.  One grows accustomed to each day bringing some new bizarreness or outrage. But there are things that I can't grow accustomed to, and that we can't allow ourselves as a nation to grow accustomed to. One of those is the policy of family separation as a means of enforcing the new "zero tolerance" policy for immigrants crossing illegally into the United States.

Saturday, June 9, 2018

Imposter Syndrome

Lately a rash of celebrity suicides have been in the news; the latest being designer Kate Spade and television chef Anthony Bourdain.  It's hard to wrap ones head around someone wanting to end their life at a time when everything seems to be going right for them. The best insight I have seen about it recently is from a Facebook blogger, Emily Zanotti Skyles:

Friday, June 8, 2018

What makes a marriage a sacrament?



I read a charming story in the Post a couple of weeks ago, about a wedding that took place in a hospital – in the maternity suites. Not one of those sad weddings where one of the couple are dying and they rush to fulfill their desire to marry before death arrives. This was a happy story. A couple who had been together for a decade was having their first baby. They wanted to marry before the baby’s birth and had obtained a marriage license. But the baby decided to come a couple of weeks early, and the parents hadn’t yet made it to the judge. The chaplain couldn’t make it to the hospital in time, but another woman in labor heard what was happening and offered to officiate from her labor bed – she was legally able to officiate at weddings through some online group.  She couldn’t go to the couple because she had been given an epidural and couldn’t walk, so they came to her.  Fortunately, the bride had the license in her purse when they dashed to the hospital for the baby. I liked the story – it was a happy story.  It got me to thinking about all the couples I know or know of who were in “irregular”, committed love relationships of varying kinds, including those married outdoors somewhere with an officiant who was licensed on the internet.. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2018/05/24/she-was-having-a-baby-from-her-hospital-bed-she-officiated-at-the-wedding-of-another-patient-also-in-labor/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.278fb54f0e38

The RCC teaches that marriage is a “sacrament” that provides a "special" kind of grace from God. Most Christian denominations do not believe that marriage is a sacrament – they believe that there are only two sacraments – baptism and eucharist.  

http://religiondispatches.org/marriage-is-not-a-sacrament-for-protestants-and-why-that-matters-to-lgbt-christians/

So, if marriage is a sacrament, what makes it so?  Do couples really need a RC priest to act as a "channel" for grace to the couple?  A simple matter of having a Roman Catholic priest be the officiant/witness?  That would imply that the millions and millions of grace-filled marriages that occur among people who do not marry in the Catholic church are somehow “lesser” - that there is no grace in their marriages. Or maybe it's low octane grace and sacramental grace is some kind of supercharged high octane grace. Seems unlikely.

 But even the RCC teaches that the couple bestow the sacrament on one another and that the priest is only a witness.   Jimmie M has been with his partner, now husband, for as many years as my husband and I have been married. We were married in a Catholic church – this was denied to Jim and his husband.   I would suggest that there is much more grace in Jim’s 45 year relationship than in many official Catholic marriages.  I would suggest that there is much more grace in many marriages of friends, family and neighbors who are not Catholic, and some not Christian (Jewish, Muslim, nones) than in many Catholic marriages.  

The husband of one of my husband’s cousins officiated at his daughter’s wedding. He too obtained his license to officiate at weddings from the internet.  There were no religious aspects to the wedding (a lovely wedding) because the family were all agnostic.  The young couple seem to be doing well after 11 years and 3 kids.   Most of our neighbors are not christian – most are Jewish, a few protestants, some Muslims, Hindus and nones.  The marriages are pretty much solid, happy, and the couples raised "good" kids. Many of us have lived on this street for 45 years.  These are marriages that are “full of grace”. There have been several marriages ended by death in recent years (we are all getting old), but I can think of only 2 couples who ever lived on this street in all of those years who got divorced.

If marriage is a “sacrament”, it is because of the love and commitment of the married couple.  Ritual formality and a priest/officiant at the wedding is not what makes a marriage into a sacrament. 

In regards to marriage, it seems that the official church thinks (once again) that it’s all about them – the clergy and the institution.  Catholics “have” to get married “in the church” or else they are "living in sin", even if legally married.  They say that people should not go directly to God to confess sins, but have to confess to a human being in a roman collar. They say that people should not “keep holy the Sabbath” in any way other than showing up to Catholic mass. They refuse communion to all who are not members of the RC church, even though Jesus shared the bread and wine to a roomful of people who were Jewish and not Roman Catholic. After all, Jesus was not a Roman Catholic, so maybe he could not receive the eucharist in an RC church either.

All of these things seem to have one thing in common – the rules and rituals keep the institution and the clergy at the center, and keep too many thinking that they need clergy and an institution in order to have a relationship with God. Some, not married in the RC church, or divorced and remarried without the hoops of annulment, are sufficiently indoctrinated that they still feel some kind of "guilt" - fear that their own loving marriage is not a "sacrament" and that their marriage can't be grace-filled. They feel guilt if they join a not Catholic spouse in communion in a not Catholic christian church. Etc.  This is wrong on the face of it. So is it any wonder that the numbers of “spiritual but not religious? just keep growing? 


What to read, and not, church documents edition [Updated]

Of the making of many books there is no end, and that goes for official teaching documents of the Catholic Church as well. The church is replete with cardinals, bishops, dicasteries, pontifical commissions, bishops conferences, departments of bishops conferences, and so on and so on, and they all have staffs, and they all put out documents, many of which are lengthy, and all of which are densely written.  Consequently, I  am perpetually behind in my reading.

Thursday, June 7, 2018

For the record

First firefly of 2018:  June 7, 9:38 pm. Seemed to be wandering aimlessly. Hope it's okay.

Sighting was in Central New York State. Temperature said to be 59, possibly true.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

MISS AMERICA CANDIDATES WILL NO LONGER BE JUDGED ON PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

The Miss America Organization just yesterday announced sweeping changes, among them the following:

This change in format signals the end of the swimsuit portion of the competition. In its place, each candidate will participate in a live interactive session with the judges, where she will highlight her achievements and goals in life and how she will use her talents, passion, and ambition to perform the job of Miss America.
The former evening gown competition will now give participants the freedom to outwardly express their self-confidence in evening attire of their choosing while discussing how they will advance their social impact initiatives. Talent, which has always been a distinguishing element of Miss America, will remain a highlight of the competition.

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Jean visits a psychic

Religion was a sticking point between my late mother and me. She felt she had given me a free-thinking and humanist upbringing as a Unitarian. She saw my baptism in the Episcopal Church and conversion to Catholicism as a repudiation of her and her ideas. I tried to find common ground, though I'm not sure she didn't see it as a subtle attempt to convert her. She and Dad had both been exposed to holy-rollerism as kids, and they saw "church" mostly as a racket in which a preacher terrified you with hellfire, and then dunned you for money the rest of your life for "fire insurance."

While Mom rejected conventional religion she was often fascinated with the paranormal--Bridey Murphy, Edgar Cayce, Bishop Pike, Shirley MacLean, Jeane Dixon. I saw this as a desire to believe in something, to find comfort in a Beyond. As I got older, I grew increasingly impatient with the woo woo. She wanted Paradise without the God she'd learned about in Sunday school. Like Hazel Motes's Church Without Jesus in Flannery O'Connor's "Wiseblood." 

So perhaps in a last stab at understanding her, or maybe just out of rank curiosity after all that exposure in childhood, I recently found myself in a silvery tent at a local fair with a psychic who claimed to channel the Archangel Michael, having just shucked out twenty bucks for a 15 minute "reading."

Monday, June 4, 2018

Animal House


Suburbia is reputed to be the Land of the Automobile, the Land of the Strip Mall and the Land of the McMansion, and there is a good deal of truth to all of those appellations.  It must be noted, however, that Nature was here long before the Interstate Highway System came through and Target Stores set up shop, and she hasn't surrendered yet to the inexorable march of human civilization and the construction industry.

Sunday, June 3, 2018

Sunday morning inspiration

Walking home from Mass this morning, I saw a slogan that might give focus to the widely reported, but hard to identify, Resistance.

It was a bumper sticker on the back of a large SUV of indeterminate manufacture. The sticker read, "Make America America Again."

Perhaps implicit in that idea, or so I mulled, is that the singular focus on the Fraudster-in-Chief, can be shifted to a multi-focus on the diversity of all of us, the rest of the country.

Any chance of that?

Friday, June 1, 2018

Can post but not comment

OK, I can post, but I can't comment.  I tried to comment on my Trouble signing in  post.  ??????

So strange. I am signed in with the gmail account I created for this site, because I thought that we couldn't use yahoo.

My name does not appear on the blue bar. I can post and edit, but not comment.

Until I can figure this out, I will comment here to Margaret.  I had written it in  a comment this morning - that's when I discovered it wouldn't accept my comment and the profiles don't include my gmail account. Yet I can post and edit.  The mysteries.....

I suspect the yoiung adults who retirned to Ireland to vote are not dual passport holders, but do live and work in the UK or the EU. I know from my French daughter-in-law and her family and friends that the young adults move quite freely throughout the EU for jobs, education etc, because they don't have the hassles of sponsorship for visas and work permits.  Irish heritage people who were born in another country can get an Irish passport, but only if either one of their parents or one of their grandparents were born in Ireland. Since the big migration to the US and Australia and the UK occurred in the mid-19th century, most of we "Irish Americans" etc are not eligible.

Second - Phonak. Supposed to be the best for severe-profound high frequency loss and I will be trying those out as my next pair.  Costco carries them (one generation behind usually) and AARP has discounts if you use an affiliated audiologist.