Stephen Roney's Blog, page 54

Milei's Historic Speech

 

This one is going to be remembered for a long time.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Midwives for Abortion

 

The BBC series “Call the Midwife” was the perfect premise for a life-affirming, faith-affirming show: about a convent running a midwife service in impoverished East London. And for the first few seasons, based on one midwife’s autobiography, it was.

Then it, improbably, swerved into fictional story lines about how homosexuality was innate and involuntary. Into tales of wifebeating; into the evils of slum landlords; into editorializing in favour of abortion, and against the moralistic sort of religion.

Odd that it should go about to trash its core appeal to its natural core audience.

The obvious reason is that, after the first half-dozen seasons, they began to run out of interesting complications in childbirth. The newer ailments were getting obscure, and sometimes trivial. “It is a very rare condition, and no, it will not harm the baby.”

A long-running show tends to run out of plot ideas. That’s where “jumping the shark” comes in, and that  lack of new ideas has infected Hollywood with their sequel mania. 

CTMW has a bit of an advantage, because they can bring in new characters. But they decided to bring in “ethnically diverse” characters. And ethnically diverse characters must not have any flaws or dark pasts or even interesting eccentricities. So they cannot inspire any good new plots. 

So what can you do? The temptation is to get political to keep interest up: find a news hook.

This is tiresome, and obvious; but wouldn’t be as bad if doing so these days always means a whiplash-inducing veer to the left. Particularly ill-suited to this show premise.

But then, they really haven’t had a choice. There’s the immigration issue. That’s in the news. Imagine if they were to feature an immigrant family that was not settling in, but resented the new country. The son was up for raping some girl, or staging a random knife attack. 

There’s the abortion issue; pretty natural for such a show. Of course, a religious order of midwives should be firmly opposed. Yet imagine if they had a sympathetic character point out with emotion that abortion kills babies?

Or that homosexuals can choose to stop having homosexual sex?

Imagine if they showed a wife abusing her husband, or blackmailing him with false charges?

The leftist cancel culture machine would wheel into action. Advertising would be pulled, they would be picketed, probably cancelled. The writers would be blacklisted, possibly thrown in prison, at a minimum lose their careers.

So the minute they raise a political controversy, they must show only the approved leftist narrative. And it’s a race to the farthest left possible, because what you said ten years ago, when the Overton window was different, can now be held against you. There are currently cries on the left and in the media to ban a local candidate from the next provincial election, because she objected to gay marriage in a book she wrote in 2008. A time when almost all of the developed world were also opposed to gay marriage, including, say, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. 

We have all been bullied in this way for years; creative types more than anyone. Which is why all we get from the arts and entertainment sector any more is predictable and perverse.

The good news is that the right has recently woken up to the strategy. They have started to do the same, and things are swinging back to sanity. Mass farmer protests in Germany. Bud Light, Disney, Harvard, Target; the boycott head count is growing.

The culture war has passed its Stalingrad moment.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Someone Else Is Noticing

 

What a disaster Trudeau has been in foreign relations.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Obligatory Post about the Iowa Caucuses

 

Trump won the Iowa caucuses. It wasn’t close, and it all came out pretty much as the polls predicted. There was no race on the Democratic side. 

Pity the poor media, who have to make it sound exciting; for them, no news is bad news.

And now, already, both the Republican and the Democratic nomination races seem to be over. That leaves a big hole in the prospective news year. 

I am troubled by the bad blood evident among the Republicans: how everyone is sliming Nikki Haley, how Ron DeSantis is crying foul because the media called the race too soon. It’s dumb, now that the nomination is pretty much decided and nothing much is at stake. It starts to look like a circular firing squad. Nikki Haley is not a real threat to the MAGAnauts, she was a good governor; and DeSantis would never have won if the media had held off. Moreover, his platform and Trump’s are barely distinguishable.

I lament the lack of civility and decorum; it is one of the great problems with America today. It is profoundly unhealthy when politics becomes such a consuming passion.

And no, Trump is not to blame for this; populism is not to blame for this. Trump and populism are a reaction to this failure of civil discourse, not its cause.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Blowing Hot and Cold

 

The latest reports on “UAP,” which used to be called UFOs, seem to up the ante. There is a video circulating of a craft that is invisible to the eye, but emits a heat signature detectable in infrared. And it shifts from hot to cold—yet is still visible to infrared in its cold state. Which means it shifts not just from warmer than its surroundings to the ambient temperature, but from warmer to colder than its surroundings. Why? And there are reports of people entering an alien craft about forty feet square, and finding the interior “the size of a football field.”

Before this, it seemed to me—not following this closely—that all could be accounted for by someone somewhere figuring out time travel. And so the likeliest explanation was not aliens, but a visit from our own future.

But if these latest reports are legitimate, time travel does not seem sufficient to account for it all. That does not allow invisibility, or the distortion of space itself.

Neither does mass psychosis—we have video.

How about a government conspiracy? It makes sense: governments are currently in a low-intensity war with their own citizens everywhere. A good scare about a common enemy is a way to grab more power. Covid is no longer frightening enough; global warming may be losing its potency. The principalities of this world may need a new wolf.

Really large conspiracies, as this would have to be, are intrinsically unlikely, due to human frailty and incompetence. Yet, if we believe these UFO sightings are all real now, we must also believe there was a general conspiracy among governments to suppress UFO reports previously. If the first conspiracy was possible, so is the second. The simplest explanation is that there is only one conspiracy, and it is the second…

The fact that we have video is of no significance on the hypothesis of government conspiracy. Much can now be computer generated, and in the case of something alien, a fake becomes difficult to detect. What is it supposed to look like? What is it supposed to be able to do? If it can violate any of the laws of physics, how can a fake ever be discovered?

Indeed, the comment often heard is that these supposed craft “violate the laws of physics.” 

What does that actually tell us? 

Unless we somehow have the laws of physics all wrong, a thing that violates the laws of physics is not a physical object. 

So, it might all be a government invention.

The other possibility is that these are spiritual objects. “Violates the laws of physics”?  That defines a miracle. We know by deduction that God exists, God can necessarily produce miracles, can break the laws of physics. He may be sending us a message. 

The problem with this explanation is that, if so, it is hard to tell what that message is. Angels are heralds; they speak plainly, or they are not doing their job. Prophets speak plainly, “make the ways straight for the Lord. It is ungodly to be ambiguous.

Demons, on the other hand, love ambiguity. What demons love is to disorient, to sow doubt and confusion. Demons will also always want to mask their identity. 

And demons, too, reputedly can perform miracles. And, if I may say so, demons also typically work in tandem with and through governments, "the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world "

Could there be any practical reason for alien explorers to create a craft that shifts quickly from very hot to very cold? 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Environnmental Panic

 

https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1746222929359323247?s=20

Impressive--Vivek is as good as Poilievre here.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Vice Presidential Picks

 

Trump says he has already chosen his VP candidate. This implies that it is not anyone currently running against him for the Republican nomination; and it implies he must have a big enough name on the hook that it is not worth waiting for some other possibility. 

This increases the odds that it is Tucker Carlson. Whom Melania Trump has already said she wants on the ticket.

Rumours are swirling that RFK’s running mate will be Tulsi Gabbard.

At first glance, both seem improbable. Carlson has just launched his own network; Gabbard just signed a deal to host a show on X. Were they really going to want to drop that now for a political run?

But that, I now realize, was old thinking. Gabbard and Carlson are both on X, not on some network. The “fairness doctrine,” which would have required a network to take them off the air, does not apply. They can go right on doing their programs, and their regular broadcasts might even be the ideal campaign medium. One-to-one with the voters, bypassing the biased media. Just as Trump did well when campaigning with his Twitter account, Poilievre is scoring with his political videos in Canada. 

This may be the new world of politics. 

I feel both Trump-Carlson and Kennedy-Gabbard would be extremely strong tickets. If this comes to pass, and the Democrats still run Biden-Harris, I expect Biden to come third.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Epstein Didn't Kill Himself. James Bond Did.

 

In 2008, state prosecutor Alexander Acosta cut an illegally generous plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein, later overturned, granting Epstein immunity from federal prosecution. Rather like Ray Epps. Asked why later, Acosta explained he was told by the relevant authorities, presumably meaning the CIA or FBI, that Epstein was an “intelligence asset.”

And that explains everything. It’s not complicated.

Of course Epstein was an intelligence asset. He was running a honey trap operation. He would tempt important individuals into having sex with minors. The girls had to be underage, to make the act sufficiently scandalous. This would open the marks—possibly willing marks, like those who undergo an initiation to join a secret society, a Hellfire Club-- to blackmail, and they were then under the agency’s control. 

The agency might also further their political or business career as well—now that they were initiated, and could be relied upon to toe the official line.

The unspecified agency is not out to prevent espionage by some foreign power. Of course not; to assume so is naïve. What’s in that for them? The agency is out to control the government of their own country or countries, apparently the US; although the UK also seems to be getting a lot of attention.

Only some conspiracy among the powerful, after all can explain how Epstein managed to “hang himself” with violence in his cell. With all the security cameras turned off, and the guards “asleep.” Caught and caged, he was no longer an asset: now he was a security risk. He might talk.

This explains why there is such resistance to Trump within the deep state; and specifically, one must notice, within the intelligence services. He was presumably never honey-trapped, for all his faults, and so he is, for them, a loose cannon.

This explains the strangeness of the last Democratic presidential race, how Bernie Sanders abruptly folded his tent and fell in line behind Biden—as, at almost the same time, did Buttigieg and Bloomberg. The word had come down; and the puppet masters had something on them.

Of course, it also makes sense to subvert the press.

How else explain the mysterious and sudden transformation of Matt Drudge from right-wing Trump supporter to just another mouthpiece for the left--killing most of his business. They must have something on him.

This explains the transformation, too, of Anne Coulter. She seemed to fall silent, and when she writes now, it is in defense of Ray Epps.

This might even explain why big companies like Google or Facebook have gone along so readily with government calls for censorship, even though it damaged their business. We know Bill Gates was involved with Epstein. Chief executives may have been compromised. This explains especially the case of Jack Dorsey, who actually seemed to welcome Musk’s acquisition of the platform. He seemed to endorse Musk’s goals, but was incapable himself of achieving them. Presumably because the invisible hands had something on him.

This perhaps even explains why democratic governments elsewhere—the UK, Canada, the EU—are doggedly pursuing unpopular policies. They are clearly answering to some master other than the people. A master who holds more power over them than the mere threat of losing office.

I wonder if Ted McCarrick’s operation within the Catholic Church, alternately bribing senior figures with large amounts of cash and holding sex parties, was only run on the same principles, or if it was an arm of the intelligence conspiracy. Might they want to control the Church, with its influence, for the same reason they would want to control the press? Where did McCarrick raise all the money that he was famous for being able to spread about? One suspects it was US taxpayers’ money, expropriated for some intelligence agency without oversight.

For that matter, where did Epstein’s money come from? He rose from nowhere.

Once you see it, it’s not subtle; it’s barely even hidden. The honey-trap is the time-honoured technique for turning foreign spies. It is an intelligence agency’s standard MO. 

Everybody knows J. Edgar Hoover kept files on important figures for possible blackmail. Why not his successors?

I suspect Stanley Kubrick was aware of it all, and was warning us with Eyes Wide Shut. He held off for many years, his wife tells us, on making this film, not feeling he was ready for it. Perhaps he waited until knew he was likely to die soon. So he had less to lose.

Or perhaps they got to him.

Keep your eyes open. Wide.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Has Pope Francis Excommunicated Himself?

 

Traditionalist commentators are claiming that Pope Francis actually automatically excommunicated himself back in 1999—by accepting life membership in the Rotary Club.

That got my attention. The Rotary Club? Isn’t that about as pedestrian and suburban-respectable an organization as you can imagine? My own father and grandfather were lifetime members. Heck, my parish priest was a member.

And yet, it seems that, although “automatic excommunication” is over the top, it is true that Catholics are not supposed to belong to the Rotary Cub. In 1950, the Vatican and Pope Pius XII declared that no Catholic priest was permitted to join or attend meetings. Lay Catholics were not explicitly prohibited, but reminded to observe the canon law that tells them to “guard against associations which are secret, condemned, seditious, suspect, or which try to escape legitimate church vigilance." Implying that Rotary arguably fell into one of these categories. 

According to Time magazine the Vatican made clear that the concern applied only to Rotary, not to other similar voluntary associations. “In answer to newsmen's questions, the Vatican last week indicated that the ban did not apply specifically to such other groups as Kiwanis, Lions, and Elks.”

This ban must have been announced at just about the time my father joined Rotary. And he must have known about it. I have the article from Time magazine, and both my father and grandfather subscribed to Time. The matter must have been under general discussion within Rotary.  Montreal’s Archbishop Paul-Emile Léger, Time reports, publicly forbade any priests from participation in any form.

My grandfather might well have been unconcerned. He was a Protestant, and had been a Freemason. The family story is that he left the Freemasons at marriage in deference to his Catholic wife. 

Yet he kept his Mason’s apron; I saw it in his belongings after his death. And Masons showed up at his funeral, identifying him as a “brother in the craft.” Would they do so if he had not been active, and not paying his dues, for over thirty years? One wonders.

Is Rotary somehow related to the Masons? They deny it. So why did the Vatican oppose Rotary?

The Time article includes their explanation. “Sometimes [in Rotary] there is undue devotion to monopolistic capitalism, and monopoly is condemnable, on both Christian and social grounds, as an offence against charity. The fact that non-members of Rotary Clubs are sometimes excluded from the benefits which Providence meant for all men . . . amounts to a condemnable monopoly."

Rotary allows only one member of each trade or profession to join each local chapter. The idea behind the club is then that other members will patronize their fellow Rotarians for all their needs. This founding concept is enshrined in the name, “Rotary”: benefits passed around the circle, greasing the gears of trade. 

This is arguably a cartel operating against the public interest: “monopolistic capitalism.” A similar collusion among those in the same business would be restraint of trade.  

Although not mentioned in the papal prohibition, I had always thought there was something else wrong with Rotary; something that ties them more directly to the Freemasons. It is their code of ethics, the “four way test,” supposed to guide each Rotarian’s words:

“1. Is it the truth?

2. Is it fair to all concerned?

3. Will it build goodwill and better friendships?

4. Will it be beneficial to all concerned?”

This might sound good, but it actually suppresses truth. It is a disguised vow of secrecy, the core issue with Freemasonry as well.

Proper ethics should begin and end with item 1. Truth itself is a transcendent value, divine; the Truth shall set you free. The truth is always of the greatest benefit to all concerned. The need for three more tests beyond this implies it is not.

Truth should apparently be concealed if it is not going to win friends and “benefit all concerned,” presumably in their own estimation.

The story given within the club on the origin of the Four-Way Test is that, by adopting it, an early Rotarian turned a failing business around. 

This makes clear that “benefit” here is material, not spiritual, benefit.

This vow of silence could support any sort of sin or criminality. If much muted here, such vows of secrecy have been used in other organizations for nefarious purposes, often for discrimination. The Freemasons, who used to prohibit black membership. The Orange Order; their contributions to anti-Catholic violence in Ireland are well known. Into the Sixties, nobody had ever been elected mayor of Toronto without being a member. More obviously, perhaps, the Ku Klux Klan, the Cosa Nostra, the Mafia.

Given all this, and the fact that the 1951 condemnation of Rotary has never been rescinded, how is it that we now have clergy and even popes active in the club?

It might be that Rotary has shown itself less sinister over the years. Or it might be symptomatic of a decline in the clergy—which many would argue has been evident since about 1960. Taylor Marshall makes the case that the Church has been heavily infiltrated since then by secret organizations: the Freemasons, the KGB, the so-called “Velvet mafia,” homosexual and pedophile rings, and the “St. Galen mafia.”

It is attractive to narcissists to do something like this. They enjoy feeling they are putting something over on others. It makes them feel superior.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Cry for Me, Argentina

 

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, prefect of the dicastery for the faith, is currently a subject of controversy for a book he wrote in 1998, now suppressed, recently discovered: Mystical Passion: Spirituality and Sensuality. It is being condemned by traditional Catholics as pornographic. 

The matter is complicated, because romantic or erotic love has always been used as a metaphor for divine love. You see this in Song of Solomon, in the Bible: 

“I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers. Thus I have become in his eyes like one bringing contentment.”

“I” in this case being the soul seeking union with God. God seeks an intimate relationship with each of us, a relationship comparable to that between a man and woman in love. But note how obviously this is a metaphoric, not a literal, statement: breasts=towers; “Like one.”

Saint John of the Cross uses similar imagery in “The Dark Night of the Soul”: 

“O, night that hast united
The lover with His beloved,
And changed her into her love.”

Again, obviously metaphor: night is personified; the unnamed lover represents love itself. 

And there is the entire Medieval tradition of “romance.” Even if commonly misconstrued, the love of the knight for his maiden is always a metaphor for divine love. The unfortunate result of this has been that, in the West, erotic love has been falsely given some of the numinousness of divine love in the popular imagination, resulting in an unfortunate and unhealthy preoccupation with finding a perfect mate and deriving some profound satisfaction from the sex act.

In Hinduism, the same point is made in the beautiful Krishna-Radha cycle: the soul is attracted to God as young girls are attracted to a handsome boy.

So Fernandez’s book might only have been more of this. Literal-minded critics were perhaps merely misunderstanding this longstanding metaphor. I had to read it for myself.

But it is not so. Granted, Fernandez and his supporters draw on this tradition, as if they are doing the same thing. But it is Fernandez who is being literal-minded. When he speaks of “love,” he means physical orgasm. He seems unaware of any other sort of love, beyond physical pleasure.

He gets specific and clinical, for example, discussing the female sex organs and how they are stimulated. And he speaks of orgasm as a sacrament: 

“If God can be present at that level of our existence, he can also be present when two human beings love each other and reach orgasm; and that orgasm, experienced in the presence of God, can also be a sublime act of worship to God. … God loves man’s happiness, therefore, it is also an act of worship to God to experience a moment of happiness.”

Nor need those two human beings be married or of opposite sexes, for this to be true: “the person [experiencing grace] can do things that are objectively sinful, without being guilty, and without losing the grace of God or the experience of his love.”

It has to be alarming that someone with such views is not only a Catholic priest, but a Bishop, a Cardinal, and actually in charge of the Holy Office, vetting the faith of the Church. It illuminates the current drive by the Vatican to approve the blessing of divorced and same sex couples.

The Vatican is no longer Catholic; or religious in any sense.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.