Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 1317
May 16, 2011
Your stupid joke for the day
The sound of a well-blown nose is mucus to my ears.
That joke happens to be really funny when you have a head cold and are operating at a 50 IQ point deficit.
I just made that joke up, by the way. Ah me! I am sooooo funny!
That joke happens to be really funny when you have a head cold and are operating at a 50 IQ point deficit.
I just made that joke up, by the way. Ah me! I am sooooo funny!
A reader writes:
Please pray for a situation in my family in which a long-held grudge is threatening to drive some of us apart. Such a thing seems commonplace, but lack of forgiveness is I believe, the ultimate horror.Father, hear our prayer for reconciliation, forgiveness and healing in this family through your Son Jesus Christ. Mother Mary, pray for these people that the love of the Trinity will prevail here.
Prayer Request
Our family would appreciate prayers as we sort through the aftermath of a house fire. All seven of us, plus two dogs, escaped unharmed, thanks be to God. We are so very blessed and thankful! There is a lot ahead to sort through, though, and we can use all the prayers we can get. I have posted the story on my blog here, if anyone would like to read more. Blessings from the Heidmanns!Father, thank you for saving this family. Grant that they will be able to rebuild their lives and move on through Christ our Lord! Mother Mary, pray for them!
Praise Report
A reader writes:
"THANKS BE TO GOD--KATALINA HAS BEEN FOUND. This is Jan--I've just talked to Lisa. Through tears of joy, she told me that Katalina is safe, that she is in good hands, and that your prayers have been answered in the best possible way. Please know how very, very thankful the Mikitarian family (including Katalina) are for your prayers."Praise to you, Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Illegal Immigration Fracas
So last week, John Zmirak (whose writing I typically admire) wrote a column whose title and thesis seem to have been calculated to inflame: Amnesty Equals Abortion. The idea, in a nutshell, was that if you think 11 million people who have been exploited as workers without rights should just go ahead and be integrated into American society since they are already inextricably bound to it by both business and labor, you are ipso facto supporting the Democrats and are are therefore pro-abortion. My response was, more or less, "What the WTF?" and the comboxes more or less bore out my general thoughts on the matter.
The sensible reply came from some guy named Miguel, who tried to suggest that Republicans might find it easier to get the support of naturally socially conservative, pro-life, Catholic immigrants if they stopped treating them like enemies. In other words, the only thing driving illegal immigrants into the arms of Democrats is Republicans, who inexplicably seem to loathe these natural cultural allies. Another commenter responded by calling him and his kind "invaders".
That more or less summed up the debate and gave me one more reason to think that the thing that used to be conservatism is just kind of crazy.
Meanwhile, over at the Catholic Key, Jack Smith responded to the most inflammatory part of the proposition with a (mostly) reasoned defense that I thought carried the day. He does get "Chronicles" wrong, I think. But when you've just been declared "not, in cold fact, pro-life" on highly tendentious grounds you can tend to respond in the heat of the moment. Scott Richert does a good job of defending Chronicles in the comboxes. And Zmirak, to his great credit, disassociated himself from Takimag when it went nuts for racism a while back. So I hope that distraction is laid to rest and the main point is addressed: namely that it is rubbish to say somebody who disagrees with John Zmirak on amnesty is pro-abortion.
My own views remain what they have been. I think the law is made for man, not man for the law. So I think the huge burning issue that animates most conservatives on this is, well, trivial. That is, I don't much care about immigration law. I care about divine law and see civil law as a rough tool for trying to get it done, sometimes useful, sometimes stupid and ignorable in a pinch.
The reality is, we have, as a nation, chosen to ignore the civil law for decades so that our very own native-born capitalist bosses can exploit these people as laborers by the millions. They are here, the vast majority of them, not as "invaders" but as people who are seeking a better life for their families. We take from them economically, but are refusing to give to them politically. It's unrealistic to talk about deporting them since that would destroy the economy *we* have chosen to build on their backs. Biblically, the obligation is to care for the alien, the orphan and the widow. Since we are willing to exploit them, it seems to me only just that we treat them like citizens.
The only reason I can see that this works out to being "pro-abortion" is that, as Miguel points out, conservatives think that treating these natural cultural allies as enemies is a smart plan. I don't get that. The only other reason it's "pro-abortion" is that the reason these folks are here is that the 50 million people who should have been born to do their jobs were killed by us good white folk and we won't do those jobs.
The sensible reply came from some guy named Miguel, who tried to suggest that Republicans might find it easier to get the support of naturally socially conservative, pro-life, Catholic immigrants if they stopped treating them like enemies. In other words, the only thing driving illegal immigrants into the arms of Democrats is Republicans, who inexplicably seem to loathe these natural cultural allies. Another commenter responded by calling him and his kind "invaders".
That more or less summed up the debate and gave me one more reason to think that the thing that used to be conservatism is just kind of crazy.
Meanwhile, over at the Catholic Key, Jack Smith responded to the most inflammatory part of the proposition with a (mostly) reasoned defense that I thought carried the day. He does get "Chronicles" wrong, I think. But when you've just been declared "not, in cold fact, pro-life" on highly tendentious grounds you can tend to respond in the heat of the moment. Scott Richert does a good job of defending Chronicles in the comboxes. And Zmirak, to his great credit, disassociated himself from Takimag when it went nuts for racism a while back. So I hope that distraction is laid to rest and the main point is addressed: namely that it is rubbish to say somebody who disagrees with John Zmirak on amnesty is pro-abortion.
My own views remain what they have been. I think the law is made for man, not man for the law. So I think the huge burning issue that animates most conservatives on this is, well, trivial. That is, I don't much care about immigration law. I care about divine law and see civil law as a rough tool for trying to get it done, sometimes useful, sometimes stupid and ignorable in a pinch.
The reality is, we have, as a nation, chosen to ignore the civil law for decades so that our very own native-born capitalist bosses can exploit these people as laborers by the millions. They are here, the vast majority of them, not as "invaders" but as people who are seeking a better life for their families. We take from them economically, but are refusing to give to them politically. It's unrealistic to talk about deporting them since that would destroy the economy *we* have chosen to build on their backs. Biblically, the obligation is to care for the alien, the orphan and the widow. Since we are willing to exploit them, it seems to me only just that we treat them like citizens.
The only reason I can see that this works out to being "pro-abortion" is that, as Miguel points out, conservatives think that treating these natural cultural allies as enemies is a smart plan. I don't get that. The only other reason it's "pro-abortion" is that the reason these folks are here is that the 50 million people who should have been born to do their jobs were killed by us good white folk and we won't do those jobs.
Something called...
Online Catholic Network is auctioning a rosary for $5000 dollars. The only thing notable about it is a) it was owned by Fr. Corapi and b) it was blessed by JPII, touched to St. Peter's tomb and touched by Mother Teresa. The ad makes special note of these facts and that appears to be the sole reason for the outrageous price.
I find this troubling because what appears to be being hawked here is the various graces attached to the rosary by its blessings. And that is not simony because...? Also, I'm curious to know just who is behind Online Catholic Network. They seem strangely reticent to provide a "Who We Are" page on their site.
Update: Ask and ye shall receive. A reader writes:
In short, is Fr. Corapi profiting from hawking blessed rosaries on eBay?
I don't know that this is the case. It might be, for all I know, that flathead media or Mr. Sprinkle are just strapped for cash, times being what they are. And they may not be aware that this is as dodgy as it looks. But I'd be curious to know whether Fr. Corapi is involved in this, since he at any rate, should know.
By the way, here's an interesting bit of trivia I didn't know (from another of my invaluable readers. In addition to be "absolutely forbidden to sell sacred relics" (which I knew), the sale of any blessed item immediately removes the blessing. A reader writes:
I find this troubling because what appears to be being hawked here is the various graces attached to the rosary by its blessings. And that is not simony because...? Also, I'm curious to know just who is behind Online Catholic Network. They seem strangely reticent to provide a "Who We Are" page on their site.
Update: Ask and ye shall receive. A reader writes:
Well that was easy.Okay. I kinda suspected something like that. Now the next question is: is the "flatheadmedia" thingie that Mr. Sprinkle runs something that Fr. Corapi is backing like he backs Santa Cruz Media (which was doing all the "Don't listen to that disgruntled former employee or trust those mean investigators" flak work for him)?
http://tinyurl.com/44x3ldp
This domain is owned by "Matt Sprinkle" of Kila MT.
Kila is about 30 miles from Whitefish - where the fathercorapi.com domains are registered.
If you search for "Matt Sprinkle" you will find that he is married to one "Tamar" who is Fr. Corapi's goddaughter.
http://tinyurl.com/6bf8kkm
In short, is Fr. Corapi profiting from hawking blessed rosaries on eBay?
I don't know that this is the case. It might be, for all I know, that flathead media or Mr. Sprinkle are just strapped for cash, times being what they are. And they may not be aware that this is as dodgy as it looks. But I'd be curious to know whether Fr. Corapi is involved in this, since he at any rate, should know.
By the way, here's an interesting bit of trivia I didn't know (from another of my invaluable readers. In addition to be "absolutely forbidden to sell sacred relics" (which I knew), the sale of any blessed item immediately removes the blessing. A reader writes:
Selling a blessed item removes the blessing (or any other graces an item might have, such as being touched to a holy relic). I worked part time once in a Catholic book store and whenever a priest happened to in there, people who bought stuff (rosaries, holy cards, etc.) would ask to have them blessed. And he or us would always tell the customer: you have to buy the item first, otherwise the blessing will be removed when you pay for it.
Bravo to Joshua Mercer!
For telling the truth about torture.
The reason this is back in the news is because the pols and media hacks who spent much of the last decade trying to justify Bush/Cheney torture policies (and exonerate themselves from war crimes) are now lyingly claiming that torture got bin Laden. It didn't. But suckers who want to believe that it did (because they invested themselves in defending torture too) are passing on this pseudoknowledge as gospel.
In reality, as interrogation experts from every branch of the military and intelligence services agree, torture is not only immoral, it doesn't freakin' work! In fact, it's counter-productive, wasting millions and sending our limited human resources off on wild goose chases.
Why does this matter? Because the media talking head liars for the Thing that Used to Be Conservatism who are trying to get some Me Too Love for killing bin Laden are deliberately hawking bad and destructive policies which put Americans in danger, all to save their own sorry selfish skin. They are, in a word, unpatriotic. They don't care about keeping you safe. They care about saving themselves. The only "evidence" ever pointed to by these self-serving creeps is their own claims that their torture worked.
Don't get played any more. Torture, like all intrinsic evil, is a Faustian Bargain. You lose your soul and get *nothing* in return.
The reason this is back in the news is because the pols and media hacks who spent much of the last decade trying to justify Bush/Cheney torture policies (and exonerate themselves from war crimes) are now lyingly claiming that torture got bin Laden. It didn't. But suckers who want to believe that it did (because they invested themselves in defending torture too) are passing on this pseudoknowledge as gospel.
In reality, as interrogation experts from every branch of the military and intelligence services agree, torture is not only immoral, it doesn't freakin' work! In fact, it's counter-productive, wasting millions and sending our limited human resources off on wild goose chases.
Why does this matter? Because the media talking head liars for the Thing that Used to Be Conservatism who are trying to get some Me Too Love for killing bin Laden are deliberately hawking bad and destructive policies which put Americans in danger, all to save their own sorry selfish skin. They are, in a word, unpatriotic. They don't care about keeping you safe. They care about saving themselves. The only "evidence" ever pointed to by these self-serving creeps is their own claims that their torture worked.
Don't get played any more. Torture, like all intrinsic evil, is a Faustian Bargain. You lose your soul and get *nothing* in return.
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