Lovey, the taxman's here!

I can't resist the temptation to offer a few words on the recent dust-up over the taxes on the new yacht purchased by our junior senior senator, John Forbes "Liveshot" Kerry, with his second wife's first husband's money:

1. I like yachts.  While the formal definition of "yacht" is "any watercraft used exclusively for pleasure" one tends to apply it to vessels larger than 30-40 feet.  The next best thing to owning a yacht is having friends who own yachts. 
2. I hate taxes.  I'd be happy content to pay a federal tax whose proceeds were used to fund the military and a government just large enough to run a postal service and adjudicate matters like interstate highway numbering.  I suppose we'd also need a state tax that would fund stuff like those few departments and agencies that are actually necessary, e.g. the State Police and the Department of Corrections.  Most "services" should be local, paid for by locally-levied taxes.
3. I'm no fan of J.F. Kerry.  I don't like his politics, I don't like his sanctimonious attitude, and I don't like his phony brand of Catholicism.
4. In general I applaud "Liveshot" for doing his best to avoid the onerous Massachusetts sales tax and annual excise tax on watercraft.  Unfortunately for him, the sorry effort which came to light last week apparently was his best.
5. Like many scandals and lesser incidents, the cover-up was worse than the offense.  Witness our hero's bumbling and tone-deaf attempts to explain it all away, which basically amounted to "It's my wife's boat and it's owned by an out-of-store corporation and it's maintained in R.I. and we don't owe any taxes but we'll pay what we owe and we've alread sent them a check and how dare you accuse J. F. Kerry of even thinking about evading taxes and by the way can I get out of here now?"
6. So - is he just arrogant or just obtuse?  In the first place, why not have his yacht built by one of the yards in New England?  Hinkley comes to mind; they're in Maine rather than the People's Republic but they're "local".  And there's certainly nothing illegal about someone who's a legal resident of Massachusetts documenting his yacht with a local hailing port even though its maintenance is done out-of-state.
7. Did you notice that The Boston Daily Worker didn't have a word to say about it until today, after J.F.K. voluntarily paid the Massachusetts sales tax?  Remember when Christy Mihos had a disagreement with the tax collector over the taxes on his boat?  What double standard?

In my boating days I got chased by tax collectors for the measly excise tax due on a 35-year old wooden boat.  Seems the law says that the tax is due to the locality in which the vessel is berthed on 1 July, but the town in which I stored my boat (outdoors) for the winter also attempted to collect the same tax.  "I paid it to the other town" doesn't always cut it in Taxachusetts, and there is no "oops, our mistake, we'll fix it" from a municpal tax collector.  Perhaps, after protracted negotiations, you might receive a 30-day extension in which to file an abatement of the improperly-levied "double" tax", but many people in that situation wind-up paying twice before they're allowed to seek a rebate.  Unless, of course, your name is Kennedy or Kerry or .  And so, with it all, I have very little sympathy for ol' Liveshot. 

A Serious Question

There have been scores of artists whose lives have been scandalous but who've nonetheless created works which glorify God.  There have also been plenty of good and pious men and women who've striven for most of their lives to please God but yet fallen into notorious sin on occasion; some of them we know today as saints!

It is with these things in mind that I ask: whither Mel Gibson?  In the past several years he's had a number of, um, rather embarrassing public scandals.  First there was his DUI arrest in which he made a number of anti-Semitic remarks, then his divorce of his wife of 26 years which coincided with his affair with a thrice-married actress fourteen years his junior.  His latest brush with public opprobrium has been courtesy of the rather messy end of that relationship, in which it is quite possible that domestic violence charges may be brought.

All of these unsavory events have occurred since his production of The Passion of the Christ - which he also co-wrote, directed, and financed - in 2004.

Not that Mr. Gibson was a candidate for immediate sainthood prior to that point, but it seems as though his personal life and career have taken a decided downturn since then.  Hmm, do you suppose Mel might have incurred the supernatural wrath of someone of great power?  Someone capable of taking possession of hearts and minds and souls, or at least bodies?

To put it bluntly, do you suppose Mel Gibson is possessed?  I heard the latest audiotape released by his ex-girlfriend (the one with whose help he apparently wrecked his marriage) and he sounds to me like a very disturbed soul.  I got to thinking and I asked myself -  I also asked The Archlady - how someone who put his career and personal prestige on the line to make The Passion of The Christ could have such a dramatic turnabout in his life within a few short years... for the worse?  

Remember, he wasn't simply a hired hand for The Passion, it was his own project from start to end and he deserves all possible human credit for it.  it was in many ways a personal testimony to his faith, and Our Faith.  If you are a believing Catholic and you think that Satan would simply let that go by without notice, even as it became (at that time) the 8th-highest grossing picture ever, you might want to re-examine your own faith!  Even as this film stirred passions in Hollywood and the other elite citadels of our liberal and agnostic culture you can be sure that it caused great wailing and gnashing of teeth in Gehenna.

So - has the evil one bombarded Mr. Gibson with all sorts of provocations and temptations; or is this simply the sorry result of too much fame and public attention lavished onto one man?  And, if indeed the minions of the underworld did in fact launch an assault upon Mr Gibson's soul, should we take the latest news as evidence that they have (at leat temporarily) succeeded?

Mel Gibson has done some awful things, but he also made a film - of his own volition - which has done incalculable good for many souls and the Holy Roman Catholic Church.  By the Faith which he professes he is one of our brothers.  Pray for him, please.  It's likely that he's under attack and - as far-fetched as it might seem - theoretically possible that he's succumbed to possession.  Or perhaps he's just lost his faith.  Either way he could use some help from above!

While I was away...

I was away last week and had minimal contact with the outside world.   I had a chance to catch up with my reading last night and ran across a very interesting article, on Zenit of all places: an interview with Fr. Calvin Goodwin, F.S.S.P.  I hope a great many priests read it, and laics as well...

In other news, I learned on Saturday that the St. Benedict Center in Richmond, N.H. is very close to canonical regularization with the Diocese of Manchester.  While Pope Benedict is not directly involved with this case - at least not to my knowledge - it is unarguable that his papacy has created the climate which has made this a possibility.  

Fr. Z - and others - refer to Benedict XVI as "The Pope of Christian Unity", and they're absolutely spot-on.  God grant him many more years on the Throne of Peter.

A happy anniversary - Deo Gratias!

Three years ago today Pope Benedict's apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum was promulgated, acknowledging the right of priests to use the 1962 Missal ad libitum privately and under most circumstances publicly.  Summorum Pontificum also established guidelines under which the faithful could request the T.L.M. directly from their pastors rather than seeking recourse to their bishop.  As I've opined before, this was not only a gift to Catholics inclined toward traditional modes of liturgy and spitituality, it was a great gift from Pope Benedict XVI to the entire Church.  Outside of the realm, admittedly small, of those who attend or celebrate the traditional Mass; Summorum Pontificum has had immense repercussions in the Church's relationship with the Orthodox Churches and with the large number of Anglicans disaffected by the increasing lunacy within their communions.

But since its stated intentions were to make the T.L.M. available to all who desired it and also to remove one of the stumbling blocks to a regularization of the S.S.P.X. it seems opportune to assess its success in those areas after three years (well, almost - S.P. came into effect on 14 September 2007).

I do not have the requisite statistical information on the growth of the traditional Mass in the past three years to make an informed pronouncement on the global situation, but I think it's definitely worth noting that in 2007 there were a total of ten every-Sunday T.L.M.'s in all of New England.  There were two whole states without a single (approved) Mass in the Usus Antiquor (not even one in a cemetery chapel at 4 a.m. on the fifth Tuesday of February!)  In the three years of Summorum Pontificum the number of every-Sunday Masses has more than doubled (to at least twenty-two), every diocese has at least one Sunday Mass, and there are lots of regularly scheduled weekday Masses, e.g. First Fridays.  One parish, Mary Immaculate of Lourdes in Newton Upper Falls (MA) has a daily T.L.M. while Holy Name of Jesus in Providence (RI) has two traditional Masses every Sunday.  It's hard to recall that back in late June and Early July of 2007 the Archbishop of Braintree was telling everyone how he'd set the Pope straight on the question of the T.L.M. in America, i.e. that there was virtually no demand for it!  Do you suppose he'll have anything to say for today's occasion?

Oh, by the way, despite the best efforts of many within the Church and their allies in the "progressive" media there has been a notable improvement in relations with the S.S.P.X.  The combination of Summorum Pontificum and the lifting of the excommunications of their four bishops have facilitated a new stage which has begun with doctrinal talks which are now ongoing.

Thank you, Pope Benedict!

Happy Birthday America

Despite our current travails this is still the greatest nation in the world - note that neither Russia nor China have "Illegal immigrant" problems, and any walls we build are not to keep our own people in!


Over on The Corner on National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg linked to Calvin Coolidge's address on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It is quite good, and if you've never read it before you should do so, it will not be time wasted.

Happy 4th to everyone!

Mr. Fix-it - Part I

Hey, in a perfect world the best thing government could do to improve the lives of us citizens is to stay the heck out of our lives.  But we live in the real world, where multiple layers of government and regulatory agencies encroach ever further into our lives and homes.  It's all for our benefit, we're told, meanwhile we watch as the economy continues to stagnate, political considerations and bureaucracy stymie attempts to clean-up the Gulf oil leak, public debt and budget deficits at all levels of government continue growing at an alarming rate, and illegal immigration continues to threaten our sovereignty.

The worst thing about it all is that the Obama Administration doesn't seem to have a plan, unless all of this chaos is their plan.  The only focus seems to be on using each problem or crisis to gain the maximum leverage toward implementing their far-left statist agenda.

Since a growing majority of the nation seems to be rather disenchanted with Dear Leader and his seeming inability to address these issues, its likely that the next president will be someone widely seen as competent and experienced in problem-solving.  The time also seems ripe for a re-awakening of the much-reviled concept of "states' rights", witness the number of states that have filed lawsuits against "Obamacare" and of course the recent Arizona law regarding illegal immigrants.  As such I thought it might be opportune to offer a few proposals for regaining our national equilibrium (and sanity). 

Herewith, in Part I, some proposals for addressing the problem of illegal immigration:

1.) Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California should agree to finish the incompete sections of the border fence themselves.  The impact of illegal immigration is felt most keenly in those border states, and both public opinion and political will seem to be aligned in favor of addressing the problem.  Can you imagine the outcry if the federal government attempts to stop these states - or private landowners residing in them - from finishing a fence across their own property?  FEASIBILITY: Reasonable.

2.) Levy a tax on any funds sent out of the country by an individual unable to prove they have legal resident status.  Reports vary widely but it seems safe to say that a minimum of Ten Billion Dollars are sent to Mexico each year, and a whole lot of it undoubtedly comes from "undocumented" workers who are unlikely to be paying any state or federal taxes.  How about 5% for the state and 15% for the feds?  Wanna bet the media would call it the "Mex-Tax"?  FEASIBILITY: Remote right now, but perhaps it could start locally,

3.) No more "anchor babies" - if your mother isn't in the country legally, you aren't automatically a citizen.  FEASIBILITY: Difficult, I'm not sure if there are Constitutional issues here...

Note that these aren't intended to be all-encompassing, my intent is to present some ideas which haven't yet been tried or entered the mainstream of public discussion.  More to come...