Nothing I can say would add to the eloquence of this:
I can only hope that America's REAL enemies - not the "enemies" of those who seek blanket amnesty or the "hostage-takers" who fail to express sufficient enthusiasm for The Messiah's last-minute plan to retain the Bush-era tax rates, but those nations and political movements which wish America ill - don't view this image the same way I do...
God Bless America, now more than ever. Stand beside her, and guide her, through the night with the light from above. This is one dark night we're going through right now.
I really can't believe that the Sox acquired Adrian Gonzales - their hearts' desire - from San Diego for three prospects. This is huge, a bona fide 3 or 4 hitter who's not yet thirty and had averaged over 30 homers and 100 RBI playing half his games in the spacious and pither-friendly Petco Park.
Of course they traded their two best prospects, Kelly and Rizzo, and Fuentes has to be in their top ten. And, rumor has it, there will also be a PTBNL heading San Diego's way. But still, it looks like a real steal from where I sit. Gonzales is virtually an identical player to Mark Teixeira, who the Sox ardently wooed before he signed with the Evil Empire in Gotham. Tex is a switch-hitter and his numbers are slightly better, but he's played in better lineups and MUCH more hitter-friendly parks for the past five seasons. But AG may be an even better fielder, which is no small feat; at least he seems to have superior range although that is hardly the most important attribute for a first baseman.
Of course, the reason AG was available is that he will be a free agent after 2011 and he's looking for a contract comparable to the one the Yankees gave Tex. I have little doubt that the Sox will pony up, probably before the weekend is over. They want this guy - they need this guy - Theo Epstein has been dreaming and scheming how to get this guy - and they're not going to let him slip away over a measly difference of ten or twenty millions of dollars.
Meanhile they're not done - they could still re-sign Adrian Beltre if they were intent on leading the league in Adrians, and there is some speculation that they might do so with an eye toward moving Youk temporarily to left field - egad! Sort of a Yaz-in reverse - everyone remembers that Yaz was a superlative left fielder who became an decent first baseman, but not so many remember (and those of us who do would prefer to forget) his monthlong stint at third at the end of the '73 season, after he volunteered to fill-in for the injured Rico Petrocelli.
Youk is a decent third baseman who has made himself into a superlative first baseman but whose brief stints in left field were reminiscent of Yastrzemski's efforts at the hot corner. Really gives one some appreciation for guys like Steve Lyons, Tony Phillips, Ben Zobrist, et al; who the manager can plug-in just about anywhere knowng that they won't embarrass themselves or the team. But I digress.
I'm still a little woried about the catching situation - in Salty we trust, and let's hope they keep a good supply of Geritol onhand for Tek - and they need some major help in the bullpen, but this one move does a ton to solidify the batting order for 2011 and many years to come.
Amongst the new cardinals created at the recent consistory was the Archbishop of Columbo in Sri Lanka, H. E. Malcolm Ranjith. Some of you might remember Archbishop Ranjith from his time as the secretary for the Congregation for Divine Worship and his high-profile support of liturgical sanity and tradition. It is well-known that he shares Pope Benedict XVI's vision for the Church and enjoys the Pope's confidence. Many think he will be papabile at the next conclave...
Meanwhile I got quite the kick out of some of the photos from the homecoming festivities for the new cardinal. These people know how to be joyous in their faith, no over-scrupulous quaverings about "triumphalism". Of course Catholics - all Christians, actually - comprise less than a tenth of the population of Sri Lanka which makes me wonder what kind of relationship they have with the Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists of that land. Must be fairly good, nobody seems to have objected to the Galeromobile being driven down the thoroughfares of their fair city.
Pretty cool if you ask me - I challenge the Archdiocese of Braintree to rig up something like this next time we get a new Cardinal!
(For more photos of Cardinal Ranjith's joyous homecoming go here)
The recent groundswell of dissatisfaction with the intrusive airport security measures visited upon ordinary Americans bade me to wonder what the late William F. Buckley, Jr. would have thought of it all. Many years ago Buckley wrote an essay entitled "Why Don't We Complain?" in which he lamented the apathy with which most Americans supinely accept the ever-increasing incursions upon their freedom and autonomy by the government.
It would, of course, have been seen as quite impolitic had Buckley publicly expressed his chagrin at any of the enhanced security measures which were hastily enacted in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. But with the benefit of nine years experience and hindsight it is readily apparent that the basic approach to airport security, in which everyone is treates as equally suspicious, is simply the gesture of a bloated government which lacks the will to put your safety ahead of the totem of political correctness.
Any measure of security requires us to relinquish some of our personal liberty. In many cases that's a fully acceptable trade-off; I am quite content to be disallowed to stroll blithely into the Pentagon carrying a concealed weapon because the odds are quite overwhelming that someone less trustworthy than little ol' me could try the same thing with malicious intent and purpose. But the requirement that each and every passenger - even a nun in her habit, an infant, a grandmother in a wheelchair - all must submit to a full body scan or an invasive patdown - either of which is a gross affront to modesty - is sheer politically correct cowardice, required because the government is afraid to admit the truth.
We need only look at the practices which Israeil uses to see that these invasive measures need not be applied to every man, woman, and child that attempts to board an airplane. The elephant in the room is "profiling", which we durst not even consider. But every single attempted act of terrorism using airplanes against the United States has been perpetrated by indivduals who fit a certain "profile" - and I'm not speaking only of appearance or national origin. Israel has lived under a constant threat from the same enemies who have now begun to target America and it has successfully protected it's air travelers through the use of intelligent screening and... "profiling"!
Perhaps enough finally is enough. The Tea Party movement, which is a true grassroots American phenomenon, grew out of Americans' frustration at the erosion of their liberties at the hands of an ever-more intrusive and overreaching government. I think the recent spate of airport security incidents is a manifestation of the same sort, representing a further awakening by Americans to the dangers posed by our government's aproach to governing. William F. Buckley would no doubt be pleased by this turn of events and might note that we've finally started to complain!
Ironically, even after the results of the recent election and the MSM's coverage of the airport security controversy, the Obama administration still doesn't seem to get it. We heard this week that Secretary of "Homeland Security" Janet Napolitano is considering a waiver of the intrusive screening requirements for... whom? Nuns? Infants? Grandmothers in wheelchairs? Nope, Muslim women! You can't make this stuff up, as another Buckley - WFB's son Christopher, a novelist - has said: we're living in the post-satirical age!
But don't get me wrong, I'm fine with excluding Muslim women - and Catholic women, and Jewish women, and protestant women, and Mormon women, and Buddhist women, and lots of other women - and men - too. 99% of the traveling public ought to be able to answer a few questions from a screener, keep our shoes on, pass our carry-on baggage through an x-ray machine, and walk through a metal detector. But we ought to adopt some common-sense "profiling" of passengers which would reserve these extraordinary screening methods for those indivuduals whose circumstances raise reasonable suspicions about their trustworthiness. Even The Boston Daily Worker (a.k.a. The Globe) permitted publication of an op-ed piece recognizing this as long ago as 2006, but of course this isn't really the paper's editorial stance. And the majority of the left, in particular the A.C.L.U., vehemently opposes any such practices.
So - keep complaining, America; but in the meantime prepare to be exposed, humiliated, and groped. Unless you're wearing a hijab and burkha, in which case you will probably sail through airport security with nary a touch...
UPDATE: lest anyone think I plagiarized George Will's column in Sunday's Washington Post, be assured that I didn't read it until several hours after posting the above. But do read it yourselves, he has some good things to say - including the pithy description of the airport screening charade as "security theater"! Pitch perfect!
Two news stories this week reminded me of this fact. Here in the People's Republic, a mere 48% of the electorate voted for our benighted governor Deval Patrick. Unfortunately, there were four candidates, and the second-place finisher got 42%. This, to our fearless leader, apparently constitutes a mandate so overwhelming that he can blithely resume his long-held quest to enact a "right" for illegal aliens to pay the in-state tuition rate at state colleges and universities!
Mind you, the children of a member of our armed services living in Massachusetts on active duty does not quality as a "resident" able to receive such a benefit. Nor does someone who lives in a bordering state but who is employed in Massachusetts and pays taxes here. Soldiers and the gainfully-employed are not big priorities for the likes of Deval Patrick.
As for his messianic doppelganger, we got a painful reminder about him this week as well when the civilian trial of an Islamic terrorist almost resulted in his - the terrorist's - aquittal. B.H. Obama had insisted that the best way to try captured terrorists was in civilian courts - as opposed to military tribunals - and the the trial of Ahmen Ghailani was intended to be a rehearsal for the BIG ONE, the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.
Well, as you're probably aware the rules of evidence are a *little* bit different in our criminal courts than they are in a wartime military tribunal. Nothing wrong with that. But the result in this case was the indubitably guilty Ghailani being acquitted of 284 of 285 charges.
Of course there are none so blind as those who will not see. We elected an inexperienced, radical young leftist as president of the most powerful nation on earth, thus we ought not be surprised that he has surrounded himself with the likes of Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano, who are (not surprisingly) in full agreement with him that trying war criminals in the civilan court system is a good idea.
If this is what Massachusetts - and America - want, so be it. But count me out. Barely six years ago a few leftist celebrities were vowing to leave America if G. W. Bush was re-elected. To my knowledge none did. But right about now Canada is looking better and better to me...
One of the better Botafumeiro videos out there. The Pope. The Botafumeiro. Filmed with a real camera, not someone's phone. Alas it lacks the dramatic nature of the one - somewhere on youtube.com - in which the combination of an overmatched camera, some fortuitous glare, and a full load of incense make the thing look like a glowing meteor streaking across the transepts with a full tail of smoke. (Indeed, watching Benedict's stinginess with the incense I wondered if Spain had their own version of OSHA, but of course OSHA wouldn't allow any such thing unless everyone in the workplace, er, cathedral had hardhats... at least) But this one is much clearer and there are some unique perspectives, also the sound is decent; you can actually hear the words of the Himno al Apostol Santiago...
Don't misunderstand me - I *know* stuff like this is pretty much inessential to eternal salvation. But Catholic worship has always been distinctively sensuous and there's nothing wrong with doing things on an outsized scale in church - we're there to worship the God if infinite power and majesty after all. And for the past 45 years the liturgical "experts" have been introducing an endless stream of novelties in an effort to make the liturgy more "relevant" and "interesting" while eliminating the notions of power and majesty.
Bah! This is no novelty, no meaningless liturgical entertainment. They've been doing it for at least ten centuries. They had to, to relieve the interesting odors presented by hundreds of pilgrims camping inside the Cathedral! And for goodness sake, the thing had already been in use for a few hundred years when Catherine of Aragon - you may remember her - stopped by in 1499 on the way to England to marry the heir to the British throne. During her visit, the Botafumeiro parted company with its rope and crashed through a window in one of the transepts. Maybe she should have taken it as an omen and gone back home...
But anyway, this is an ancient tradition, beloved of Compostelians and pilgrims alike, and so what if it happens to be a little bit over-the-top? When in doubt as to the suitability of a particular liturgical element you can almost always make a proper judgment by asking three questions:
1.) Was it introduced for an actual reason, or as an experiment/novelty for the sake of "change"?
2.) Did it precede the Council (of Trent!)?
3.) What would Bugnini have thought of it?
I rest my case.
(n.b. get your minds out of the gutter, I said "sensuous", not "sensual"!)
On Veterans' Day I'd like to thank all whose selfless service has helped to preserve our freedoms and way of life in the greatest nation ever.
I'd like to personally thank +Uncle Don (WW2 + Korea), +Uncle Bill (WW2), Uncle Bob, Uncle Paul, George, Frankie, Joe, Eddie, Tom, Nathan, Dave, Ulysses, Mariel, and Jesse among others.
