The Benefits of Having a Humour Consultant on Your Campaign Bus

Question posed to Paul Martin on the Liberal site blog:

As a leader, do you believe you have any characteristics in common with the Capt. Kirk from the original series?

PM responds: "Well, I certainly had more in common with him back then than I do now that he's a fat lawyer."

I'm no scrooge; I'll acknowledge funny when I hear it.

In unrehearseable life however, Martin's funniness is more like burping grandma funny than gosh you're witty funny.

...And Counting, and Recounting

Today is my 31st birthday. My wife surprised me with a party last night.

I gave a little speech to the crowd, saying "I don't know half as you half as much as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

There were enough Tolkien readers in the room to get it.

I also said, despite the reception of a really cool gift, that what I really wanted was a Conservative majority for my birthday.

So come on Canada, be nice to a guy who's too young to ever have had his party in power.

This Just In #1*

Paul Martin has admitted to a press conference that the Conservatives are running a better campaign, have a better platform, and will govern more effectively.

The Prime Minister stated, "Fundamentally, this election is about values. We have come to realize, that fundamentally, Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have a lot of good ideas. Their values have come through with astonishing clarity, and they are values that all Canadians believe. They deserve your vote."

He even went so far as to retract many of his hostile statements from the last few weeks that have not had their intended effect on the polls. "I've accused Mr. Harper of aligning himself with all sort of strange characters, but my statements were fundamentally incorrect."

Last week the Liberal Party pounced on a perceived flaw in the Conservative's budget plan. This too, Martin retracted. "We admit that when we looked at the Conservative budget, we were looking at it from a partisan angle, and were trying to score political points. Fundamentally, that approach is not the way to analyze a budget. Many of our top minds, including Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, got carried away by desperation. That was, fundamentally, unfair."

He concluded his press conference that announcing that he had already voted in advance polls for Georges-A. Bastien, the Conservative candidate in Lasalle-Emard where Martin himself is running for re-election.

The moral of the story: Fundamentally, are we really to be surprised that the Liberals think we've got it wrong?

Attention Class!

I'll be starting a new type of posting here. Any pieces under the title "This Just In" are news stories I've made up entirely; they will include copious amounts of sarcasm and irony - but each one will have a moral.

The Efficacy (Or Lack Thereof) of Politics

As one who identifies himself primarily as a still-eager Catholic convert, I must admit that many of my recent posts have been specifically unrelated to my Catholicism.

I lived in Ottawa, our nation's capital, for a few years, and my favorite way to blow an afternoon was by going to Question Period and observing. This was back in the heyday of Stockwell Day and Jean Chretien and Jane Stewart and Don "Binder Boy" Boudria, and it was an exciting time to observe.

During those years, I began to realize that I may be called to enter politics someday. This isn't something I tremendously want to do; it's more something that I feel I must do out of a sense of civic duty, as there are few people in Parliament that relate to my worldview and can reliably represent it in government (a notable exception is Jason Kenney).

Yet even with that, I'm under no illusions about the ability of politics or government to do any good. British political historian Edward Jenks argued that the main purpose of government can be found in its origins - to be a military provider. Thus the sword is a more accurate symbol of government than the ballot box. Western democracy is a recent innovation in governing styles, and it will crumble once the public realizes they can vote themselves the contents of the treasury (I believe it was Plato that first stated that) - and that's a path we've already set several strides upon in Canada.

Government is there to keep the peace and to judge those who would destroy it. Politics is the art of convincing people that one person or group can govern better than another, and it can never be anything more. And neither government nor politics can truly help the poor, provide universal health care, or educate the uneducated. Historically, these social requirements have been fulfilled by the Church. One could argue that giving government the responsibility for social welfare, health care, and education has eroded the Church's contribution to these fields, much to our detriment.

We recently had two nuns over to spend some time with our family. It's important for us to present a religious vocation as an appealing life to our kids, and what better way than to become familiar and intimate with men and women who have sacrificed earthly marriage for divine marriage?

Yet these nuns are not from around here; they hail from Nigeria, where vocations are flourishing. Our Canadian government has impacted the Church quite negatively by quietly and slowly removing all elements of religion from health care and education, and that, among other factors, has had an impact on vocations. We need to take these fields back; not with an eye on political power, but with an eye on the poor, the sick, and the uneducated, to demonstrate the love of Christ for all people.

For bonus points, who is the one politician of renown in recent years who has recognized the place of faith in public life as such? Hint: US Democrats think he's the devil.

Paul Martin Actually Said:

Ralph Goodale "is a person of the greatest integrity, and he will not be stepping down."

Goodale will not be stepping down.

In Wascana.

In Saskatchewan.

In Canada.

We are not making this up.

Choose your Canada.

Open Letter to Stephen Harper

or

A Suggested Chess Move (xa8)

Dear Mr. Harper,

How about the following deal to the Liberals:

Derek Zeisman will immediately withdraw from the race in his riding and never enter politics again if found to be at fault, and Ralph Goodale will do the same.

Pawn for Rook.

Sincerely,
Convert Man

Something Silly That I Heard

Paul Martin, our soon-to-be-less-entrenched Prime Minister, was shown recently at a photo-op playing touch football with some 10-year old kids. Afterward, at a press conference, he referred to his sagging poll numbers, and tried to muster the troops with the following allusion to football:

"It's only the 3rd quarter, and you don't spike the ball until... [real awkward pause while he searches his mind] ... the game is over."

Then he looked around anxiously to see if the reporters picked up on the fact that actually you spike the ball when you score a touchdown... which, like the Conservatives going up in the polls, means more points.

Spiking the football, by the way, is like "gay marriage" - it's allowed in Canada. Unlike "gay marriage," however, there is a limit (item d).

See What Happens When You Give Up Absolutes?

On December 21, 2005, our accursed Supreme Court, in R. [Her Majesty The Queen, a.k.a. the Crown] v. Labaye, decided that there is no societal harm intrinsically elemental to the allowance of "swinger" clubs.

David Warren's site first advised me of the grotesqueness of this story, and when I dug into the actual details of the ruling, I was somewhat enlightened.

For really, the court had no choice but to rule as it did. I say this with great sadness.

For decades now, we have loosened the definition of morality by straying from the natural laws that God has placed in our hearts. Many of these laws are common to all the great religions, and no state that has abandoned them has lasted.

Sexual norms do exist. Let's start with an extreme:

• It's wrong to have sex with kids.

Ok? Everybody agreed? Let's go down the ladder from there:

• It's wrong to have sex with animals. [Well, it's kinda gross, but to each his own, eh? I'm not gonna stop ya, if you're not hurting anybody. Just stay away from my dog.]
• It's wrong to have group sex. [Hang on there... the Supreme Court just said it was fine! Not my cup of tea, but it's nice to know the option is available to me should I ever swing that way!]
• It's wrong to have sexual relations with somebody of the same gender. [Whoa, buddy, now you're being offensive and hateful - some of my best friends are gay, and they're the sweetest, gentlest people you'd ever hope to meet, and I daresay more tolerant of your bigotry than you are of their lifestyle!*]
• It's wrong to have unmarried sexual relations with anybody. [Geesh! What is this, 1950?]
• It's wrong to have contracepted sexual relations with your spouse. [Hey dumbass! The world is overpopulated!** Stop your Catholic breeding and get with the times!]
  

*sigh... please read this
**actually, it's not [long article, but well worth it]

As recently as 1929, all branches of the Christian tree proclaimed that contraceptive behaviour was immoral. Then the Anglican Church held the 1930 Lambeth Conference, in which it put one foot on the slippery slope by giving this ever-so-small bit of leeway:

Resolution 15

Where there is clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, the method must be decided on Christian principles. The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence from intercourse (as far as may be necessary) in a life of discipline and self-control lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. The Conference records its strong condemnation of the use of any methods of conception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience.

Voting: For 193; Against 67.

Now the Catholic Church is the only one that holds to the original ground that Christianity had been commissioned with (quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2370)

Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil: Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.... The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle... involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.

Getting back to R. v. Labaye, I must grant that most people would wonder how else the court should rule. We have abandoned so many of the critical elements that are foundational to the recognition of the evil of group sex that no wonder the Court said "there seems to be no evidence that the level of alleged harm rose to the level of incompatibility with the proper functioning of society."

O for a strong axe to hew the ladder down! For the sheep are climbing out of the pen, and are being set upon by wolves on the other side.

On Hope

a poem I composed for our late Great John Paul II shortly after he died:

In triumph, the sacred keys fall to the marble floor,
The clatter echoing through the vaulted halls of antiquity.
The gatekeeper sleeps, but the gate is secure
As a rock which laughs at the futile rage of the foaming sea.

The light atop the rock shines in the darkness
And the darkness cannot overcome it.
"Be not afraid!" its coded message blinks
In hopeful concern for a world in ruins,
In love for man gone mad with his excesses.

The red birds fly, in sorrow and in joy,
To the Eternal City where one of them will be exalted
To become the servant of all.

A new hand, withered with age, picks up the fallen keys
And the succession continues,
Full truth ever intact, ever tactful in truth.
Crowned with white
And washing my feet.

April 7, 2005

Farewell papa! I will meet you under the Tree of Life!