The Aftermath

I must admit, I admire Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report. For those of you unfamiliar with it, this is a show which profiles the news and current events of the day, but in a satirical format. It's what Canada's own Rick Mercer Report tries to be, only it's actually funny. His critics think he's not funny because they're not smart enough to get his jokes. Colbert's humour is intelligent & sophisticated, so much so that he is called slapstick and juvenile, with one critic even saying he was "sub-Three Stooges."

Well, of course he's sub-Three Stooges - they were the very kingpins of comedy. Everybody else wants to be as popular and as culturally iconic as Larry, Moe, and Curly (yes, I know, and Shemp, and Curly Joe too).

Colbert's style is unique: he pretends to root for the Republicans, but it's an act. Still, sometimes, I like to watch his show and sit back, close my eyes, and pretend that he's really a conservative, and that he really believes in traditional values. His reaction on the night of November 7, when the Democrats took the House and the Senate (or, as Colbert quipped, the terrorists won), was priceless. All fake, all play-acted, yes, but it was still kind of nice to see somebody portray - even satirically - how I felt on a mainstream American comedy show.

Yes, I think the Democrat victory is an unfortunate thing. But then I read James Taranto from the Opinion Journal's Best of the Web Today November 8th column and think it might not be all bad. He makes a few key points:

• The Republicans deserved to lose. When they took power 12 years ago, they promised smaller government and significant reforms. But the government size grew, deficits appeared again, and spending went up. When polled on who would be more likely to lower taxes & cut spending, Americans overwhelmingly picked the Democrats.
• The result was not a referendum on the Iraq war. Of the five Republicans who voted against the war, three were defeated. Also, pro-war Joe Lieberman, who didn't receive his Democratic Party's nomination, ran as an independent and won his Senate seat back.
• It was not a victory for the left. The Democrats openly admit they approached evangelical, socially conservative Christians to run for them, and they may find a hard time controlling that segment of their caucus if they don't change many of their overall policies around issues close to the hearts of those candidates.
  
• The "Angry Left" may be rendered impotent. They complained that 2000 and 2004 were stolen elections because they were such close calls. So will they boast that they stole this one for themselves? Or will they fade quietly into the night, never to be heard from again? We can only hope.

David Warren also cast a prediction on this outcome:

...the event might actually free President Bush from many of the restraints of holding Republican factions together. We might paradoxically find that a lame-duck presidency quacks to new life in its final two years, as Mr Bush directs his sights away from mundane politics. He has been consistently underestimated by media that despise him.

All told, it's going to be an interesting two years until the next big election down there. It'll also be neat to observe a liberal America from a Conservative Canada.

Picture This

Imagine a mother with an out-of-control child in the grocery store. The boy is sampling from the bulk bins at will, tipping full shopping carts, whining, crying, bullying, and taunting. Mom is at her wits' end.

Everybody is afraid to do anything. The store manager eventually comes to the scene and politely but firmly asks the woman to control her child. She takes offense at the correction, but she tries to calm her boy down. But he's screaming and flailing uncontrollably and she loses her grip on him, setting off another chain reaction of general pandemonium.

Everybody's staring. The manager keeps asking the boy to behave.

Finally, an off-duty Marine steps in and grabs the boy by the nape of the neck, yelling into his face, "Young man, listen to your mother! This is not acceptable behaviour!"

The boy quiets down, and although still seething with rage, he more or less controls himself, frightened into obedience by the powerful stranger.

Silently, the whole store is relieved that somebody had the brass to get the kid in line. The mom ain't too thrilled however - she's both embarrassed and angry - and the manager is fuming that his soothing words had no effect.

The story hits the media, and while everybody agrees that the boy's behaviour was indeed unacceptable, the Marine is shunted the brunt of the criticism.

"Excessive force" is the term thrown about. "Abuse of power" is another.

This young boy has a name, and I will reveal it: his name is Iraq. Mom is the Hans Blitz & the UNMOVIC (United Nations Monitoring, Verification & Inspection Commission). The store manager is the UN itself, and the other shoppers are the nations of the free world. Our Semper Fi friend is good ol' Uncle Sam himself.

We must not forget, despite all the tactical mistakes made in Iraq over the last few years, that Iraq was not America's problem to fix. The UN demonstrated repeated spinelessness with its repeated verbal reprimands to Saddam Hussein. If America didn't jump in and take charge, by now we'd be hearing about the forty-ninth UN Security Council Resolution denouncing Iraq for failing to disclose the locations of its known stockpiles of WMDs. Or in the words of the Frenchman in Monty Python's Holy Grail, "Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!"

Talk is cheap, and therefore easily produced. The UN never would have done anything but talk and talk and talk. There's your global warming cause, folks.

Weapons of Mass Destruction were found. Lots of 'em. I recall seeing at least three separate news reports over the last few years (not even including Senator Rick Santorum's) saying they found some. Want proof? Bizzyblog did a lot of work compiling various news reports. If you doubt the claim that WMDs were found, read that link.

My Americas readers, if you will listen to what a Canadian thinks about your state of affairs, I would encourage you to vote Republican tomorrow. The only way America can stabilize Iraq is via a Republican Senate & House.

Hallowe'en Candy Takers, Spreadsheet Style

Below is a breakdown of who came to my door tonight asking for a trick or a treat. Surprisingly, none of them were willing to see me do a trick, all opting for the treat instead.

I asked everybody, when it wasn't obvious, what they were dressed up as.

Costume Type	Quantity	Specifics
Black Magic	12	Witch, Warlock
Animals	11	Ladybug, Lion, Dinosaur, Monkey, Leopard, Tiger, Dog, Bear, Bee
Undead	9	Vampire, Zombie
Supernatural Beings	7	Angel, Devil, Grim Reaper
Superheros & Cartoon Characters	7	Spiderman, Shrek, Scooby Doo
No Effort	7
Clowns	6
Pop Culture	5	Alice Cooper, Scream, Anakin Skywalker, McDonald's Employee, Jason
Historical Figures	3	60's Girl, Knight, Island Girl
Far East Characters	3	Ninja, Chinese Woman
Criminals	3	Murderer, Robber
Royalty	2	Princess, Queen Elizabeth
Not Clever Enough For a Real Idea	1	“Your Worst Nightmare” (yeah, I don't get that one either)
Endangered Species	1	Vancouver Canucks fan
Unknown	1	(really, that's what he said: "I don't know."
Career	1	Scientist*

*I gave the scientist four times the amount of candy anybody else got. GO SCIENCE!

Wow

I just saw The Prestige. Amazing.

I delight in movies, or any sort of entertainment, that takes my brain for a roller coaster ride. If you're easily confused and don't like to think, avoid this movie at all costs (you know you're out there!).

But if you like to toss your noggin a good challenge now and then, this is the movie for you.

The American bishops, whose opinions on movies I usually trust, said the film is "more unpleasant than intriguing and all the double-dealing grows tiresome" but this time I beg to differ. It examines how two friends can be consumed by a cycle of hate and revenge, which I think is a very intruiging analysis of the human condition.

Slow Down

The other day, a fella stood behind me in the checkout line at Canadian Tire, itching to pay & go. He was bouncing impatiently on his toes. "I hate lines," he muttered to me. "I can't stand waiting."

It wasn't much of a line; there was only one person in front of me. "Maybe the universe is trying to tell you to slow down," I offered.

"Yeah, maybe," he said, politely turning away. End of conversation.

I'm seeing this phenomenon all too often these days. Nowhere is this more common than on city streets. I've been tailgated by agressive drivers who allow me to examine their middle fingernail when they pass. If I'm doing 82 km/h in an 80 km/h zone, I'm quickly overtaken by every other car on the road. If I'm doing 58 in a 60 zone I create a traffic jam behind me.

Not that I'm innocent of this type of behaviour either: it's easy to fall into frustration with the slow folks in front of me. I am a master at predicting which lane is the fastest one to be in, a skill I picked up a decade ago when I drove taxi.

What's the big hurry? How often have you seen a red sportscar race past you, only to pull up alongside it at the next red light? I chuckle when that happens; not only does that driver look like an idiot, but his mileage and brakes suffer too.

This post-modern obsession with speed is at home too. Microwave ovens, minute rice, fast-forward on the DVD, overnight shipping, high-speed internet, speed dial, quick-release garden hoses... it's very intimidating. If I don't go fast enough, I'll get left behind - or so they tell me.

Yet I once learned something about people who drive motorhomes that taught me a valuable lesson. If the speed limit is 100 km/h (60 mph), they'll set their cruise control at about 97 km/h. When a faster vehicle approaches, it will quickly pass. They've discovered that by doing this, they will avoid most highway traffic, because fast vehicles seem to travel in swarms or packs. The typical hour of highway driving for a motorhome has about 10 minutes of having other cars pass, and then 50 minutes of relative peace.

If the world passes me by, so what? It has very little of value to offer. And the things that are worth noticing can only be seen when I'm not obsessed with efficiency and haste.

I have a friend who will literally spend hours on the phone to save $14 on a plane ticket. If he had instead been engaged in productive work during that time, he could have netted more than enough money to cover his losses - and with much less hassle.

Really, what's the big hurry anyway? Life, while short, is actually quite long. Try waiting one minute without doing anything. Right now.

There. That was hard, wasn't it? Life is filled with those long minutes. Enjoy them. Cram them full of happy memories.

Double-Defiling the Precious

A bit of a furor has erupted over in England, where Cambridge's Addenbrook Hospital has admitted it disposes of the products of abortion in the standard hospital trash incinerator.

The hospital is doing this to save money, as the formal crematorium they use for miscarriages costs a shade more - roughly $40 CAD per fetus.

On one hand I can hardly find fault with the hospital's reasoning: they must see a vast difference between a miscarriage and an aborted baby. Sure, both may physically appear the same, but the difference is one was wanted, and the other was not. Or, more accurately, one mother's hope overcame her fears, and the other mother's fears overcame her hope. So why should the unwelcome baby be treated with as much respect as the one who will be missed?

Now if you, like me, ascribe to the concept of absolutes, you will agree that to solve a problem you must first find the cause of it, AKA the absolute that has been violated. Then you have to get back to that absolute.

In this case, the absolute is Human Life Is Always Precious. Where does this decision find itself in relation to that? By inference, if human life is precious, then in death the former life does not become any less precious. Therefore the physical remains of that life must be accorded due dignity. The hospital has thus violated the absolute of the sacredness of life.

But what I find most interesting about this story is this quote from a woman who had procured an abortion there:

I am furious and very hurt. Imagine my horror when I discovered that my baby was incinerated in the same furnace as the hospital rubbish.

It's easy to jump on a condemnation bandwagon here and say to her, "Serves you right, killing your baby. What right do you have to care about it anymore?" But that is not the Christian way.

We are called to make disciples of all nations. To do that, we must educate the soul; we must catechize. We must help the Christian form his or her conscience properly.

One thing a properly formed conscience does is make us perfectly sensitive to absolutes. Absolutes beckon us. The human soul knows when it has crossed a moral line. Somewhere deep within, this woman knows she did a hideous thing. So much so that when the sanctity of her lost child is violated again, she recognizes it immediately, and reacts as would any mother, abortion or not.

So all is not lost for our unnamed British lady. May God continue to lead her back to himself, the source of all absolute truth.

If This Is True...

...I'm Never Getting a Cellphone

It just wouldn't be the Catholic thing to do. :)

hat tip: Captain Capitalism

Duds

In World War II, the Mark XIV torpedo was the bane of the U.S. Pacific naval fleet. And it was an American torpedo.

(Bear with me; I have a point.)

This torpedo had a high dud-rate, or rate of non-exploding explosives. The most significant example I know of happened in July 1943. The American submarine Tinosa had spotted a Japanese oil tanker, and having lined her up perfectly, fired a salvo of four Mark XIV torpedoes. Through the periscope, the crew observed two direct hits by the telltale splashes on the tanker's hull, but there was no explosion. At that point the tanker sped up and turned to flee, realizing that she was under attack. Tinosa fired two more torpedoes at the tanker's stern and they made contact and hit, successfully exploding. This crippled the massive tanker but did not sink her, so the Tinosa maneuvered to a new angle of attack and fired a single torpedo at the enemy ship. Again, however, the torpedo was a dud and produced only a splash on the tanker's side.

Seven more torpedoes were fired with the same lack of effect.

Cutting his losses, the skipper of the Tinosa, Lt. Cmdr L. R. Dapsit, ordered his ship back to port, saving his last torpedo for a thorough inspection. He used his tale to begin a lengthy process to convince his superiors that the Mark XIV torpedo was unreliable, and the full tale of the red tape involved can be found here.

The reason I'm referring to this historical anecdote is to announce that my own self-inflicted torpedo, as referenced a few days back, was a dud - and I got the promotion I was so eagerly hoping for.

I hope I didn't bore you before you got to the announcement. :)

Christopher West & Controversy

Recently, in Winnipeg at least, there have been all sorts of people saying that Christopher West is teaching against Catholic beliefs on sexuality.

To fill you in, Christopher West has taken the Theology of the Body series of talks that Pope John Paul II gave early in his pontificate and has "dumbed them down" for easy comprehension. If you've ever read JPII, you'll know he wrote with a style filled with depth and detail - often resulting in the kind of paragraphs that you need to read three or four times because you get distracted by your frequent use of the dictionary.

It's very profound stuff once it's rendered in a simpler form, and I'm blown away by the levels of meaning found in our human form. If the Theology of the Body could be put in a nutshell, this would be it: God created man & woman in his image. We are a representation of a creative God. If God creates us in his image, then to fully participate in our God-imaging humanity, we too much create life in our image. This gives a deep meaning to sexuality, as we are participating in an act that connects us to God in a very mystical way. This also implies that sexuality, as beautiful and powerful as it is, is a mere shadow or glimpse of what God has planned for us in the fullness of our destiny.

You'll pardon me if I quote from C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity yet again:

The old Christian teachers said that if man had never fallen, sexual pleasure, instead of being less than it is now,would actually have been greater. I know some muddle-headed Christians have talked as if Christianity thought that sex, or the body, or pleasure, were bad in themselves. But they were wrong. Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body - which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, our beauty and our energy. Christianity has glorified marriage more than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world has been produced by Christians. If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once.

This is an essential beginning point of the late Pope's messages, which he presented in the late 1970's. Lewis, an Anglican, wrote this in the early 1940's.

Recently Winnipeg hosted a Marian & Eucharistic conference, and the organizers requested that no Christopher West materials be brought to the booths because of some controversy around his writings. Prominent figures in the local pro-life movement are putting out questions on the legitimacy of West's message.

From what I can tell, the controversy deals mainly with West's proclamation that the marriage act mirrors the Eucharist because both are a sharing in the very flesh of the spouse. As a man and woman consummate their marriage with sex, so do we as the Church, the Bride of Christ, seal and enliven our union with Jesus by fulfilling his command to eat his body. By both acts do we become one with our spouse. Sex, as great as it is, is the lesser of the two.

Some prudes turn fifty shades of red when you mention sex in any context, and I think that's where the controversy is found. Like Lewis said, Christianity has always taught that sex is good. If anybody was raised in the Church with an alternate perspective, the only conclusion is that they were improperly catechized. This calls for an effort within the Church to propagate the Christian understanding of sexuality, and that's exactly what West is doing.

If you're interested in receiving a free Christopher West CD for a deeper understanding of what he says, visit The Mary Foundation. Really, it's free (or shipping only, if you're outside the USA), it ships quickly, and there are no gimmicks. Or if you are in Winnipeg, you can borrow mine.

What Sin Does

It struck me recently that sin is both a cause and an effect of self-centeredness.

I was in a bit of a funk today. I won't give you details, but I was sure in a sour mood. I made some dumb mistakes lately that have caused undue strife in my life with my wife (go figure, that rhymes!) and was letting my awareness of my frailty absorb all my focus.

I went to the barbershop today and, while waiting for my barber to finish with her customer, all I could think about was the messed up situation I got myself into. But then I overheard their conversation. From what I heard, it sounded like he was in the middle of a break-up, and was only going to see his kid once a week.

Immediately I was snapped out of my funk. I realized that despite my own sins, there is still a hurting world out there in need of a Saviour. I realized that if I allow myself to direct all my attention inward, I'll be a pretty pathetic witness to the transformative power of Christ.

People, listen up: sin is the snare that keeps on snaring. It's like drinking salt water: you get thirstier and thirstier but all you can do is keep drinking it, until you die. Jesus came to give us Living Water, and by God, am I thirsty for it. This water satisfies infinitely; it cleanses us and washes our impurities away.

So I resolve to direct my attentions heavenward, and to those around me. This is the model of Christ on the cross - he lifted up his head to drink the sour wine, to give out a loud cry. He stretched out his arms to the world around him. John 19:30 says that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. I think the order of those two events is important. It's not that Jesus fought against his approaching death and finally couldn't muster the strength. He didn't die, then have his head uncontrollably drop. He bowed his head - which I postulate could represent a form of inward attention - and willingly died. If sin is putting oneself first, and if Christ - sinless himself - took all our sin upon himself, then in that moment when the God-man absorbed our selfishness, we can see the effects of death.

But even in death Jesus is stronger than death. His act of dying was a willful giving up of his spirit - even the weight of all humanity's sins cannot kill him. When U.S. Navy SEAL Michael A. Monsoor threw himself on a grenade in Iraq on Sep. 29, 2006 to save his comrades, it was an act of noblest heroism and selflessness. Sadly, Monsoor was killed. [May God grant you eternal peace, sir.]

Happily, Christ gave up his spirit. He threw himself on the timebomb we had constructed ourselves, knowing that only he could overcome the consequences.

The next time you believe the lie that you can't be a good Christian because of your sinfulness, think of Christ's sacrifice. Think of how his heart burns for his lost sheep. You are his last, best hope for getting the good news of his love out there! Do not believe the lie that you're not good enough. If you and I are good enough for GOD to DIE FOR, then dammit, we're good enough for anything!