The Pursuit Of Misery

     The calendar makes this the fourth Sunday of Lent in the Year of Our Lord 2023. That makes this Laetare Sunday, which parallels in significance the third or Gaudete Sunday of Advent. These days are periods for a lightening of the mood that dominates the rest of the Lenten and Advent seasons. Coincidentally, March 19 is also the feast day of Saint Joseph, husband and protector of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her divine Son. Saint Joseph has also been named the special patron of the Catholic Church. So it’s a big day for us theophages, though not as big as Christmas or Easter.

     But enough of calendric considerations. What’s on my mind right now is the notion expressed in the title, and how to avoid it.

     Contrary to the myths circulated by the Church’s enemies, Christianity is a religion of joy. After all, its Founder came among men to redeem us from our sins, from one end of Time to the other. We don’t practice and promote our faith or the virtues it exalts because they conduce to misery, but to happiness. Hilaire Belloc’s quatrain expresses it nicely:

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!

     Sadly, during Lent that point is often obscured by the ubiquitous exhortations to sacrifice this, that, or the other thing. Today’s society recoils in horror from the very suggestion that we might be better off for a bit of temporary self-denial. We’ve lost the understanding and appreciation of delayed gratification that previous generations absorbed and internalized.

***

     At one time, in an essay I can no longer locate, I wrote that a man’s possessions have almost as much power over him as he does over them. (“Almost as much” because he can get rid of them, whereas they can’t get rid of him.) While the extension of this idea to generalized self-indulgence is difficult and imperfect, there is some relevance to it, especially as regards our habits of consumption.

     Like any other kind of habit, a habit of consumption gradually sinks below the threshold of consciousness. That is, we cease to be fully aware that we’re doing it. For some people, for example our old friend Smith, another person must call attention to the habit before Smith becomes aware of what he’s doing.

     Of course, some repetitive behaviors are not habits. You don’t “habitually” breathe, eliminate, sleep, or check your blind spot before changing lanes; you do those things because you must, or your life will end. A habit of consumption will necessarily involve an optional behavior, not required for the perpetuation of life. For example, as has been well established by millions of studies, coffee is necessary to life. (It is, isn’t it?) However, putting milk into your coffee, though it starts as the conscious exercise of a preference, can become a habit. Over the years you may cease to think about it, except for those unfortunate mornings when you discover to your surprise that there’s no milk in the house.

     Our exceedingly wealthy society is prone to habits of consumption. Our markets are dazzlingly efficient and our means are considerable; thus, for most of us, acquiring an ongoing supply of what we consume is relatively easy. It wasn’t always that way, which is one reason why our forebears were better at denying themselves something than are we.

     Let a habit of consumption be interrupted involuntarily – “Honey, where’s the milk?” “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to get some.” – and we become freshly aware of what we’ve been doing. The degree of the attendant discomfort will depend on many things, though there nearly always is at least some irritation. That surge of awareness should carry a message: I’ve been doing this automatically. Sad to say, apart from the irritation over having been denied something we’d come to expect, no message arrives.

     One seldom feels gratitude while indulging a habit of consumption.

***

     The more habits a man has, the greater is the portion of his life that he spends unconscious. Socrates of Athens has told us that this is a bad thing: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And while habits of consumption are to be expected to some degree, especially in a nation as rich as ours, unawareness of them is unreservedly negative.

     One method for becoming more aware of them is the practice of voluntary self-denial: “For this season of the year, I’ll go without it.” The thing sacrificed enters into one’s consciousness: “I normally put milk in my coffee, but not today.” You become aware not only of what you habitually do but of why you do it. That actually improves the sacrificed indulgence – not “as a habit,” but as a source of pleasure and satisfaction.

     As voluntary self-denial increases the percentage of your day you spend fully conscious, so does your awareness of how much you have to be thankful for. Gratitude follows naturally. But gratitude not only increases your happiness, it brings you closer to God. It does so even if you fail to make use of the moment to pray, though prayer is always to be encouraged.

     But let’s not stop there, for the inverse is also true. As the percentage of your life spent unconscious increases, your overall happiness will decrease. You cannot be happy without being conscious of what you have, whether or not you feel you’ve earned it. If you know someone who seems to “have it all” but seems perpetually unhappy or unsatisfied, the probability is high that he seldom if ever gives conscious thought to how fortunate he is, and how grateful he should be.

***

     Of course, nothing of great value comes without a price. The price may be monetary, or it may be effort. The increased happiness that arises from voluntary self-denial is paid for by the effort of forgoing that chosen thing. And there is a caveat: it’s possible to forfeit that increment of happiness by grumbling about the effort, as if it had been forced upon you by a divine Drill Instructor.

     One of our founding documents speaks of “the pursuit of happiness” as a individual, God-given right. When Thomas Jefferson penned that phrase, he was probably thinking of the sort of material gain that free people can and do pursue. But heaping possessions around oneself is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Similarly, consuming without limit eventually causes the thing consumed to become a burden rather than a source of pleasure or satisfaction.

     Occasional voluntary self-denials are a preventative for that trap. Best of all, they remind us of the ultimate Source of all that is good, and the gratitude He is owed.

     Happy Laetare Sunday, Gentle Readers. May God bless and keep you all.

Allegiances And Alliances

     It takes a bit of investigation to puzzle it out, but the facts are there for anyone who makes the effort. The United States has only one set of treaty obligations at this time: those that arise from the North Atlantic Charter, which created NATO. There was once a comparable SEATO, which created an alliance of nations in the South-East Asian region, but that treaty has expired. Our other “security commitments” are entirely informal, matters of “understandings” between national administrations.

     In particular, we have no treaty obligations to Ukraine.

     Recently, Tucker Carlson submitted the question of “what we should do about Ukraine” to a number of prominent politicians and aspirants to high office. That question is obviously pertinent to the ongoing war between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Equally obviously, any contender for the presidency must expect to face that question. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is one prospective contender, albeit undeclared at this time.

     Here is the most pertinent part of DeSantis’s response:

     While the U.S. has many vital national interests – securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party – becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them. The Biden administration’s virtual “blank check” funding of this conflict for “as long as it takes,” without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges.

     Without question, peace should be the objective. The U.S. should not provide assistance that could require the deployment of American troops or enable Ukraine to engage in offensive operations beyond its borders. F-16s and long-range missiles should therefore be off the table. These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable.

     Sounds pretty moderate, doesn’t it? In good agreement with the Trump Administration’s policy of “America First.” I can find nothing objectionable in it. But then, I’m not a member of the political elite:

     Former Vice President Mike Pence, without mentioning Ron DeSantis by name, rebuked the Florida governor Saturday for his isolationist approach to the war in Ukraine….

     A sharp divide inside the GOP over U.S. involvement in Ukraine has made Mr. DeSantis the target of widespread Republican criticism for suggesting America should focus on problems closer to home. His approach aligns him with former President Donald Trump, who is warning the conflict could cause “World War III.”

     “There must also be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire globalist neocon establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad,” Mr. Trump said in a campaign video Thursday.

     Mr. Pence said those who suggest the U.S. can’t take care of its problems at home and still remain the leader of the free world are selling America short.

     “That’s a pretty small view of the greatest nation on Earth,” he said. “We can do both.”

     The article does mention “declining Republican support” for American involvement in the conflict, but then, the great majority of Republican-aligned voters aren’t members of the political Establishment. At least, we don’t expect defense contractors to help us with our monthly bills.

     DeSantis is no better liked than Trump in Establishment circles. Whether the letter after the name is D or R, Establishmentarians are firmly opposed to what Pence has called “isolationist” policy. “Isolationist,” in their idiom, means any lessening of the “GloboCop” posture of the U.S. toward regional wars. They want significant, visible American presence in all such conflicts, regardless of the particulars.

     On the Republican side, it might be about maintaining the stream of campaign donations. On the Democrat side, the issue is power, and the prestige that widespread international meddling brings with it. They’re the Twenty-First Century’s descendants of the Nineteenth Century colonialists who sought to impose the rule of their nations on less developed lands “for their own good.” The first of them, Woodrow Wilson, was determined to involve the U.S. in World War I. Democrat presidents since him have eagerly inserted American forces in war after war, regardless of the relevance to American interests.

     I submit that ordinary Americans have a strong interest in not being caught up in a war with Russia. Whether or not it would “go nuclear” is a side issue. “Never get into a land war in Asia,” right? Our last foray cost nearly 56,000 American lives and brought us…nothing of value. A war with Russia would be a great excuse for imposing censorship, confiscatory taxes, a renascent draft, and other authoritarian controls on American life. Read up on the activities of General Hugh Johnson during the World Wars for a refresher.

     But the Establishmentarians have another agenda…and our interest in remaining alive and free doesn’t factor into it. The “America First” component of the electorate is their enemy. Anyone who claims to speak for it must be destroyed. Like Trump, Ron DeSantis had better watch his back.

Courage Or Opportunism?

     At this point, I’m unable to take any mainstream “journalist” seriously. They strike me as a clique of toadies, ever willing to kowtow before power in the hope of ingratiating themselves and winning “access.” Thus, I entreat you to view the following:

     I don’t know the “reporter” who condemned Lori Lightfoot to her face. What I do know is this: she will soon no longer be the mayor of Chicago. Given that, what negative consequences is the “reporter” likely to face? Any? None?

     Perhaps I’m being unjustifiably harsh. The next mayor might be a Democrat and a Lightfoot ally. All the same, this looks to me like opportunism rather than journalistic courage. Your opinion is your own.

Peak Lawlessness

     According to this article, Donald Trump, the 45th president of these United States, expects to be arrested on Tuesday:

     Numerous leaks have reported Trump will be charged next week in New York City in the Stormy Daniels case where he has been accused of paying Daniels as part of a confidential settlement before the 2016 election to buy her silence over her unfounded accusation of an affair.

     Given the Left’s desperation about keeping Trump from regaining the presidency, I find this credible. But there might be a “gotcha:”

     Trump, who has 24-hour protection by the U.S. Secret Service, currently resides at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, which he rarely leaves.
     Under Florida law, the state’s governor is responsible for making sure a person in the state is arrested and delivered to another state if that person is indicted on a felony charge.
     However, Florida law also gives the governor the power to call for a further investigation before a defendant is extradited if that defendant refuses to comply with extradition.

     If this is the case, Governor DeSantis will have a lot of influence over what comes next. How he’ll use it is anyone’s guess.

     Elon Musk and others have opined that if such an arrest should occur, it will catapult Trump back into the White House in November 2024. If elections were still reasonably honest, that would probably be so. But we know that the electoral machinery is now entirely in the control of the Left. They’re likely to pull out all the stops – if there are any remaining – to prevent his re-inauguration.

     But what if the Left were to fail to steal the 2024 election? What then?

     Then President Trump had better watch his back. He’s well guarded, I know, but as Michael Corleone said to Tom Hagen near to the end of The Godfather Part II, “If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it’s that you can kill anyone.” The Left would be desperate enough to try anything. Bombs? Plausible. An enfilade with machine guns? Not beyond the bounds of possibility. Throwing waves of bodies at the president-elect, spending lives by the hundreds just to get one close enough to Trump to snuff him out? I can imagine that, too.

     Do not imagine that any degree of carnage would strike the Left’s planning cadre as unthinkable. Trump restored to the Oval Office is their worst nightmare. Moreover, in this they have allies throughout the Republican Establishment. Trump threatens to upset their applecarts, too.

     But there’s this, too: Were anyone to succeed in assassinating President Trump, it would herald the end of all law and all order in these United States. The event would dissolve all obfuscation about the bipartisan political Establishment and the Deep State. No level of government would be able to assert and enforce its authority in the chaos that would follow. Electric Boogaloo? Try Nuclear Tarantella.

     Stay tuned.

Social Deterioration In Real Time Dept.

     As long as we’re looking at signs of the Apocalypse, have another:

     Well, yes, she’s an idiot. The cloth mask is a dead giveaway. But not only is she mumbling through a completely unnecessary mask, she’s unable to grasp a simple fact: Walmart knows what’s being stolen and what isn’t. That’s one of the reasons for having a point-of-sale / inventory control system. The security tags on the shades of makeup most desired by black women merely reflect those data.

     As it happens, the enhanced security trend has reached my supposedly safe portion of Long Island. However, Walgreen’s has implemented a “protect it all” scheme: everything small enough to be stuffed into a woman’s handbag is now locked behind a Lucite shield. I discovered this in the course of:

  • Going to Walgreen’s to purchase ibuprofen;
  • Discovering that the ibuprofen was behind such a locked shield;
  • Summoning sales help to liberate the ibuprofen;
  • Watching the saleswoman pull out a large bundle of keys and sort through them for the right one;
  • Watching her unlock and open the shield, extract one large bottle of ibuprofen, and close and relock the shield;
  • Watching her scamper off toward the registers with that bottle of ibuprofen faster than I could follow her.

     It protracted what would have been a five-minute stop into about fifteen minutes. This constitutes a severe blow to Walgreen’s. The store needs more personnel than it otherwise would. It must pay those salespeople, and provide them with certain noncash benefits. It must purchase accident insurance and unemployment insurance to cover them. Finally, it must deal with the reduced willingness of shoppers to shop there, owing to the indignities and the losses of time.

     Unless those costs and that reduction in trade are covered by increases in the retail prices of what it sells, Walgreen’s is in trouble. Yet I have no doubt that were I to visit any comparable institution in my district, I’d see the same precautions against theft in place or being implemented.

     But at least no one can accuse Walgreen’s of “racism” for protecting only the part of its stock-in-trade that’s stolen most often. What a bargain!

Open War Is Upon Us

     Whether we like it or not. Please click through and watch the video:

     That aired on the BBC yesterday — Saint Patrick’s Day. So did this clip:

     Isn’t it getting a wee bit obvious, Gentle Reader? On one of the most joyous Christian celebrations in the Western world, what do those…people lambaste us with? Nothing Christian, to be sure. Paeans to paganism. Lectures about “racism,” “xenophobia,” and “the contributions of migrants” to Irish history!

     There is a full-scale attack in progress on everything Christian, everything Western, and – I must include this, so forgive me if it raises your neck hair yet again – everything white. It no longer attempts to be subtle. It no longer uses the “but” sidestep. It simply effaces and obliterates all the distinguishing characteristics of Christian-Enlightenment civilization. It gives everything non-Christian, non-Western, and non-white pride of place even on occasions such as Saint Patrick’s Day.

     I fear for Easter this year. What will they batter us with then? Islamic scripture? The life and loves of Muhammad? Or perhaps a recruitment video for al-Qaeda?

     It’s time to get seriously angry.

Something Beautiful For Your Friday Afternoon

     Because there’s more than enough ugliness to go around:

     Enjoy.

Right But Ignored

     I was once given a gift subscription to a weekly periodical – one that arrived on pulp paper rather than as an email – that aggregated the writings of prominent conservative opinion writers. That started arriving in my mailbox in early 1990, if my memory is accurate. Among other things, it provided my introduction to the late and deeply lamented Joseph Sobran.

     Sobran was a standout among conservative columnists. He was his own man, ever willing to go where he pleased, without regard for the preponderance of opinion on the Right. Moreover, his writing was so perfectly lucid that when his case was sound – i.e., when he had his facts straight – it was irresistibly convincing. I could not read a Sobran column without being impressed by his clarity and forcefulness.

     If you’re old enough to have lived through it and serious enough to have kept up with the news, you may recall a couple of things about the Year of Our Lord 1990:

  • The U.S. had just completed the Reagan Era.
  • George H. W. Bush was the president of these United States.
  • Saddam Hussein, the strongman dictator of Iraq, was plotting the annexation of Kuwait.
  • The strongman dictator of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, was being removed from his perch by American forces.
  • The Iron Curtain and its manufacturer, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, were being dismantled by popular pressure, and would soon fall completely.
  • Red China was tacitly dismantling its Communist economy in favor of “state capitalism,” which would coincidentally leave the Communist Party in complete political control.
  • Francis Fukuyama would soon publish The End of History and The Last Man, a tome whose thesis would be hailed by the naïve and shortsighted of all political creeds.

     If you would just squint with the light behind you, you could almost see Thomas Jefferson smiling down at us from heaven. “I told you!” he said to the spirits of George Mason and Patrick Henry. “The ball of liberty has rolled right around the globe.” And in that heady heyday of the Land of the Free, it was possible to believe it…for a while.

     Joseph Sobran didn’t let his guard down. A lot of other conservative columnists did. The temptation was too strong for them. The forces of entrenched power and privilege were far from giving up. Perhaps the other luminaries of the Right should have known that; Sobran did.

     When the drums began to beat over Iraq and Kuwait, Sobran was virtually alone on the Right in opposing the drive for war. “Has the Left given peace a bad name?” he wrote memorably. He took issue with the suggestion that any vital interest of the U.S. was at stake in that matter. Indeed, the U.S. didn’t – and still doesn’t – have any treaty obligations toward any Middle Eastern nation. But seldom can a lone voice deflect a nation from a drive toward war.

     The Reagan years had seen little American involvement in armed conflict. Yes, there was Grenada. Yes, there was Libya. And yes, to this day there are opinion writers who dispute the necessity of both actions. But they were blessedly brief. The bloodshed was minimal.

     But the Bush family was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the defense and intelligence sectors. Reagan’s notion that a military intervention should serve the vital interests of the United States was anathema to them. Pere et fils were united on that, and remain so.

     I worked for a defense contractor back then. I hardly need tell you what the preponderance of opinion was about Operation Desert Storm. “Contracts! Jobs! Orders for more airplanes!”

     Eisenhower told us. Joseph Sobran reminded us. We should have listened.

***

     In the years before the First World War, the French military was under the supreme command of General Victor-Constant Michel. From what I’ve read, General Michel was a clear-sighted analyst and a sober military planner. He foresaw the Schlieffen Plan of a German invasion through the Low Countries, and was open about his reasons for predicting it. On the basis of his prognosis, he advocated a defense-oriented strategy for France hat would deter such an invasion.

     But the attitude among other top French commanders was irremediably opposed to the Michel strategy. France had lost the War of 1870 in a most humiliating fashion. The German Empire had annexed the districts of Alsace and Lorraine as part of the price of peace. All the generals other than Michel were slavering for the chance to avenge themselves for their earlier defeat, and to take those lost provinces back. So Michel and his emphasis on a strong north-northeastern defensive position had to go.

     In 1913 Michel was ousted as supreme commander. He was replaced by General Joseph Joffre, a notably offense-minded commander who saw things the way the rest of the commanders did. He had no respect for Michel’s analyses. He founded French war strategy on an all-out thrust into Alsace and Lorraine, with the intent of driving headlong into Germany and forcing the Empire to sue for peace.

     But in those days before the mechanization of ground warfare, a serious analyst would have regarded a major thrust through Alsace and Lorraine from the French side as madness. Those provinces were about the best defensive ground in Europe. Indeed, that was a great part of the reason Germany wanted them, for France, despite its defeats in 1870 and 1814, was the most feared military power on the continent. For six centuries its forces had been well nigh unstoppable. The Metternich Plan that emerged from the Congress of Vienna was aimed directly if not exclusively at blunting French aggression.

     In other words, the Joffre Plan was insanity on a stick, despite the enthusiasm for it among other French generals. What Michel foresaw came to pass almost exactly as he foresaw it. Yet it is Joffre who is well remembered to this day. General Michel has been reduced to a footnote. As Barbara Tuchman wrote in The Guns of August, “To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.”

     I hope it’s forgivable for opinion writers: both for those who were swept up by the tide of martial ardor and for those who resisted it.

***

     The drums are beating once again. The political Establishment is nearly unanimous that the U.S. must fight for “Ukrainian integrity.” Those who dissent are routinely slandered as “pro-Putin.” Tucker Carlson, of all people, has been called a “Putin apologist.” Despite Russia’s superiority in men, material, and strategic position, Vladimir Putin’s clear commitment to victory, and the dubious ability of NATO to reverse the course of the war, the possibility of escalation to a nuclear level is waved aside as “fear-mongering.”

     Joseph Sobran died in 2010, at age sixty-four. The wars and prospects for war in our time are no longer his concern. I hope soon to celebrate my seventy-first birthday. I hope to celebrate another. I wonder if I will.

Of What Use is an Aging Person?

This is an issue that many struggle with – the idea that they are “too old” to be useful to their family and neighbors. The Survival Blog addresses this issue here.

In addition to the suggestions that post has, let’s add in others:

  • Wisdom and experience with handling food prep, storage, and cleanup the “Old Way”. Don’t underestimate this – when the Covid restrictions hit, and local stores were out of bread, suddenly younger individuals realized the utility of knowing how to turn flour, water, salt, and yeast into something that was edible. I’d had a long experience with breadmaking, thanks to my husband’s desire to go “Old School”. I bought Laurel’s Kitchen (still a very good introduction to providing meals that are both nutritious and inexpensive), and a few specialty cookbooks (Beard on Bread is indispensable), and learned to bake.
  • Sewing, knitting, crocheting – all of those skills both stretch out a budget, and allow for clothing creation and repair. We augment our heating with strategic use of afghans. In a pinch, I can make mittens, hats, and scarves for family. I’m learning variations on other items, and have passed those skills on to my children (except for my son – he, rather surprisingly, learned needlework in middle school).
  • Backup child care for emergencies. Organizing pickup from schools, should the parents be held up at work by a disaster. This doesn’t have to be a commitment to daily babysitting, just having the ability to put a plan into operation, should weather or national disaster interrupt normal operations. That would include a list of people who have been authorized to pick up local kids, notify the families where they are, and keep them fed and safe until they are reunited with their parents.
  • Pet care – feeding, walking – for short periods. Taking in mail, if the absence is longer than a day or two.
  • Simple home repairs. I set up our home network, security system, and will be stopping off today or tomorrow to get a new tub diverter that has become worn out. I’ll be putting it in myself, if I can (limited dexterity with my arthritic hands might be the issue). My goal is to add to the number of things I can repair. I have a lamp that has a damaged cord; I have the replacement, and will be looking into its repair over the next couple of weeks.
  • Teaching – basic Math and English skills, along with useful skills for children. Gardening. Home maintenance. Household Chemistry (soaps, cleansers, home remedies for mild illnesses). I may even resurrect my old knot-tying skills from Girl Scouts.
  • Communications – building a local neighborhood watch (it’s not just using the hardware, it’s knowing who to trust, logging activity on the street, using GMRS handhelds, and training others). Setting up training on ham radio, if possible. Serving as an Elmer (more experienced amateur who assists newbs), participating in local nets to gain experience and to build relationships, should the SHTF. Building relationships with local first responders – police, fire, hospitals – and assisting them with communications in drills. Getting to know who can be trusted, and – more importantly – who cannot.

You can probably add your own recommendations to the list. The point is, old does not have to mean useless.

Developments In Inter-Racial Relations

     Have a look at this – and don’t cringe away from what you’ll see:

     The black would-be murderer would not drop the knife he held – the knife with which he’d been trying to kill a defenseless white woman – even after he’d had a whole clip of (what was probably) 9mm ammunition fired at him. Why do you suppose that was?

     I have no doubt that the white cop who took him down will face an eviscerating “fact-finding” about this incident. We’re in the Era of the Most Holy George Floyd, don’t y’know. I mean, for blacks to rape and / or kill white women is their racial prerogative. Protected by the Constitution, isn’t it? I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.

     If you’re white:

  • Stay away from blacks;
  • Never leave the house unarmed;
  • If you must shoot, shoot to kill.

     Would anyone like to argue the point?

It’s Official!

I am – once again – OFFICIALLY a Woman!

I received my OH drivers license, and it clearly IDs me as a Female. Which, as I’ve been previously identified as a MAN by SC, probably makes me a de-transitioner. Hey, that should qualify me for my own Internet Talk Show, shouldn’t it?

BTW, Fran, when you have the time, you probably need to change my identifying tagline description to “Native Buckeye – a totally useless nut!”

I’ve really been having fun with this.

Day Off, Kinda-Sorta

     Today will be another day of long drives, hospitals, surgery, and so forth, so there will likely be nothing from me until late today, if at all. Enjoy your day, Gentle Reader, and perhaps if the Spirit moves you, say a prayer for my wife. Till whenever.

Personnel Policies

     I’ve known a lot of people who were and are smarter than average. That comes from working in occupations that require that characteristic. Bluntly, if your duties will necessarily require careful thinking, distinguishing among things and ideas according to their inherent properties, you must be able to do so. Why else would your employer hire you?

     But let it be said at once: Even smart people can be deluded. Even smart people can and will cling to their delusions, especially if those delusions are vital to the maintenance of their self-concept. I’ve said it before: Intelligence is a tool, not a state of grace. It must be called into action for it to have value. And on certain subjects, issuing that call is harder than many will accept. Yea verily, even smart people.

     One mantra used to defend propositions that are otherwise indefensible goes like this: “It’s always been this way.” The unstated implication, of course, is that “This is the way it must be.” It’s a striking non-sequitur, but a great many minds, even among the most capable, can fail to see it…and sometimes do.

     I’m about to shock you, Gentle Reader, so hold on to your seat and brace for impact: That sort of pseudo-thinking is one of the Left’s chief propaganda weapons against the conservative Right. There’s even a joke: “A conservative is someone who thinks nothing should be done for the first time.” And like most effective japes, there’s a kernel of truth to it. Else why would people so reliably become more conservative as they age?

     Churches – institutions formed for the conservation and promulgation of a religious creed – tend to be the most conservative of all institutions, in the “resistant to change” sense. That’s perfectly reasonable. A religious creed must be based on some variety of revealed truth. To alter its preachments in later decades or centuries is tantamount to saying “We got it wrong back then; here’s the real revealed truth.” That would fatally undermine any church and its doctrines.

     But there’s a significant difference between a church’s doctrines and its personnel policies.

***

     Perhaps you’ve already read about this bit of news:

     Pope Francis said the Catholic Church’s thousand-year-old practice of celibacy could be changed.

In a recent interview with an Argentine publication Infobae, Francis said the ban on priests having sex was only “temporary” and that there is “no contradiction for a priest to marry.”

“There is no contradiction for a priest to marry. Celibacy in the western Church is a temporary prescription,” Francis said. “It is not eternal like priestly ordination, which is forever whether you like it or not. On the other hand, celibacy is a discipline.”

     Straightforward and, despite the divergence from a millennium of Catholic practice, entirely correct. But wait: there’s more!

     The Catholic Church began requiring celibacy in the 11th century because clergy with no children were more likely to leave their money to the church.

     This is not quite complete. Europe’s Middle Ages saw many social and political transformations. Those transformations frequently involved the Catholic Church and its clergy. Catholic clergy had considerable authority in those centuries, including, among others, a de facto power to tax. That power was tacitly upheld by the secular rulers of those places and times. In return for that privilege, royals and nobles expected the clergy to support their claims of authority reciprocally, a factor that could be decisive in times of war.

     It wasn’t a perfectly amicable arrangement. There were some clashes between secular and clerical claims of authority, but for centuries they were usually resolved with a bit of haggling. A more serious problem arose from what we might call clerical dynasties. Married priests would indeed leave their accumulated wealth to their sons, just as did most fathers of the times. But beyond that, those priests tended to leave their clerical positions to their eldest sons, resulting in the accumulation of both financial and temporal power in such dynasties that came to rival the secular royal and noble families. The nobility of the time came to regard that as unacceptable.

     If you’re acquainted with the term benefice, this is hidden in its meaning. It’s closely coupled to the obscenity called simony, which bedeviled the Church for centuries.

     Royal and noble pressure on the Church to end this parallel authority structure mounted as Europe matured politically and economically. Pope Gregory VII was finally persuaded that the best way to prevent the formation of such clerical dynasties was to forbid priests to marry. Thus, they could not have children who would inherit from them. The end of the clerical privilege of taxation followed some decades later.

     But a personnel policy that dictates clerical celibacy cannot be found anywhere in the Bible. Christ never said a word about it. The Apostles had wives, as did the majority of priests throughout the First Millennium.

***

     Pope Francis, of whom I think very little, is essentially correct in his statement cited above. If the Church were to end clerical celibacy, I doubt God would be offended. Whether it will ever do so is unclear; Francis himself is opposed to doing so. That doesn’t change the availability of the option, should the Vatican someday find it beneficial.

     My opinion is that clerical celibacy should end. Yet I do have some reservations about the matter, owing to my own rather conservative nature. Married priests would be less likely to live together in rectories. They would be less mobile, for the same reasons other married couples frequently experience difficulties in relocating. Pressure would mount on the Vatican to change another of its longstanding personnel policies: its ban on the ordination of women. And of course, the children of married priests would present a new challenge to contemporary systems of education. Unless such children were to attend Catholic educational institutions exclusively, their influence on existing schools could prove fatally disruptive. Though that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

Unforgivable Sin, Ineradicable Stain

     Perhaps you’ve already read about this latest infamy against the well-being of the American people:

     The Department of Interior (DOI) initiated a rulemaking process to “establish maximum protection” for 13 million acres of land across the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. It was set aside by. Congress for resource development.
     Biden added another 2.8 million acres withdrawn from oil and gas leasing in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska.
     The DOI boasted in a statement about delivering “on the most aggressive climate agenda in American history.” They added gleefully that Biden “secured record investments in climate resilience and environmental justice.”
     “And his economic agenda has put the United States back on track to reach its climate goals for 2030 and 2050, all while reducing America’s reliance on oil and protecting American families from the impact of Putin’s war on global energy markets.”

     Overbearing sententiousness is bad; mock-piety is worse. Combine the two with blatantly anti-Constitutional actions, and the resulting cocktail might prove lethal. But the practical effect is not what’s grabbed my attention this morning.

     The Constitution specifies the legitimate powers of the three branches of the federal government. Nowhere does that document award authority over “the climate” to any branch. Nowhere does it say even one word about “the environment,” much less “environmental justice.” The Biden / DoI action is an exercise of powers not granted to anyone. Yet I have no doubt that the Usurper Regime will get away with it.

     The federal government has swelled so far beyond its Constitutional bounds that a man from Mars who hoped to familiarize himself with its powers and duties by reading the Constitution would think he’d landed in some wholly different country. It gets away with the exercise of such usurped powers every day. We the Formerly Free permit it. The prevailing attitude seems to be that there’s nothing we can do about it. Our passivity disgraces us, yet we seem immune to the shame.

     We could talk about voting power and voting blocs. We could ponder the corruption of the judiciary at all levels. We could address the vague conception of “stakeholders” as superior to owners. None of that matters. What matters is that by permitting regulatory bodies to exercise unbounded, unreviewable quasi-legislative power, and permitting the president to arrogate legislative authority to himself by “executive orders,” we have lost the rights the country was founded to guarantee and defend.

     We’ve also lost something so important that no less a figure than Saint Thomas Aquinas discoursed upon it eight centuries ago in his Summa Theologica. Rather than oppress you with quotes from that document – not enough of my Gentle Readers read Latin – I’ll cite an old essay of mine:

     Law as something other than the whim of those in power is an ancient concept. Yet few nations have cared to try the concept in practice. Fewer still have managed to do so.

     For there to be a Rule of Law in principle rather than merely by lip service, the corpus of laws must meet certain criteria:

  • They must be clear of impact.
  • They must not distinguish among persons.
  • They must not contradict one another in any way.
  • They must be made by a consensus-approved process.

     That last condition requires elaboration. The process by which laws are made or changed must itself be controlled by a law which commands overwhelming popular assent. Moreover, the control must ensure that the legislative process is highly stable. If that process can be changed, the manner of change must be:

  • Public;
  • Difficult;
  • Deliberate.

     Otherwise, private citizens would be justified in thinking that whim had taken command of the law. Under such conditions, there cannot be sufficient stability in the law to command the required consensus. In this we glimpse the great importance of a supreme law that governs the making of all other laws.

     It should be clear from the above that the United States has not known a true rule of law for quite some time. All the requirements above have been violated repeatedly, sometimes with callous disregard for any consideration other than the whims of elected officials, at the federal, state, and local levels for more than a century.

     The law is no longer within the bounds expressed above.

***

     “As above, so below,” say the Wiccans, and in this regard they are quite correct. What the federal government gets away with, state and local governments will attempt within their own demesnes – and they’ll usually reap an equal degree of success. This is nowhere more visible than in matters pertaining to land.

     Private persons and organizations have often purchased tracts of land – tracts that have no legal limitations attached – and have been told afterward that they’re not allowed to do what they’d purchased them for. Private homeowners suffer similarly, when local or state regulators decree some change to the conditions that must exist within the home or on the surrounding grounds. The ludicrousness of such doings can reach obscene heights. For example, when I purchased my home, there was a shed on it. I disliked the shed and decided to have it removed. More than twenty years later, my township attempted to extract a large fine from me for that – not because it was against the law, but because I hadn’t asked permission to demolish a structure I owned that sat on my own property.

     In a far more egregious case, a French consortium called Carrefour purchased a large plot of land not far from my home, with the intention of building a shopping complex there. The consortium had already certified that the land was zoned for such use…but the zoning board decided that it didn’t want Carrefour’s complex. So it revoked the previous zoning, under which Carrefour had paid many millions of dollars for the plot. The consortium was forced to sell the land at a loss – to another developer who put a shopping complex on it, with the tacit approval of the zoning board.

     A representative for Carrefour, upon learning of the board’s de facto seizure of the consortium’s rights, commented that “You can be told on one day that a thing is black, and on the next that it is white. This is a good lesson.”

     Stability in the law has become a complete fiction.

***

     The sin is ours for permitting such rule by whim. It’s a stain on our national reputation that will not soon be erased, if ever. It undercuts any claim we might have to being free men, jealous of our rights and ready to defend them.

     But hey, we have Lee Greenwood to flatter us that nothing of importance has changed. All rise for flag salute.

The Last Of The Absolute Monarchs

     I’m a longtime baseball fan. I’ve loved the game from the very first pitch I ever saw – and let me tell you, that was some consequential pitch: it was the gopher ball Yankees’ pitcher Ralph Terry threw to Pirates’ second baseman Bill Mazeroski in the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh game of the 1960 World Series. Despite that, I became a diehard baseball fan and Yankees rooter, and have remained one ever since.

     A lot of people have been grousing about the flood of changes to the game since…well, since Curt Flood. Among recent changes, the inclusion of a balls-and-strikes-calling automaton has excited the most frenzied protests…among the world’s last remaining absolute monarchs: baseball umpires, who see this as a fatal undermining of their Divine Right.

     We know how jealously people with power guard their power, don’t we, Gentle Reader? So it was only to be expected from the umpires. And there have been quite a few incidents in baseball history that make plain the absoluteness of their authority. So you’d expect them to react rabidly against even the smallest chink in the wall.

     There’s a classic story about umpire abuse of a player in Jim Bouton’s classic Ball Four:

     The other day [Seattle Pilots’ center fielder Wayne Comer] got himself in trouble with another umpire by getting on his son, who is trying to be an umpire. The son told the father and the father told [Pilots’ left fielder] Tommy Davis that Comer better come up swinging. He meant he wasn’t likely to get any balls called.
     Sure enough, the first pitch to Comer was a high curve and he called it strike one. Comer didn’t even look back. He swung at the next pitch and hit a line drive off the fence for a triple. The ump looked over to our bench and said “See, it makes him a better hitter.”

     How’s that for some 200-proof shamelessness, eh? It was 1969, but things haven’t improved since then, what with expansion and the demand it created for more umps. And today, to establish beyond all doubt that that pitch-calling robot is a good thing, we have this, from college baseball:

     [Mississippi Valley] Delta Devils outfielder Davon Mims was at the plate, with two outs, at the top of the ninth inning. As unlikely as a Mississippi Valley State comeback was, it certainly wasn’t impossible, so you can forgive Mims for being very upset with the strike-two call.
     That ball appeared to hit the dirt, a clear ball. When [home plate umpire Reggie Drummer] called it a strike, a despondent Mims hopped around before pointing at the divot that the baseball left in the dirt.
     It was a bad call and Mims had said his piece. Surely he would get a fair crack at this unlikely comeback with his next swing of the bat.
     That swing never came.
     The umpire, operating with the world’s most generous strike zone apparently, called a game-ending third strike on a pitch that was so obviously down and out that the announcer began calling it as such before blurting out an astounded, “Oh my gosh! Wow!”
     Mims followed the umpire, screaming about the missed call, before his catcher ran up and held him back from compounding the situation.

     I can’t help but wonder what that ump had against that player. Did Mims impregnate Drummer’s daughter? Did he offer to buy Drummer a white cane and a seeing-eye dog? We may never know. But we can be sure there was something going on there. At any rate, the Southland Conference suspended Drummer immediately after the game.

     Whatever the case, as an illustration that no one, not even an umpire, should be above the law, that incident is priceless. But don’t expect the umps to agree. After all, this could be only the beginning. What might they lose next? Their power to solemnize weddings at second base? Their power to order a manager’s summary execution? The horror!

Important Truth

     Good morning, Gentle Reader. I had a terrible night – a lot of pain and no sleep – so if what follows seems to come out of the Bizarro dimension, please bear with me. The subject on my mind strikes me as important enough to risk it.

***

     At The Catholic Thing today, we find an important and thought-provoking essay by Monsignor Robert Batule about the interdependency of truth, law, and justice. The central thread of Monsignor Batule’s thinking is that just law must be founded on irrefutable truth:

     In Saint John’s Gospel, for example, Jesus appears before Pontius Pilate, the personification of Roman law, to answer the charge that he is a king. “You say that I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” (Jn 18:37)
     “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice,” (Jn 18:37) Jesus proclaims. All of what Jesus just says being lost on Pilate, the procurator dumbfoundingly asks, “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38)
     When the truth does not matter, should we be surprised that justice is similarly mocked?

     Pilate, of course, was about to kowtow to an ugly, angry mob: to condemn Jesus to death while releasing justly condemned Barabbas from his sentence. While that injustice was essential to Jesus’s Passion and Resurrection, and so in at least that sense was “necessary,” it also illustrates the prerequisite of all injustices: to contradict and contravene what is.

     If the overwhelmingly greater part of contemporary “law” and governmental action is contradictory to the truth, we have a complete explanation for what has become of the Land of the Formerly Free. It’s very nearly a tautology that you cannot serve justice with untruths. But then, justice itself has been under attack for quite some time now.

     Some time ago, I wrote:

     In the ideological clashes of today, the attention of the greater mass of Americans is focused on secondary matters. Arguments over national defense, tax rates, social policy directions, regulatory structures, and so forth continue to rage, but with less prospect of being satisfactorily settled than ever before…because a critical pinion for all argument of any sort has been undermined near to collapse.

     The pinion of which I speak is the concept of objective truth.

     It’s hard for most people to grasp that objective truth is a conception, rather than something self-evident. Yet furious philosophical battles have been fought over it. The negative side has never conceded defeat. They’ve advanced reason after reason to doubt the existence of objective reality. As each one is destroyed, they shift to another. In a sense, their proposition is its own strongest weapon, for they respond rather frequently to even the most obvious points by saying, “No, that’s your truth” — an implicit claim that it’s the not the observation but the observer’s willingness to accept it that really matters.

     John Q. Public has heard little of this, of course; it’s mostly fought in the ivory towers, and in the publications that cater to professional intellectuals. All the same, it matters to him more than he’s able to appreciate.

     I’m sure my Gentle Readers can produce innumerable examples of this “your truth” business merely from reading the news. And it goes without saying that if “your truth” and “my truth” can be in contradiction, then objective truth — that is, the facts as they can be verified by any honest observer – cannot agree with us both. One of us is simply wrong. Indeed, we might both be wrong.

     Monsignor Batule’s concern is with the contemporary tendency to dismiss objective facts in favor of personal preferences, specifically to evade the recognition that one has sinned. If we leave aside the matter of sin for just a moment, we confront the basic evil more clearly: Who has the power to decree what the facts of reality shall be? Anyone? Bueller?

     Atheists might have a hard time with that question. The honest ones will allow that what is, is. However, to answer the question as proposed requires a larger concession: the existence of a Supreme Being with absolute power over reality as we experience it. In the absence of such a Being, facts must hang alone and unsupported in a metaphysical void. A bit of Heinlein is relevant here:

     “May it please milord hero, the world is not what we wish it to be. It is what it is. No, I have over-assumed. Perhaps it is indeed what we wish it to be. Either way, it is what it is. Le voila! Behold it, self-demonstrating. Das Ding an Sich. Bite it. It is. Ai-je raison? Do I speak truly?”

     But Who decided that “It” shall be that way?

     The atheist would dismiss the question as inherently unsound – founded on a premise that there must be / have been a Decider. But without One, can we reach basic conclusions of any sort? Can we have a common conception of justice? Can we say about any particular event that “This is unjust” – and defend our position without recourse to teleology or solipsism?

     Can we refute the supremely arrogant proposition that a man – or Man – can become God?

***

     I can’t close this subject off without citing a passage from C. S. Lewis:

     “Do you mean really to join us, young man?” said Straik. “There is no turning back once you have set your hand to the plow. And there are no reservations. The Head has sent for you. Do you understand—the Head? You will look upon one who was killed and is still alive. The resurrection of Jesus in the Bible was a symbol: tonight you shall see what it symbolized. This is real Man at last, and it claims all our allegiance.”
     “What the devil are you talking about?” said Mark. The tension of his nerves distorted his voice into a hoarse blustering cry.
     “My friend is quite right,” said Filostrato. “Our Head is the first of the New Men—the first that lives beyond animal life. As far as Nature is concerned he is already dead: if Nature had her way his brain would now be moldering in the grave. But he will speak to you within this hour, and—a word in your ear, my friend—you will obey his orders.”
     “But who is it?” said Mark.
     “It is François Alcasan,” said Filostrato.
     “You mean the man who was guillotined?” gasped Mark.
     Both the heads nodded. Both faces were close to him: in that disastrous light they looked like masks hanging in the air.
     “You are frightened?” said Filostrato. “You will get over that. We are offering to make you one of us. Ahi—if you were outside, if you were mere canaglia you would have reason to be frightened. It is the beginning of all power. He lives forever. The giant time is conquered. And the giant space—he was already conquered too. One of our company has already traveled in space. True, he was betrayed and murdered and his manuscripts are imperfect: we have not yet been able to reconstruct his spaceship. But that will come.”
     “It is the beginning of Man Immortal and Man Ubiquitous,” said Straik. “Man on the throne of the universe. It is what all the prophecies really meant.”

     [C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength]

     Ponder that passage awhile. For if there is no God, why should Man not strive to become God? Why should Man not work his will on life itself through cloning, zygotic microsurgery, combining genes from different species, experimenting on embryos, the harvesting of organs from unborn children, “sex change” surgeries, and so on? Why indeed is there anything wrong with snuffing out the lives of the “superannuated,” the “surplus population,” the “undesirables?”

     If you can reason your way to any of that, keep your hands where I can see them.

***

     Heavy stuff, I know. I grappled at length with all those questions before I returned to the Church. I have no doubt that others could say the same. If my own experience is relevant, sharing them with others doesn’t lighten the burden any.

     But it’s the third Sunday in Lent, a good time for confronting such propositions in the raw. Our faculties for moral reasoning require quite as much regular exercise as our bodies. Tough metaphysical questions are ideal weights for the job. Having said that, I’ll close with my usual valedictory:

     May God bless and keep you all.

Saturday Afternoon Music

     I’d been thinking about the many changes that have come over my neighborhood since I moved in here, forty-four years ago. I expected few of them. Fewer still have struck me as improvements. But the only constant in life is change, until life ends and one changes no more.

     Dire Straits, in its heyday, did some of the most impressive music around. For my money, its best stuff was strongly narrative. Tale-songs such as “Sultans of Swing,” “Skateaway,” and “Brothers In Arms” are gems that will be remembered for many years. But the very best of them is this track from Love Over Gold:

A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
Made a home in the wilderness

He built a cabin and a winter store
And he ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore
And the other travellers came walking down the track
And they never went further, no, they never went back

Then came the churches, then came the schools
Then came the lawyers, then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their load
And the dirty old track was the Telegraph Road

Then came the mines, then came the ore
Then there was the hard times, then there was a war
Telegraph sang a song about the world outside
Telegraph Road got so deep and so wide
Like a rolling river

And my radio says tonight it’s gonna freeze
People driving home from the factories
There’s six lanes of traffic
Three lanes moving slow

I used to like to go to work but they shut it down
I’ve got a right to go to work but there’s no work here to be found
Yes, and they say we’re gonna have to pay what’s owed
We’re gonna have to reap from some seed that’s been sowed

And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles
They can always fly away from this rain and this cold
You can hear them singing out their telegraph code
All the way down the Telegraph Road

Well, I’d sooner forget, but I remember those nights
Yeah, life was just a bet on a race between the lights
You had your hand on my shoulder, you had your hand in my hair
Now you act a little colder like you don’t seem to care

But just believe in me baby and I’ll take you away
From out of this darkness and into the day
From these rivers of headlights, these rivers of rain
From the anger that lives on the streets with these names
‘Cause I’ve run every red light on memory lane
I’ve seen desperation explode into flames
And I don’t wanna see it again

From all of these signs saying “sorry but we’re closed”
All the way down the Telegraph Road

– Mark Knopfler –

This Coin Called Freedom

     No one can make a coin that has only one face. A coin will always have an obverse and a reverse. That property of coins has been used in rhetoric innumerable times. Yet among its implications is one that virtually no one has addressed:

For all values of X:
If you are free to do X,
You are also free not to do X.

     It must be this way. If it isn’t, then what’s been called a “freedom” is in reality a compulsion. Here at Liberty’s Torch, we use words according to their exact meanings. Therefore, freedom of speech must include the freedom not to speak – regardless of who may be listening.

     In this light, consider the following:

     Do Musk, Taibbi, and Shellenberger have the right not to speak? To the best of my knowledge, a witness can only be compelled to testify with regard to specific facts at issue in a court of law concerned with a justiciable event. Even then, he can be compelled only if testifying would not make him a witness against himself, as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.

     Which makes me hope that these gentlemen will remain staunch and refuse to disclose what has been demanded of them. Indeed, I’d love to see an exchange such as this:

Congressvermin: Mr. Musk, name the reporters and journalists to whom you’ve given these supposed files.
Elon Musk: Why do you want to know?
Congressvermin: We’re concerned with the protection of consumer privacy.
Musk: Then no.
Congressvermin: What?
Musk: That’s not a good enough reason to violate my privacy…or theirs.

     I’d hope that Elon Musk is tough-minded enough to say exactly that, without hemming, hawing, or clothing his refusal in “due respect” language. (Among other things, the amount of respect due a man who’s trying to violate your rights is zero.)

     It’s been a while since a witness called before a Congressional committee has exhibited anything like strength of character. Ironically, the only name that comes to mind at the moment is one the media have done their best to blacken: that of G. Gordon Liddy:

Senator Sam Ervin: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
G. Gordon Liddy: No.

     Think what you will of Liddy; that took balls. Not many who appear before Congress have possessed them. The fear that comes from being called to appear before a Congressional committee chills all but the stoutest hearts. But why? Don’t we have rights? Do we lack the means with which to defend them…or the will?

     It’s become the imperative of our place and time that we stand to defense of those rights, in both their positive and negative expressions. A right that goes unexercised and undefended will cease to exist. If we yield to pressure to speak when we prefer not to speak, we will soon be silenced when we are impelled to speak. You cannot have a coin with only one face.

     Have a nice day.

A Rather Depressing Morning

I had scheduled an eye exam at America’s Best for 9:15 am. Recently, when I transferred my driver’s license from SC to OH, I’d barely managed to pass the eye test. That, and frequent headaches, prompted me to get the new glasses.

Which, I could not do – or, rather, was advise NOT to do, as it appears that my mild cataracts have become worse since my last visit to an eye doctor. I was referred for possible surgery; unfortunately, the earliest that my doctor can see me is April 6. Until then, I’ll be squinting and mostly driving in daytime.

It’s annoying, but correctable. Apparently, they operate first on one eye, then, a few weeks later, on the other, should it be needed. I’ve notified the family, and they will likely be scheduling get-togethers for earlier in the day.

That, and the generally achiness related to rain/snow changes, has combined to make me depressed. I’ll get over it, but – for today – I’m gonna wallow.

Happiness Is

          I’m wiped out this morning. Yesterday was unusually strenuous, and my night’s sleep was less than satisfactory. But I want to post something every day if possible, so I turned to my Archives in search of something my Gentle Readers might find refreshing.

          Long, long ago, I knew a semipro editor by the name of Pat D’Artagnan. She and I collaborated on a few things back at my first sashay into writing for the Web, the old Palace of Reason. The following is a piece we put together after a rather melancholy conversation about modern marital miseries. It rings as true today as ever.

***

Granny With A Blue Pencil — Pat D’Artagnan
Curmudgeon Emeritus — Francis W. Porretto

August 23, 2002

     We, the “oversigned,” have decided that the world needs to be reminded of some home truths about itself. The gender wars have entered a chaotic phase; there is danger of much ruin, but there is also hope for a truce, and a return to understanding. In pursuit of these things, we offer the following, highly traditional observations in the hope that they’ll prompt each sex to see the other according to its nature, instead of through a lens of combat or wishful thinking.

1. To Men, About Your Woman: by Pat D’Artagnan

     She is not what you think she is. She never was, and never will be.

     Whatever her rhetoric about independence and strength, she needs you, and she knows it. Smile and nod at her spiel, allow her to preserve her self-respect, but never forget this.

     She will bond to one man only. If you are not her principal protector, you’re close to being irrelevant. When she is hurt, lost, or afraid, if she thinks of any other man’s name before yours, you are in serious trouble. Especially if it’s her father.

     No matter what she actually looks like, she thinks she’s homely at best, ugly at worst. Only you have the power to change that, and there’s only one way to do it: by loving her without reservation.

     She is high-maintenance. All women are. It’s your privilege to complain about it, but only if she and everyone who might ever speak to her are all well out of earshot.

     She talks when you’d rather be thinking of something else. So? Women are talkers. That was one of our original functions: to sit around the tribe’s communal fire and compose and perpetuate its oral history.

     Her moods are unpredictable. Yours would be, too, if you had her glands. The endocrine chemistry of the female body seethes with enough power to put a satellite into orbit. Don’t expect her to be constant and imperturbable.

     Her drives are primarily for security, comfort, and progeny. The world will judge you by your accomplishments, but it will judge her — and she will judge herself — by her home and children. Let her lead in those areas, and stop complaining about the closets.

     No, she does not have enough shoes. Or lingerie. Hint, hint!

     Don’t even think about proposing to her if you don’t want children. Never mind that she says she doesn’t want them. She’s lying to keep you happy. Without children, she’ll shrivel and die. Literally; the female body must bring forth children and suckle them, or it becomes vulnerable to several kinds of systemic failure. Besides, marriage is entirely for the protection and nurturance of children.

     You can treat her like a queen but still make her feel like a scullery maid by belittling the way she keeps house. If you dislike something about the way she runs the household, gracefully offer to help — and take it gracefully if she declines.

     No matter how much you love her, she will hate you if you neglect or mistreat her children, and she will be right to do so. After your eight hours of wage labor, put the job behind you and be a father.

     There should be two absolutely unbreakable schedule commitments in your life: dinner every evening, and church every Sunday. Your whole family should be in attendance at both. Only extreme illness should excuse absence. Anyone who seeks to have you slight either of these obligations is not your friend.

     You don’t have to make her happy; you just have to provide the raw materials: security, loyalty, and husbandly and fatherly devotion. She has a natural gift for making happiness from these things, sufficient for both of you. Stand out of her way, and she will enrich you beyond your uttermost fantasies.

2. For Women, About Your Man: by Francis W. Porretto

     He is not everything you want him to be. No man could be. Don’t try to change him.

     If he thinks you’re beautiful, you are. Who else’s opinion matters? Certainly not yours.

     You will never, ever gauge the depth of his anxieties. He worries constantly — and if he loves you, you’re at the heart of it.

     A man’s body is a thing of little beauty, but much power, even if it’s not apparent. The least of men, if excited to the proper pitch of rage, could fell a charging rhino with a single punch. Like all high-performance machines, the male body must be properly maintained. In this, you have a critical role:

  • Don’t feed him garbage. Carbohydrate-laden meals will sedate him and weigh him down. Salt-suffused foods will destroy his osmotic balances and make it difficult for him to digest.
  • Don’t allow others to disturb his sleep. If you want him to be able to rise to the important occasions, you have to guard his sleeping hours against trivial interruptions. Corollary: No phones in the bedroom!
  • Encourage him to do the things that exercise and energize him. Gently! Don’t nag, or his natural resistance to being bossed will propel him in the opposite direction.
  • Now and then, he’ll need to see a doctor. For psychological reasons deriving from the traditional male role as provider and protector, this will always be hard for him to admit. Once again, don’t nag him about it.

     He’ll never be as forthcoming about his emotions as your female friends are. Therein lies one of the classic reasons for romantic dissatisfaction. There’s no help for it; you can only adjust.

     Remember this at all times: He lives to achieve. His biology is optimized for focus on a goal and purposeful aggression in pursuit of it. If he’s a decent man, he strives so that you and your children will be comfortable, safe, and proud of him. He doesn’t put in all that overtime for toys for himself. If he forgets your anniversary, it’s not because it’s unimportant to him, but because the ongoing fact of you is far more important.

     He’ll always judge himself according to how well he does by you and your children. If you want him to be happy — you do, don’t you? — you will contrive to let him know that he has given you abundance and safety, and that you are content with it. Regardless of what you might think, that won’t cause him to slack off; it will spur him to new efforts on your behalf.

     Resist the temptation to generalize about “men.” All the circulating generalizations are demeaning and contemptuous. That’s no surprise, as they were formulated by women who dislike men. Just love yours, and everything else will fall naturally into place.

3. For Everyone: Pat and Fran Together

     You don’t have to understand any of the above, as long as you live by it.

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