Andrew McCarthy on what the problem is with the Islamic world: Islam.
A couple of money lines:
"The main lesson of the Arab Spring ought to be that this remaking of Islam has happened only in our own minds, for our own consumption."
"Islam constitutes a distinct civilization. It is not merely an exotic splash on the gorgeous global mosaic with a few embarrassing cultural eccentricities; it is an entirely different way of looking at the world."
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
If there's one thing that unites Catholics left and right . . .
. . . it's the understanding of the sanctity of life. William McGurn at WSJ on left-leaning Catholic leaders who are none too happy with the MEC and Kathleen Sibelius for the totalitarian imposition of contraception and sterilization mandates in FHer-care.
We've always had to carve out our own space
While I for one think it's still important to keep Newt Gingrich's shortcomongs front and center, lest we lapse into self-delusion in our zeal to get behind the most likely anti-Romney, a Newt campaign consultant, Craig Shirley, has penned a Politico piece detailing the struggle of the conservative movement to assert itself and prevail over the Reasonable Gentleman GOP establishment over the last fity-two years.
He makes the point that people proudly call themselves Goldwater Republicans or Reagan Republicans, but that nobody goes around calling himself a Rockefeller Republican or a Ford or Nixon Republican.
It's only because of us that the Republican party stands for anything.
He makes the point that people proudly call themselves Goldwater Republicans or Reagan Republicans, but that nobody goes around calling himself a Rockefeller Republican or a Ford or Nixon Republican.
It's only because of us that the Republican party stands for anything.
Monday, January 23, 2012
From a moral standpoint, the Most Equal Comrade barely qualifies as human - today's edition
He says that the "right" to exterminate fetal Americans makes for a way for the nation's "daughters to fulfill their dreams."
Not only is he a socialist without a patriotic bone in his body, he regards human life as expendable.
Not only is he a socialist without a patriotic bone in his body, he regards human life as expendable.
Yikes - today's edition
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln passed through the Strait of Hormuz and entered the Persian Gulf without incident, which makes Iranian army chief Atoallah Salehi's threat-laced edict about US ships coming back to the strait look a little empty.
Maybe.
Now that the EU has voted for an oil embargo, a senior Iranian official says that Iran will "definitely" close the strait. The brigadier general of the Revolutionary Guard says that Iran is "well prepeared" for "asymmetrical warfare."
Three broad scenarios present themselves now:
1.) It all comes to nought and the focus goes back to Iranian nuclear cat-and-mouse.
2.) There is a brief period of apocalyptic tension, but the situation is defused before anything history-changing occurs.
3.) What everyone has imagined, at least for a few seconds before putting it out of their minds, comes to pass.
Maybe.
Now that the EU has voted for an oil embargo, a senior Iranian official says that Iran will "definitely" close the strait. The brigadier general of the Revolutionary Guard says that Iran is "well prepeared" for "asymmetrical warfare."
Three broad scenarios present themselves now:
1.) It all comes to nought and the focus goes back to Iranian nuclear cat-and-mouse.
2.) There is a brief period of apocalyptic tension, but the situation is defused before anything history-changing occurs.
3.) What everyone has imagined, at least for a few seconds before putting it out of their minds, comes to pass.
She'll be making more contributions to this world's betterment, just you watch
Say what you will about party affiliation (and don't forget that she was, until fairly recently, a Republican), Gabrielle Giffords is the embodiment of class and courage.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Now, having said the business about flawed spokespeople for time-honored principles . . .
. . . it's important to remember just how flawed that spokesperson is, and how the voting public at large feels about him. The Washington Examiner says Americans generally hate Newt Gingrich.
And a lot of true heroes on the right are part of the swath of folks that are not keen on him at all.
I'll tell you what I hate. I hate the options before us. I hate the array of scenarios for the next ten months. I hate the prospects for Western civilization.
What the hell kind of political process winnows out the best candidates two primaries into the nomination race - in fact, winnows out most of them before the primaries get underway?
And a lot of true heroes on the right are part of the swath of folks that are not keen on him at all.
I'll tell you what I hate. I hate the options before us. I hate the array of scenarios for the next ten months. I hate the prospects for Western civilization.
What the hell kind of political process winnows out the best candidates two primaries into the nomination race - in fact, winnows out most of them before the primaries get underway?
What South Carolina means
No, it doesn't make Newt Gingrich any less a problematic figure, but it demonstrates unmistakably that huge numbers of Americans thirst and hunger for real conservative principles, even when articulated by a flawed spokesperson.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Johnny Otis, RIP
Can you believe this? Johnny Otis, the R&B impresario who discovered Etta James, passing away on the same day as Etta James.
One of the thrills of my life was having a one-one-one conversation with him in 1998. The International Society of Ethnomusicologists was having its annual convention on the Indiana University campus. One of the symposia was on his contribution to American music, and he was part of the panel discussion. That evening, the Johnny Otis Show gave a concert at the Bloomington Convention Center. A friend who knew I was a music historian got me comp tickets to all of it.
Anyway, in the evening, before the show, I was standing in the hallway beside the auditorium. A side door opens, and out steps Johnny Otis. Carpe diem, baby! I asked him about the postwar labels he talent-scouted for and about life on the chitlin circuit. He was really gracious with his time.
One of the thrills of my life was having a one-one-one conversation with him in 1998. The International Society of Ethnomusicologists was having its annual convention on the Indiana University campus. One of the symposia was on his contribution to American music, and he was part of the panel discussion. That evening, the Johnny Otis Show gave a concert at the Bloomington Convention Center. A friend who knew I was a music historian got me comp tickets to all of it.
Anyway, in the evening, before the show, I was standing in the hallway beside the auditorium. A side door opens, and out steps Johnny Otis. Carpe diem, baby! I asked him about the postwar labels he talent-scouted for and about life on the chitlin circuit. He was really gracious with his time.
Etta James, RIP
A towering figure in American music. Age 73, complications from leukemia.
Her autobiography, Rage to Survive, written with R&B historian David Ritz, is one of my favorite books.
Her autobiography, Rage to Survive, written with R&B historian David Ritz, is one of my favorite books.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
As dusk falls
As I've said before, people probably don't check in with a blog called Late in the Day looking for big doses of sunshine and confidence about the future.
I would like to have been able to give a blog about the current cultural, economic, political and geostrategic state of Western civilization a different name, maybe something a little cute or post-ironic, but I wanted to do those finding their way here in the midst of surfing the service of letting them know what the site's understanding of our current juncture is.
And it never gets any better. There, I said it.
Is this country full of wholesome, principled, energetic, God-fearing, productive, caring people? Clearly; we all know such beings, and there are even some in fields where they are admittedly a rarity. Politics comes to mind.
For the most part, such people tend to take care of their lives and work and leave ideology to others, though. Their thinking, it seems to me, is that their principles are best asserted in this world by example. There's also the fact that the pace of modern life just plain keeps upright, productive folks rather busy.
A few do get involved on the level of trying to influence our culture. They generally get rewarded with vitriol, snark and hate mail for their efforts.
So here we are, not even to Super Tuesday yet, and the GOP presidential candidate field has basically narrowed to three. (Yes, there will be four onstage at the next debate, but Paul - well, we've been over what he's about many times.) One is a decent family man by all accounts, with one devoted and fine wife to his name, as well as four robust and decent sons. He also happens to be the Establishment / Reasonable Gentleman / RINO / starched-shirt-corporatespeak candidate of this election cycle, the kind that Republicans routinely nominate, sometimes to get elected and sometimes to be defeated. Another is a principled conservative, with probably the fewest departures from conservatism in his record of any Republicans that have run this time. He is also a deeply religious family man, married to his first wife. He also seems to be past the peak of his modest surge. Then there's Newt.
He's certainly having an eventful day, isn't he? Perry drops out and endorses him. His second ex-wife's ABC interview will air after tonight's debate, and even if there are no new bombshells, to have her on video recounting what a heartless, hypocritical, emotionally detached man he has been in at least one period of his life is going to be damaging.
Let's go ahead and review the flaws and lapses in judgement we know about in addition to such behavior as asking his wife to tolerate his affair. There's the public whining about being placed in the back of the plane on the trip with Bill Clinton. There's the environmentalist TV commercial in which he sits on a bench with Nancy Pelosi. There's his support for Scozzafava over Hoffman in the upstate New York congressional election. There's his dissing of Paul Ryan's tax-and-entitlement plan on Sunday morning television. There's his support for ethanol subsidies.
And then there are the instances when he thunderously champions conservative principles like no one else. There's no way that's not extremely valuable - urgently needed - at this moment.
I'm well aware that the truism "reality demands choosing between available choices, not pretending or wishing that other choices were available" is so important that its status as a cliche must be overlooked. That doesn't make it any less hard to really let in.
It's harder than ever to defend conservatism, not because it's not defensible, but because, between horrible spokespeople for it (Newt) and less-than-effective spokespeople for it (Santorum, Perry, Bachmann, Cain), it gets drowned out by a mainstream media that is in the tank for radical socialism and that has no problem with moral relativism (unless it's practiced in a hypocritical way by a conservative spokesperson).
We're making the path to re-election for the worst and most radical president in U.S. history easy. While it's understandable that the array of possible contenders most of us really wanted to see - Daniels, Christie, Bolton, Rubio - declined to run because of the inevitable damage one sustains in the intra-party winnowing process, the result is that those who would take on the most damage, because of their flaws, are the ones left standing.
It's just a real drag to be this disspirited this early in an election year. It's a battlefield with no heroes.
I would like to have been able to give a blog about the current cultural, economic, political and geostrategic state of Western civilization a different name, maybe something a little cute or post-ironic, but I wanted to do those finding their way here in the midst of surfing the service of letting them know what the site's understanding of our current juncture is.
And it never gets any better. There, I said it.
Is this country full of wholesome, principled, energetic, God-fearing, productive, caring people? Clearly; we all know such beings, and there are even some in fields where they are admittedly a rarity. Politics comes to mind.
For the most part, such people tend to take care of their lives and work and leave ideology to others, though. Their thinking, it seems to me, is that their principles are best asserted in this world by example. There's also the fact that the pace of modern life just plain keeps upright, productive folks rather busy.
A few do get involved on the level of trying to influence our culture. They generally get rewarded with vitriol, snark and hate mail for their efforts.
So here we are, not even to Super Tuesday yet, and the GOP presidential candidate field has basically narrowed to three. (Yes, there will be four onstage at the next debate, but Paul - well, we've been over what he's about many times.) One is a decent family man by all accounts, with one devoted and fine wife to his name, as well as four robust and decent sons. He also happens to be the Establishment / Reasonable Gentleman / RINO / starched-shirt-corporatespeak candidate of this election cycle, the kind that Republicans routinely nominate, sometimes to get elected and sometimes to be defeated. Another is a principled conservative, with probably the fewest departures from conservatism in his record of any Republicans that have run this time. He is also a deeply religious family man, married to his first wife. He also seems to be past the peak of his modest surge. Then there's Newt.
He's certainly having an eventful day, isn't he? Perry drops out and endorses him. His second ex-wife's ABC interview will air after tonight's debate, and even if there are no new bombshells, to have her on video recounting what a heartless, hypocritical, emotionally detached man he has been in at least one period of his life is going to be damaging.
Let's go ahead and review the flaws and lapses in judgement we know about in addition to such behavior as asking his wife to tolerate his affair. There's the public whining about being placed in the back of the plane on the trip with Bill Clinton. There's the environmentalist TV commercial in which he sits on a bench with Nancy Pelosi. There's his support for Scozzafava over Hoffman in the upstate New York congressional election. There's his dissing of Paul Ryan's tax-and-entitlement plan on Sunday morning television. There's his support for ethanol subsidies.
And then there are the instances when he thunderously champions conservative principles like no one else. There's no way that's not extremely valuable - urgently needed - at this moment.
I'm well aware that the truism "reality demands choosing between available choices, not pretending or wishing that other choices were available" is so important that its status as a cliche must be overlooked. That doesn't make it any less hard to really let in.
It's harder than ever to defend conservatism, not because it's not defensible, but because, between horrible spokespeople for it (Newt) and less-than-effective spokespeople for it (Santorum, Perry, Bachmann, Cain), it gets drowned out by a mainstream media that is in the tank for radical socialism and that has no problem with moral relativism (unless it's practiced in a hypocritical way by a conservative spokesperson).
We're making the path to re-election for the worst and most radical president in U.S. history easy. While it's understandable that the array of possible contenders most of us really wanted to see - Daniels, Christie, Bolton, Rubio - declined to run because of the inevitable damage one sustains in the intra-party winnowing process, the result is that those who would take on the most damage, because of their flaws, are the ones left standing.
It's just a real drag to be this disspirited this early in an election year. It's a battlefield with no heroes.
Let us reason together
Larry Elder has a great column today about the difference in the way the media handles the MEC's view of homosexual "marriage" and the way it handles Rick Santorum's view. The most interesting part of the piece recounts an exchange Santorum had with a snot-nosed teenager about the subject. Santorum kept after him with a series of Socratic questions that were forcing the kid to justify his drawing the line at two people entering a marriage. When Santorum asked him, "Well, if we're going to say two people, regardless of gender, can get married, why do we not grant the 'right to marry' to three people who profess to all be deeply in love." The kid bowed out of the exchange, because he was going to have to come up with an intellectually solid justification for the notion that marital love can only involve two people. And that looked like real work to him.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
There's nothing "spiritual" about this stuff
Actually, that's not true. Evil is a factor of the spiritual level of reality.
I have touched on the whole "New Age" phenomenon a few times in the course of this blog's unfoldment. My favorite blog for exposing and debunking that whole area of postmodern human activity is Whirreled Musings.
The blogmistress has spent a great deal of posting space in the last few months to covering the impact of Jerry Hicks's death on the whole Abraham-Hicks organization. She's been thorough and conscientious, linking to every source necessary to defend the veracity of everything she writes.
True to form, she has offered a new post that looks into the suicide death of an ex-Aber. The lady that is the subject of this incredibly sad tale tried up to the last day of her life to find some kind of comfort, encouragement, cosmic liberation and supreme peace from the circular reasoning and jargon-rich happy talk that passes for profound spiritual insight among the "monster bus" / "alignment with the vortex" crowd.
The whole "New Age" / "transformational" thrust in our culture has creepy parallels to the narrow range of discourse that is tolerated by leftist ideology. Still not getting that career-changing gig after years of striving to "feel good" / "align with source"? Pissed at having shelled out $41,000 for a Chevy Volt only to have the damn battery blow up? Feeling a little regret at having invested in Solyndra? Sorry, pal, you just didn't get your vibrations in order sufficiently, and there will be no consideration of any other viewpoint on the matter.
It's not an encouraging sign of where we are as a civilization that we swallow such hooey not only readily but with enthusiasm, so hungry are we for validation, salvation, and absolution for the choices we've made with the moments that comprise the truly precious and irreplaceable lives in these mortal coils.
I have touched on the whole "New Age" phenomenon a few times in the course of this blog's unfoldment. My favorite blog for exposing and debunking that whole area of postmodern human activity is Whirreled Musings.
The blogmistress has spent a great deal of posting space in the last few months to covering the impact of Jerry Hicks's death on the whole Abraham-Hicks organization. She's been thorough and conscientious, linking to every source necessary to defend the veracity of everything she writes.
True to form, she has offered a new post that looks into the suicide death of an ex-Aber. The lady that is the subject of this incredibly sad tale tried up to the last day of her life to find some kind of comfort, encouragement, cosmic liberation and supreme peace from the circular reasoning and jargon-rich happy talk that passes for profound spiritual insight among the "monster bus" / "alignment with the vortex" crowd.
The whole "New Age" / "transformational" thrust in our culture has creepy parallels to the narrow range of discourse that is tolerated by leftist ideology. Still not getting that career-changing gig after years of striving to "feel good" / "align with source"? Pissed at having shelled out $41,000 for a Chevy Volt only to have the damn battery blow up? Feeling a little regret at having invested in Solyndra? Sorry, pal, you just didn't get your vibrations in order sufficiently, and there will be no consideration of any other viewpoint on the matter.
It's not an encouraging sign of where we are as a civilization that we swallow such hooey not only readily but with enthusiasm, so hungry are we for validation, salvation, and absolution for the choices we've made with the moments that comprise the truly precious and irreplaceable lives in these mortal coils.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)