Wonderful Matters

This week Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez wowed the world by speaking at the United Nations and referring to George Bush as the devil more than a few times. Aside from demonstrating his devout Catholic faith by crossing himself when he said it, he recommended we all read Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival" so we can better understand the world as it really works. The reaction of all who say anything that gets heard says tons about the vast culture war. All the clamor invariably breaks down into two distinct voices. One group, those in the pro-Chavez/Chomsky camp, will screech about how evil George Bush is for wanting to take over the world and how much we need to rise up to stop it. The other group, those in the pro-glories of western civilization camp, will zealously deny that this is what Bush et al have done, and that they are merely fulfilling their God-given duty to defend righteously rational interests. What is so amazing is that, shazam!--both are right! The pro...

Opened up my paper today and saw there on the front page of the Los Angeles Times a story about the IRS now really going after All Saints Church in Pasadena for making brazenly political comments from the pulpit just before the 2004 election. I haven't even read it-- I've just looked at the headline-- but I can bet throughout you'll see all kinds of histrionics about how oppressive the government is being, about oh how much they are denying this fine religious establishment the right to, again, "speak truth to power." Just wanted to invite you to go to a webzine piece I did about it back at the beginning of the year. For your dining pleasure: "On Perfectly Acceptable Racketeering" at The Catholicist Nation.

Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet. He so viscerally told of the way things were going in Jerusalem that it brought him to tears. And not just a few drops, but an entire fountain, as it says there in chapter nine. At least the grief caused him to feel like sobbing as much. Why did he feel this way? It was simple. He had to confront adulterous people . People who once said they'd be faithful, and later became prostitutes. To whom were they betrothed? None other than God Himself. To whom did they solicit themselves? The majestic and exalted Legacy of Cain. God grieved over this Himself, and said to His beloved Jerusalem, "You may have him." What is phenomenal is that all the while He promised, " But I will win you back ." I feel quite a bit like Jeremiah today. It is 9/11. The Anniversary. And all I see is grief. Lots and lots of grieving. As I feel as I do, I grieve also. But I must say that I grieve more as Jeremiah did. I so want to tell people wha...

My summer reading this year included New York Times ubercolumnist Thomas Friedman's popular book The World is Flat . In it I found some interesting things to know about our fine Catholicist Nation. To muse on those things with me, go here . For a bit of exposition on the Catholicist Nation, take a peek here .

The biggest poker tournament of all time was recently won by a television producer and agent. The winner, Jamie Gold, defeated a starting field of nearly 9,000 players, and he credited his victory in part to his experiences reading people in Hollywood meetings. He said, "I have a greater sense of when people are telling the truth and when they are lying." (Los Angeles Times, 8/12/06) His take was $12 million dollars, and while much of his success was certainly the result of a lot of luck, I couldn't help but think. So this is the value of looking at someone and truthfully divining their deception . It is ironic that in the same day's Times was media pundit Tim Rutten's take on news service Reuters doctoring photos of the Lebanon-Israel conflict. He pointed out that this should be a much bigger story than it is. It may not have had the strongest legs because Reuters fired the photographer, issued apologies, and all that kind of stuff. I don't think for a second...

A recent John Podhoretz column was brought to my attention as I listened to a bit of talk radio this morning, and the piece exposed the wimpiness of the preeminent powers to fight bad things, like terrorism. These powers have tons of military strength and weaponry, they just don't use it because they're too timidly fearful of world opinion. Lots of media coverage of children lying dead around rubble can be a wee counterproductive. Today's Rome (embodied in the U.S./U.K./and, in some sense, Israel alliance) certainly doesn't act like the Rome of old. When Rome of old conquered a territory, it summarily executed every single remotely powerful individual (after a bit of parading some of them about town), dragging the main leader to the feet of the emperor who very graciously said, "You may serve me, or be dead also." That kind of fixed everything. Please know that I don't say yea or nay to this activity in any way, for my Lord has asked me to live by the prec...

My 10 year-old son went off to camp today, where he'll be for four days. But this morning before he went, I promised him I'd play him in Monopoly, his favorite board game. The full game, an hour-and-a-half long. We put the game together, set the timer, and off we went. Usually he beats the tar out of me. Seriously, he has this knack for rolling past my house-laden properties and lands on "Free Parking" way more than he should (yes, we play with that kitty in the middle). But today, I was the one getting the rolls he's always gotten . About an hour into the game I'd already landed on "Free Parking" five times to his none (maybe John Rawls was right!) I'd bought four properties he couldn't afford, and at the height of my power I had hotels on each property of three different color groupings, three of the railroads and both utilities (hey, those guys can get you some sweet cash). The notable thing is that because my son loves to play this game s...