Quit Blaming Baby-Boomers

I get really sick of hearing about how the Baby Boomers Ruined Everything. I mean, think about this for a second: the idea that a bunch of hirsute, peace-loving hedonists (who were themselves but a fraction of the boomers) Destroyed Civilization in The Sixties is just…yeesh. I mean, how fragile would civilization have to have been for that to be true?

“Baby-Boomers” has definitely become a caricature in certain culture-war contexts.

Some Things We Lost

There was a time before the mid-sixties when kids (especially teenaged ones) dressed more or less like their parents. If you doubt this, go to your school district office and check yearbooks for your local high school from the the decade of the sixties - especially the grades BELOW 12th (seniors have pretty much always dressed in tuxes). Some time during that decade, the clothing stopped looking adult and starting looking what we think of today as "teenaged."

For kids to NOT dress like their parents was definitely a change, and not for the un-alloyed better, in my view. The shift signified by that event has had corrosive effects on our cultural integrity which have been a mixed blessing: yes, the 50s were a time of mindless conformity, but too much "do-your-own-thing" does not account for the obligations and responsibilities we have toward one another, and too much fissioned individualism corrodes social cohesion.

In 1948, Oakland California had about the same population as it does today, about the same racial make-up, roughly the same mix of incomes...and 15 murders. Last year there were over 100.

Sheesh...

Via Vox Nova, one Professor Kmiec has been denied communion, due to a decision, not by a Bishop, but by a chaplain.

Awesome - so I guess chaplains can, at their discretion, now refuse communion to Catholic National Review columnists who are insufficiently opposed to torture? Any Catholic politician who has failed to oppose the Iraq War?

Is a Catholic politician opposed to the pastor’s social justice group? Back to the pews with you.

The Communion line is going to get pretty short, unless Bishops put an end to waging the culture war during Mass.

I give up: I think I’ll recommend to my pastor to refuse communion to any admitted Republican, until they publicly sign a renunciation of support for Unjust War, Torture, and Racism.

Of course, this will be countered by the Republicans in my parish, who will agitate for the denial of communion to anyone who has ever voted for a Democrat, until such time as they sign a renunciation of support for Abortion, Gay ‘marriage,’ and Pre-Marital sex.

So, I imagine Mass is going to turn into a situation of everyone checking carefully who receives, and the pastor, before offering the Body and Blood, asking for ID and checking a book to verify that each recipient is authorized to receive; meanwhile, we’ll all thank God that we are not like other men, especially those reprobate Demoncrats/Rethuglicans who are surely going to hell on roller skates.

Ash Wednesday is Tomorrow

"My name is Safa Younis. I'm 12 years old."

The interviewer asks, "What did the American soldiers do when they broke into the house?"

"They knocked at the door," Younis says. "My father went to open it, they shot him dead from behind the door, and then they shot him again after they opened the door."

She describes hearing the Marines go through the rest of the house, shooting and setting off a grenade before getting to the bedroom where she was with her mother and siblings.

"Then comes one American soldier and shot [at] us all," she says. "I pretended to be dead ... and he did not know about me."

May God bless Safa Younis and the surviving members of her family; May God be merciful to the Marines who killed her father, and to the commanders and president who put them in that situation; and most of all, may God be merciful to me for my silence.

Conservative Catholic makes an ass of himself...

Henry Karlson sends up a particularly ridiculous defamation of Harry Potter by one Father Euteneuer.

I find myself mystified by "Potter Panic" amongst my co-religionists.