SecretAgentMan's Dossier

McElhinney's Asking for It

So there he goes, taunting me again with being late on the reply to the kneeling business. My quick responses follow in black.

As SAM has manifested the intention of responding yet again to my last response on this thread. I find it intriguing that SAM needs to take four months and fifteen thousand words to respond.

Yeah, been workin' on it night and day, too. Lost my job. The wife left. The dog left. House got repossessed. Been typin' it by splicing my computer into the phone lines near the bridge I'm livin' under.

I know SAM well from message board battles in days of yore and he is aware of my tremendous respect for his talents.{1}So noting that, it seems appropriate at this time to issue a brief monitum to him on this subject.

OK, monitum me.

Essentially SAM's only "escape hatch" in this dispute is what I noted in my last response with regards to whether or not the local ordinary in question has manifested the intention to pass an authentic directive on the matter of discussion. All of the legal rhetoric in the world cannot circumvent this so there is no point in making the attempt to -whether 15,000 or 50,000 words are used.

Nope, that's not the only "escape hatch." Actually there is no escape hatch -- there's just an ever-narrowing sphere of vision as the JDAM of my intellect streaks toward your liturgical bunker. (BTW, if it does go that long, it'll be because I won't cut out all the other natterings I was led to while working on the issue).

Nonetheless, it is interesting that SAM wants to post a response when your humble servant will be absent the country.

Interesting? It's diabolically clever, is what it is. I can picture you now Shawn, padding back from the beach once again to call up my reply in the hotel's internet cafe, biting your lip, briefly wondering whether it's worth buying a Mexican laptop and missing all that sun, then padding back to your cabana, there to fall into a fitful and restless sleep . . . then getting up again, padding back into the hotel to call up my reply . . . . ..

The readers can take away from that whatever they will of course. If this was happening during my conspiracy theorist days I could spin quite a yarn on the matter but I digress.

Shawn, didn't you think it was odd, getting that better-than-expected deal on flights to Mexico at just this time?

The rest of this post will be bits and pieces on what The Secret One noted about his end of the year agenda. His words will be in black font:

Nope, Brownson's not finished. Brownson's conclusion let me into some other thoughts about the Church as a political institution, which in turn led me to thinking about what ol' Tim calls "epistemology" and so I'm gonna go into that a little bit. Rohnheimer's article is a nice bracing tonic for the Impeccability Brigade, but he's got some of his own problems of analysis that are emblematic of the Total Failure Battalion, so my perspective is going to be pretty much macro with only a little micro with an excursis into Catholic/Jewish relations. (Hey -- why shouldn't I make it as easy on myself as I can?) Enloe really gets my goat with all that Plato stuff, so I hope I can chime in on that topic even though it's all Greek to me. Scalia's just Olympia Snowe in black chenille, gonna talk about that a little. No problem for the help, although I'm not sure how many of my suggestions actually made it. Have a great Christmas, and try to stay away from the internet cafe . . . .