Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Around St. Blog's

With a few minutes to spare, and with nothing to offer from my own pen, here are some interesting posts on some of the blogs I read.

Courtesy of Southern Appeal we learn that Sunday was the birthday of Calvin Coolidge, one of America's great presidents. We also see this hilarious photograph of John Kerry being as dishonest about gun ownership as he is about his religion. Commenters at SA have rightly -- and instantly, they must be gun owners themselves -- noted that Kerry is holding a shotgun with his finger on the trigger while paying no attention to where his firearm is pointed. A fellow (or lady) known as The Angry Clam wisely comments: "That's why they're all about banning guns. None of them are smart enough to use them safely, and assume the same thing about all the rest of us gun owners." So I'm announcing a gun buy-back program for Democratic politicians. I will pay $1.00 -- NO QUESTIONS ASKED -- for every Purdey, Bertuzzi, Chapuis, and Famars di Abbiatico and Salvinelli shotgun delivered to me within the next 180 days. Let's keep our gated communities of well-heeled liberals safe for the children they could have aborted, OK?

Over at El Camino Real Jeff Culbreath tells of his family's politically-incorrect fourth-of-July celebration. Not only did they attend a bullfight over the weekend, but they -- gasp! -- sang a religious song for the occasion:
. . . And there's another country, I've heard of long ago
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
we may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
and soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
and her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.
Fr. Jim has blogged some very interesting ruminations about our country, including some positive views about what I had thought is our greatest weakness -- the lack of a sense of history. He concludes, "The American Experiment is 228 years old today, and it has been a great success." Yes, by many measures -- perhaps by almost any measure fit to measure secular regimes -- it has. But I take some comfort in the fact that a great nation will always have room for obscure, crabby, pessimists like myself.

The Curt Jester notices a recent "dissenting movement" among Catholics and has, as always, provided appropriate visual aids for the occasion.

Dale Price manfully handles critical reactions to one of his blogs, providing some interesting thoughts along the way. For example, "[P]ersonal holiness is no proof against awful judgment." Yes, that's quite true.

John da Feisole -- whose writings about the Bishops and Catholic politicians are not always agreeable to me -- has asked an interesting question: "What doesn't make sense to me is why they're [Catholics who are upset about the Church's antipathy to pro-abortion Democratic politicians] angry at the bishops, for teaching that the minor premise is true, and not (as far as I can tell) particularly angry at a major political party for teaching that abortion is a public good. I can't think of a flattering explanation for the selective indignation." Neither can I.

No comments: