Steyn: "Obama is the ultimate reality show"

With an emphasis on the "show." Here's a chunk from Mark Steyn's weekend column:

Well, it's the difference between cool and reality – and, as Hillary's confident reply appeared to suggest, and the delirious media reception of it confirmed, reality comes a poor second in the Obama era. The presumption of conservatives has always been that, one day, cold, dull reality would pierce the klieg-light sheen of Obama's glamour. Indeed, that was the premise of Mitt Romney's reductive presidential campaign. But, just as Beyoncé will always be way cooler than some no-name operatic soprano or a male voice choir, so Obama will always be cooler than a bunch of squaresville yawneroos boring on about jobs and debt and entitlement reform. Hillary's cocksure sneer to Sen. Johnson of Wisconsin made it explicit. At a basic level, the “difference” is the difference between truth and falsity, but the subtext took it a stage further: No matter what actually happened that night in Benghazi, you poor sad loser Republicans will never succeed in imposing that reality and its consequences on this administration.

Read the rest. I thought harsh reality would burst the Obama bubble, too, but I was wrong. American culture is very, very comfortable with all things faux, and would rather play pretend than offend by acknowledging obvious, hard-edged but now profoundly unfashionable truths. So we pretend, for example, that men and women are interchangeable in every possible circumstance. It's not true, and ultimately, that will make a difference. Bookworm comments on the DoD's decision to allow women in combat:

Nature is a harsh taskmistress, and many women and men are going to suffer as this ideological experiment goes forward.

Read the whole powerful piece and pass it on. Her straight talk about women in combat makes it hard to keep pretending.

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Way to go, courageous, truth-seeking watchdogs of the media.

You've gone after the facts of the Benghazi attack with such zeal and integrity that we're just finding out now that there's a Benghazi survivor still being treated at Walter Reed. Amazing.

It seems the State Department is hiding the survivors.

But really, what difference does it make?

Watch Sen. Rand Paul take on Hillary here.

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Update: In his Morning Jolt email, Jim Geraghty rightly concludes, "Benghazi Hearings Mark End of Accountability, Forever". If he puts his thoughts in a post I'll update with a link.

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The Government of "What Difference Does It Make?"

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"Who were they?"

I don't know whether Katrina Trinko's piece was inspired by this image, but it could have been.

Hat tip: Catholic Onward

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Inaugural lolz: "Obama on Fire"

So wrong in so many ways:



I'm eagerly waiting for a comment from Mark Steyn. 

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Gov. Cuomo hearts abortion

Terrible: http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/21/cuomo-abortion-bill- outrageous-says-democrats-for-life/

We should be praying for this man's soul.

(Sorry - making links is tricky on this device.)

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Tomorrow

I had planned a media blackout for tomorrow but now I'm having second thoughts.

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"Push her off the roof of the building"

CNN's headline reads, "Challenges of being a woman in India." A bit of an understatement, but taken literally, yes, "being," as in existing, is indeed a "challenge":

Jhajjar, India (CNN) -- One-month-old baby girl Khushi, which means "happiness" in Hindi, would not have been alive had her mother, Sumanjeet, given in to pressure from some relatives and neighbors.

"They would cry and yell, 'What are you doing giving birth to a girl? Push her off the roof of the building, kill her! Why are you keeping her?'" the 25-year-old mother says.

Sumanjeet says people kept telling her to get an ultrasound check and abort all four of her daughters. They told her she wouldn't have enough money for a suitable dowry. Although Sumanjeet wasn't quite sure how she was going to raise them, she knew it was a crime to get rid of them.

 "Why are they killing girls, while they're still in the womb? It's a sin for which they'll have to be answerable to God. Small, cute girls like a doll. They kill her in the womb? It's a sin," Sumanjeet weeps.

Hat tip: Hot Air Headlines

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Mass for Nellie Gray before this year's March for Life

The Paulus Institute has announced a Mass for Nellie Gray to be offered on the morning of the March for Life:

The Paulus Institute For the Propagation of Sacred Liturgy
Mass to Commemorate Nellie Gray
St. Mary Mother of God Church, 5th and H Sts. NW, Washington, DC
Fri. Jan. 25, 8:00 a.m., the Day of the 2013 March for Life

The Paulus Institute, an association of the Catholic faithful dedicated to the propagation of the Sacred Liturgy, is pleased to sponsor a Mass commemorating Nellie Gray, the ardent pro-life advocate and architect of the annual March for Life.

Fr. Alfred J. Harris, pastor of St. Mary’s, has graciously scheduled the Mass for the convenience of all who can attend. Fr. Harris celebrated Nellie’s Requiem Mass at St. Mary’s in the traditional form, a Missa Cantata, with Sean Cardinal O’Malley and Donald Cardinal Wuerl participating in choir.

The Mass will be in the extraordinary form (traditional Latin Mass), dear to Nellie’s heart. For years, she was a regular figure in the third row pew of St. Mary’s at the Sunday 9 a.m. traditional Mass. Recently, Nellie had desired a Mass for March participants to be arranged by The Paulus Institute at St. Mary’s.

The Mass will be a sung Mass (Missa Cantata), the Mass of the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the patron saint of The Paulus Institute, providentially occurring on the date of this year's March.

“Nellie Gray was a saint right in our midst,” said Jonathan Terrell, a member of the Institute’s board of directors. “As a lawyer in her prime years, she answered Christ’s call, just as St. Paul did. Nellie left her career and devoted herself to correcting the gross injustice of Roe vs. Wade, and she unfailingly attended the traditional Mass. May she be an inspiration to us all.” Fittingly, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI spoke of Christian vocation, so clearly demonstrated by Nellie Gray:

“‘Come, follow me.’ (Mk 10:21) This is the Christian vocation which is born from the Lord's proposal of love and can only be fulfilled in our loving response. Jesus invites his disciples to give their lives completely, without calculation or personal interest, with unreserved trust in God. Saints accept this demanding invitation and set out with humble docility in the following of the Crucified and Risen Christ. Their perfection, in the logic of faith sometimes humanly incomprehensible consists in no longer putting themselves at the centre but in choosing to go against the tide, living in line with the gospel. … [W]e contemplate the Apostle Peter's words fulfilled: ‘Behold, we have left all things, and have followed thee’ (v. 28), and Jesus’ comforting reassurance: ‘there is no man who has left house or brethren, sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who shall not receive a hundred times as much, now in this time ... with persecutions, and in the world to come life everlasting.’” (vv. 29-30).

Homily Of His Holiness Benedict XVIVatican Basilica, Sunday, 11 October 2009 

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Rex Trailer, RIP

Back when there were only three channels we New England kids watched Rex Trailer's Boomtown every Saturday and Sunday morning. 

How much has the world changed in fifty years? This much:





You had to be there. Read Rex Trailer's obituary here.

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Are bishops willing to go to jail over HHS mandate?

Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli on how to fight Obama's HHS mandate:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said on a radio program Wednesday that going to jail may be an effective way to protest a mandate tied to ObamaCare that requires employers to provide contraceptive coverage. [. . .]

Cuccinelli called the mandate an attack on the Roman Catholic Church and religious freedom and suggested that opponents fight back by forcing the feds to crack down on those who don't comply.

Cuccinelli, who is Catholic, said he had spoken to a bishop who suggested he'd go to jail to protest it.

"My local bishop said he told a group, `Well, you know, I told a group I'm ready to go to jail,' and I told him, `Bishop, don't take this personally - you need to go to jail," Cuccinelli said, trying to balance levity with seriousness.

I hope the bishop was serious.

Leila Marie Lawler wonders:

Bishops, would you go to jail to oppose the #HHSMandate? foxnews.com/politics/2013/… Would you give up banquets? Jolly times with pols? What then?
— Leila Marie Lawler (@_Leila) January 11, 2013

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Many thanks to PewSitter for the big link.


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Culture of death update [updated]

Shaking my head here at this Corner post on our tax dollars funding strip club visits and porn purchases:

According to a New York Post investigation, government officials have been turning a blind eye while some welfare recipients have been getting an eyeful at New York strip clubs and adult video stores. From January 2011 to July 2012, the Post found that dozens of Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards were used at a number of bars, liquor stores, tobacco shops, X-rated video stores and strip clubs to withdraw cash from approved ATM machines.

Bad enough. But this:

Cato senior fellow Michael Tanner put it perfectly: “This is morally scandalous. I have nothing against strip clubs, but that’s not what benefits are for. I don’t blame [recipients]. If you are poor, it’s a crummy life and you want to have a drink or see a naked woman. I blame the people who are in charge of this.” 

I know libertarians are totally okay with porn and strip clubs (despite the inherent  objectification and degradation of women, and the inevitable leakage of the former into the lives of children), and I've stopped assuming that conservative commentators will be willing to condemn sexual vices. But declaring poor people not responsible for their own behavior is the "perfect" response to this? Come on.

Along those lines, Wesley Smith sees an effort "definitely underway" to normalize pedophilia. Bottom line:

No “conversation!” No debate! Having sexual relations with children treats them as mere objects, a good definition of evil.  If this view ever enters the mainstream–and that seems closer–we are on the road to cultural death.

Yesiree. In other news, the predictions of rampaging hordes of unattached young males made by Mark Steyn and others may be coming true in India:

Growing evidence suggests that in countries like India and China, where the ratio of men to women is unnaturally high due to the selective abortion of female fetuses and neglect of girl children, the rates of violence towards women increase. “The sex ratio imbalance directly leads to more sex trafficking and bride buying,” says Mara Hvistendahl, author of Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men. A scarce resource is generally considered precious, but the lack of women also leaves many young men without marriage partners. In 2011, the number of cases of women raped rose by 9.2 percent; kidnapping and abductions of women were up 19.4 percent. 

What Steyn wrote in 2008:

By midcentury, when today’s millions of surplus boys will be entering middle age, India and China are expected to account for a combined 50 percent of global GDP. On present trends, they will be the most male-heavy societies that have ever existed. As I wrote in my book America Alone, unless China’s planning on becoming the first gay superpower since Sparta, what’s going to happen to all those excess men? As a general rule, large numbers of excitable lads who can’t get any action are not a recipe for societal stability. Unless the Japanese have invented amazingly lifelike sex robots by then (think Austin Powers’s “fembots”), we’re likely to be in a planet-wide rape epidemic and a world of globalized industrial-scale sex slavery.

He told you so. Have a lovely day.

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Update: Planned Parenthood is proud to announce more abortions this year than last:

Parenthood Federation of America's latest annual report for 2011-2012 says that its affiliated clinics performed 333,964 abortions in fiscal 2011.

That works out to an average of one abortion every 94 seconds.

The 333,964 abortion Planned Parenthood did in fiscal 2011 is an increase of 4,519 from the 329,445 abortions it did in 2010, according to a fact sheet that Planned Parenthood published last year.

Over two years, Planned Parenthood says, it has aborted 663,409.

The 2011-2012 report states that Planned Parenthood received $542.4 million in “government health services grants and reimbursements,” which it states includes “payments from Medicaid managed care plans.”

The report also shows that Planned Parenthood’s total assets top $1 billion dollars, specifically $1,244.7 billion.

“We are so proud of the year’s many successes, and deeply grateful for all the partners, sponsors, volunteers, staff and friends who helped make them possible,” states the report's introductory letter, signed by PPFA president Cecile Richards and Cecelia Boone, chairwoman of the organization.

Aren't you proud that you get to contribute to that through your taxes?

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Updates:
Steyn: There Were Thirteen Men and Me, the Only Gal in Town . . .
Michelle Malkin: The real war on women: Gendercide on both sides of the pond
***

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A non-creepy swearing-in photo op

As an antidote to creepy Joe Biden's swearing-in shenanigans in the Senate, watch the Duffy family in action over in the House:



:)
 
Hat tip to K-Lo.

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Something for Barack Obama to think about on the golf course

The US government may be broke beyond our wildest imaginings but it still funds Barack Obama's lavish lifestyle, which this holiday season included an extra round-trip flight to Hawaii on Air Force One, enabling the president to resume his self-interrupted Hawaiian vacation. Working stiffs and other shlubs who pay for their own stuff (a.k.a. "taxpayers") might have expected the Obamas to tighten their belts (remember that one?) and rough it in DC over the holidays in the luxuriously appointed mansion already provided. Then they could have made one trip, together, to Hawaii, when Dad's schedule allowed it. But nothing says Christmas (to Obama) like golf. Seaside golf, that is. And if it costs the taxpayers a completely unnecessary $3.6 million, so be it. It's chump change, and I think you know who the chumps are.

We don't really expect President Obama to tighten his own, or the government's, belt. He doesn't have it in him. But there is an area in which he could do some real good. It's the crisis of fatherlessness in the black family. The Washington Times' Luke Rosiak reports some staggering numbers:

Among blacks, nearly 5 million children, or 54 percent, live with only their mother. Twelve percent of black families below the poverty line have two parents present, compared with 41 percent of impoverished Hispanic families and 32 percent of poor white families.

It's especially dire in the President's own back yard:

The schism is most apparent in the District, which has a higher portion of two-parent families among whites, at 85 percent, and a lower share among blacks, at 25 percent, than any state.

And in the rural South:

The largest geographic area of sustained fatherlessness contains the rural, largely black poor across Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, tributaries of broken homes running 400 miles along the Mississippi River from Memphis, Tenn., where in some neighborhoods 82 percent of children live with their mothers alone, to Baton Rouge, La., in parts of which less than one-fifth of children have both parents at home.

But it's widespread:

In all but 11 states, most black children do not live with both parents. In every state, 7 in 10 white children do. In all states but Rhode Island and Massachusetts, most Hispanic children do. In Wisconsin, 77 percent of white children and 61 percent of Hispanics live with both parents, compared with more than 25 percent of black children.

"Something has to be done about it, and it starts with the culture and reversing the attitude that marriage is not important. The president has a role to play in that. He's a married African-American father who can probably make a huge difference with words alone," Mr. DiCaro said.

Maybe so. Certainly, President Obama is in a unique position to influence young black men for the good, but, as far as I know, he has confined his efforts to Father's Day events and a website featuring tips on how to be an involved dad. All well and good, I guess, or at least mostly harmless, but why not make the problem of the broken black family a high personal priority? What's more important than that?

Related: Columnist not in the mood to celebrate
No hope or change for urban schools

Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the Buzzworthy link.

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About The Hobbit

I haven't seen it, but may I gently suggest that If you haven't done so, read the book to your children before taking them to the movie.

Jazz Shaw reviews the movie here. Spoiler alert:

The finding of the ring and how it was lost by Gollum is completely changed. The Riddle Game is abbreviated and made somewhat cheap. The prominence of the Goblins hunting the Dwarves before they’ve even left the Shire warps the original story. The encounter of the band of travellers with the mountain trolls and Gandalf’s role in it shifts a great deal from the story. The portrayal of the inherently flawed, yet noble nature of the Dwarves is spun to make them look like greedy, vacuous prima donnas. The list goes on.

I often wonder at film-makers who fundamentally alter the stories of the classics they supposedly love and value. Why do they do that? Do they really believe they're making them better?

I'm sure many, many viewers are enjoying the movie as a movie, with little or no connection to "the book version." But you've got to wonder what Tolkien would think. At least it wasn't made by Disney. JRR was not a big fan:

"It might be advisable [...] to let the Americans do what seems good to them — as long as it was possible [...] to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing)."

― The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, #13

"I recognize [Walt Disney's] talent, but it has always seemed to me hopelessly corrupted. Though in most of the 'pictures' proceeding from his studios there are admirable or charming passages, the effect of all of them to me is disgusting. Some have given me nausea"

Kind of how my older kids feel about the Rankin/Bass Hobbit, which I made the mistake of showing them back in the early 90s before they had all read the book, and thus ruining it for them, to some extent.

Then again, some people prefer that version to Peter Jackson's first installment. So go figure.

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Music break: You Won't See Me

Paul Brady's great take on this Beatles classic:



Rubber Soul is probably my favorite Beatles album but I can't listen much to the songs of my childhood. The grooves they burned into my brain are deep and permanent, so a little listening goes a long way. But I can enjoy Brady's excellent cover and will try not to wear it out with my usual all-or-nothing approach to music  (and everything else).

(By the way, another terrific Beatles cover is Suzy Bogguss and Chet Atkins' All My Loving. Alas, no MP3 is available, but you can hear frustrating snippets of it here.)

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Recipe: Hot fudge sauce

Happy 2013! It's our little tradition to make sundaes on New Year's Eve, but they're just as good on New Year's Day. Here's the easy recipe we use for Real Hot Fudge Sauce. (Sure, you could open a jar, or worse, just squirt Hershey's syrup on ice cream and call that a sundae, but you're better than that, aren't you?)

Hot Fudge Sauce

2 squares (2 ounces) unsweetened chocolate
2 T butter
2/3 C sugar
1/2 C evaporated milk
1/2 t vanilla

Melt chocolate and butter in a saucepan. Stir in the sugar, then the milk. Stir constantly over medium heat, taking care not to let sauce burn on the bottom, until it comes to small but definite boil. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. The HFS will thicken as it cools. Serve warm.

(To make with cocoa powder instead of squares of chocolate, substitute 6 T of cocoa powder and use 4 T butter.)

(My diet begins tomorrow with the bleak, gray dawning of January 2nd.)

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