The Anchoress

My prediction: Former NYC Police Commissioner, Bernard Kerik. He’s got the skills, he’s got the resume, he’s known to be a scrupulous and incorruptible man of impeccable repute, and the left will have a hard time saying anything bad about him. He’ll do the job very well. A good, good man.

WELCOME Instapunditers and many grateful thanks to Professor Reynolds for the Insta-lanch. It’s much appreciated.

Why do Democrats do THIS?

It’s just wrong, and it’s inconsistent, too. If there is nothing wrong with being gay - and there isn’t - then why act like there IS something wrong with it, when it seems politically expedient to do so? The same people who would jump down your throat if you whispered that someone might be gay because, “there is nothing wrong with it, and you must be a homophobe for even thinking it” will start pssssting behind their hands if they think they can hurt someone with it. What hypocrisy. Cuomo did this a long time ago, too.

I expect the Democrats will next target Dr. Rice, that she will also have to listen to whispers or outright charges that because she has never married, she must be gay.

Because, as we all know…if you’re married you can’t be gay, right? Just ask Jim McGreevey.

There really isn’t much to say. NRO’s The Corner linked to this government pdf file on Fallujah.

You can’t look away.

There is absolutely no excuse for my cowgirl lingo, but while you’re wondering what I am about (I’m recovering from five days of lunacy and sorrow, about which I’ll write later - maybe -) you might want to nose about in the web and see what’s comin’ down the pike, Pilgrims!

Here is a rather depressing article about what has happened to Steve Gardner since he dared to speak candidly about John Kerry.

Twenty-four hours later, Gardner got an e-mail from his company, Millennium Information Services, informing him that his services would no longer be necessary. He was laid off in an e-mail — by the same man who only days before had congratulated him for his exemplary work in a territory which covered North and South Carolina. The e-mail stated that his position was being eliminated. Since then, he’s seen the company advertising for his old position. Gardner doesn’t have the money to sue to get the job back.

I happened to read this first at Polipundit but I have since learned that the Powerline guys have contacted the free-lancer who wrote the story regarding how funds might be contributed to Gardner. Her response:

I’m glad you picked up my column on Steve Gardner. He certainly deserves better than he’s gotten for speaking up about what happened on that Swiftboat those years ago. I’m not at liberty to give out his address or phone number, but he has allowed me to give you his email address: sgardner5@carolina.rr.com. I hope a great job can be found for this man.
Best,
Mary Laney

I will go on record as admitting that I thought Gardner was the flakier of the Swift Vets, an opinion which I later rethought and regretted. And flake or no, in this country someone should not lose his or her job for daring to go up against the Establishment. It seems Gardner has been the victim of precisely the sort of oppression the left routinely suspects of the Bush Administration. But really…is any of this that surprising? Politics and Religion are both games that can get dirty and even deadly.

Speaking of politics and religion (and aren’t we always) read this really excellent and thoughtful essay by Harvard professor (and Evangelical Christian) William J. Stuntz, who believes that both sides, distrustful of each other as they are, have much they can learn and appreciate from each other if only they’d try. Hat tip to another professor, Glenn Reynolds.

On the darker, more conspiratorial and paranoid side of the Religion and Politics matrix (and we all know there is such a side) comes an article out of India which will make liberals cheer and conservatives wince and will raise the eyebrows of those who have spent any time at all wondering about the mythic/legendary/real/fake/whothehellknows infiltration of the Catholic Church by members of the Freemasons, and who point to The Alta Vendita and get the cold chills. This is not Christmas Reading, and you’ll find people telling you it’s hogwash and people telling you it’s all happening before our eyes. I just put it out there, and y’all can make up yer own minds, because I know yer all smart cowhands who’re innerested in di-verse subject matter, I’ll tell you what.

Finally, what a story! I love these stories about people who have started at the bottom of the rung and taken the opportunities to be found in this country and simply run with them to inspiring heights (and yes, I give props to some of the civil rights work of the 1960’s Democrats who helped some of these opportunities appear - after all, I have nothing but respect for classical liberalism…which these days goes by the name of Conservatism!)

I had to say that for Joe Marshall and our Ghost friend!

President Bush is being castigated for surrounding himself with people like Dr. Rice, and Mr. Gutierrez and yes, even Justice Thomas, the sharecropper’s son, because they all “think like him.” (Gasp! The scandal! Bettymae, get me mah smellin’ salts!)

Putting aside the fact that no one ever seemed to expect President Clinton to surround himself with dissenters, I suspect the reason President Bush so values these folks is because he understands that in the end, it’s not money or privilege or bloodlines that makes a difference in a person’s life. After all, he is the son of money, privilege and blood, and he was a drunk and a bit of a wastrel who took the opportunity his wife gave to him when she told him to choose between Jim Beam and his marriage, pulled himself up, and ran with it.

Whether you are up from material poverty or what Mother Theresa correctly identified as “spiritual poverty”, you still have had to work hard to move beyond it - even with grace - it takes discipline, nerve and faith. I suspect that Bush feels a spiritual and psychological kinship with Ms. Rice, Mr. Gutierrez and Justice Thomas that simply transcends any earthly understandings of where any of them started out. Each, in their own way, has had to overcome obstacles not of their own making. For all that George W. Bush was supposed to have had it “easier” than most, his history suggests that he could not lightly wear his own privilege. Interesting. I might write more about that after I’ve had a chance to think on it. Right now, I gotta hit the trail and see to the trainin’ and edumacation of my young’un, pardners! Happy trails!

AT THE SALOON: After you’ve read all that, have a nightcap with John Leo. You’ll be glad you did. (via Cartago Delenda). Then go read Mark Steyn’s terrible and wonderful anger and then, finally, CUANAS gives us a bit of Iraq the Model’s Omar, as he wonders just why it is the French feel so terribly, terribly safe in Baghdad these days - safe enough to advertise themselves.

Me? I don’t wonder at it at all. Yyyyup.

The American Thinker is a daily must-read, but today they seem particularly chock-full of interesting, provocative links and essays. I was struck by Jaithirth Rao’s worried tone in this piece. It seems his so-called liberal acquaintances in New York cannot bring themselves to civil discourse regarding anything political. A portion:

People are not trying to reach out, but trying to talk to their own friends who think like them, who agree with their views. Nowhere is this more obvious than in New York city, the great hotbed of American liberal discourse. In the aftermath of the elections, my friends in New York have gone strangely and perversely silent. They are willing to talk about anything but politics. When I make the point that in the context of the overwhelming power of the US, foreigners like me have a legitimate interest in their domestic politics, I would in the past have drawn them out. Now they prefer to change the subject. The articulate New Yorker has strong views on his or her political preferences, but has ceased to be articulate.

I did some digging. It turns out that much of the recent noise on the “gay marriage” issue, stemmed from a 4-3 ruling by a court in Massachusetts stating that under some existing statute, homosexuals could in fact “marry”. This had kicked off a spate of well-publicised marriages among gays. I tried to find out more. Was the debate about the use of the word “marriage”? Would there have been greater concord if it were called a “civil union”? Was the issue that this was a case of judicial over-reach by a split court trying to enact a law rather than interpret it? Strangely enough, I was not able to engage many folks in these nuanced discussions. It all seemed to be about “belief” or lack thereof. I was discovering in the liberal haven exactly the fanatical disdain for the other’s point of view which they accused the conservatives of the heartland of having.

Rao mentions that he is headed to Texas, where he fears that he will encounter “the other side of this pantomime, where people who are otherwise intelligent and sensitive have decided to dispense with words.”

The most disturbing aspect of the current political climate in America is that on both sides, both left and right, too many have forgotten one simple fact: decent people may disagree, and still be decent people. Those of us who are still capable of having genial discourse with each other, even given our very different outlooks, need to encourage our friends to remember it. I really hope Rao writes a sequel about his experiences in Texas. I’ll keep a lookout for it.

It’s been a long, long holiday weekend, and I hope it was good for everyone. We’ve had moments of hilarity and moments of great sadness, and I’ll write on that later this week…all in all, what it comes down to is this: loving families are blessings, a free nation is a blessing…blessings abound where you are open to find them. I can’t write at this hour, but since the Thanksgiving weekend usually kicks “It’s A Wonderful Life” into high rotation, I thought I would pass along this excellent parody from Iowahawk, who has been on fire, lately. Sit back and enjoy his rendition of Its a Dan-derful Life with a Clarence and a Mary and a whole “community” chipping in! Hattip to The American Thinker.

It’s astonishing to think that in the course of only a few days (and with the Challenge not even “officially” begun) the Spirit of America Blogger Challenge has received over $20,000 for their excellent cause. I’m very pleased to see some Anchoress readers contributing - I knew you guys wouldn’t let my small donation sit there and be lonely! I knew you’d be generous! Some of the “teams” and alliances, and of course the much larger blogs have raised staggering amounts of money, and that’s just so impressive, and it says a lot about the “blogging community!”

As an Anchoress, of course, I must remain alone, so no teams for me! If we break $100.00 though, I will be sure to give the tee-shirt and cap to a young woman in our neighborhood who has recently joined the Reserves!

If anyone is looking to spread a little holiday cheer or get in a last-minute tax-deduction, you can still donate here!

However…some odd things do get thought about, sometimes.

Here is a question that sounds absurd on the face of it. What do a few obscure Catholic holy days and various feast days of the Blessed Virgin Mary have to do with a formerly hard-drinking-now-reformed Methodist? The answer is, perhaps nothing, or perhaps quite a lot.

During the Great Recount Debacle of Election 2000 – designated the Year of Great Jubilee by Pope John Paul II - some people began to notice that things seemed to go George Bush’s way on feast days of the Catholic Church, or on days that had a Marian connection. And their theory seemed to hold true through Bush’s re-election efforts, too.

Many who watched the 2000 election recount closely maintain that December 8 was the day the tide began to turn in Bush’s favor. On that date, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Florida Judges Terry Lewis and Nikki Carr refused to throw out any of the 25,000 absentee ballots challenged by the Gore campaign in the Martin and Seminole counties. Just a few days later, on December 12 (the newly assigned Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe) everything fell into place for Dubya. The Florida Legislature approved the 25 electors pledged to Bush, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the decisions of Judges Lewis and Carr and, most definitively, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled the Florida recounts unconstitutional, bringing the whole sad exercise to a close. The election of 2000 finally ended on the feast day of the new Patroness of the Americas.

But this odd connection between George Bush and the Catholic Calendar does not seem to end there. Indeed, some of the most noteworthy dates of Bush’s presidency and re-election campaign line up rather remarkably to dates which - while vague to the secular world – are tied into faith. A partial list:

January 6, 2001: Final Day of the Great Jubilee 2000, and Feast of The Epiphany of the Lord; Congress meets in joint session to officially tally the electoral votes of Election 2000, naming winner George W. Bush.

September 11, 2001: The Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary; The date of the worst attack on American soil in her history.

September 14, 2001: The Feast of the Triumph of the Cross; The US Congress authorizes the President to use “all military force” in combating terrorism. Also the National Day of Prayer, and the Memorial Service at the National Cathedral. It is also the day George W. Bush stands upon a pile of rubble and lifts America off her knees.

August 15, 2004: Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary; With President Bush’s re-election campaign staggering under relentlessly negative media coverage, this date sees the oddly-timed Sunday (!) release of the book Unfit for Command, written with the co-operation of veterans of the Vietnam War who feel compelled to tell what they know of the challenger, Senator John Kerry. The book is ignored by the press and denounced by the left, but it is an immediate help to the Bush campaign.

September 14, 2004: Triumph of the Cross; Rathergate, so named for promulgation (by CBS anchorman Dan Rather) of false documents purporting to prove special favors given to Lt. George W. Bush during his service in the Texas Air National Guard, comes undone as document expert Marcel Matley admits “I cannot authenticate the papers.”

October 8, 2004: Anniversary of the October 8, 2000 Apparition of Mary at St. Mark’s (Coptic Orthodox) Church in Assiut, Egypt, and the simultaneous imploring by Pope John Paul II that Mary protect the entire world in the third millennium. After doing poorly in the first Presidential Debate, the president shines in a town hall setting. Although the efforts of Moveon.org, Terry McAuliffe and some in the media manage to spin it as a Kerry victory, even the talking heads on MSNBC give it to Bush, and so do the American people.

October 13, 2004: Anniversary of the 1917 Final Apparition and the Miracle of the Sun, Fatima, Portugal (named for the daughter of Mohammed, who there defied her family and married a Christian man.) Third and final Presidential Debate. Once again, after Kerry-camp spin, most give it to President Bush.

The 2004 election season came to a close on Tuesday, November 2, the Feast of All Souls – a day set aside to remember all who came before us, and especially those who have recently died. In an era of terror and sad-but-necessary war, it seems most fitting that George W. Bush would be re-elected on that date. In the AP snapshot of Bush and his family watching the returns, one notices a Marian Icon on a table, between the president and his daughter Barbara. It seems right.

It will be interesting to see what things happen when, during the next 4 years. Fun to keep track of, anyway.

Maybe I don’t have enough to do.

Or Dowds. Or Danzigers. Or Trudaeus. Or Ralls.

Her story can’ t get a fair telling in the US press, but Dr. Condoleeza Rice is profiled well in this Times UK piece. After you read it, consider the rather different life-experiences of her numerous white critics in the press and in the Democrat party. Consider it thoughtfully. None of those oh-so-enlightened, oh-so-tolerant, oh-so-”smart” and privileged elitists can shine her shoes. And I suspect they know it, and hate her for it.

Rice’s mother refused to play by the Jim Crow rules. She stood her ground. One confrontation took place at a department store, where Angelena and Condi were browsing through dresses. Condi picked one she wanted to try on, and they walked towards a “whites only” dressing room. A saleswoman blocked their path and took the dress out of Condi’s hand. “She’ll have to try it on in there,” she said, pointing to a storage room.

Coolly, Angelena replied that her daughter would be allowed to try on her dress in a real dressing room or she would spend her money elsewhere. Angelena was composed, firm and resolved. Aware that this elegantly dressed black woman would not back down, the shop assistant decided that her commission was worth more than a public incident and ushered them into a dressing room as far from view as possible. “I remember the woman standing there guarding the door, worried to death she was going to lose her job,” said Rice.

A painful memory of many black Birmingham children was not being able to go to the circus when it came to town or visit the local amusement park, Kiddieland, with its ferris wheels and candyfloss stands. On one day each year the park opened its gates to blacks, but the Rices never went.

One of Rice’s aunts recalled how upset she became when she learnt that she couldn’t visit the Alabama state fair, which was advertised on radio and television with tempting visions of petting zoos and carnival rides. She “just could not understand” why she could not go to the fair whenever she wanted, said Connie Ray. But for the most part Condi’s parents shielded her from such disappointments and taught her about the greater opportunities that lay beyond Birmingham.

“My parents had to try to explain why we wouldn’t go to the circus,” she said, “why we had to drive all the way to Washington DC before we could stay in a hotel. And they had to explain why I could not have a hamburger in a restaurant but I could be president anyway, which was the way they chose to handle the situation.”

and…

With the bombings came marauding groups of armed white vigilantes called “nightriders” who drove through black neighbourhoods shooting and starting fires. John Rice and his neighbours guarded the streets at night with shotguns.
The memory of her father out on patrol lies behind Rice’s opposition to gun control today. Had those guns been registered, she argues, Bull Connor would have had a legal right to take them away, thereby removing one of the black community’s only means of defence. “I have a sort of pure second amendment view of the right to bear arms,” she said in 2001.

Read the whole thing, and realize that if only Dr. Rice had a “D” after her name, the press and the left would have a completely different regard for this woman; they would be holding her up as a noble and shining specimen of humanity (which she is) and claiming some credit for it all. They might even allow her some secondary leadership position somewhere in the party. Maybe. If she toed the line.

But Rice has dared to excel without the Democrats (who would not allow her college-educated father to register with the party unless he could correctly guess the number of beans in a jar. He became a Republican, instead) - her successes came, she says, not…from the civil rights struggle but from her own family legacy. Condi Rice’s story is all about the worth and value of having a strong, nurturing family life, one that keeps you centered and safe as it introduces you to the world, and allows you to explore and discover your potential. Her cultured, educated, middle-class parents sound just stupendous. I hope this story gets wide dissemination.

Having never paid much attention to Bass/Baritone arias - or tenor, for that matter - it has been a pleasant surprise to journey with my son as he studies voice and trains his basso profundo. It’s been a surprise for him, as well, since up until last year he was consumed solely with the Charlie Parker and the sax.

Currently he is learning two Handel arias, Si, tra i ceppi e le ritorte and But who may abide the day of his coming, from Messiah, both of which we have happily discovered, are performed by the impressive Welshman Bryn Terfel on this recording. I’d listened to bits and pieces over the week, but today I’ve had the chance to really hear it, and somewhere between the Terfel’s randy, lustful and artfully amusing O ruddier than the cherry and the sweetly tender ravishment of Where’er you walk, I just came undone and dropped the dishes I was putting away! Completely seduced! Who knew? I’m only halfway through the album and I’m breathless! Christmas is coming; if you’re looking for an idea for a music lover, this might be your ticket. Enjoy!