The Anchoress

For World Relief. The good Captain is still angry (as we all should be) at our being called stingy, and thinks it’s time to show the world something entirely new, but let him tell it:

Our government has pledged $35 million to date, as well as ordering thousands of our military personnel and two US Navy task forces to the Indian Ocean region to provide assistance.
However, many people question the ability of capitalist-based economies to show any generosity. Americans, and other Western people, have been judged by the amount of government assistance provided. We’ve been called “stingy”. It’s up to us to show that when people control their own resources, we can put it to the best use through our own decisions — and in fact, we can put it to better, more direct, and more effective use.

At Captain’s Quarters, we’re declaring January 12th World Relief Day. I ask that CQ readers donate their take-home pay for January 12th to the tsunami relief effort at World Vision. Obviously, we cannot hope to match the funds raised by governments — but we can show what a handful of determined private individuals can do to help. If you can’t afford to donate all of your take-home pay for that day, please donate what you can.

The Anchoress supports this idea and hopes to spread the word! Donations begin right here.

This wonderful bit of satire by Rand Simberg gives a much-needed laugh at the state of modern journalism…although I wonder if he didn’t let them off too easy.

I especially enjoyed this:

For some, though, perhaps death would be kinder. One man, by the name of Robert, had to have so many false assumptions, invalid premises, and logical fallacies removed that there was little left. They couldn’t excise the last vestiges of self loathing–to do so would have left him with nothing at all. Now, he just wanders the halls with a bandage on his head, like a post-post-modernist zombie. As he staggers along, he mutters under his breath, “I’m a Western oppressor. Beat me…stone me. Ooooohhhh, I’m such a naughty little tool of the phallocentric oligarchy. Spank me…spank me until my tender little bum is a rosy red…”

An orderly brushes past him, wearing nose plugs. He is carrying, at arms’ length, a slop-bucket full of stale cliches, failed paradigms and illogical conclusions, in search of some place to dump them where they won’t contaminate the local educational system…

Read. Enjoy. Send around! Hattip:Lucianne.com.

Buster and I were talking about how The Passion of the Christ has made precious few Top Ten Films lists, and (since I fall asleep on most movies - except The Incredibles) he should be the one to discuss year-end film lists. So, if you’re interested in what one rather non-conformist 15 year old liked in 2004, and what he believes the new year will bring, here is:

BUSTER’S TOP TEN MOVIES

1) Passion of the Christ
2) The Incredibles
3) Team America: World Police
4) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
5) 50 First Dates
6 Van Helsing
7) Secret Window
Kill Bill Vol. 2
9) Chronicles of Riddick
10) Spiderman 2

MUSIC BUSTER HAS DISCOVERED/ENJOYED THIS YEAR

1) Bela Fleck (particuarly The Bluegrass Sessions)
2) Aretha Franklin (all of it)
3) Ray Charles (particularly You Don’t Know Me…)
4) Bill Withers (Ain’t No Sunshine)
5) Eric Clapton Unplugged
6) Looking Glass (Brandy, Yer a Fine Girl)
7) Frankie Valli (Oh, What a Night)
Sly and the Family Stone (Particularly, If You Want Me to Stay)
9) Stevie Wonder (Higher Ground)
10) Ralph Stanley (The Man of Constant Sorrow - Album)

PREDICTIONS FOR 2005

1) Continuing a UK trend, 50% of all babies born worldwide will be named Jedi. The other half will be named Muhammed.

2) Liberals will whine and get meaner and call conservatives Nazis. (Okay, I’m cheating, that was too easy…)

3) Ted Kennedy will drink a Virgin Mary and, in a moment of clarity, finally “get” why he should not have named his dog, “Splash”

4) President Bush will continue to clank when he walks

5) Buster will lead Americans in the call for President Bush to wear a 10- gallon Cowboy Hat to the UN, and to say the word nook-u-lar. A lot. The left will continue to misunderestimate him and to misoverconstrue why we like him talkin’ just as he does.

6) 2005 will be a better year for movies. It has to be.

7) Hillary Clinton, remembering John Edwards campaign promise to make Christopher Reeve walk, and mindful of Jesusland, will spit on her thumbs, press them on Stevie Wonder’s eyes and shriek “Be healed!” When the healing does not take place, she will blame George W. Bush. Wonder, still blind, will offer to write a new version of “I Can See Clearly, Now” for her campaign.

Michael Moore will go on the Subway diet and lose 200lbs; he will fall into a deep depression when he discovers that being overweight was not the thing that made him unlikable.

9) President Bush rescues man from drowning. Press sneers that he interfered with a life choice with his pre-emptive, Cowboy action.

10) Buster will prevail upon Spike TV to re-instate the last great cartoon series: THIS JUST IN.

BRING BACK MY CONSERVATIVE CARTOON, DANGIT!

Anchoress, here: I must say I like Evangelical Outpost’s predictions the best, so far, sorry Buster!

Ah, but yer still a doll, kid!

First President Bush wasn’t doing enough, wasn’t sympathetic enough, simply wasn’t “enough” of enough. Now, President Bush is too much. His creation of a coalition to aid Southeast Asia is now “undermining the UN,” which (get this) “is the only body that has the moral authority…” to co-ordinate this massive humanitarian effort.

Thus says the jagged little pill, herself, Clare Short another pain-in-the-posterior who really needs the placement of one swift boot in same.

Excuse me, isn’t the UN the body that took…oh, 26 billion dollars earmarked as aid for starving Iraqi women and children and…um…disappeared it?

Why, yes! Yes it is! Well THEY certainly should be entrusted with the billions which will be handed over, over time, to help these NEW starving women and children! THEY have the moral authority, you see! And look how well they did in the Congo! Look at the work of their peacekeepers…um…DON’T look at the raping, pillaging and selling of tapes, though….!

Excuse me, isn’t the UN the body that employed and directed the fat, blue-helmeted Sgt. Schultz look-a-like in Iraq, the man who did all he could to look-away-from-and-ignore the young Iraqi man who showed up at the UN Compound bearing what looked an awful lot like a blue laboratory book and begging someone to admit him and listen to him? You know…until the UN “peacekeepers” allowed Saddam’s “police force” to drag the man away?

Why, yes! Yes, it is! You…you REMEMBERED that, did you?

Oh, aye, I remembered it. That I did. I’ll never forget it.

Moral authority, my pasty-white heiney!

Excuse me, but didn’t St. Bill Clinton rush out there and say, “someone needs to lead this effort…”

Why, yes, yes, he did, and the press and the media and the Upper West Side all gushed about it…but everyone knew he meant that HE, Clinton, should lead the effort, not Bush-that-fascist-usurper!

Ah, yes. when President Bush does something good, even when it’s something that everyone would ordinarily agree is “good” it suddenly becomes “bad.”

These folks are the only people in the world who can turn any positive into a negative - and not thru any alchemy or magic…they can do it from sheer hatred.

“Balls!” Agnes calls from her grave, “Balls! Balls!”

UPDATE: Captains Quarters Blog reports that the US has allowed the UN to become part of the “core group” on this effort. Ed observes:

This appears to have been a warning shot across the bow of the UN, as the US did not add them until a videoconference between Kofi Annan and Colin Powell took place. One might imagine that Powell explained all the reasons why we no longer trust the UN with relief aid. It appears from this report that the UN has been invited to participate in the core group, not to lead it. Bush, in other words, plans to make them squirm.

As well they should. Squirm, I mean. I happened to watch news tonight in my brother’s room and couldn’t help but notice that Kofi Annan…who I do believe just today returned from a ski trip…was being portrayed as the “Man in Charge.”

Balls!

…and has some keen insights and interesting thoughts on why Christmas, the “merry” time, and the Season of Light, didn’t seem to bring much cheer to many, and the light went rather muted. I think it’s a really well-written and big-hearted post that I will probably not actually get to write on until this evening, when I get home. But I think Joe is on to something, and I felt it too, as did many Christians I know…that even the days leading up to this Christmas felt “off” in some way. Joy was not entirely missing…but it wasn’t quite breaking through, either. I attributed it to what is going on with my brother, of course, and to the fact that this Advent, for the first time in years, I had not gotten to take my annual silent retreat. But since the feeling seems to be widespread, perhaps that wasn’t it.

Perhaps like the animals of Sri Lanka, we caught the undercurrent of something afoot, and it dulled our appreciation of the Holy Day? Perhaps the world simply intruded to forcefully? I don’t know. Maybe after a day’s thinking, I can write on it.

My mother, bless her departed soul, grew up in a knockabout Scots/Irish/German environment, and on none of those sides could a fool be suffered gladly.

The German side tended toward raised-eyebrows and snide criticisms…uttered, always, in civil tones. The Scots-Irish side would just as soon pummel you as look at you.

In those days it was not unusual for Coney-Island-Irish children to be shuffled between parents, aunts and grandparents during their formative years, and my mother - so shuffled - learned how to size up a situation quickly and remark succinctly. When she heard utter foolishness, or willfully malicious pettiness, she had one all-purpose comment: Balls!

While reading this sheer stupidity and malicious pettiness as published by the Washington Post, I could hear old Alice, dead these 9 years, as she spits it from the grave: Balls!

Apparently the Washington Post, unable to actually blame the Christmas Tsunami of 2004 on George W. Bush, has decided it will do the next best thing and pin the politically correct assignation of “INSENSITIVE” on the president for not…for not…well…apparently for not getting out in front of the cameras, biting his lip, wiping a tear and cancelling his damned Christmas vacation in Midland, Texas.

Almost nothing in the world offends the press more than President Bush taking a few days rest at his home - they hate that ranch the way Dan Rather hates the blogosphere. The press - the always selectively curious press, who never wondered what the hell Bill Clinton was doing while a million Rwandans were being hacked to death, is now piqued because George Bush is authorizing 12 naval vessels, 5,000 personnel and oh, yeah, a starting figure of 35 million dollars to give aid to the stricken area, all while co-ordinating with Japan and other countries…but…he’s doing it without tears, without high drama, and without a press conference. He’s not rushing to Sri Lanka to hug anyone! He’s not weeping, dammit! He didn’t jump up from his chair on September 11, 2001 and rip open his shirt to reveal his Empathetic Superman chest, and LOOK he’s not doing it again! This guy just refuses to perform for the cameras! He won’t roll about in the pain! He won’t get breathless and un-nerved! He won’t break a sweat! What sort of leadership is this???

Balls!

These people are in such a knee-jerk habit of criticising George W. Bush on every possible occasion that they are become like junkies in need of a Bush-bash fix. If there is nothing that may be obviously and immediately spun against him, they will debase and humiliate themselves, and make stuff up, if they must, in order to get their hit. I can imagine them, wanding around their press rooms, looking for the stuff…Oh, man! Tsunami! Death and destruction everywhere, man! This is like…an act of God, or somebody, man! Can’t blame Bush…whadda we do? Well, he’s at that damned stupid ranch with his cowboy hat on, and he’s clearing BRUSH! Freaking Texan! Oh, man, I gotta eat something! He’s clearing brush? Jacques Chirac ain’t clearing brush! Chirac shows he cares! Bush is…he’s…yeah, yeah, he’s stupid, we know, but it’s gotta be worse than stupid…I know! Bush is…like, he’s still on his ranch while people are dying, man! He’s…i n s e n s i t i v e! Yeah! That’s the ticket! Insensitive brute! That’s Bush! See if we can get Clinton to say something, so we can show his leadership against Bush clearing the freaking brush! Good stuff! Ah, man…good stuff! Gimmee my hit! Do we have dinner reservations, tonight? Someplace good, because I’m hungry!

Let’s face it: had Bush cut short his vacation, and gone back to the White House to take exactly the same steps he has taken to help this stricken region, the press would have said he was “showboating” and “exploiting the event for his own gain. He didn’t need to go back to Washington to do all of this, after all, we live in an age of instant communication! Clearly, the president, aware of mounting criticism from the public regarding (insert issue here) has decided to play to the cameras and get some much-needed positive exposure in this time of crisis. Some decry his actions as ‘exploitative’…”

Can’t you hear it? Of course you can! Andrea Mitchell, David Gregory, Katie Couric, Dan Rather, they’d all say precisely that, and all in that same measured, pleasantly disdainful tone and corkscrew English.

Balls! Balls, I say, again!

My mother, a good lifelong Democrat, wouldn’t have stood for this play-time-let’s-pretend childishness. I wonder how much longer the rest of us are going to have to endure it. Sheesh. Who wants a Guinness?

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt has an idea.

BE STILL…

In the face of tumultuous waves raised up
from my disturbed seas
salt and water and source of life
bringer of crashing, howling death
mayhem
pain
wrenching separation
be still…

BE STILL…

In the face of unyielding human
pettiness and willful mistrust
narrowed eyes
arms raised in supplication
and learned suspicion
oh, my people
is this hate so
impenetrable,
even in the face of
a shifting, trembling earth
be still…

BE STILL…

In the face of
all of your greatness
it is only what
you should do
and it is
very good
but can it outweigh
the unreachable
untouchable
be still…

BE STILL…

The Angels did herald
Gloria in excelsis deo
a virgin brought forth
a babe…
Magi presented
gifts
and
deep below
in the netherword
a foot
stomped
in
angry defeat

2000 years later
the earth shudders

an echo of glory?
a reverberating rage?
Be still…

BE STILL…

look up from your
timewasters, your
playstations and iPods
and text messages
and mind-numbing
tele-everything

move away from
your clicking
communiques
and shiney
spokespeople

and try to LISTEN
be still…

BE STILL…

and while
your planet
your city
your home
your mind
roils
and churns
and so many
souls
have gone silent

try…
try to hear it
a message
that can only be heard
in the still
in the quiet

It is for you
here and now

Be still…

This is becoming a little bit like the old SNL line, “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.” The CBS internal report regarding the fake - no, not forged, but FAKE - ANG “memoes” with which poor old Dan Rather was hoping to completely destroy Presidnt Bush’s re-election campaign, is STILL unreleased.

This was the report that was going to be released “sooner, rather than later.” Glad I didn’t hold my breath. Anyway, Tom Shales, over at the Washington Post gets just plain foolish as he tries to discuss the issue. Bummer Dietz corrects him handily. Hattip: Kerry Spot. No one has addressed the fact that Shales is simply promoting a lie a bit further in the piece, though, when writes about a soldier questioning Rumsfeld, but fails to mention that the soldier was prompted by a reporter who made sure the question was asked, and then bragged about the set-up. Shales is simply intellectually dishonest, but that’s a problem with a large percentage of a press that is largely held unaccountable for much of anything.

I’m still trying to figure out how a press that has spent 4 years ridiculing the president as “incurious” had - and still has - absolutely NO curiousity at all about Lt. Kerry’s unreleased military/medical/discharge records and fitness reports…why they were so completely incurious as to his refusal to sign the standard form 180 or to engage in any direct Q&A regarding the charges of the Swift boat vets…but it’s a funny old world, I guess. One candidate released everything and had every page so thoroughly scrutinized that a retired dentist was even nagged into verifying his signature on a dental exam form…one candidate released only what he chose to release and nothing was checked out or questioned. Yeah…funny old world.

No, I’m not trying to play a cute turn on “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” just wondering about how useful this drug may or may not be in helping the dying and their families cope with the last days of a long and mortal illness.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a pilot study looking at whether the recreational hallucinogen can help terminally ill patients lessen their fears, quell thoughts of suicide and make it easier for them to deal with loved ones.

“End of life issues are very important and are getting more and more attention, and yet there are very few options for patients who are facing death,” Dr. John Halpern, the Harvard research psychiatrist in charge of the study, said Monday.

That such patients have limited options is certainly true, as we are seeing with my brother, S. Some of you might recall this post about a woman in England’s anger at the overdependence upon morphine for the terminally ill. Well, she was angry about a lot of things, but that was one issue for her, and I confess, there are times I wish we could do more than morphine or opiate derivatives for my brother. I don’t know if psychedelic drugs are the answer, though. I expect proponants of the study will suggest that the “mind opening” aspects of the drugs will create “healthy closures” within families. Maybe. Or maybe they’ll create illusions of healthy closures.

I’m willing to wait and see before criticizing. I will say that this quote just annoys me, though.

MAPS, on its web site, touted the study’s approval, saying “the longest day of winter has passed, and maybe so has the decades-long era of resistance to psychedelic research.”

Ugh. Just Ugh.