The Anchoress

A longish, but I promise, informative and fun “round-up” of things you may or may not be seeing elsewhere. August is generally a “slow news” month, so you’d think the press would be jumping on some of these stories. You’d think.

Following up on yesterday’s bit on the questionable background of one several of Hillary Clinton’s financial backers, I did update that her campaign had decided to divest themselves of $23,000 - a fraction of what it had received - but Ed Morrissey expounds upon that news and nails it:

The New York Times neglects to mention the actual amounts that Hsu redirected to Hillary’s coffers. The Paw family alone gave $55,000 over the last three years to Hillary’s campaigns, bundled through Hsu. The Lee family in New York donated over $37,000 to Hillary through Hsu as well, for a total just shy of six figues. The charitable donations to which Hillary has committed amounts to 25% of Hsu’s bundled donations from just the two families reported by the LAT.

Why not part with all of it? She’s been raising at least 1000 times the amount of her divestment in each of the last two quarters. While she will certainly need the money, clearing her name should take a higher priority. Quarter-measures like this make her look as though she’s only interested in token actions meant to take the heat off for just long enough to keep as much Hsu money as she can.

Well, of course that’s what she’s doing - it’s what most politicians do sometimes and some politicians do all the time: she’s making the token gesture so the press can say she’s done the “right thing” and the scrutiny goes away. As it will.

Speaking of scrutiny going away, John Stephenson at Stop the ACLU has a fascinating piece and timeline posted at his site, all about some very stinky fundraiser dealings re Mrs. Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign. I didn’t know any of this stuff - I bet you didn’t either - but John spells out a great deal. Will the press look at it or cover any of it? I doubt it. If you didn’t know the name Peter Paul yesterday, my bet is you won’t know it after September 7, 2007, either. I don’t trust the press to cover such an unflattering and suggestive story about their Queen-presumptive, do you? When the press loves you, they give you the soft-focus lighting and the soft-focus coverage, too. And the inconvenient stories go away.

When the press doesn’t love you, on the other hand, the pictures are less flattering, and the coverage a bit sharper, as well. Methinks the press smells blood in the water re one Katherine Couric. I’m kind of tired of saying I told you so to CBS. Not like they’ve ever listened to me, although they’d have been brave to.

Speaking of “brave” moves, can we finally, once and for all state that there is nothing “brave” or “edgy” about getting on a stage before like-minded people and saying nasty things about President George W. Bush (actually that is the surest bet in the world) and it is not “brave” to make any sort of point by immersing Christian icons or Christian Ideals into dubious artistic media. I generally stay away from these stories about “artists” doing something like this while believing they’re somehow pushing an envelope. I stay away from the stories both because I believe Christians have nothing to react to (and plenty to pray for) whenever an “artist” takes this lame, dull-witted and easy route to get noticed. Secondly, I mostly find this “edgy” art to be boring. Oh, look. Madonna’s on her cross again, how same-old, same-old! Oh, look, someone uses elephant dung and cut outs of genitalia to “honor” Mary, how not-interesting. Oh, look, a Jesus Icon that turns into Osama bin Laden, no one ever thought of turning the world on it’s head like that before! Although I did think this Crucified Christ worked in Chocolate was an impressive bit of sculpture.

Mostly this “offensive” art seems juvenile to me - it feels like the sort of stuff you come up with when you’re 14, or at least the stuff I would have come up with when I was 14. Daring? No. It’s actually as safe as denouncing Bush, because Christians do not riot or separate heads from bodies simply because someone drew a picture. This stuff is not edgy, just rather pedestrian. You want to be edgy, you take an image of Mohammed and turn that into bin Laden, or better, turn it into, oh, I don’t know…George W. Bush, or a woman (any woman), or a gay man (any gay man) or even just have Mohammed turn into Jon Stewart. Now, we’re talking interesting, edgy…brave, even. This stuff? Pfffft! Leave it to the perpetual adolescents and the dog days of August.

I come late to the Bobby Jindal brouhaha, but I urge you to read this piece by Michael Gerson, for several reasons, partly because he and others are quite right to call out the Democrats for blatantly trying to stir up the Know-nothings and sow discord between the increasingly friendly Catholics and Protestants, but also because Gerson’s piece is really well-written and it talks about what pluralism really means in a world that pays a great deal of lip-service to “tolerance” and yet actually “tolerates” very little.

Some mothers have decided not to tolerate the promptings of clothing manufacturers to dress their young daughters like streetwalkers. I applaud. I’ve stopped trying to clothes-shop for my nieces and simply give them books, because it’s so hard to find modest but stylish clothing for 11-13 year olds. While you’re musing about that, you might want to go over to Maxed Out Mama’s place and read about back-to-school sex education. And if you’re thinking about all of that - you might want to consider - just consider for a moment - that maybe, just maybe Pope Paul VI wasn’t wholly wrong when he warned in Humanae Vitae where uncommitted casual sex and the devaluations of the female, of marriage and of the basic sanctity and dignity of human life would invariably lead. Never read Humanae Vitea? It’s not that long and it clearly is not preaching to the converted. You might like it.

Funny thing about Humanae Vitae. I once asked someone if she had read it and they said no, she hadn’t but she didn’t want to, either, because “I don’t want to change.” In other words, she was afraid of being convinced of something and then having to make appropriate changes to her life. I thought it was very honest of her. Every once in a while, in discussions on faith, you’ll come across such a one, someone who knows that they’d rather not be called on to examine themselves, or what they believe. Interesting, that’s all.

Speaking of examining what you believe or don’t, So, who lost the Vietnam War, anyway the left or the right? It’s not about finger-pointing, though. It’s about not repeating mistakes.

Even Mother Teresa Got the Blues! It sounds like a Country/Western song, but it’s Fr. James Martin, SJ, talking about Blessed Teresa on NPR, if you’ll have a listen. Also, my Li’l Bro Thom sent this piece along. Sad, troubling, upsetting…ultimately uplifting. But yeah, even cowboys, Christians and bona-fide Holy Folk get the blues, sometimes. And for good reason. More on that story, and on Fr. Sudac here, and about his forehead marking here.

I’m not all that interested in the latest “Gay Legislator” scandal but if you are, neo has an amusing take on it.

Is it just me, or does Fred Thompson seem like he missed his moment?.

Mostly O/T I rather like Sissy’s Hillary graphic here. Nice news from Sissy also, - The Italian Government is saving a pilgrims route.

Thanks to reader Klaire: Why it pays, sometimes, to have a sense of humor.

Okay, that clears my header bar. Nun news coming up.