By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
“Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
“Of cabbages — and kings.”
Is it just old fogies who think society is going downhill? If you think that, ask yourself what Huckleberry Finn would look like if Mark Twain were writing the book today. Why would he be different from the meth-head, tattooed, body-pierced Mississippi River town layabouts of today?
They say the Clinton team has an army of political advisers to help Hillary project the correct image. Why, then, doesn’t someone work with her on that open-mouthed cackle of a laugh? Even career leftists cringe when they hear it.
I’m beginning to wonder: Are there any of Hillary’s official emails that were not sent to her private server?
You might say it was a cheap shot for Kerry Dougherty, a columnist for the Virginian-Pilot, to react as he did to Pope Francis implying — some would say it was more than implying — that Donald Trump is not a Christian. Wrote Dougherty, “What happened to ‘who am I to judge?’” But the comment makes an important point.
What would a modern Rip van Winkle, who went to sleep in the early 1960s, think of the current crop of presidential candidates?
Wouldn’t he think he was looking at a recently graduated male college football cheerleader, an overly earnest fellow who developed his speaking style playing Elmer Gantry in a small town theater troupe, an unaccomplished woman who rode her husband’s coattails into a succession of government jobs, an angry Marxist who looks as if he was rounded up with his bullhorn at a Washington Square ban-the-bomb rally, a recently retired professional wrestler who modeled himself after Gorgeous George, a jolly backslapper who could be one of the regulars at Floyd’s barber shop in Mayberry, and an undertaker from Amos & Andy’s neighborhood?
Am I the only one with the impression that the central focus of the civil rights movement has shifted from defending people like Rosa Parks to protesting the way black criminals are treated when they are arrested?
What jobs do feminist and black studies majors think they will get when they graduate? Maybe their socialist leanings can be explained by their (correct) perception that only a socialist government committed to make-work jobs would hire them.
Conservatives who are willing to back Donald Trump should be going through a moment-of-truth. Were they part of the chorus that lined up to condemn Democrats who were wiling to forgive Bill Clinton’s lechery because they agreed with his policies? (Remember the oft-repeated line? “If he will lie to his wife, he’ll lie to the rest of us.”) Trump makes Clinton look like an amateur. Check his book The Art of the Comeback, wherein he boasts of having sex with many “seemingly very happily married and important women.”
Why does Bernie Sanders do so well in his debates with Hillary? Isn’t it because he is telling us what he has believed his whole life, rather than searching for the talking points that his advisers have informed him will be favorably received by the audience that day?
The advocates of permitting women to serve in combat argue their case as if they are talking only about women who want to serve in combat units for the purpose of advancing their military careers. Do they realize that men are not given the option to serve in combat units only if it is their preference?
Is there an effort by the authorities in the Church to deal with the loneliness that must afflict young priests assigned to run a parish by themselves, as happens so often these days? Sometimes it is more than one parish. It is not like the old days when priests’ lives were filled with Catholic men’s and women’s associations, youth activities, parish socials and parish study groups — where the priest was an admired and welcome presence on the scene. A priest’s life was never like Bing Crosby’s in Going My Way, but it was closer to that portrayal than the long stretches of isolation that some priests experience today.
We can excuse many of the young socialists who back Bernie Sanders: It could be that they know as much about the Cold War as they do the Thirty Years War. But Bernie is another story. He has some explaining to do. He was married in the old Soviet Union and vacationed in Castro’s Cuba at the height of their totalitarian excesses. Shouldn’t someone ask him what he thought about the Weather Underground when he was a young man? There must be people around today who remember him and the things he said during those years.
Why doesn’t Hollywood give us films similar to the wildly popular television series Downton Abbey? We can see that there is money to be made in such productions. Is it because Downton Abbey paints a favorable picture of a society shaped by the values of the Christian West, one where the social classes are not portrayed as simplistic Marxist stereotypes?
Are the low gasoline prices we are enjoying these days simply a consequence of OPEC flooding the market to put American oil producers who rely on methods such as fracking out of business? If OPEC succeeds, all that talk about an “energy independent America” will come quickly to a halt. As will low prices at the pump.
Did you ever wonder if Bill Clinton might be secretly enjoying Hillary’s failure to attract voters? That he could see it as payback for all the years she cast herself as the noble wife embarrassed in public by the irresponsible cad of a husband? Maybe Bill harbors some resentment for all the shouting matches and thrown lampshades he is reported to have endured.
I am always left scratching my head over the stories that come out about priests who embezzle millions of dollars from their parishes. I have been on parish councils and finance committees at times in my life. The parishes I knew, in fairly comfortable neighborhoods, always operated on a tight budget.
Do the feminists who parrot the line about Hillary Clinton being “one of the smartest women in the world” really think that? Or is it merely the agreed-upon talking point concocted to get a left-wing feminist into the presidency? Whatever Hillary is, she is not one of the smartest women in the world. She can’t remember which lie she told yesterday. Then again, even if she were one of those people with what is called “highly superior autobiographical memory,” who can recall almost every event in their past, she might not be able to keep track of all the conflicting stories she has told about everything from being named after Sir Edmund Hillary to what happened in Benghazi.
According to a study by the IRS, we are at the point where only around 44 percent of working-age Americans pay income taxes, and nearly 34 percent of income tax returns are filed only to claim benefits, while paying no income taxes. Might the backers of Bernie Sanders know what they are doing? There is a logic to calling for more and more free stuff from the government when you know from experience that you won’t have to pay for it in taxes.
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