The Perky Papist

Black Like Me

Michael Jackson Has Support From Blacks

Black people defending Michael Jackson may seem bizarre to some, given his appearance and actions. Although Jackson has expressed black pride and blames his skin-lightening on vitiligo, a disease that causes pigment loss, he has been viewed as so far removed from his race, people joke he's no longer a member.

I find this more interesting as a jumping-off point than for Jackson's particular case. Look, my parents, and most nice middle and upper parents of that generation, raised us to be "color-blind". Plus, we pretty much have no memory of Jim Crow. So - okay - I'm pretty color-blind. I do tend to be classist, which is also wrong, mea culpa. But people can change their speech and carriage, I mean, I'm just middle-class myself; what I don't get is why people still get so hung up on "race". My nieces are half-"hispanic"/half-"white". So are they hispanic or anglo? Or does it depend? And then the whole "white" thing is split up into about five different groups . . . this is why I wish we could just get rid of the concept of "race". We differ from each other in no ways that are essential, only in culture, which is interesting, and coloration, which is also interesting but about which too much has been made.

But all this race-mongering. And people still buy it. It must really be "a black thing". (Personally, I think it's a "low-class urban thing" that sympathetic types carry into the suburbs; see the experience of the Irish-Americans - another awful hyphenate - over the period from 1850-1950.)

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Or maybe you can. See for yourself. Here's why women cannot be priests:

Debate Over Ordination of Women Seen Producing a Deep Rift
German Bishop Talks of "a Sort of Mental Ecclesial Schism"

I try and try and try to explain this to people and I might as well be explaining how Santa actually comes down chimneys or something. Peeps, the Church doesn't refrain from ordaining women to be mean, nasty, and misogynistic. The Church refrains from ordaining women because she cannot ordain women. And even if women were "ordained", those "ordinations" would a) be sacrilegious and b) have no effect, as a sacrament.

So hats off to Bishop Muller for being willing and able to speak the plain truth (not always a noted characteristic of modern shepherds). As for you - can you handle the truth?

In honor of Turkey Day

Thanks for Thanksgiving

Giving thanks for turkey,
Cornbread stuffing,
Good mashed per-taters,
Cranberries a-jelling,
Sweet potatoes, please,
And as the end draws nigh,
Don't forget whipped cream
On the pumpkin pie!

A reasonable solution?

Missed this one when it was fresh but too good not to pass on.

California Applies for Ditech.com Consolidation Loan

Also, Gov. Schwarzenegger to put all Cali state departments on an "allowance" system; departments can get over their allotted "allowance" by doing chores around the capital building, the governor's mansion, and state office buildings. Records will be kept by putting gummed foil stars on a chart on the governor's refrigerator.

Sometimes the best course of action is inaction

Gov. Romney, I heartily endorse Hugh Hewitt's advice.

I know that I would disagree most fiercely with my Puritan forefathers, not least on the subject of religion, but I have little hesitation in saying that they would not exactly find this decision "most meet & convenient for the general good of the colony" (from The Mayflower Compact).

Jeb Bush rocks

That's all I can say.

Mark Shea links to an article on Bush's request to have the new judge in Terri Schiavo's case recuse himself (the judge said no, of course). Take a look. Phew - it's like there's finally someone with some common sense and at least half a heart (as well as respect for the law) interested in this case, who is at a level where he can Do Something. And I'm sure if I feel a bit relieved on that score, the Schindlers must feel even more so.

Don't forget to pray for Terri and her family. Click the terri.org button on my sidebar there to see what's going on and what else you might be able to do.

I knew someone would say it! I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it!!!

Thousands Protest Iraq War in London

"It wouldn't have happened without Iraq. ... America is creating their own terrorists," said Ziggy Dlabal, a German sociologist who lives in London.

And he's German to boot. Dude, thank you soooo much for just reinforcing all my prejudices about Euro anti-war leftwingers! And have fun when they start bombing Berlin and Dusseldorf! Germany didn't participate in the Iraq war? Well, one infidel western country's as good as another, and spouting Bush/cowboy quotes (which are just recycled Reagan insults anyway) won't help. Germany, America . . . what's the diff, to the terrorist? (I mean, besides that Germany's cheaper and easier to get to.)

(BTW - this is a symptom of the same journalism problem I've been diagnosing: Go for the wackiest quote you can. Good stories are not about building consensus.

(Then again, neither was this march. Toppling a statue of Bush a la Saddam? Puh-leeze. We know you're angry. We hear you. You didn't have to demonstrate that you're also stupid and have no sense of proportion. But then, a lot of you thought the Redskis were the good guys in the Cold War . . .)

I'm hallucinating, right?

Something I learned this morning from reading the side of a city bus: Cheaper by the Dozen has apparently been updated and will be released on Christmas Day. Normally, this sort of thing would sound like a cringe-fest, but from what I've been able to find, not so. The original book and film's real-life Gilbreth family has turned into the fictional Baker family, and dad's a football coach, not an efficiency expert, but . . . it still looks like a winner. (Although the script seems to have been written by someone who also wrote the "Scooby Doo" movie. Ruh-roh, Raggy. But Steve Martin can cure lots of ills . . . and at least it wasn't made by the Mouse.)

I'll love it if this family is Catholic - but, honestly, I'll love it even more if they aren't Catholic, especially if they are a non-Catholic, non-"blended" family. Because seeing a big, non-Catholic family in a major motion picture (with Steve Martin as the dad, wonderful Bonnie Hunt as the mom, hunky Tom Welling as the older brother, Piper Perabo as the pretty oldest sister, Hilary Duff as the spunky teen sister, and a set of adorable twins as the youngest brothers) will say, in the way only a major Hollywood movie can, "Hey, this is totally part of the normal and accepted universe of modern America."

Hey, why not? Isn't a happy and stable marriage with twelve children just another valid lifestyle choice (at the very least)? Or are some choices more valid than others?

They report, you decide

Archbishop O'Malley made a good, terse statement yesterday on Goodridge.

Here's the CNS story,

And the actual statement by the archbish.

I post both links because I'm getting more and more tired of wondering what writers put in and leave out of stories. I mean, check out all the quote action going on in the CNS story. So I have to go and read the "source documents" to feel like I actually have the real story. (And of course one has to read these judicial decisions, even if one is a layman, because they're never reported correctly, and most of the analysis articles assume you've read them.) I don't say this to disparage this particular journalist, only to say that when "sensational" words are pulled out and stuck on their own, from peeps I like or don't like, more and more I want to know the context. There are very few writers I just trust prima facie.

On the journalists's side, of course, how do you write about judicial crapulence like Goodridge or Lawrence without being partisan? There are objective ways to report these things, but they really aren't going to pass muster with today's editors (too bland), and I'd say 95% of today's writers wouldn't be able to re-read their stories honestly for bias, and then accept criticism after they'd done that. Of course, writing totally without bias is a joke, we all have our prejudices, and the ability to be prejudicial in a good way, to select the truly important things, is one of the marks of a quality journalist.

Ah, but what is important? And how do you decide? Sorry, class, we'll have to discuss next time.

Oh - and you wanted to know when the O'Malley honeymoon would end? I'd say - right about - now.

Hi, my name is Mitt Romney,

. . . and I have a backbone.

I mean, I wouldn't think that sticking up for the marriage amendment movement (which I am sympathetic to although I disagree with it in theory) and decrying gay unions is the way to build your popularity these days in the Bay State.

While you're there, take a gander at the bottom of the second page of this article - you mean with all the pro-family activists in Massachusetts and the nation, this writer can't find anyone to interview besides Randall Terry? Duuuuude. That's like a conservative going to Molly Yard anytime they want a mildly left-of-center quote. Methinks there art a lazy reporter here.

P.S. And what the hey does "airtight" mean here? This article seems to be trying to assert a certainty that I don't think anyone on any side of this issue feels about this ruling. IMO.