Where Are All the People?

There seems to be a widespread assumption that the Obama administration’s recent assault on religious liberty and freedom of conscience will be met with widespread resistance by American Catholics. While it appears that some Catholic leaders are responding thusly, I remain skeptical that there will any kind of mass Catholic backlash against President Obama because of this. For if the laity is to become engaged in the battle in a meaningful way, the people in the pews must be shaken out of their current passivity.

Many Catholics seem all too willing to erect their own wall between church and state and like to pretend that their politics has nothing to do with the Catholic Church and vice versa. The problem is that when the government breaks through that barrier and injects itself into the affairs of the Church by attempting to force it to accept policies that violate core tenants of its beliefs, the illusion of this happy little coexistence is shattered. Well, at least it would be if the Church were more consistent and forceful in explaining exactly what is taking place and why it matters to American Catholics.

My experience may not be typical, but so far little word of this current controversy has surfaced in our parish on any given Sunday. A few months ago, there was an insert in the bulletin that touched on it. Since then, nothing. No homilies, no presentations, no mention in the weekly bulletin. The only thing related to politics that has merited attention has been on the marriage front, with updates on the Minnesota Marriage Amendment appearing in the last few bulletins. But nothing on the Obamacare rules which are a direct threat to the freedom of the Catholic Church to exercise its religious beliefs.

In order for there to be action, there needs to be a call for it first. I fear that too many Catholic leaders are still reluctant to sound it.

The Bellweather Next Door

Gary Larson on what the effort to recall Governor Walker means to Wisconsin and how it could serve as a prelude to November's national election:

Pouring untold millions in recall elections effort, state and national unions seek now to overturn the results of the last real election. Recall looms for Gov. Walker and four Republicans legislators similarly targeted for their reformist ways.

Unions seek a form of jury disqualification on a massive, statewide scale. Facts are immaterial in labor-induced wars to get their way. Unions' collective wish here in Wisconsin is to restore a pushover state government which labor can “bargain” with (a-ha!) for members' privileges, a.k.a. entitlements, with payoffs at the end to legislators falling in line with their demand.

Frequently referred to — both by union biggies and their allies in news media, as “union rights,” somehow immutable, or Heaven-sent. They are not; rather these are man-made revocable labor contracts masquerading as “rights.”

Outcomes of the recall elections will cast a shadow on national elections in November. In essence, one central issue – unrestrained government spending – dominates. And then, the $15-plus trillion dollar question will be answered: Do Americans really care about budget restraints, about shared sacrifices, about living within means, about bloated labor contracts, etc.? Or opt to continue to saddle their grandkids with massive, unsustainable debt loads?

Beer of the Week (Vol. CXXXIII)

Another edition of Beer of the Week sponsored as always by the sporty crew at Glen Lake Wine & Spirits who have the wine, whisky, and beer to make your big game Sunday most super whether your pulling for the Pats, the G-men, or are one of the millions tuning in for the sake of spectacle (and Madonna’s half time show).

We continue to focus on beers that are appropriate to the season even if this particular winter has been mostly unseasonal in these parts. Considering the foggy, damp days we’ve experienced this week, it seems like a perfect time for a Scotch Ale:

Scotch Ale is the name given to a strong ale believed to have originated in Edinburgh in the 18th century. Beers using the designation Scotch Ale are popular in the USA where most examples are brewed locally. Examples of Scotch Ale brewed in Scotland are exported to the USA, though may be available in Scotland under a different name. For example, Caledonian's Edinburgh Scotch Ale is sold from the cask in Scotland as Edinburgh Strong Ale or as Edinburgh Tattoo.

Strong Scotch Ale is also known as "Wee Heavy". Examples of beers brewed in the USA under the name Wee Heavy tend to be 7% abv and higher, while Scottish-brewed examples, such as Belhaven's Wee Heavy, can be found between 5.5% and 6.5% abv. On the other hand, Scottish brewed exceptions include Traquair House Ale which is brewed to a strength of 7.2% abv, and Traquair Jacobite Ale which is 8% abv. McEwan's Scotch Ale is also 8% abv.

As with other examples of strong Ales, such as Barley Wine, these beers tend toward sweetness and a full body, with a low hop flavour and aroma.

Historical hop levels are debated. Examples from the Caledonian brewery would have toffee notes from the caramelizing of the malt from the direct fired copper. This caramelizing of Caledonian's beers is popular in America and has led many American brewers to produce toffee sweet beers which they would label as a Scotch Ale.

This week’s beer is the first that we’ve featured from Dark Horse Brewery in Marshall, Michigan. Dark Horse seeks to lay claim to being the best brewery in the state, which is a bold boast to make considering the number of and quality of craft brewers who call Michigan home (Arcadia, Bell’s, Founder’s, New Holland, etc.). Our beer of the week is the equally bold and brash Scotty Karate Scotch Ale:

For those of you who don't know who "Scotty Karate" is... He is a local one man band who plays an amazing slurry of honky tonk influenced, punk country songs. His voice is amazing as well as his high energy shows. (Check him out @ www.scottykarate.com) So, we decided to make a beer and name it in his honor. This beer is a big, full bodied Scottish ale. It is 9.75% alc. but it is very smooth and balanced.

Retails for $8.99 for a four-pack of 12oz brown bottles. Label features a funky rendering of namesake one man band leader with purple and yellow color streaks. Based on the headgear that he’s sporting and the color scheme, this could be the official beer of the Vikings.

STYLE: Scotch Ale

ALCOHOL BY VOLUME: 9.75%

COLOR (0-2): Dark copper-brown. 2

AROMA (0-2): Caramel malt with hints of alcohol. 2

HEAD (0-2): Tan color, light volume, tiny bubbles, decent lacing. 2

TASTE (0-5): Strong malt flavors predominate with caramel, toffee, and bread. Sweet, but not overly so. Some tangy fruit as well with a bit of a hop bite at the finish. Heavy-bodied with a smooth thick mouthfeel. You can definitely taste the heat although it’s not overwhelming. It is a beer that you’ll want to sip and savor. 4

AFTERTASTE (0-2): Long lasting and rich. 2

OVERALL (0-6): This is a big beer with the robust flavors that you’re craving in the doldrums of winter. Yet it’s also surprisingly smooth. You’ll know that you’re drinking a beer with a ABV pushing double digits, but won’t be put off by the amped up alcohol content. This “wee heavy” comes in just right. 5

TOTAL SCORE (0-19): 17

Wake Up Call?

Peggy Noonan says that while Romney's gaffe this week was serious it was nothing compared to the blunder made by President Obama. She opinines that taking on the Catholic Church is A Battle the President Can't Win;

The church is split on many things. But do Catholics in the pews want the government telling their church to contravene its beliefs? A president affronting the leadership of the church, and blithely threatening its great institutions? No, they don't want that. They will unite against that.

The smallest part of this story is political. There are 77.7 million Catholics in the United States. In 2008 they made up 27% of the electorate, about 35 million people. Mr. Obama carried the Catholic vote, 54% to 45%. They helped him win.

They won't this year. And guess where a lot of Catholics live? In the battleground states.

There was no reason to pick this fight. It reflects political incompetence on a scale so great as to make Mitt Romney's gaffes a little bitty thing.

There was nothing for the president to gain, except, perhaps, the pleasure of making a great church bow to him.

Enjoy it while you can. You have awakened a sleeping giant.

I wish I shared Noonan's conviction of a mass Catholic awakening over this. I'm afraid that it still may not be enough to jolt many Catholics out of their blissfully ignorant slumber.

Not Adding Up

Facebook Tracks Ascent of Google:

Profit margins are very similar as well. Facebook's operating-profit margins have averaged 49% the past two years. Google averaged 48% in 2004 and 2005, a level it roughly maintained until last year.

Oil Company Earnings: Reality over Rhetoric:

Industry profit margins are cyclical too. But on average, between 2006 and 2010, the largest oil companies averaged a profit margin of around 6.5%.

Dems propose Reasonable Profits Board to regulate oil company profits:

Six House Democrats, led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), want to set up a "Reasonable Profits Board" to control gas profits.

The Democrats, worried about higher gas prices, want to set up a board that would apply a "windfall profit tax" as high as 100 percent on the sale of oil and gas, according to their legislation. The bill provides no specific guidance for how the board would determine what constitutes a reasonable profit.

Definition of reasonable by the Free Online Dictionary:

rea•son•a•ble (r z -n -b l) adj.

1. Capable of reasoning; rational: a reasonable person.

2. Governed by or being in accordance with reason or sound thinking: a reasonable solution to the problem.

3. Being within the bounds of common sense: arrive home at a reasonable hour.

4. Not excessive or extreme; fair: reasonable prices.

Board to Tears

There was an interesting piece in yesterday's WSJ on the lengths that airline travelers are going to in order to Avoid Luggage Check-In Fees (sub req):

Fights between passengers for overhead bin space are extremely rare, airlines say. But Catherine Jorgens feared mayhem was about to erupt on a Frontier Airlines flight where passengers did argue over jamming bags into already-full bins. "It was a madhouse of many people in many rows competing for sacred overhead-bin space,'' she said.

Going through security is no longer the worst part of the flying experience for Ms. Jorgens. "I think the boarding experience is the most unpleasant time for me,'' she said. Now she packs light and closes her eyes while others board, preferring not to look at the oversized bags being dragged onboard so she doesn't get upset.

"It is such a slow, tedious process,'' said Ms. Jorgens, a retiree living in Florida who travels regularly. "At what other time nowadays do you see such an endless line of people all bearing the same morose expression?''

You know, I think I would have to agree with that assessment. It used to be that light at the end of the arduous series of steps involved in air travel was when you reached the gate and were waiting to board the aircraft. Now, the battle for overhead space has introduced a new element of anxiety and stress. If you're one of those carrying luggage onboard that requires utilizing precious overhead space-as it seems more and more people are now since airlines started charging for checked luggage-you need to make sure you get on the plane before those bins are filled which they almost always are these days.

Priority boarding is one of the few perks of having elite status with an airline that really matters these days. Upgrades are getting harder and harder to come by, but being able to board the plane early at least guarantees that you’ll have open overhead bin space to stow your bag. But then you still have to sit there through the rest of the boarding process-which takes longer now that more people carry on-and listen to the inevitable wailing and gnashing of teeth when there’s no more room in the bins. It’s not exactly humanity at its finest and the misery is compounded when you have snarky flight attendants snapping at passengers who are just trying to find a place for their bag. Which has been the situation on pretty much every Delta flight I’ve been in the last few years. More bags stuffed into overhead bins also means that getting off the plane takes longer than it used. It gets ya comin' and goin'.

The worst part is that all of this pain and suffering which has been introduced into the boarding process has been inflicted because the airlines started charging to check luggage. Which is why it kills me when the flight attendants get all pissy about passengers carrying on bags. I want to scream, “It’s not their fault. It’s your company that created the problem. If you want to get mad at somebody, get mad at them and quit blaming the victim!”

I don’t have easy answers for how to fix this, but I know that there has to be a better way.

Never Too Late to Learn?

In what they admit may be the first in a long-running series, the WSJ editorial board tries to explain What Mitt Really Meant:

Mr. Romney's larger mistake is to think and speak in "class" terms. He touts his concern for the "middle class" all the time, as if he's trying to show that a rich guy can identify with average Americans. But this is a game that Democrats play better, and it leads Mr. Romney into cul-de-sacs like saying the poor are fine because they benefit from government, while the middle class don't. Mr. Obama will turn this into an argument for hooking the middle class on more government.

Mr. Romney's failures to communicate are common among businessmen and other normal people who have the right instincts but haven't spent their lives thinking about politics. He also recently ran into trouble when he said he liked firing people, when he was really talking about the discipline of market competition.

Still, his business now is politics, and as the Republican front-runner he has an obligation to explain how conservative principles and policies can address America's current problems. We'll be happy to translate for him in these columns, but it would be less politically painful if Mr. Romney sat down for a week-long tutorial with, say, Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush and others who can help him avoid such obvious liberal traps.

You would think that after spending the last six years essentially doing almost nothing but running for president, Romney would be better prepared by now to avoid such pitfalls. The fact that he isn't should give Romney supporters pause. If Romney does indeed secure the GOP nomination as now seems likely, he would do well to spend a considerable amount of time with the gentlemen listed above to learn some rather basics tricks of the political trade.

Debt Bombing

Over the last year, some Democrats have taken to dousing Republicans in confetti. They call it “glitter bombing”. Mitt Romney was the latest “victim” of this puzzling trend right here in Minnesota.

Apparently, glitter bombers believe that undecided voters will see a Republican covered in glitter and say to themselves: “That Republican looks ridiculous covered in glitter; obviously I cannot vote for him.”

It seems doubtful that any such inner monologue has ever occurred, but that hasn’t stopped the assaults. Fortunately, we Republicans are above such inane tactics.

But if we weren’t above such things, we could certainly come up with a form of glitter bombing that at least made sense. The Bureau of Printing and engraving sells five pound bags of shredded currency. Dousing a spendthrift Democrat in this currency confetti or “debt bombing”, would actually be an understandable political statement. Or, it would be if our side wasn’t too classy for such behavior.



Yep, we’d be better than the Democrats at their own game, if we were willing to stoop to their level.

Church or State?

The following is an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal Op Ed on Religious Freedom by Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan :

Now we have learned that those loud and strong appeals were ignored. On Friday, the administration reaffirmed the mandate, and offered only a one-year delay in enforcement in some cases—as if we might suddenly be more willing to violate our consciences 12 months from now. As a result, all but a few employers will be forced to purchase coverage for contraception, abortion drugs and sterilization services even when they seriously object to them. All who share the cost of health plans that include such services will be forced to pay for them as well. Surely it violates freedom of religion to force religious ministries and citizens to buy health coverage to which they object as a matter of conscience and religious principle.

The rule forces insurance companies to provide these services without a co-pay, suggesting they are "free"—but it is naïve to believe that. There is no free lunch, and you can be sure there's no free abortion, sterilization or contraception. There will be a source of funding: you.

Coercing religious ministries and citizens to pay directly for actions that violate their teaching is an unprecedented incursion into freedom of conscience. Organizations fear that this unjust rule will force them to take one horn or the other of an unacceptable dilemma: Stop serving people of all faiths in their ministries—so that they will fall under the narrow exemption—or stop providing health-care coverage to their own employees.

The Catholic Church defends religious liberty, including freedom of conscience, for everyone. The Amish do not carry health insurance. The government respects their principles. Christian Scientists want to heal by prayer alone, and the new health-care reform law respects that. Quakers and others object to killing even in wartime, and the government respects that principle for conscientious objectors. By its decision, the Obama administration has failed to show the same respect for the consciences of Catholics and others who object to treating pregnancy as a disease.

This latest erosion of our first freedom should make all Americans pause. When the government tampers with a freedom so fundamental to the life of our nation, one shudders to think what lies ahead.

In the wake of the administration's modern day kulturkampf (why yes, I have been reading a biography of Bismarck) and the Church's unified (so far) response to it, one also shudders to think what lies ahead for groups such as Catholics for Obama. When it comes down to it, will they choose to support their Church or their president?

We Disengage, We Turn the Page

Jonah Goldberg asks What is Wrong With This Guy?:

Again, I’d happily vote for Romney over Obama. And I’d be fine with Romney crushing Obama with negative ads, if that was remotely possible. And there are plenty of things one could say to defend Romney on the merits of what he says here. But great politicians on the morning after a big win, don’t force their supporters to go around defending the candidate from the charge that he doesn’t care about the poor. They just don’t.

After eight years of cringing through the ups and downs and ideological inconsistencies of the Bush administration and the 2008 campaign trying to pretend that John McCain-a fundamentally good man-actually represented a conservative choice for America’s future, a lot of us are tired of having to put up with Republican politicians that we can’t wholeheartedly support or really believe in. So let me officially state that I am not going to go down that road with Mitt Romney.

I’ll leave that to the Hugh Hewitts, Ann Coulters, and Ramesh Ponnurus of the world. You’ve been selling us on Romney’s electability and telling us that he’s the only one who can beat President Obama in November. Fine. Now that it appears almost certain that your dreams of Romney at the top of the Republican ticket are going to come true, you’re going to have your chance. You get to be the ones who can explain away blunders like this morning’s. You get to keep telling people that RomneyCare is in no way related to ObamaCare. You get to describe for us how Romney’s tepid and uninspired economic plan is going to turn things around. You get to justify the fact that at a time when the American people are itching for a serious debate about the future paths the country could and should take, Romney has demonstrated neither the ability nor inclination to put forth a strong argument for a conservative vision as an alternative to President Obama’s.

The way things are looking now, we’re going to be in for a LONG campaign. And an even longer four years after that with President Obama in the White House.

Is it too early for the Ryan in 2016 speculation to begin?