Episcopalianism Conversion Watch #3

I’ve long been of the opinion that we ought to give Pius XII’s legacy the benefit-of-the-doubt, but beatification?  Come on.

The rush to beatify everybody and his brother is getting pretty stupid.  I’m pretty sure I’m next in line.

I Can’t Believe We’re Losing to This Guy

 

John McCain Thinks American Workers Are All Too Lazy.

Sarah Palin Has Never Reflected on the Reasons for the Iraq War.

John McCain Made the Most Important Decision of His Campaign Based on the Advice of a 21-year-old blogger.

If You Lost Your Home in the Housing Crisis, John McCain Doesn’t Think You Should Be Able to Vote.

Sarah Palin’s Family Deserves Reproductive Rights, Yours Does Not.

McCain Thinks Courting Fickle Extremists Is More Important Than Getting the Right Person for the Job.

McCain Doesn’t Think He Should Have to Explain Himself To You.  STFU and Read His Books.

McCain Supports Voting Rights for Made-Up Black People.

But Not for Actual Black People.

Sarah Palin Doesn’t Understand What Taxes Are.

Or Where Iraq Is.

McCain/Palin:  Cronyism We Can Believe In.

John McCain Thinks It’s Only Reform When He Does It.

And finally, John McCain Thinks Guarding Children Against Abuse Makes You a Pedophile.

Episcopalianism Conversion Watch #2

“The Church of England will concede in a statement that it was over-defensive and over-emotional in dismissing Darwin’s ideas. It will call ‘anti-evolutionary fervour’ an ‘indictment” on the Church’.”

Your Home for Wild, Baseless Veepstakes Speculation

I know everyone disagrees with me, but I think it’s going be Clinton.  All the “DC insiders” and “campaign aides” quoted anonymously in the press over the past weeks have claimed Biden, Bayh, and Kaine are the finalists, and that Clinton brings too many “problems.”  Every mainstream media piece is all “ZOMG WHAT WOULD HE DO WITH BILL” as if Bill is some rabid dog and not a smart, seasoned, on-message pol who would do whatever the fuck Obama told him to do.  As for the “personal anomosity” argument, well, no one remembers this but a lot people said the same thing about John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004.  Clinton is maybe the most battle-tested politician in the country, and Obama is currently the most successful politician from the Chicago scene.  If you think they don’t know how to put personal feelings aside when it’s time to bust some heads, you’re kidding yourself.

No, the only plausible reason Obama would have for not picking Clinton is that she’s not a “safe” choice.  He currently enjoys a small lead in the polls and the electoral college projections, so his campaign plan could be a simple prevent defense, a la Bush in 2004.  “Just Don’t Fuck Up.”  Picking someone like Biden or Kaine isn’t going to energize anyone, but it also isn’t going to really anger anyone other than a few diehard Clinton supporters, who would’ve been angry anyway.

But I’m not buying it.  If he were making the “safe” choice, I’d have to think he would’ve announced weeks ago.  He’d want to give America time to get to know Biden or Bayh or Kaine before the convention.  He certainly wouldn’t have this elaborate rollout plan scheduled for just before the convention if it was one of those three “Meh” picks that have already been telegraphed.

Plus, today’s addition of Gore to the convention’s big final rally at Invesco Field makes more sense if the VP is someone who’s already scheduled to speak earlier in the convention, as Clinton is.

I’m probably wrong.  I’m probably going to be disappointed when I pay my 25 cents to get a txt from Dave Axelrod telling me that’s Biden.  Mainly I’m putting this post up so that, on the off-chance I am right, I’ll look like a badass.

Update:  Yeah, I’m probably wrong. Damn it.

Chickens Are Decent People

RIP George Carlin.  I drank a fifth for that ass when you passed.  

Not a perfect man by any means, but still the author of this, maybe the greatest pro-feminist male rant of all time.

On Moderates and Mavericks

   And I, my head in a swirl

Of error, cried: “Master, what is this I hear?

   What people are these, whom pain has overcome?”

   He:  ”This is the sorrowful state of souls unsure,

Whose lives earned neither honor nor bad fame.

   And they are mingled with angels of that base sort

   Who, neither rebellious to God nor faithful to Him,

Chose neither side but set themselves apart–

   Now Heaven expels them, not to mar its splendor,

   And Hell rejects them, lest the wicked of heart

Take glory over them.

Inferno, Canto III

Quotables #1

Amy:

 …And that’s why, if I ever saw Tom Cruise, I’d like to punch him square in the face.

Aging Hippie Who Was In Our Backyard For No Discernible Reason:  

Knowing Tom Cruise, I understand that impulse.  I do.  But then I think of The Oneness.

Episcopalianism Conversion Watch #1

 

Your humble host is, despite all odds, a practicing Catholic.

When I’m confronted with my crass hypocrisy by either my progressive/feminist friends or my Catholic friends, I generally have two answers:

1)  Hypocrisy (especially the sexual variety) is the birthright of all Irish Catholics.

2)  Less flippantly, I quote Graham Greene. “Continual failure or the circumstances of our private life finally make it impossible to make any promises at all and many of us abandon Confession and Communion to join the Foreign Legion of the Church and fight for a city of which we are no longer full citizens.”

Part of me thinks the joke is the better answer; we must all learn to live with certain inconsistencies in our lives.  Less broadly, we must all learn to live with contradictions and imperfections in our inner lives.  We’re all sinners, after all, and abiding inner turmoil for the sake of preserving the status quo is a good personal definition of sin.  Quite Catholic of me, I know, in both my willingness to blame the individual and in my obtuseness.  

My personal confusion aside, I read things like this (especially coming on the heels of the California gay marriage decision), and I want to down a shot of Bushmills, put on an orange scarf, and skip down to the nearest Episcopalian church whistling “We Sail The Ocean Blue.”

Pour a 40 on the Curb for William F. Buckley

 Though American conservatism would’ve been better off following cordial, Eisenhower-style detente rather than Buckley-style scorched-earth polarization; he still represents a more thoughtful, self-realized strain than his mouth-breathing neo-con progeny.  So tip your drink both to the man, *and* to the fact that you’ve outlived the fucker. Here at “Reading Too Much Into It,” we always honor the thoughtful, no matter how far down any particular rabbit hole they go. 

Of Pantsuits and Burqas

This photo is so mindblowing I can’t even begin to parse it:

Whether in the fundamentalist Muslim feminine garb or the Western corporate feminine garb, at least the women of the world all love plush pink velvet rooms.

Via/More