Posting About the Culture

I've long said that the culture is what drives the politics, not the reverse.  Unfortunately, I've acted as though the political part of life was the important part.

With that in mind, I've decided to focus on The Culture, and WHY it has to be resisted.  Naturally, much of my thinking will come out of my Catholic Heritage.

Like Nancy Pelosi and Joy Behar, I was raised Catholic.

That's where we differ.  I still attend church every Sunday, and am currently also spending one evening a week (and some spare time online) learning more about my faith.

Unlike many cultural Catholics, I don't ignore the "inconveniently illiberal" parts of the church.

To that purpose, I've been checking out some Catholic blogs that stand firmly on the side of The Church in the HHS fight.

Among them, Bad Catholic, who writes about specific ways that The Church stands up to the Standard American Culture.

Bad Catholic also writes about nudity - and how the Culture has made men (and women) ashamed of their bodies.  Which, BTW, the Catholic Church never was - did you think all those naked and near-naked statues and pictures in the churches just somehow escaped the attention of The Church?

Bad Catholic also takes on porn - and points to a modern man who rejected it.

He takes on popular thinking about abortion.

If you haven't read Bad Catholic in the past, start now.

Why Black Participation in Baseball is Falling

The central thesis of this is disheartening.

...baseball is a game taught by fathers, while basketball and football are more often taught by peers in pickup games.

Gerald Hall Jr., the director of a youth-baseball program in Washington, D.C., told Milloy: “If you did a survey, I believe you’d find that the one thing average and above-average players have in common is a father. Baseball is, at heart, a father-and-son sport. And if you’re a kid that has nobody to throw to, nobody to talk to, nobody to discipline you in the way that baseball demands, you’re not likely to play the game.

How unbearably sad.

Welfare Benefits for Illegal Aliens?

YES!

The federal government is ACTIVELY promoting applications from NON-citizens.  I couldn't believe that the American government could be so clueless, until I read this.

In one ad from the government, a Spanish-speaking alien is being pushed to apply for benefits, even though she tells them that she doesn't need them.

Imagine - someone who is self-sufficient is being discouraged from continuing to rely on themselves.

Not only that, but the EBT (the "bank card" that is now used for food stamp eligible purchases) is being promoted as reducing fraud, because - wait for it - the users can withdraw money from it in cash.

Get it?  They no longer have to sell the food stamps - which is illegal.  They can - legally - just ask for cash back at the register.  Which has the same effect - getting cash in their hands.  But, now that same action is LEGAL.

Confused?

So was I.

 

Up At Dawn on Thanksgiving

I'm the only one up right now, at my Cleveland house. The habit of getting up at dawn (reinforced this year by the need to rise at 4:30 am every workday) is long-standing.

I'm using this time to catch up on reading, thinking, and planning. It's work best suited to a silent house. Later in the day, every corner will be filled with people and talk.

I'm reading a post on National Review, about gratitude. Multiple people have contributed a few thoughts about thankfulness. It got me thinking about it, too.

I'm thankful that:

I'm employed - and, at a job that I LIKE. My working situations have not always been so congenial, so I'm doubly thankful that my work is such a pleasure these days.
My husband is employed - both at a part-time Christmas job, and, as of next Monday, at a teaching job. It's only for the rest of the year - it's a grant position. But, that gets him employed in the school system, and it will enable him to bid for other jobs later in the year.
All of my kids have a job.
No one is sick, except the daughter that just had surgery on her foot. And for her, she had insurance to cover the operation.
I had a nice visit with my sister yesterday.

All this is personal, as are my thanks. I'm crossing my fingers about my country, who is facing an uncertain future. At least, my country is not currently being attacked, like Israel. That country is both being physically attacked, and verbally attacked by a media indignant that Israel dares to defend itself.

We're Past Denial, and Anger, and Bargaining

Benghazi.

I'm still pushing awareness of the whole scandal. It's amazing, even with mention in a debate, some front-page stories, and peripheral intermingling in the Petraeus story, that so many people have no idea what the story was about.

It's time to get serious.

We need to pare down our agenda to the core issues, concerns, and base-building activities.

Dealing with Identifications issues - illegal aliens using other people's identity, voting fraud, privacy concerns balanced against need to verify identity.

Bringing the Budget Monster into balance - SOME entitlements are going to have to pare down their cost. We need to cap some entitlement programs - after all, we aren't creating more disabilities, so the numbers of recipients shouldn't be increasing - but they ARE. This needs to stop. Same with many "poverty" programs. We need to base the maximum on what it actually takes to have a PARED-DOWN lifestyle - no internet, ONE phone per household, with limitations on monthly calls/data transfer, NO cable, NO luxuries. Even if the average lifestyle of citizens in the US increases, the amount given to recipients shouldn't change, UNLESS the cost of getting BASIC items changes.
This is not popular. It will have the usual suspects screaming that this approach is "hateful", "cruel", and, probably, "racist" (even though MOST recipients are white - amazing how nobody objects when THAT word is not capitalized).

Reforming education - getting the federal government OUT of the scene, uprooting those Leftists from schools, departments of ed, and ed schools. Tie grants, loans, and scholarships to taking majors that actually have a likelihood of making the graduate employable. NO grant money for elementary teachers who don't also take college-level math.

Base-building - we need to bring in younger people at the local level, into the leadership roles as they qualify for them, and start moving those who won't "bend" out of the hierarchy. No more ORCAs - build the robust apps, AND train those who will use them. But, nothing can replace the door-to-door networking. THAT'S where we need to focus.

Tech & Politics

It's the intersection of my two favorite things.

This article gets into the way tech was used by both Obama and Romney, and how it contributed to the outcome.

It should be read by ALL Conservatives.  We need to start building the infrastructure NOW.

How to Attract the Young to the Conservative Side

This young woman voices some legitimate concerns.

One thing that COULD be done is to get to the leading edge of marijuana legalization.

Understand, I don't like it.  I never used it.  I know those of my generation that were heavily involved generally made little of their lives, at least while it was a large part of those lives.

But, I do understand the attraction of the legalization movement.  With more states getting on board with it, it seems useless to continue with prohibition.

So, legalize, tax, and cross your fingers.

Maybe out best efforts ought to be spent on getting people to consume substances in moderation.  I don't hold out much hope for that, you understand.  In America, moderation is NOT the norm.

I imagine that my grandparents felt much like this in 1933, when Prohibition was due to end.  Resigned, but NOT liking it.