Handy First Amendment Primer.

For Slate and the UMass Daily Collegian, and other brave paladins brandishing (parts of) the Bill of Rights:

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects your right to publish Ted Rall and Rene Gonzalez.

It does not compel your publication of their "work."

That is all.

Another boy threatened by an example of a real man weighs in.

Ted Rall, naturally. You know, the guy who also mocked the 9/11 widows.

Actually, here's the prosecution brief proving his eternal crapitude. For my money, making fun of Marianne Pearl after her husband's throat was slashed on video puts you in the realm of Nazi cartooning. I think he'd have been quite welcome as the house hack at Volkishe Beobachter--and comfortable, too, if the money was right.

Imagine a far less (!) talented Garry Trudeau crossed with Noam Chomsky, and you've pretty well nailed it.

I can't think of a more appalling sack of offal working in major media.

That's saying something, when you think about it.

How 'bout them Pistons?

End of an era, indeed.

Age catches us up with us all, and it finally did with the Wings, where it counted this series--the scoring forwards. Hull, Shanahan, Lang--to name but three--couldn't bury the chances when they counted. Yes, injuries played a role, but they always do this time of year. Kiprusoff was good, but hardly great--he saw virtually every shot.

Hard to blame Joseph, who was spectacular in spots. But here's the book on CuJo--he has a distressing tendency to make one less crucial save than the opposition in the playoffs. But he really isn't at fault in this one--the team that pumped in the pucks in the regular season wasn't able to buy a single one over the last two games.

That, frankly, is inexcusable. As a result, we've probably seen the last of Hull and Shanahan in the Winged Wheel.

Then there's the defense corps. First, every Wings fan who ever called Larry Murphy "the Human Pylon" needs to issue a retraction--that title now rightfully belongs to Derian Hatcher. Good Lord, the most memorable thing the man did was throw an elbow in last night's game six. Yes, he was still coming back from an injury, but see above.

Nik Lidstrom, white courtesy phone. Mr. Niklas Lidstrom, you have a call at the white courtesy phone. Mr. Lidstrom....?

If Jiri Fischer is the great hope for the future on the blue line, it's time to succumb to despair. Ironically, for all the problems with age, the best guy on the ice for the Wings for long stretches was 42 year old Chris Chelios. Schneider wasn't bad either.

He's a nice guy, great in the regular season, and his coaching skills were hampered by injuries during the playoffs, but here's the bottom line on Dave Lewis: a playoff record of 6-10, with another too-early exit. A re-do of the Bryan Murray era isn't what we had in mind.

Now, with the labor shortage, I can pop in the DVDs and watch ESPN Classic if I hope to see any good Wings hockey for the next year or so.

Meanwhile, Gary Bettman is about to go on suicide watch--the prospect of a Calgary-Tampa Bay Cup final looms closer....

"Disco pants and haircuts..."

"This place has got everything."

Somerset is the Detroit ultramall, containing the usual upscale useless shops like Sharper Image and so forth. According to local TV, everyone involved is fine.

Re: The Detonation Below.

Yes, it was saltier than I try to be, and for that I apologize. I assure you it will be rare.

Not nonexistent, but rare.

There have been reports that Mr. Gonzalez has apologized. If this is his "apology," it's definitely in the "sorry I got caught" category, and his attempted desecration of Tillman is part of a pattern.

[Update: Upon further review, you're adults. As Michelle properly notes, I did post a warning at the beginning.

It'll still be rare, but I'll just be less apologetic about it.]

"Hey, Hanrahan...."

Interesting discussion about hockey fights over at Mark Sullivan's blog.

There is a contention that the 1994 instigator rule has improved the NHL game.

I, channelling my inner Don Cherry, disagree. You see a lot more of the really nasty stuff now that there is no way for the enforcer types to retaliate.

Plus, I miss the enforcers--especially the nicknames: Dave "The Hammer" Schultz, "Missing" Link Gaetz, Stu "The Grim Reaper" Grimson, "the Bruise Brothers" Bob Probert and Joey Kocur, Dave "His Nickname Escapes Me" Semenko--a lot of the color of the game is lost now. In return, we have brutal cowardice like that displayed by Claude Lemieux, Marty McSorley and Todd Bertuzzi.

That's not an improvement.

No, I don't want "Slap Shot" antics every game, but what we have now protects even worse actions.

Discuss.

[P.S.: Speaking of my favorite hockey film--compared to most of today's "inspired by" films, Slap Shot was a documentary--amazingly close to real life.]

Not dead. Busy.

And in a rotten mood to boot.

Yes, the Pistons and Wings are finding some traction (moreso for the first, but we'll take any sign of life from the latter).

The Lions appear to have had a great draft, but you always have to account for this factor:

They're the Lions. The same nimrods who picked such can't miss first rounders as Andre Ware, Reggie Rogers, Aaron Gibson, Bryant Westbrook, Terry Fair...

Then there was their brilliant decision to pick Kalimba Edwards instead of Clinton Portis. Yeah, not like we needed to address the running game three years ago....

The Tigers are assured of their first winning April since 1993. You know: back when their manager was playing shortstop. Yep, been pretty miserable for many a moon.

My part III on SITTM may go up, if anyone's still interested. Up to you.

Oh, and I saw two pieces of prime stupidity which have attracted my attention. Keep watching this space.

Not enough hours in a day, or "An Omnibus Post."

Part III will be up and running by day's end. It's the constructive part of the series, for those of you inclined to regard me as the Bob Knepper of Catholic blogging.

Preview: You can either reach out to the gents and instill healthy male virtues, or you can let them find their way to the recliner, looking forward to the "Women On Trampolines" segment of The Man Show and enjoy male-female ratios starting at 35-65 every Sunday and worsening until you close up shop.

In the meantime, enjoy this snarky piece of photojournalism from an admittedly conservative blog covering an undermanned protest at the Supreme Court (Bad Language Alert). For me, the high point of the post is the reference to the Swiss hair-metal band, Krokus.

Feel free not to discuss hockey or the Wings' powerless play.

"Your women--I wish to buy them!" Ah, the perils of love poetry.

A request for advice from other parents: how long do you have to keep cheering a toilet-training child's bowel movements like a maniac. I mean, I definitely want to keep encouraging Maddie, but at some point, it has to stop. Speaking update: Out of the blue yesterday at the dinner table, she said "Yes, please" and "No thank you." Cool beyond words. D3 is not speaking much, but he calls his sister "Mah-wa," especially when he can't see her.

Stickin' It To The Man, Part II.

A gifted homilist could probably milk the story of the 325th for a month's worth of homilies about Christian fortitude, justice, sacrifice and heroism. The selflessness of men willing to die for others, shortly after leaving St. Mary's Church (St. Mere Eglise), for foreign strangers in the grip of darkness as well as for friends--there are plenty of parallels to the Gospel here.

I even have a couple of titles handy: "No Way Out But Through" and "Crossing the Causeway." Feel free to filch and alter as you like.

Of course, there are perils that have to be sidestepped--tamping down on American messianism and so forth--but it can be easily done.

But, of course, it won't. Certainly not in a progressive parish, and not even in more conservative ones. The reason? As this article found by Amy Welborn notes, the Church seems to recoil from any appeal to classically masculine values. Let me define my terms: by classically masculine I mean such things as life-sacrificing heroism, adventurousness, willingness to risk confrontation, being task- or project-oriented, and related virtues. This description is not to deny that women experience such things, but only that, as a generally rule, they do so to a lesser extent or differently. We are different but complementary, right?

Why there so little appeal to that, I wonder? It's not as though the New Testament is shorn of militant terminology. Look here, here, here and here.

Gates breaking (note that the image presumes the Gospel is on the offensive, not defensive), swords being girded, the clank of armor being donned--all right! The D&D geek in every man is beginning to pay attention now.... More seriously, it cannot be denied that this imagery appeals more strongly to men than to women. But it is almost never referenced, except to neutralize or spiritualize it away.

I can feel the buildup to an explosion beginning, but let me continue. Every time this subject comes up, a pattern seems to establish itself quickly--critics point out the obvious--fewer men at church, offer criticism of Church's lack of appeal to men, unbalanced spirituality, etc.

Response: We have liftoff! Well, it's simple--it's a worldwide phenomenon; you have an adolescent's understanding of masculinity and masculine virtues, atrophied at age 12, Beavis, so curb the macho BS; or you're compensating for something, possibly even homosexuality [ed.: No, really.]; you don't understand that the Gospel transforms erroneous notions of masculinity (like yours) into a newer form; perhaps you need to grow up, swallow your pride and do something you regard as "unworthy" to prove yourself.

In reverse order: (1) Okey--I'm 35 going on 55, married with two kids and a third on the way, and though I don't regard this the following as "unworthy", I'm chairman of the parish education commission, I lead the weekly bible study and am a member of the Knights of Columbus--oh, and I used to be an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, until my daughter became fully mobile. I also have a frigging day job. Are my credentials sufficient to permit me to speak on the issue? The men aren't there--it doesn't take a resume', just a pair of eyes and the ability to count.

(2) The Gospel baptizes human virtues, including those of healthy masculinity. It transforms them with new life. Unfortunately, the arguments on this point quickly end up turning it into the opposite: a timorous, deferential understanding that has been "mortified" out of all recognition.

"Want to exercise a 'masculine virtue,' buddy? Sit down and shut the hell up!"

Nope. Sorry. Not if the Christ of the Gospels is our model. As opposed to the Josh creature of 21st Century therapeutic social gospel America--a Stuart Smalley without the andro. We get the mandatory U.S. RWA of the Meek 'N' Mild Jesus, and Apologetic Explanations for the unavoidable incidents were Jesus confronted evil and sacrificed himself. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah: Who he?

I'd like to see the same dismissive approach tried with respect to the genius of femininity. "Your understanding of femininity is flawed..." Don't hold your breath.

(3) How's the ban, o anonymous greg? Bet you'd really like to get your two cents in on this one, eh?

Well, stinks to be you.

(4) Actually, no, it hasn't atrophied. Though I am pretty cool--Fire! Fire! I need TP for...Nevermind.

Perhaps my view is unrefined. So be it. The men aren't there, and few care.

We'd better start. Lose the fathers, lose the sons. And, eventually the daughters, too. When my dad lost interest in going to church on Sunday, we all dropped out. It took my brother's "born again" experience to make me wonder if there might be something to this Jesus business.

It took far too long for society to remember the common-sense dictate that good fathers are an indispensible component of a healthy family, and by extension, a healthy society. A church hemorrhaging family men is on the expressway to auto-demolition.

(5) It's a widespread phenomenon. Perhaps so, but it cannot be the case that there are no parishes in the U.S. where they get men to attend and participate. Study them, O bishops, but quickly--not in the "let's table it till we address the depletion of smelt stocks in the Au Sable River and its impact on the interrelational aspects of wholistic Gospel witness" blah blah blah for the love of Mary please shut up now. Yes, the laity can get to work, but the Sheps set the tone.

You don't have twenty years to find your backside with both hands on this one.

[Continue to Part III]

Stickin' it to The Man, Part I.

Normandy on June 8, 1944, was no place for fainthearts. After that day, no man of the 325th Glider Infantry Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division would ever be called that again.

[Commanding general of the 82nd Airborne General Matthew] Ridgway was trying to get across the Merderet River, to the west of town [St. Mere Eglise, liberated on June 6]. He wanted to finish what he started and take the causeway at a hamlet called La Fiere. The trouble was that it ran absolutely straight for about 500 yards and stood well above the marshes. The Germans were strongly entrenched on the far side, and there was no cover on the causeway. Crossing it was close to walking down the middle of a road in daylight under a sign saying "Shoot Me."

Ridgway tried to loosen the defenses by getting troops over via a ford farther north. A small group got across, but was easily contained. By the end of June 7 the causeway remained solidly in enemy hands. If it was going to be taken by the 82nd, it would have to be stormed.

Ridgway rounded up all the artillery he could muster, including a dozen 155s from the 4th Division, and the tank battalion was brought forward to provide suppressive fire. The next day he tried again.

The attack was mounted by the 325th Glider Infantry plus several tanks. It was the toughest fight they would ever see. Ridgway entrusted the charge across the causeway to [Col. James M.] Gavin, but he himself was there too, along with nearly every regimental and battalion commander in the 82nd. They exhorted, inspired, exposed themselves freely to enemy fire, did everything short of taking men individually by the hand and leading them across.

It was a mission that called for the crazy brave; a select--and normally unpopular--few. In getting themselves killed they stand a good chance of getting their buddies killed too. Nothing else would do, though, for combat like this. When the order was given to get onto the causeway, only the boldest, most daring gliderists raced forward; mere mortals lagged behind.

The carnage was numbing. A hundred men would fall so that a score traveling in what amounted to a state of grace could sprint to the far side. Then another hundred would go down, dead or wounded, while another score made it. The handful of survivors fell among the Germans in a frenzy, routing them in merciless hand-to-hand fights. This action was one of the most desperate that American troops saw anywhere in Europe.

From There's A War To Be Won: The United States Army In World War II, by Geoffrey Perret, p. 325, (Random House, 1991).

What's your gut reaction? Do derisive terms like "macho BS," or "hyper-masculine" come to mind?

I didn't think so.

Interestingly, Lutheran theologian Oscar Cullman compared the Incarnation to D-Day, arguing that Christ's birth was the beginning of the liberation, and the promise of victory, but that there would be a long battle until the V-E Day of Christ's return. Such makes more sense reading about the sacrifice of these incomparably brave men on D+2.

I ask you: When was the last time you heard the struggle of the Gospel cast in even remotely martial terms?

[Continuing to Part II]

My short analysis of the reason behind the inertia of American Catholic bishops.

I've lifted this from my comment at another blog, and modified it somewhat:

Some of the inaction is probably because the ordinary in question is compromised, either personally or because he has protected compromised people (the good ol' mafiosi).(1) I think some of it is because even if the bishop is basically orthodox, his chancery is packed with Reporter groupies (or even writers) who are not, and who openly sympathize with the causes of the Class of '67. As a result he thinks he has to tread lightly. Even if he doesn't have to--but he simply can't afford to be regarded as "unpastoral." Eeek--bad publicity!

Beyond that, here's my best possible spin theory on our current situation.
Ultimately, there is an operative mandate to the good bishops (read: those who might feel like listening)--a "Commandment," if you will. This Commandment from On High (Rome) reads: Thou Shalt Do Nothing To Provoke A De Jure Schism. If that means passivity in the face of provocation from the mafiosi, the rebellious Class of ‘67, the bad Catholic pols, the bad Jesuit universities (yes, almost redundant)--the lot, well, so be it. In the meantime, preach, wait until they’re all safely dead, reform your rotten seminary so you can start getting replacements and things will gradually get better. Almost imperceptibly, but still, better.

When the rebels make like Solomon in the temple, ruining churches, the liturgy, universities, catechesis, moral training, formation, the orders, biblical study, etc--well, that’s still better than schism, which will drag even more souls to Hell in the process, because the church set up by the bolsheviks will be indistinguishable from the Piskies in five years, tops. With no schism, some folks will still get sacraments. They won't understand what they are getting, but they will get them none the less.

The best proof for my theory is to watch how the bishops close to the Pope behave in their sees. Consider how Cardinal George acts in the hornet’s nest of Chicago, and it becomes clear--he’s following the advice/commandment to a “t.” He’s preaching at and waiting for Bernardin’s coddled rebels to die, and to replace them with the new guys coming on stream from the reformed seminary at Mundelein (he had the largest ordination class in the U.S. last year).

Ditto here in Detroit, to a lesser degree, where the Pope's friend Cardinal Maida has gradually made changes, starting again with a vastly improved seminary. For example: where Fr. Anthony "Anything Goes!" Kosnik once roamed the halls, spewing BS, Prof. Janet Smith actually teaches moral theology to slowly growing classes of future priests, deacons and, of course, laity going into diocesan positions.

From what I hear, similar things are happening in Denver, Atlanta, and similar places around the country.

The first problem with this, of course, is that the strategy takes forever and gives no encouragement to those (formerly?) most inclined to back the bishops to the hilt, a/k/a “Those fanatics who take this crap seriously.” As David Carlin notes in his wake up call of a book, the American Catholic episcopate are in reality horrible politicians. When you consider that no politicians in history have p****d on (ok, a paraphrase) a core constituency quite like the American bishops have on “authentic Catholics,” (his phrase, not mine), his point becomes clear.

The second problem is that only emphasizes the first mark of the Church ("We are one church--there are sixty five million of us in this country and growing--everything's dandy here!"), and does nothing about the bishops whose behavior was at the center of the scandal in the first place. If the progressives have made one superb point, it's that sunshine is a great disinfectant--when chanceries turn into closed bunkers where the bishop hears what he wants to and is responsible to no one, least of all to those doofus pew warmers who occasionally disturb the equanimity of him or his staff with their puling complaints, you get where we are today.

The third problem is related to the second--it only works where the ordinary tries to reform. If things are "juuuust fine" in the benighted Diocese of Podunk ("Where the Spirit is Leading Us Somewhere!"), it's going to stay "juuuust fine" till Bishop Newkirk retires, and all the complaints in the world aren't going to change a thing.

The fourth problem is related to the third: it leaves the people of God groaning under the regime of an unaccountable made man who is there until retirement. If he wants to impose his vision, he and his staff will, and careerism will help bring most of the rest of the diocese in line. There is a reason you don't hear the phrase "bureaucratic courage."

Fifth, the strategy can be indistinguishable from inaction, and can be a great excuse from shying away from the job. Sometimes inertia is just inertia.

Finally, please note that I'm not excusing the Pope here. He's appointed a significant proportion of the episcopate, and is also responsible for leaving them in place. If he wants to operate like an Orthodox prelate, that's his perogative. But there is a steep cost to be paid for acting as the Patriarch of the West, as opposed to the Sovereign Pontiff.

And it would be nice to get the beauty of an Orthodox Divine Liturgy once in a while for our trouble.

[If you comment on this one, careful--I'll shut down comments quick if they go overboard. As in drain the swamp, if you catch my drift.]

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(1) Duh! Alert: I don't endorse every sentiment in every item I link.