What kind of strange doctrine do we have here? A boy needs a mother, his mother?

Joe Rantz had one girl friend in his youth. He married her the day both of them graduated from the University of Washington. Joe’s wife Joyce, who had a hand in bring up his own half-siblings, was a devoted wife. This is how Brown describes her:

Over the years, Joe and Joyce raised five children – Fred, Judy, Jerry, Barb, and Jenny. In all these years, Joyce never forgot what Joe had gone through in his early years, and she never wavered from a vow she had made to herself early in their relationship: come what may, she would make sure that he never went through anything like it again, would never again be abandoned, would always have a warm and loving home.

Joyce died before Joe. In his old age and death, Joe is looked after by his children.

“The next culture war?” Man, wife, fidelity, vows, work, children, home, glory – these are the things we have been destroying, the things that men and women, boys and girls, want most, if they want anything at all, except for this one thing. Why, Chesterton asked, are we “home-sick at home?” If “the boys in the boat” teach us anything, it is that to be what we are, we must know, in experience or in hope, what a home is – father, mother, their children. Transcendence passes through the home.

(source: On the Boys in the Boat – The Catholic ThingThe Catholic Thing)

Rent-seekers are a noisome and pestilential breed.

For the record, and wholly aware of the “no true Scotsman” potential, here:  

I know of not one writer, politician, pundit, thinker, academic, or public intellectual who thinks well of the execrable nuisance Donald Trump.  I know a few people may feel relieved to see him offend people whose constant state of offense limits public discourse, but utterly nobody who thinks he offers a credible–or even intelligible–response to any current problem.  

Can we please stop talking about him, now?

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[Ricardo on Rents.]

I think this is a very important paragraph.  I don’t have a lot to add to it, except to point out that what is writ large in the StemExpress bulk human parts industry, part of the Planned Parenthood murder-for-hire profit chain, is writ small in every door in the country with “Human Resources” printed on it.  You have to oppose loudly the bright-line cases; and you should work consistently to reform the fine-line cases, as well.  

Human beings are not lumps of labor. They are not capital, consumer goods, taxpayers, commodities — or meat. The philosophy of Planned Parenthood (and Eros is a jealous god) is the philosophy of men-as-meat, and that philosophy is not long compatible with liberty and human dignity. When Erich Fromm wrote his famous book on the dream of religion without deity, he titled it “You Shall Be as Gods.” The truth is that without an understanding of the uniqueness of human beings and the consequent value of every human life, you will not be as gods — you will be as meat.

(source: Planned Parenthood’s Body-Part Bonanza | National Review Online)

So pray the St. Michael against the demonism evident in the cool-headed murder-for-hire of Planned Parenthood.  And try ignoring the “Self-checkout” and mentioning your conviction that a big-box store can find space in its budget to hire some local workers, for a small start on the rest of the problem.

It matters more than you know that you habitually see these patterns, and resist them.

Regarding the now-notorious “a lot of people want liver” video, revealing that the sale of organs from unborn humans killed at Planned Parenthood affiliates is commonplace, one blogger writes:

If the First Lady of the United States could say 8 years ago that for the first time in her adult life she was proud of her country, then I suppose I can say that for the first time in my adult life I’m ashamed of my country. If the price of being publicly loyal to it pretending that I’m basically okay with sharing a national identity with the people who have allowed this monstrosity to continue unchecked since 1973, or that my disagreements with people who are okay with the sale of baby parts are “mere politics,” then count me out of this ridiculous charade. [ea]

Here is where Christians will have to show a more excellent way. We must say, not “count me out,” but “count us in.”

There is nothing in America today that even comes close to the darkness and evil of the first-century Roman Empire. Killing babies? Check! They killed them not only in the womb but out. “Exposure” of infants for any and every purpose, including if you got a girl when you wanted a boy, was routine. Selling human flesh? Check! We call that “slavery” and it was also routine, including the most barbarous mistreatments.

Yet Paul did not say “count me out.” He said, “I am a citizen by birth.” We must say the same.

Confronted by a mob seeking approval for its own evil, he said, “We also are men, of like nature with you.” We must say the same.

We must keep our holiness, but God’s holiness is a loving holiness, just as his love is a holy love. God was not ashamed to join himself, in the person of his son, to this dark and evil world. He did it at the cost of literally infinite suffering. Shame on us if we are ashamed to join ourselves, at the cost of far less suffering, to our own civil communities.

I’ve previously pointed out the ludicrous way that a totalitarian ideology devoted to the “liberating” of autonomous individuals from all bonds except the regime’s ends up re-inventing necessary institutions in truncated, intrusive, grotesque forms that are worse than the caricatures with which the real institutions were lampooned by the “liberators.”  Well, the circle keeps closing!

Lo, the kit for formally giving consent–a mini-wedding, perfect for short-sighted and ill-considered efforts to enjoy the bond of a lifetime briefly and pointlessly, and for lawyering away the inevitable regret and recrimination!

All you have to do is immortalize yourself with your fling-of-the-moment on camera:

If no camera is available, students are encouraged to fill out the form on the back of the contract which states, “On this date [fill in the blank], we agree to have consensual sex with one another” followed by a space for students’ printed names and signatures.

The kit also also includes breath mints and a condom.

(source: Affirmative Consent Contract — Fill Out Before Sex)

A camera, a certificate, a breath mint, and a condom–no receiving line, no fusty toasts, nothing but “down to business”–and you’re off on your honeymoon!  And who cares what happens when the honeymoon’s over, really?

Really, folks, it’s nice that someone recognizes the need for formalized consent where life-changing realities are in play.  Next time, why not a consent which is not also premised on the denial that these are realities that are life-changing?!