Tomorrow is the date President Kennedy was shot, throwing the timeline of American history into chaos, including the destructive Sixties that brought us the deadly seeds of the current cultural conflict, like those spores from outer space in “Invasion of the Body-Snatchers.
The 23rd in my wedding anniversary, and to be honest, I still am struggling with all of the consequences flowing from my wife’s sudden death on Leap Year 2024.
The next week gives me Thanksgiving, which I will skip, thanks, and then I’m thrust into the Christmas season, which I love, but which now seems lonely and forced and has at least since 2020.
On the plus side, I found that anti-Harvard website, which is a treasure. Check it out here.
Now have yourself a merry little open forum….
Ethics Alarms 
I would like to have some comments on how 7-11 handled the situation described in the following Townhall article:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-curtis/2025/11/19/7-11-employee-fired-for-defending-herself-against-criminal-n2666683
“Stephanie Dilyard worked at one 7-Eleven store in Oklahoma City when she was given a counterfeit $100 bill from a customer. Dilyard refused to accept it and the man attacked her, tried to strangle Dilyard for doing her job.
Unfortunately for that man, later identified as Kenneth Thompson, Dilyard was armed, and she shot him.
In response, 7-Eleven fired Dilyard from her job.”
Oh my! Don’t thank Heaven for 7-11! I hope she sues. She doubtless violated some customer service regulation somewhere in the employee manual. I had a good friend who was murdered in a convenience store while trying to disarm a guy waving a pistol at the clerk. Fortunately, at least the guy who murdered my friend was convicted and got eleven years for second degree murder. Doesn’t seem like a fair sentence, but that’s the statutory maximum. Convenience stores are right at the far edge of civilization. I guess it’s the extended hours.
I see I must call on the King of Classical Crossover:
Bing Videos
I can’t even guess how you must feel after the hammer blows life has dealt you. If you had spoken to me this last April, I’d probably feel the same way. However, sometimes things do get better, and sometimes we have to make them better ourselves.
I know you wrote about Christmas as being the ethical holiday, and I’m almost certain you also wrote about Thanksgiving as being an ethical holiday. It was the creation of one of our most ethical (if not perfectly so) presidents, Abraham Lincoln, and solidified by one of the highest achievers, FDR. I also heard it said once in a sermon that the real failure of Adam and Eve wasn’t the eating of the forbidden fruit, but the failure to show gratitude for all they had been given. I’m not sure that’s biblically sound, but it makes the point. Even in the darkest, dreariest, bleakest times, there is still at least one thing to be thankful for: the chance to at least try to make things better. While we live, we may yet have good times, but all the dead are dead alike. The founding fathers gifted us the pursuit of happiness, but we have to catch up with it ourselves.
It is really quiet day at the Open Forum.
I have often been told that the biggest lies are often told at funerals, during the eulogies. There may be an ethical reason for that, as we often told that we shall tell nothing but good about the departed, and there is something ethical about white lies to save each other’s feelings.
However it is still remarkable to see Rachel Maddow at Dick Cheney’s funeral, according to Instapundit:
“Maddow, who once called Cheney “the maestro of terror politics,” was seen in the pews of Washington National Cathedral sitting next to Dr. Anthony Fauci. Two seats over was veteran Democratic strategist James Carville.”
In my opinion Rachel Maddow’s attitude is much preferred to the reaction of many on the left after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. I am curious what other commenters think about hypocrisy at funerals.
“we often told that we shall tell nothing but good about the departed“
Goldberg dies, and the Rabbi is delivering a eulogy: “We are here to mourn the passing of our friend, Mr. Goldberg, a respected citizen and honored member of the community,”
Suddenly, an old man shouts out, “What are you talking about, Rabbi? This man was a gonnif, a momzer, and would cheat his own grandmother for fifty cents!”
The rabbi tries again, “We are here to mourn the passing of our friend Goldberg, a patron of the synagogue and dedicated Talmudic scholar.”
The old man barges in again and says, “Are you meshuggeh, Rabbi? This man hasn’t been in a shul since his bar mitzvah!”
The flustered rabbi continues, “We are here to mourn the passing of our friend Goldberg, a loving husband and dedicated father.”
The old man interrupts again, “Goldberg cheated on his wife whenever he could and he never had time to spend with his children!”
At a loss for words, the rabbi finally says, “My friends, have we not as Jews suffered from the insults and prejudices of our neighbors? Must we stoop to their level and speak ill of our own people? Surely, there is someone in this congregation who knew Goldberg and can say something good and kind about his life.”
After an agonizing silence, the old man stands up again and says, “His brother was worse!”
PWS
I don’t consider it hypocrisy to attend the funeral of someone who you didn’t like personally.
The one person we can be confident is NOT at the funeral (in the flesh, anyway) is the deceased. It’s about the people left behind. And in this case, to me at least, partly about the office held by the deceased.
Whatever the faults of the deceased, I think it is reasonable to assume that some of the people attending were genuinely grieving the loss — in this case presumably Dick’s wife Lynne, their two daughters, and their grandchildren. And probably W and Laura Bush.
Among the more “political” attendees were all the former VPs — this can be reasonably construed as respecting the VP office rather than due to particular feelings about this particular VP. Given they were invited by the family, it seems to be appropriate to attend.
I assume Rachel Maddow didn’t just wander in off the street? She was presumably also invited…ditto Fauci and Carville.
Funerals are for the living, after all — so to me it is more of a question of whether your presence will be appreciated by the mourners or not. If you are invited, your presence is requested. So I think in this case you should go if you can, and send regrets if you can’t.
Okay, I’ll bite:
Confronting My Biases: Female Clergy
Yesterday morning, the news ran a segment on the funeral of former Vice-President Dick Cheney. On the screen, the female provost of the National Cathedral was talking about the history of funerals at the church. I groaned internally. Another female clergyperson.
Now, why do I not like the idea of female clergy?
Call me old-fashioned – no, you can actually call me old-fashioned – but I didn’t grow up with female ministers. Midwest suburban churches simply didn’t have those in the ’70s and ’80s. In fact, it would never have occurred to me that there could be female ministers in those days. There was that creepy episode of “Little House on the Prairie” (“Whisper Country”) in which Mary goes to teach school in a closed community dominated by a superstitious, illiterate woman preacher named Miss Peel (and you’d better believe Anita Dangler could put the fear of God into Darwin with that portrayal!). But that was clearly meant to be an outlier episode, not a commentary on women.
Yes, I know that the New Testament contains passages forbidding women to teach men or even to talk in church. I assume there’s a reason Paul wrote these passages. Some people think he was a sexist. Maybe he just knew that men were sexist in general and most of them certainly were in Roman-occupied Israel, too. It’s not like the Jewish Law had much use for women so, perhaps, Paul thought that it would be easier to spread Christianity if some social norms were kept the same. Or maybe he was only speaking about a particular group of women who’d made trouble. I’m not a seminary-trained theologian or apologist. There are some things I don’t understand in the Bible. There are some things I don’t understand about what we call settled science, either. I neither know it all nor should I be expected to have no opinion.
But I digress…
My internal knee-jerk reaction to female ministers began around the time television shows started being P.C. Remember the days of political correctness? How I miss those days now. People complaining about New Age tripe in “Pocahontas”. Tipper Gore campaigning for restrictions on music CDs. Denise Huxtable telling li’l Raven Symone on “The Cosby Show” to call blacks African-Americans and whites Caucasians. What a time to be alive!
Then the media outlets fell over themselves when Candace Gingrich (lesbian sister of Newt) played the officiant of a lesbian wedding on “Friends” (titled, appropriately, “The One with the Lesbian Wedding”). You’d have thought it was the reinvention of the wheel. I didn’t watch the episode or the show. I just remember being annoyed that more of this obnoxious PC stuff was affecting fictional universes. All of a sudden, the floodgates were opened for female ministers on TV. They were everywhere!
The final episode of “Smallville” had a female officiant at the church for Lois and Clark’s wedding (until Clark’s perennial poor timing interrupted the ceremony because something looked like a job for Superman). A wretched episode of “The Office” (season 7’s “Christening”) had Jim and Pam – who, up to that point, had expressed almost zero interest in religion – having their little daughter christened at a church by a female minister who mispronounced their name (See? She had no idea who they were!) and invited the entire congregation to their private reception.
Did all of that pave the way for this mandatory representation we seem to be required to have on television?
And it’s not like my own church doesn’t have female staff members! They are kids’ ministers and worship ministers. We are interviewing a candidate for Middle School pastor and the leading candidate is a female with her Masters of Divinity degree. She’s probably the most qualified candidate we’ve had in years for the Middle School position. Maybe for any position! I don’t even think our actual Pastor has an MDiv. And she would not be the first female Middle School pastor we’ve had.
So, what’s my issue? I still haven’t figured it out. Is it because I really have an objection to female clergy? Is it because I’m annoyed at the bandwagon jumping of network TV? Is it because of Political Correctness run amok exemplified by websites like the National Cathedral’s which has a clergy page featuring 9 staff members – 5 women, 4 men – and one of them is pastor of equity and inclusion (of course, he is!)?
Or is this something primal? Internal? Something that I don’t like because I just don’t like it? Or did Miss Peel traumatize me at too vulnerable an age?
I was informed by a no longer practicing lesbian minister that the Methodist church (I’m pretty sure, but could be another Protestant denomination, I’m not good on Protestant denominations having been brought up Catholic) that the church had recently been split in two over the issue of women ministers. The vote in favor of having women ministers had carried and the losing congregations were splitting off. But with great joy, I was told there was some technicality in the church’s organizational documents that would result in the splitting off congregations having to forfeit all their real estate! So, the splitting off congregations would be rendered churchless. All I could think was, what a bitch. You’ve visited all this upon half your church’s congregants just because you want to be a minister? Grow up.
By the way, one of the reasons I stopped going to Catholic mass was the infliction of the guitar mass upon us in the ’60s. I thought the Latin mass was great. The vernacular took all the mystery out of the sacrament. Plus, I hated shaking hands with other people. I was there to be with God, not some random person in the pew next to me or in front of me. But there were many other reasons, including of course, creepy priests and brothers.
O.B.,
Yes, the Guitar Mass was and is an abomination. And don’t get me started on modern liturgical music – I would rather watch paint dry that sing modern masterpieces such as “Our God is an awesome God”! Who wrote that? More importantly, who or what serious religion would allow it to be sung in blessed walls of a church?
As for the Latin Mass, I don’t understand why there is a push to abandon it. I don’t really believe that the Traditional Latin Mass is a rejection of Second Vatican Council reforms. I like to follow alon with the Latin prayers. I am by no means a linguist or a Canonical Law expert, but . . .
Oh, and when did the Catholic Church abandon “One God, forever and ever” in favor of “God, forever and ever”? That seems to be a recent change (or maybe it is a Dominican order thing – not sure).
jvb
P.S.: I just heard a cross-over country singer retool David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” and, frankly, that fellow should have his fingers broken and guitar pulverized into frickin’ dust.
“Awesome God” is high art compared to what is now being sung. I miss hymns.
And then there’s the fact the Marist brother in charge of staffing and directing our high school’s guitar masses propositioned my guitar playing friend and classmate. Nice.
It has been my experience that much mischief will ensue any time a church veers from being “Biblically correct” into political or any other flavor of “correctness.”
As a member of a conservative Southern Baptist church, I acknowledge our own struggles with various modernist and liberal ideas that challenge our traditional Biblical stance on various doctrinal issues, but I give thanks that we are, at present, winning these battles.
Check out Japan’s unethical sidewalks:
https://parametric-architecture.com/japan-turning-footsteps-electricity/?srsltid=AfmBOoqKra-xXKgGeZfiFxx4JgM6v2kcNSRvAK2aTomiNvdlbkwYrsYT
Every time you walk across this you’re donating money you spent on food to this company’s electrical grid.
“money spent on food”? I don’t get it. I can understand questioning the amount of tax dollars going into building these, and if they’ll get a good return on investment, but actually walking on these things shouldn’t cost anything; that’s the whole point.
On the other hand, this looks suspiciously like gooblebox tech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4OOw22hKR4
Walking on them certainly costs the walker extra. The sidewalk has made walking ever so slightly less efficient. And because it’s less efficient the walker uses extra energy (however minutely) to get across it.
In aggregate, all the walkers have to eat more food than they ordinarily would have eaten to cover the balance.
Therefore the walkers have to spend more money on food than they ordinarily would have to generate electricity for the owners of the sidewalk.
The sidewalk owners are stealing from the pedestrians.