I look at these windows and I am disappointed. Our culture has moved away from what should be presented everywhere: the true, good, and beautiful. Let us put these windows to the test.
Are these windows depicting what is true? Yes, things like this have happened. No one can argue on this. Are they depicting what is good? This is harder. The windows have the intent of being understood in several ways, some of them, NOT good. Finally beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that is true, but no one seriously thinks that the rose windows in Notre Dame are ugly. I certainly do no see much beauty in these windows. The signs are jarring and take up most of the space on the windows. The emphasis, therefore, is on signs and messages, not on beautiful pictures.
In addition, I look at this from the Catholic standpoint of stained glass typically showing multiple scenes of import or people to be admired. From that standpoint, I can come up with many better pictures for an attempt at a mostly apolitical set of windows. If one wants to tell the history of slavery even, I have some great ideas. I think our history has more important matters than that, but I’ll give the slavery a shot first. Of course, all of these will have to be simplified for the material of stained glass, but we have had Jesus feeding the multitudes on stained glass for centuries, not to mention all the other Bible stories. A true student of stained glass can simplify anything and do so meaningfully.
A lot of stuff piled up this month and especially yesterday, and I better get it discussed before it all gets lost in October…
1. Regarding that “debate”...I, and many others, owe Donald Trump an apology. He was both wise and right to pass up the Republican debates if they are going to be like the debacle yesterday. No debate with more that three participants is going to be a fair measure of anything but quips and soundbites, but this was especially bad, doing a disservice to the party, the candidates, and the public. Prime among the culprits was Fox News, whose moderators were incompetent and unfair. They couldn’t enforce the supposed rules—candidates who were attacked directly were not, as assured, give time to respond in many cases. Including a Univision open-borders advocate among the three—three moderators is two too many anyway—was despicable: moderators should not have an agenda and she obviously did. She also, in trying to impugn Ron DeSantis, repeated the media and Democratic Party lie that Florida’s guidelines for teaching about slavery suggest that slavery was beneficial to blacks.
Dana Perino, usually one of Fox News’ least annoying hosts, asked one of the most unprofessional questions of any debate moderator in memory, the moronic reality-show inspired, “Who would you vote off the GOP island?”query. Good for Gov. DeSantis, who did a Newt Gingrich impression and scolded her. DeSantis managed to come off better than the rest this time, but it is probably too late; again, the thing was too much of a wreck to really help any of the candidates.
Not that any of them helped themselves much either. Nikky Haley canceled out whatever progress she had made in the first debate this time by shrilly arguing with Vivek Ramaswamy, who is irrelevant to the proceedings except as a distraction (most Americans neither know nor care what TikTok is) and Tim Scott, another irrelevancy, (over a South Carolina gas tax?). Mike Pence continues to be an embarrassment—why does he think he has any chance at all?—and gave the most oogy statement of the night with his boast, “My wife isn’t a member of the teachers union, but I got to admit, I have been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years — full disclosure.” Then Pence blamed DeSantis for the Parkland school shooter getting a life sentence instead of the death penalty, when the killer was charged and sentences before DeSantis was elected Governor of Florida, and would have had no input into the sentencing anyway. The moderators seemed determined to ignore poor Doug Burgum—another example of the uselessness of the multiple debaters format, and Chris Christie, an established ethics villain, had already alienated pro-Trump and anti-Trump conservatives before he insulted everyone with his canned “Donald Duck” line (See, Trump has “ducked” the debates, see. Get it?)
2. Speaking of open borders, CNN’s Jake Tapper had one of his periodic moments of non-partisan integrity when Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley mouthed the ongoing Biden Administration lie that “No doubt about it, our border is secure.”
Tapper was aghast, as well he should have been “You think it is secure? You think the border is secure? Or it’s not secure?” Tapper asked. “The border is secure,” The shameless “Squad” member declared a second time. “But if you have millions of undocumented migrants coming into the country, how is the border secure?” he asked. “If you have people crossing border, it’s by definition not secure,” Tapper said. “Because it is not secure, [illegal immigrants] go on this journey, and one of the arguments that is made — and maybe you disagree with it — is that the border should be secure so as to discourage people from making this journey,” he continued. “But it just seems like just such a refusal to acknowledge reality to say that the border is secure when we all know millions of people are crossing the border illegally every year.” (Ya think?) Pressley’s only response to his question was that the issue “is a conversation for another day,” Tapper ended the interview.
How can so many citizens tolerate such repeated and obvious dishonesty?
The reliably woke, intellectually dishonest and frequently ridiculous New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg issued another one of her propaganda pieces, this time trying to excuse and rationalize the implosion of Boston University’s Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research, which is laying off most of its staff and looks headed for the dustbin of history. As for that, good. Kendi is one of the worst race-hustlers extant, and BU giving him such a platform for his divisive and destructive ranting was academic malpractice.
Goldberg’s dutiful excuse-making in “Ibram X. Kendi and the Problem of Celebrity Fund-Raising,”meanwhile, would be an embarrassment to the Times if it were a legitimate paper any more. She absolves Kendi of blame because he had no management experience and it was irresponsible of woke donors to give him so much money in their rush to signal their virtue. (I guess all those corporations should have just stuck with discriminating against white applicants in their hiring…) What she is admitting without having the integrity to do so openly is that Kendi was and is a blowhard phony who talked big but was untrustworthy. Ann Althouse sharply observes the hypocrisy here:
If we’re going to do critical race theory, let’s not hold back when the insights are inconvenient. Lavishing money on an unprepared — but charismatic — black person and then treating him like a naif when he fails to perform according to existing conventions — that too is racism… under the theory.
The Senate yesterday unanimously passed a bill that requires members to follow a dress code that will include a coat, tie, and slacks for men. Just a bit less than three weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a vulgar and obnoxious capitulation to lowered standards of public conduct and a blatant endorsement of the King’s Pass had ruled that all Senators could dress like Pennsylvania’s senatorial slob, John Fetterman, whose favorite attire is a sneakers shorts hoodie ensemble. This was an itsy-bitsy microcosm of what the party of Fetterman and Schumer are attempting to inflict on American society, and, incredibly, the vox populi rebelled. It seems that a lot of Americans don’t like the idea of their elected representatives in the U.S. Capitol appearing in public dressed like Frankenstein’s Monster on vacation.
The stained glass windows in the National Cathedral show different scenes from American history. Someone made the dunderheaded decision when the cathedral was being designed to have windows honoring Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, which seemed, in a setting with limited opportunities to highlight American heroes, an odd choice even back when the structure was opened to the public.
After a gunman shot and killed nine Black worshipers at a church in South Carolina in 2015 and the movement began to ban all things Confederate, the cathedral management decided that Stonewall and Lee had to go. Six years after the glass’s removal in 2017, National Cathedral has unveiled their replacement, which you can see above. The new windows , titled Now and Forever, show black protesters holding protest signs bearing the words “No,” “Not,” “Fairness” and “No foul play.”
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Is this a responsible, appropriate, ethical decoration for the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.?
Clarence Darrow would have loved the resolution of the Jennifer Nelson case in Suffolk County, New York yesterday. The U.S.’s most famous and iconic defense attorney achieved many of his most important victories by slyly arguing for jury nullification, which is now grounds for a mistrial and ethics sanctions in all states but one (New Hampshire) See Note below. Of course, Darrow never used that term, but when he told juries to “send a message” with their not-guilty verdict, that’s what he was talking about.
Jennifer Nelson, 36, a Long Island mother, faced up to 25 years in prison for driving her car—twice— into a 15-year-old boy, the leader of a pack of bullies that had plagued her teen son last October after she concluded that he had taken his Adidas Ye slides . The jury deliberated less than four hours to declare her innocent of an intentional attack, instead finding her guilty of leaving the scene of an accident when there were serious injuries. Her attorneys say they will seek a sentence of just probation, and if they get the right judge, that may be all the punishment Nelson gets….for attempted murder.
Something made me watch Ken Burns’ documentary “The Roosevelts” again last week. I was not looking for current perspective or political enlightenment, and the stories told are all very familiar to me, being an admirer of Teddy from childhood and fascinated by the complexities and contradictions that were Franklin. But history always surprises, and it often resonated differently depending on when it is examined. I realized, for the first time, that the Roosevelts have much to teach us about the conflict roiling the nation now….and the worse roiling that seems to be on its way.
“This President has been so zeroed in, so laser-focused, on lowering costs for Americans — and we’ve done that!”
—Incompetent, insulting, dishonest and embarrassing White House Press SecretaryKarine Jean-Pierre,who not only has wrapped up the title of the worst White House mouthpiece in history, but also may be the most incompetent Presidential staff member in history as well.
She is also a Rationalization #64,“It isn’t what it is” champion, which is quite an achievement in a tough field. For example, more than one member of the Biden Administration has claimed that the “border is secure.”
Biden hasn’t lowered the cost of anything. That statement is an absolute, irredeemable lie. Here is one list of how prices have gone up since Biden was elected, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Several regular commenters have alerted me that WordPress is making it difficult to post. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know the platform is messing with its software again, fixing some problems while creating others.
I’m sorry. I’ll always post a comment for you if you get frustrated: just email me. (I will NOT post comments if you have been banned. You know who you are…)
1. No matter what the polls say now, Trump can screw it up: As night follows day, Donald Trump, flushed with cockiness over recent polls showing him clobbering Joe Biden if the two were to face off today in an election more than a year away, started shooting off his mouth and keyboard with extravagant claims and threats. Such as:
On Truth Social: “They are almost all dishonest and corrupt, but Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC, often and correctly referred to as MSDNC (Democrat National Committee!), should be investigated for its “Country Threatening Treason.” Their endless coverage of the now fully debunked SCAM known as Russia, Russia, Russia, and much else, is one big Campaign Contribution to the Radical Left Democrat Party. I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events. Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE? They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!”
(Psst!The answer to “why” is “The First Amendment,” you idiot.) Continue reading →
