21st Century Bread and Circus Democracy at Work

I vote, but I don't publicly endorse political candidates, so don't expect to find me throwing my two bits in here for anyone running for county clerk, let alone president. That's not what this is about. I just want to give a few thoughts on why we are through the political looking glass heading toward an electoral rabbit hole.

If you are one of those life long Democrats who saw the results out of Indiana Tuesday night and think the general election is a lock for your side, and the Republican Party is dead, hold off on making hotel reservations for Washington on January 20, 2017, as well as getting that Mass Card that reads RIP-GOP. I'm not saying Donald Trump is going to win. In fact I have to agree that Hillary Clinton should be considered the favorite at this point. It's just that nothing has gone the way it's supposed to this cycle, and we'd be fools to think the campaign is going to suddenly revert to business as usual now.

Add to that that Hillary Clinton hasn't been able to shake Bernie Sanders, someone who wouldn't get 5% of the vote if he wasn't a septuagenarian social democrat running on the coattails of the Occupy movement.

I'm not sure my attempt at irony worked there, but of course, in a normal election year Senator Sanders would have announced his candidacy, as he did, on April 30, 2015 and bowed out before the the trade deadline (July 31, for you non-baseball fans out there). This was Clinton's turn, and there wasn't even supposed to be completion. The Democrats were treating this as if she was an incumbent who, unless the party's not sure of his or her ability to win a second tern, normally runs for the nod uncontested. But Sanders keeps on bitting at Ms Clinton's ankles, in spite of the fact that his chances at forcing a contested convention, never mind winning the nomination outright, are beyond slim to none.

The big question is why. Why did the GOP nominate (presumptively) Donald Trump, a celebrity business man with no political experience? Why have the Democrats been unable coalesce fully around Clinton, a former first lady with legislative and cabinet experience who's been seen as the their sure thing candidate for 2016 since the day after election day 2008?

There are many plausible reasons we could come up with: I'll point to three possible ones:

1) Both Sides Tried to Fix the Nominating Process. 
I'm using the term fix in a very loose manner. I'm not suggesting that anyone cheated or broke rules, just that the rules were set to ensure an outcome. The reality is that the respective parties are essentially private entities that can choose their nominees any way their rules committees want. For historical reasons they've decided to make it a more open procedure, using the trappings of a democratic process. But that shouldn't blind us to the fact that there is still much maneuvering behind the scenes and both parties, this year particularly, wanted to make sure that their preferred outcome came to pass. The Democrats wanted to ensure that Clinton got the nomination, and the Republicans wanted to make sure Ted Cruz didn't. Both establishments got what they wanted, but at a price.

The suppressing of competition, an asymmetrical apportioning of pledged delegates through the primary process and early wooing of super delegates by Clinton made it hard for anyone to upend her through the voting process alone. But the truth is that she's really not that well liked, even within her own party. The solution was to limit the number of competitors, with any perceived threats, like Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, pressured to stay on the sidelines. Bernie wasn't taken seriously, but proved to be hard to shake because of his outsider status and social democrat rhetoric that appeals to millennials, among others. But for a rigged system, the race on the Democratic side would be much tighter. I have to ask, if Clinton is having such tough time closing things out when the nomination is being all but handed to her, how is she going to fare in the fall when she's going to actually have to fight for it?

The Republicans tried to fix things in more subtle ways, behind the scenes with donors and party officials pulling the strings, but none of them saw Donald Trump coming. If there weren't enough options on the Dem side, there were too many among the GOP. Trump, the best known of the "outsider" candidates stood out among the crowd of established politicians running, captured an early plurality of popular support and never looked back.

By the end, the party was stuck. They didn't want Cruz, an ideological conservative who's disliked by many of his colleagues, but none of the establishment candidates like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio were able to garner enough popular support. The 17 original contenders didn't whittle down fast enough for support to shift to one clear challenger to Trump, and by the time it got down to Cruz v Trump it was too late. Depending on who you listen to there are just as many "Anyone But Cruz" people among the GOP establishment as there are "Anyone but Trumsters." So, they were successful in blocking the movement conservative, but now they have a nominee they can't control, who could not only lose big, but could actually cause the dissolution of the party itself.

2) The Mistrust of Institutions and Rejection of Tradition has Come to Fruition.
It's no great insight to say the the American people don't trust institutions or establishments. This has been true since at least the 1960's. From churches to the government to big corporations such institutions are seen as greedy, corrupt, uncaring and out of touch with the needs of the common person. But we have pretty much elected men and women to public office who are products of the very political-governmental establishment that we don't trust. Both Sanders and Trump represent breaks from that establishment. Sanders may be a senator, but he's served as an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, with radical bona fides that make him impossible to confuse with a party boss. Trump has never held public office, having dealt with both parties in his business life, while keeping enough of a distance so as to avoid the perception that he's in bed with either side.

Add to this mistrust of institutions a rejection of tradition. We are living through a time of rapid social change, especially on the morality front. The legal recognition of gay marriage coupled with  the wide spread rejection of the same social institution by heterosexuals represent major departures from cultural and religious attitudes that go back millennia. Because our nation is so young Americans have never had a good sense of tradition. I think there are other, even stronger reasons as well, but it would be too much of a digression to get into right here. The bottom line is, that appealing to the wisdom of the ages, or established rules of logic is not going to work in convincing their supporters  that neither Trump nor Sanders may be qualified to be president. All they know is that the professional politicians and bureaucrats have been in charge for too long, and a real change is in order. Institutions and traditions have failed us, so the thinking goes, and we must chart a new course freed from the encumbrances of the past.

3) Donald Trump is Not a Fringe Candidate in the Minds of Many Voters
David French wrote an interesting piece in National Review Online, giving his three reasons for the rise of Trump. One was that because of the divide between popular culture and political culture, presidential candidates are not well known to the general public before they actually run. They may be household names around the breakfast table in a news junkie's kitchen, but to consumers of popular culture, who increasingly are not paying attention to hard news, they are cyphers. Candidates have a relatively short time to create an image in the public's mind, and this image is fragile, easily defaced by the opposition. Often it's the negative image that sticks.

But in the case of Donald Trump, he's been in the public eye for over 30 years. The general public "knows" him, even though they probably wouldn't know their congressional representative if he shook their hand. You can call Trump a racist, narcissistic, demagogue fascist who tortures kittens in his spare time all you want. The average guy or gal on the street has already made up their mind as to who he is, whether good or bad, and nothing the press or electronic mass media (other institutions the public increasingly mistrusts) say is going to change it.

To the political class Trump is a fringe candidate, and the Constitution does have provisions to protect us from potential despots taking power. The Electoral College, along with the "natural born citizen" clause in the Constitution, were meant to prevent some fringe, and possibly foreign, would-be dictator from sweeping upon the scene, stirring up the emotions of the people, and winning the presidency with, say, 33% of the vote in a three or four way race. In such a case where no one wins enough electors the election switches to the House where a compromise candidate is chosen. I think this is an under-appreciated constitutional mechanism that shouldn't be overthrown lightly.

But the hard truth is that Trump is only fringe to the political class. For most people he's a successful real estate developer, TV personality and author. His name is written in superhuman sized letters on buildings across the nation. He doesn't speak like a politician, in polished, well crafted speeches, but off the cuff in words that can be blunt and crude, but hard to misinterpret. In the popular culture he's not fringe; he's a very mainstream presence, and for those weary of the "party line," mistrustful of the establishment, he's just the solution to a failed system.

In Conclusion
A common thread running through all this, as far as I can see, is that there is a disconnect in American life. There is an establishment, and it has tried to keep the public distracted with music, movies, video games, role playing games, websites and apps that draw us into an inner life devoid of outside contact with the human or divine. We are fed our "rights," especially where our personal autonomy and identity are concerned, but there is no talk of corresponding responsibilities. We are kept perpetually distracted, not really meditating on the deeper meaning of reality. Better yet, we are convinced that no such meaning even exists. We should be satisfied knowing that our rights are respected, that we can be pleasured with random stimuli and sensual excitement whenever we want. Then the establishment is free to rule with the consent of the distracted, but comfortable, masses.

But it didn't work this time. It's not that people woke up, so much as the establishment's very machinations and manipulations ended up working against them. They create and destroy media personalities on a whim, but one more cunning than themselves turned the tables on them. They want a big, all encompassing government presence, but they also want their mansions and stock options. Then a true socialist came along, who doesn't see the Occupy movement as a tool but a means, and they're thanking their lucky stars that their procedural firewall has held, so far.

What we are seeing is what happens when any reference to a transcendent reality (I mean God, if you didn't catch that) is taken away. There will be a rebellion eventually, even if the rebels aren't sure what they're trying to over throw. There is a spiritual huger that human politics and culture, popular or high, alone can't fill. We know that, so we're rejecting the status quo, and trying something, anything, other than what's been done before. One side is rushing to a cult of personality created by the popular culture establishment , the only culture they know. The other is clinging to an ideology learned in a schools system controlled by the establishment left. In a way the establishment built this monster itself, and is about to get eaten by it. They try to appeal to reason, to precedent, to the founding spirit, but it's like talking Swahili to a Laplander. These concepts are meaningless in a culture mistrustful of institutions, that place more value in emotions than logic, and has no appreciation of traditions. Everything begins and ends in the individual, in the moment.

God opens us to something bigger than ourselves. The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Apostles opens us to the idea that God is here now, but has been walking with us as well, guiding us to a destiny. We move forward into something new, with a firm sense of who we are, who we have been, and with a firm purpose that transcends the emotions of the moment. We are lacking that purpose and sense of the transcendent right now, and we are paying a steep price.

Without an outside standard rooted in God, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are doomed to replace one failed system with another. We will replace one soulless establishment for another, get one cult figure in the White House in place of another. As long as it's all about the here and now, about the material or even emotional well being of the individual without reference to community and God, the relief will only be temporary, if at all.

I Wish I'd Known You Better: Prince 1958-2016

I just got back from eleven days of meetings in New York. After the lunch break on the third day I checked out Drudge and saw the banner headline, the nature of which has become all too familiar in recent months: it simply read "Prince Dead." The name changes, but it seems every few weeks it's a different star from rock's golden age who's name appears before the word "Dead" on Internet news sites.

A few days later we were celebrating our annual province day. I was waiting outside the chapel of the retreat center shrine where the meetings were going on, milling around before Mass, touching base with confrere who I haven't seem in a while. One of my brothers, who has a few years on me, commented on Prince's passing, but asked what the big deal was. He knew who Prince was, and that he was popular, but for him The Artist Formerly Known as an Unpronounceable Symbol was still a new kid on the block. All I could say was that it was a generational thing. And while I wasn't a big Prince fan, his death did hit hard for that reason. He is the first major pop star of the 1980's, the era that I was in high school, to pass and it reminded me that I'm not getting any younger.

I know, what about Michael Jackson? I put Jackson is in the same category with the likes of David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen or Peter Gabriel, among others; artists of the '70's who had big commercial surges during a conservative period in the music industry (as well as the country) that was favoring known quantities over unproven talent. But Prince, though he got his start late in the previous decade at the tender age of 19, came up the slow and steady route before conquering the world with 1984's Purple Rain.

Like Bowie, who I've eulogized already, I found Prince's image a barrier to really entering into a dialogue with his music. He had a great pop-rock sense, and I loved When Doves Cry from the first listen. Raspberry Beret and Kiss were, respectively, pure psychedelic pop and minimalist funk master pieces I hated myself for loving, especially Beret. Maybe it was the hyper sexuality of his image, the cloths that made the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's period look restrained that turned me off. It could have been the shifting teams of backup singers who doubled for love interests that seemed like a publicity contrivance that was off putting to me. Maybe it's that I associated him with dance music at a I time when I was a reactionary rocker, but I let the Prince train pass me by with only a few glances now and then. When I might have given him a second chance, he decided to be known by a silent glyph instead of his name. It just confirmed that he was a little too strange for me.

After he went back to using his birth name, I figured out that he wasn't simply an eccentric pop star, but his eccentricity had a purpose: to stick it to his record label who he felt was unjustly controlling him and his art. But by that point it was the early 2000's and I became interested in what was happening now, not looking back so much to artists of the past.

Because Prince was so passionate about his work, and controlling how it was produced, marketed and distributed he kept his music and videos off streaming services and YouTube. So again, when I might have given him a second look his music wasn't in the places I go to before I purchase (the vow of poverty mitigates against impulse buys).

Since there seems to be no controlling legal authority overseeing Prince's affairs at Paisley Park now that he's dead, there's been a healthy dose of live material making it's way onto YouTube that would have otherwise been blocked if he were still alive. I'd seen the Super Bowl Half Time Show and his blazing guitar solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps done at George Harrison's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony already, so I new he was a great guitarist.

But the other clips, mainly taken from various TV appearances over the years, show the Purple One to be a great showman, versatile in style and tirelessly dynamic in presentation. Michael Jackson could sing and dance, both exceptionally well, but Prince did those things, along with playing guitar and piano (some have reported he could play upwards of 20 instruments). He could turn from funk to rock, from raunch to sensitive to spiritual to rave on a dime. My regret is not that I didn't buy his albums, but that I never saw him perform live.

The most telling clip is a cell phone capture taken at the SNL 40th Anniversary after party. It's reputedly 4:30 AM. Prince is called to the stage by Jimmy Fallon, and with his band rips into a slowed down, yet hard rocking mid-tempo rendition of the usually frenetic Let's Go Crazy. It's a master class in how to play hard rock. That Prince channels Jimi Hendrix is no surprise, but he also throws in a dash of Edgar Winter with overtones of Black Sabbath, sometimes in the same bar. He is also tremendously generous. After tearing off a neat little solo he he puts the guitar aside and lets his young female player get not just one, but two chances to shine (which she does). He nails it better than any rocker could, and rock, arguably, wasn't his main genre (if he had one).

How his Jehovah Witness faith, come to after he was already famous, played into his music, I'm not qualified to say. I only know he stopped using profanity in his music as well as in his personal life, insisting that those in his company refrain from using foul language. While he didn't become a puritan on stage, he did try to tone down the extreme sexuality of his pre-conversion days.

Some musical artists of the last several decades have been all about the image, and without it they'd be nothing. With Prince, the image was a smoke screen hiding one of the few genuine musical geniuses in the pop world. Forget about the purple outfits. Forget about the prison like compound he lived in. Forget about the Artist Formerly Know As stunt and the salacious rumors. Focus on the music, and you'll find a funky, rocking, tender, mix delivered with enthusiastic energy. Now, I just hope once the estate issues are figured out that some live material makes it out of his legendary vault of unreleased music and hits the market.

In the appreciation of his music, we must never forget that Prince was a man with a soul. We don't know what demons, literal and figurative, were lurking behind the facade. He did express regret for his early excesses. We have to recognize that, in spite of the later day conversion, his earlier work was often sexualized to an extreme, sending the wrong messages, further coarsening an already coarse culture. So, we don't canonize, but we praise what is praise worthy and pray for his peaceful repose.

Eternal rest grant unto Prince Rogers Nelson, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and all the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. AMEN

Please excuse Maya Rudolph's over exuberant use of profanity. We're sure Prince didn't approve.

Bishop Barron on “Hail, Caesar!”

I saw Hail, Caesar!, and was preparing a review, but got sidetracked by parish business and Easter preparations. I'll get that post done, but in the meantime enjoy Bishop Barron's take on what I'll call a pleasant, if minor, masterpiece by the Coen Brothers

Love Transfigures All (2/21/16) from AOP

Second Sunday of Lent from Ascension Presents

Reflection on the Year of Mercy, based on Saturday of the 1st Week of Lent from AOP

What are the Practices of Lent? (#AskFrBarron)

A gentle reminder from then Father (now Bishop) Robert Barron on the three classical practices of Lent: Prayer-Fasting-Alms Giving.

Lenten Journey with Cardinal Dolan - Friday after Ash Wednesday from EWTN

Doritos: A Pro-Life Fifth Column or Just a Clever Ad?

The Most Dangerous Snack Chip in America

I missed the Doritos "ultrasound" commercial when it first aired. I was either in the kitchen preparing the wings and pigs in a blanket or else was over in the church talking to the folks at the 7pm Mass about the Annual Catholic Appeal. Long story short, I was away from the telly for substantial periods, though I saw most of the "Big Game," certainly enough of it to be bored out of my gourd. It reminded me of those 1970's Super Bowls; not a blow out, but not really close either, plus very sloppily played. I can't think of another football game I've seen, much less a Super Bowl, where there was less than a touchdown separating the two teams with five minutes to go in the 4th quarter that was so devoid of tension or excitement.

Anyway, I digress.

Through the miracle of You Tube I saw the spot the next day. To be honest, I thought it was a little creepy, and was amused that some in the pro-choice crowd (NARAL in particular) were upset because they said that the commercial "humanized" the fetus. I thought it turned the fetus into a monster of sorts, but maybe that's my twisted point of view.

But enough about what I think, because obviously that isn't the majority view, and it isn't how abortion activists saw the commercial either. My reaction to their reaction is two fold.

1. Popular culture "humanizes" un-human things all the time. The fancy term for it is anthropomorphizing. Disney is the king of this: think Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bambi and Dumbo for starters. These are animals that are given human qualities, like the ability to talk, reason, and experience emotions the way people do. It's done with inanimate objects too, but I'm going to stick with examples from the animal kingdom. Disney isn't the only one to do this of course. We have the Warner Brothers cartoon universe that features Bugs Bunny (my personal favorite) and Daffy Duck. There are others I could mention like Tom and Jerry and Woody Woodpecker. You get the point, though. No one worries about humanizing a mouse or an elephant. But try "humanizing" something we all agree is at least genetically human, and everyone loses their minds, as the popular meme goes.

I've always had a suspicion that at least a few animal rights people formed their opinions because they were brought up seeing animals portrayed in cartoons and other entertainments with human qualities. When I was a kid the live action movie Benji, about a little cute mutt dog, was wildly popular. While our titular canine hero wasn't overtly anthropomorphized, the story was told from the dog's perspective, and the viewer was made to identify with the pooch's ups and downs the way you would as if he was a human character. Believe me, at the point in the movie when Benji gets kicked in the gut by the bad guys I cried, not just because I loved dogs (which I still do) but because the movie had successfully made an emotional, human connection between me and the dog.

When it comes to dogs and cats the devise is pretty harmless, and even in the case of more dangerous critters like lions and tigers and bears, the conceit is fine. Most people are able to separate the anthropomorphizing of animals for artistic or literary purposes from the reality that non domesticated animals are non domesticated for a reason. But sometimes I wonder. When I hear about some poor soul who gets gets killed or mauled by a wild animal at a game preserve because he or she trustingly and unadvisedly approached it, or has a pet chimp that shouldn't be kept as a pet turn on them, I ponder if they didn't watch the Lion King once too often as a kid. This sounds flip, but I don't mean it to be.

This is a very long way around to say that the argument that the Doritos commercial is dangerous because it humanizes a human fetus is absurd on the face of it. It's more likely that injuries and deaths have occurred from the anthropomorphizing of raccoons and tigers rather than from humanizing of what is human. No one is recommending, including me, that we should ban depictions of Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy or take Tony the Tiger off of Frosted Flakes boxes. Worrying that cutesy depictions of savage beasts, or even mildly aggressive carriers of rabies, could be harmful to the gullible is silly, and worrying that humanizing a fetus is somehow just as if not more dangerous is beyond ridiculous.

Which brings we to my second point:

2. If the pro-choice movement is scared that a junk food commercial is going to change public opinion on the humanity of the pre-born human, then they don't have much of an intellectual or moral leg to stand on.

You see, they know the power of both humanizing and de-humanizing language. They like the throw around terms like "blob of tissue" and "product of conception" because they know the majority of people will only accept abortion on demand as law if the pre-born child's humanity can be successfully denied or at least obscured. This is why there is fear of the widespread use of ultrasound technology among hard core pro-choicers. It's hard to deny the humanity of something that looks so human. This is why the Planned Parenthood baby parts scandal is so damning, because blobs of tissue don't have livers and hearts, or functioning brains and spinal cords that transmit pain signals. The more that these things are known the less likely the public will be to simply accept the ability to abort an unborn baby as an unlimited right.

There is still a long way to go to change minds and hearts. Abortion is big business masquerading as a human rights issue, and the vested interests are not going to let the cash flow dry up without a fight.  Then there are those, like Justice Ginsburg, who see abortion as part of a social engineering campaign, to keep "populations that we don't want too many of" from proliferating. In fairness there are those on the conservative side, like the late talkshow host Bob Grant, who favored legalized abortion because it would, theoretically, keep the poor from reproducing, thus easing the need for social welfare programs. And there are those who simply see it as an expedient way to solve an inconvenient problem. When someone is desperate or confused they will take short cuts around the truth, and if they're callous to boot, they won't even worry about what's true.

Advocating for abortion "rights" is in someway predicated on the dehumanization of the pre-born child. Anything that might shed light on the lie that what grows inside the mother's womb is simply a cluster of insentient cells must be extinguished, even if its a commercial for a snack chip.

The creator of the spot based it on his own experience of being at his wife's ultrasound session and thinking that a fetus craving Doritos would be a funny gag for a 30 second ad. If fact the baby in the commercial is taken from his child's ultrasound (with computerized manipulations, of course). I don't know what his views on abortion are, but obviously he didn't have to be convinced that the child growing in his wife's womb was human. Again, whether he and his wife make the connection between the fetus' obvious humanity and the ability to legal destroy it is anyone's guess. But militant pro-choicers do, and they shutter. I don't think that they're afraid that if people start to believe that fetus' are human that maybe they can be convinced that elephants fly and horses talk. Maybe they're afraid that the public at large will say that they have a right to be born. 

1st Sunday of Lent, Year C - The Temptation in the Desert

The Mass of the first Sunday of Lent traditionally features the Gospel reading of Jesus’ temptation in the desert. This year we hear Luke’s account (4:1-13), which is rich in details of this encounter between the Son of God and the evil one. As we begin the discipline of Lent we may be tempted to give up the penances or sacrifices we have started. Much temptation is a product of our weak human nature. Some, though, is the result of demonic powers trying to keep us from growing closer to God. For our human frailty we need to develop a spirit of discipline and self-control. But for demonic influences we must remember what St. Paul tells us; “our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens” (Ephesians 6:12). Therefore we need to use the spiritual weapons that we have been given; prayer, fasting, alms giving, Confession and the Eucharist. If we feel tempted, then we know it is time to pray, relying on the power of God to strengthen us.

If we look at Sunday's Gospel reading we see that the devil tries to tempt us in very basic ways. He tried to tempt Jesus with bread while he was hungry. The bread can represent any sensual pleasure or bodily comfort. While these things aren’t bad, when they become the center of our lives they take us away from God, the only one who can give us lasting satisfaction. Then he tried to tempt Jesus by offering him power over the world. Then he tries to tempt our Lord by appealing to his pride or thirst for glory, because he has command over the angels. But Jesus rejects all three temptations.

There are other ways the devil tries to lead us off the right path. The devil tries to divide people and communities into factions, causing rivalries and dissention. The word demon, in fact, comes from the Greek word meaning to tear apart. He also tries to convince us that he doesn’t really exist, or isn’t really active in the world. The greatest temptation that the enemy uses is to convince us that God will not forgive our sins. If he can convince us of that then we may despair and don’t return to our loving, merciful Savior who is eager to embrace us.

We should not be tricked by any of the enemy’s deceptions. While it is true that not all temptation comes directly from the evil one, we should know that the devil does exist, and is functioning in the world. But we should always remember that Satan isn’t stronger than God. The difference between the power of God and the power of darkness is infinite. We should never despair of God’s mercy. We should always rely on Him and the spiritual weapons of prayer, fasting, alms giving, Confession and the Eucharist. With Jesus we should never be afraid.

The Force Awakens Revisited SPOILER EDITION Plus a Quick Take on The Donald

I was going to write a post on the Donald Trump phenomenon, but have decided it isn't worth it. I found that as time slipped away on me in the late days of 2015 and beginning of 2016 others were beating me to the rhetorical punch. There isn't any use screaming in an echo chamber, even if you came to your conclusions independently of the others in the room. Let's just say those who dismiss him and his followers lightly, or try to discredit Trump by comparing him to Hitler are making a big mistake. He is taping into a mood, much like Bernie Sanders is from the left; a mood of mistrust in the establishment that perceives that the government hasn't been listening the people. It's early, and the shifting political sands of this campaign season have already begun to ungulate. My gut feeling is, even if Trump and Sanders aren't the surprise nominees, the last two standing won't be who we expect, and, though admittedly unlikely, may not even be in the race yet. This is the uncertainty that arises when the people feel alienated from the political process and decide to do something about it. Such movements are dismissed at our own risk.  
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It's been a busy three weeks, but I did manage to squeeze in a second viewing of Star Wars: Episode VII-The Force Awakens, and here are a few follow up reflections. 

The movie has been out since before Christmas, so I won't let myself be encumbered by keeping secrets. If you haven't seen it yet I can only imagine that you've just returned from an Antarctic expedition, and so haven't been in the neighborhood of a cinema, or else you simply don't plan on ever seeing it. So, for the former, stop reading, and by all means, see it, and for the latter, I'm not sure why you'd want to continue reading, but I hope you do.

So, Han Solo gets murdered by his son. This is beyond a doubt the biggest "secret" we were made to keep, and the one that least surprised me. As soon as Solo headed down that walkway I knew he was done for. It was just a matter of would it be some tragic slip and fall accident, or an out and out assassination (my proverbial money was on patricide). I was a little surprised that the character was killed off so early in the sequels, but it makes sense, though more from a real world stand point as opposed to a story one. All the same, one can make an argument that it does help the story in the long run.

Harrison Ford, the actor who originated the role which shot him to super stardom, comes off as tired and a bit jaded. Not in the movie; he's fine there, but rather in interviews. While the Han Solo of the series goes from being a skeptic to a believer in the mythical Force, the Ford of our universe really couldn't care less. He mocks, in his understated style, the debates over "who shot first" in the Cantina Scene from Episode III, and pretty much admits that its about the pay day for him at this point. I'm sure he has affection for the character and the series, and he does express humble gratitude that Star Wars continues to mean so much to people after all these years, but he knows the world doesn't need an eighty year old Han Solo, which is what he'd be pushing if he saw the new trilogy through to the end. He knows wisely that it's time to take a bow and pass the torch to the new generation of heroes.

But there are two other compelling reasons for Solo's early, tragic exit from a Galaxy Far, Far Away. First is that Ford wanted to kill Han off after 1980's Empire Strikes Back. There was a concern that he wasn't going to reprise the role a third time. Also, he felt that Han Solo sacrificing himself for the rebellion would really give the character a dramatic arc that was, well, dramatic. As Ford saw it the selfish, greedy mercenary should go out as a selfless martyr saving his friends and the rebellion. Great idea, but thankfully George Lucas prevailed on that point and we got Han back for one more ride on the Millennium Falcon, while at the same time going out the way he wanted, more or less. 

The other reason why Han exiting now makes sense is that Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) can take his proper place in the story. Star Wars is supposed to be about Luke really, but Ford's charisma and the character's machismo overshadowed the young Jedi in the original trilogy. As good an actor as he is, Hamill simply doesn't have the movie star screen presence of Harrison Ford, who may not have been a star when Star Wars came out, but did have more experience than his two co-stars. While it's true that Disney, who now owns the rights to the franchise, didn't use George Lucas' story plans for the new film, it was his idea originally to have a trilogy sequel with Luke as a Jedi mentor. They may not be using the specifics of Lucas' outline, but now Hamill gets to play Luke as elder wise man without having to compete with the larger than life Han Solo. 

Other random thoughts:

FIRST: Young, tough and inexperienced.  My original review criticized the acting, but on a second viewing I think the performances are better than I thought at first blush. I still think Lupita Nyong'o gives the best performance, but otherwise the problem isn't the actors, it's the script. Dialogue and characterization were never the strong points of the series, so I can give it a pass. What the script gets right, and our three young leads (Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Adam Driver) convey convincingly, is the idea that they are inexperienced, yet paradoxically world weary youths trying to appear more mature than they really are. 

This is especially true of Driver's Kylo Ren. He want's to emulate Darth Vader, his maternal grandfather; the very embodiment of controlled, calculated, evil, but he just doesn't have the composure. I'm not sure Vader ever really lost his cool, even when he was angry (one might argue that throwing Emperor Palpatine down the Death Star's reactor shaft at the end of Jedi qualifies as being out of sorts, but who knows?).  He might yell or bark orders once in a while, but generally if you got on his bad side, or messed up an order - watch your throat: you knew a Sith Force Choke was coming, and he might not say a word, let alone raise his voice, as he coolly squeezed the life out of you. Here, Kylo Ren tears up the place Charlie Kane style twice upon the reception of bad news. One time his tantrum makes Storm Troopers stealthy slink the other way so as to avoid his wrath. These tantrums show, not how evil the Sith wannabe is, but how truly insecure and spiritually incontinent he is. He presumes to offer training in the ways of the Force to Rey (Daisy Ridley), when in truth he really hasn't mastered it himself. 

As for parallels with Grandpa, there was light within Vader, but it took three movies to get him back. There is clearly good within Kylo Ren fighting with the dark, in spite of offing his father, which makes me wonder if his turning back won't come sooner.

SECOND: One and done for Abrams is a big thumbs up. The choice of J.J. Abrams to direct the first outing of the new trilogy was wise. But it's probably also wise that another director, Rian Johnson, is directing the next film, which has already begun principle photography as I write.  I say this not because Abrams didn't do a good job, quite the opposite. It's just that he seems to be effective at rebooting a franchise rather than carrying it forward: he knows how to link the past with the present (think having Leonard Nimoy play "old" Spoke in Star Trek 2009, and the inclusion of the original Star Wars cast here). In general he is the master of the hommage, as evidenced by his effective tribute to Steven Spielberg in Super 8, as well as call backs to Episodes III through V here. But when it was time for a Star Trek follow up he seemed to get stuck recycling elements from previous movies in Out of Darkness. I enjoyed that film, but there was a disappointing "re-imagining" of the plot to Wrath of Kahn, arguably the earlier franchise's best movie, as opposed to taking the Starship Enterprise to a place no one has ever gone before. 

The Force Awakens has plenty of so called fan service: props, references and plot devises that remind the hard core devotees of the earlier movies, which is expected and good. But Abrams hasn't necessarily proven that he knows how to move beyond such pandering, as necessary as it is, and present an truly original story once the old series is up and running. I know nothing of Mr. Johnson, but a new director taking the reigns, with Abrams serving as a producer, might offer a better chance that we're not just going to get a rehash of Empire the next time out. 

THIRD: Re-arranged characteristics, too many characters,. This is more an observation than an criticism. What I noticed at a certain point was that our three new protagonists are not simply reincarnations of Luke Leia and Han, but that each seems to have elements of all of them. Rey is from the desert planet, like Luke, but she's a bit more hip, like Han, and assertive like Leia. Fin (Boyega) is a deserting Storm Trooper, who you might expect to be a bit hardened by the experience, but seems to have the golly gee innocents of Luke. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), the resistance fighter pilot, has the swagger of Han Solo, but the faith of Luke or Princess Leia. Again, no one sees a Star Wars movie expecting character development, but the original trilogy wasn't devoid of it, and my guess is that as the new movies proceed we'll see each character develop their own individual traits a bit more finely.  

What I will knock a bit is that we are introduced to a lot of characters, mixed in with the old, and the screen just isn't big enough for all of them. We barley get any of Oscar Isaac's Poe Dameron: the clear successor of Harrison Ford's Han Solo. Like Harrison 39 years ago, Isaac is the most experienced and, arguably, charismatic actor of the new cast, and could ride this part to stardom. But I was left wanting more. We are given a new secondary villain, Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) who ominously stalks Fin at the beginning, but otherwise does nothing. There's also a general somebody played by Domhnall Gleeson who's kind of a rival to Kylo Ren, and Andy Serkis doing his stop capture performance shtick, as the new emperor's hologram (excuse me, it's Supreme Leader, not emperor). 

It's not that any of it is bad necessarily, it just seems crammed in. I understand that there are at least two more movies coming, and a number of stand alone films featuring individual characters, so I'm sure the producers are just trying to get us acquainted before thrusting "new product" upon the public. But simpler is better, and gets me to care more about what's going on. But I know, it's about merchandising and sequels, not art and entertainment. 

I don't want to end on a cynical note. I did enjoy The Force Awakens, and look forward to the sequel slated for late next year. I didn't have the thrilling experience of the first time around, but in a way I felt it more deeply, especially the fateful encounter between Han Solo and Kylo Ren. In spite of there being too many characters, I did care about what happened to Rey, specifically, and and an eager to find out exactly what her relationship is with Luke Skywalker. 

What hasn't changed is my recommendation. See it, enjoy it, feel it.    

Reflections on a Lad Insane: David Bowie (1947-2016)

I was away on vacation earlier in the month, and then when I got back last week there was a mountain of mail and assorted other work I needed to catch up on, so I haven’t had much time to comment on things in the news. I’m still working on my Trump piece, but for now I want to respond to a  friend of mine who asked me what I thought about the “inane” public response to the recent death of David Bowie.

I really don’t think that the public response has been out of place. Bowie was a major figure in popular culture for the past 45 years, and even though he wasn’t the hit maker he once was, he had settled in as a respected elder statesman of sorts for his crafty blending of pop sensibilities with avant-garde flair. So that his passing landed him on the cover of traditional “old media” periodicals like Time and continues to trend on social media two weeks after his death doesn’t surprise or particularly distress me.

That he was unreservedly praised by elements within the Vatican communications office, does. I do agree with likes of Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the curial cardinal who tweeted his condolences on the day of Bowie’s death, that a dialogue between the Church and the wider culture is a healthy thing. In this case, praying for David Bowie’s soul is charity, acknowledging his talent is justice, but ignoring the difficulties, from a Christian standpoint, associated with his act is spiritual blindness.  Dialogue seeks understanding and avoids condemning  particular trends or styles out of hand. It points out convergences, but it doesn’t bow down in unquestioning adulation either. Maybe the day of his death wasn’t the moment to get into thorny issues (charity again), in which case offer your condolences and move on.

But now that we are a fortnight out of Bowie’s passing we can make a better, more honest assessment of his work in the light of faith.

I am an unabashed fan of rock music, as anyone who follows this blog knows, but I always had an uneasy relationship with Bowie. I have a great deal of respect for his work, but there was something off putting that kept me at arm’s length. I respected him to the extent that, like Dylan, he pretty much did what he wanted when he wanted, popular tastes be damned. The big exception was his “Lets’ Dance” period of the mid-‘80’s, which, by his own admission, was all about chart placement and getting out of debt.

Bowie took great chances with his gender bending, man from Andromeda, personae-shifting act. But I think that’s what made him inaccessible to me. I could never figure out if he was legit, or if this was an elaborate exhibition of the Emperor’s New Cloths. I may have liked a song of his or not so much, but it was always interesting. He came off like he was trying to “say something,” but I wasn't always sure what it was, or if he knew what it was either. I have nothing against flat out surrealism, but not if the artist is laughing at his or her audience through it. Since I never knew if a joke was being played at my expense, I admired Bowie’s work, but from afar.

Claiming to be alternately gay and bisexual at a time when both could have alienated him from the mainstream record buying public is another example of his couldn’t care less attitude, though it could have been calculated shock. In interviews even as early as the ‘70’s he appeared visibly tired of having to answer questions about his sexuality, and almost seemed to regret ever bringing the topic up (a gimmick he had grown tired of?). Eventually he labeled himself a “closeted heterosexual,” admitting that it was an itch for something different, not any deep seeded sexual orientation, that led him to add men to his sexual repertoire. And even if there is no proof that he had boys, there’s plenty of testimony as to underage girls, something shocking then, but somehow still easily glossed over back the hedonistic ‘70’s.  

Normally I would agree with those who say that an artist’s personal life should be separated from an assessment of his or her art. Many entertainers over the years, even ones we might think of as squeaky clean or were from a more “innocent time,” often lived rather promiscuous private lives. But usually these peccadilloes don't enter into a discussion of their music. This is because their art was, in a way, bigger than they were. Sinatra, who had quite a reputation for womanizing, was singing other people’s songs, applying his own emotional experience to a performance, true, yet he was tapping something apart from the purely subjective. We may be fascinated by his affairs and loves lost, but we don’t judge his art by these things. The Beatles, along with Dylan, were the first widely popular artists to make the songwriter and the performer one. Now the performer wasn’t channeling or filtering an experience, but was revealing their own quite directly.

After the Beatles and Dylan, pop and rock became confessional; an outlet for the performer to explore the changes, trials and tribulations of life. We can see a common progression in Rock and Roll song writing from silly love songs and odes to adolescent angst, to life on the road songs, to numbers that question, and or glorify fame, to railing about the music industry, to asking about the meaning of life, sometimes peppered liberally with goofy Eastern mysticism and questionable spiritualties, with plenty of ditties about random sex thrown into the mix. Let’s not forget the “breakup song,” which men certainly write, but many women like Alanis Morissette and Taylor Swift seem to have perfected. Many a mansion has been bought from the profit made off a pop star's heartbreaks. Whatever the topic, it’s all about them, what they’re thinking, feeling or emoting at a particular moment, and the more rich and successful the artist the more out of touch and self-indulgent they can get.

I’m not saying this is all bad, or that I don’t enjoy songs that fit into any one of the above categories. But when the composer and performer become one there is a smaller pool of experiences to draw on for inspiration. A working song writer may still live a rather ordinary middle class existence not so very different from the average person, just they write songs for a living instead of preparing someone’s tax returns or hauling garbage. Because of their relatively ordinary lives their songs are still going to be connected somehow to the experiences of the average listener. They got to the bank, do the food shopping, worry about car payments and fly coach. Being an artist does make someone different, but it doesn’t make them completely alien to common everyday experiences. Celebrity privilege often does.

Performer-songwriters only sing about what they know because they, generally speaking, only sing their own material.  The higher up they go on the celebrity food chain the more out of touch they can become with the common experiences of the masses. Many celebrities, musicians or otherwise, live in a world of limos and personal assistants, first class flights, if not private jets, and preferential treatment at clubs and hotels. Since their songs are reflections of their lives, their work can become self referential to the point of narcissism. We listen, I guess, because the beat is punchy and the hook infectious, and the words allow us to live the glamorous life vicariously, but it all has nothing to do with us, really. Or worse yet, they may promote a questionable morality, aimed at telling us that we are OK just the way we are, while assuring them selves of the same thing.

Which brings me back to David Bowie. It seems like he was wrapped up in that self-indulgent ball before he even sold a unit. He wasn’t simply questioning the world around him and his place in it, he was questioning his very identity. But this questioning did have an edge to it. By his own admission he was haunted by the possibility of a God, with the fleshly and spiritual sides fighting with each other in his songs. Even if the flesh was the clear winner, in some ways it wasn’t a total victory. The song Ashes to Ashes gives the perfect example of someone who’s been through the ringer, experienced all that the sensual life has to offer, and has survived. He doesn't exactly express regret, but his conscience still stings him, in spite of himself.  

In the final analysis I respect Bowie as a daring pop artist, and give him the benefit of the doubt in so far as his artistic honesty is concerned. Nonetheless he bears the burden of having influenced countless, less worthy followers, from Boy George to Madonna to Stefani Germanotta who have the self-indulgence down pat, but none of the tinges of self-doubt or God hauntedness that made Bowie interesting.

So in Bowie, we have self-indulgence and soul searching being doled out in pretty much equal measure. His life of sexual and chemical excess (which I haven’t touched upon)is fare game because it was the locus of his artistic expression. They cannot be separated, because he was the very embodiment of the McLuhan dictum that the medium is the message. Bowie was the canvas, he was the paint and the brush. He was the painter and the portrait. Self-portraits are common, but they were Bowie’s exclusive genre. In Marshall McLuhan’s media theory the television set, radio, stereo system, movie screen or concert stage each alters our perceptions of a given piece of entertainment or none fiction presentation in unique ways. Each emotionally and psychologically “massages” the consumer of the particular medium differently. While watching a video or listening to one of his songs without the accompanying visual image may change how we experience his work, Bowie himself was the message in a way that was quite unique in popular entertainment.

And what was the message? One might say he made the world safe for metro-sexuality, gender neutrality and transgenderism. On a deeper level his work suggested that the body has no meaning beyond what we give it. We are not biologically or anatomically determined, nor need we be culturally conditioned. But neither are we divinely ordered and imprinted. We are whatever the impulses of a particular moment lead us to. All these trends were bigger than he was, and it's probably true that he was reflecting the times more than actually shaping them. He is certainly not responsible for the dictatorship of relativism we live in, he’s just its poster boy.

So, in charity, I pray for the soul David Robert Jones. In justice I acknowledge his unique and considerable talents, which included acting. But in truth I express more than a touch of ambivalence where his legacy is concerned.

Eternal rest grant unto him, oh Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. AMEN

Bishop Barron on René Girard

I must tell the truth. I'd never heard of Rene Girard before seeing this video, though I am somewhat familiar with the basic concept he was famous for. The first half of Bishop Barron's presentation is a bit technical, but, if you have patience, it pays off with a very accessible application and conclusion.

In popular culture the likes of the late comedian George Carlin and the very alive directer George Lucas have worked from the premise that religion and the sacred texts they are based on, particularly in the case of Christianity, were concocted by the civil and social authorities to maintain control over the unwashed masses. Lucas is a disciple of Joseph Campbell, and popularized his mentor's theories after they were used to shape the story and "mythology" of Star Wars.

To reiterate what Bishop Barron is saying, what Carlin and Lucas get wrong in their analysis of Christianity is that the Bible is constantly inverting the traditional notions of power - not reinforcing them as they contend. It is often the younger son who is chosen before his elders (Jacob, Joseph and David are examples that jump to my mind immediately). When Israel clamors for a king the prophet Samuel warns of all the wickedness a king will cause, before finally giving in to their request, at God's behest. Most of the kings are portrayed as weak and closed to the will of God. Even David and Solomon are deeply flawed men, and the Scripture is not afraid to show it. In the New Testament the Apostles are a bunch of bickering, ambitious and thick headed men, slow to understand.  In the Acts of the Apostles, where they do come off looking pretty good, the early disciples come and go off the stage without much fan fare. We do not  hear how their lives end. All that is important is that they were obedient to the will of Christ and the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Far from propping up the institutional authority, the Bible tells us that the institution is at the service of God, who is the only one who deserves our adoration. The institutional authority is necessary, but isn't the essential nature of religion or worship. Jesus is constantly butting heads with the Temple authorities, but in a more nuanced way than is usually presented. He tells his listeners to respect the legitimate religious authorities of Jerusalem, because they "sit on the Chair of Moses." Don't follow their example, though, because they really don't practice what they preach.

I could go on, but you get the point. Those looking at the Bible narratives as nothing more than examples archetypal myths being propagated through the ages is getting it completely wrong. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a God of surprises who upends and subverts the old myths to replace them with the Truth, who is Jesus Christ.