Getting Personal + Ash Wednesday + Punching Sheep + Lots & Lots of Politics

GETTING PERSONAL

I have a history of clinical depression & anxiety, & I've suffered a relapse, so to speak. A number of factors could explain this, including a fallout from a huge list of medications. On Monday I'm entering the Bryan Health Adult Partial Program in Lincoln. I will be there for at least one week. The sessions run from 8:30-3:30 each day. There is group therapy, a number of different classes, such as stress management, time spent with the chaplain, & daily visits with a physician. I have some anxiety about entering this program, but I've come to the conclusion--with the help of Lois & others--that my condition has been deteriorating for some time, & that I've been in denial. So, we'll give this a try. Please pray for me.

ASH WEDNESDAY

It is indeed a strange part of the Christian story, the countercultural proclamation that the distinction matters deeply—that our humanity’s particular condition is as vital to who we are as God’s identity is to God. In fact the most momentous part of the Christian story—Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again—is often confessed liturgically beside the humble beginnings of creatureliness. The ashes of Ash Wednesday starkly remind us of the dust we came from and the dust to which we will return—as Christ’s own. Foreheads are marked with a bold and ashen cross of dust, recalling both our history and our future, invoking repentance, inciting stares. Marked with his cross, we are Christ’s: pilgrims on a journey that proclaims death and suffering, life and resurrection all at once. The journey through the light and darkness of Christ’s life is for those made in dust who will return to dust, those willing to trace the breath that began all of life to the place where Christ breathed his last. It is a journey that expends everything within us. To pick up the cross and follow him is to be reminded at every step that we are mere creatures, and he has come near our humanity to show us what that word originally meant.  Jill Carattini, Slice of Infinity

MORAL LANGUAGE

Moral language makes us uncomfortable, because we abandoned the notion of judgment when we abandoned responsible adulthood and began to insist that hierarchical social relations were necessarily unjust and oppressive — Who are you to tell me what’s right and what’s wrong? Who are you to judge? Moral language forces us to face our moral illiteracy, to admit that we have not engaged in the necessary moral education to cultivate ourselves and our children for some generations now. This surrender was very much abetted by the schools and the churches and other institutions, but the abandonment was, by and large, organic and self-organizing. What we rejected was authority.   Kevin Williamson, National Review Online, 2/26

CRIMINAL MINDS

• "Farmer fined for punching sheep"  Drudge Report, 2/26

WARNING! (AND APOLOGY)

I apologize in advance. I realize that today's post is top-heavy (& bottom-heavy) with politics. Let's just say that I am getting it out of my system; a purging, so to speak. I obsessed today. Kindly remember that I have OCD.

POLITICAL POTPOURRI

• "Democratic candidates clash over most effective plan to destroy economy"  Babylon Bee, 2/22
• Study:  More college students believing in communism, Santa Claus"  Ditto, 2/24
• SOCIALISM:  1 of every 3 Venezuelans facing hunger"  Drudge Report, 2/24

TRUMP VS SANDERS:  "In another viral clip, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace compared President Donald Trump and Sanders, accused them of using “dark arts” on the media, and called supporters a “squeaky, angry minority.”  Justin Caruso, Drudge Report, 2/23

SANDERS PART I:  " . . . a lot of Americans think that Bernie Sanders has a personality problem, too. He comes across as an irritable, red-faced scold, waving his arms while he calls for revolution, sort of the crazy uncle of American politics. Trump may come across as the neighborhood bully, but that persona is probably more appealing for many voters as long as they think he will protect their interests.

" I am inclined to welcome a matchup between Sanders and Trump, not because I’m enamored of either of them but because the campaign would be fought over an important issue: Should America move rapidly toward socialism? That’s an important debate to have, and in between the name-calling, perhaps the country would render a useful and definitive answer."  John Fund, National Review Online, 2/24

SANDERS PART II:  " . . . a lot of Americans think that Bernie Sanders has a personality problem, too. He comes across as an irritable, red-faced scold, waving his arms while he calls for revolution, sort of the crazy uncle of American politics. Trump may come across as the neighborhood bully, but that persona is probably more appealing for many voters as long as they think he will protect their interests.

"I am inclined to welcome a matchup between Sanders and Trump, not because I’m enamored of either of them but because the campaign would be fought over an important issue: Should America move rapidly toward socialism? That’s an important debate to have, and in between the name-calling, perhaps the country would render a useful and definitive answer."  Jentezen Franklin, Townhall, 2/24

DEMOCRATIC DEBATE:  "Tonight’s debate would have been only marginally less incoherent, noisy, and grating to the ears if CBS had broadcast two hours of static."  Jim Geraghty, NRO 2/26

SANDERS PART III:  "The Democratic presidential field suffers from a problem similar to the one that crippled the GOP in 2016 and saddled us with Donald Trump. It’s in all the candidates’ interest to see Sanders destroyed, but it’s in no one’s individual interest to play the role of destroyer. So Elizabeth Warren spends her time attacking Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg focuses his rhetorical artillery on Amy Klobuchar, and Klobuchar returns fire. Even Bloomberg seems too scared to nuke Sanders from orbit."  Jonah Goldberg, Ditto

WARREN PART I:  "More than 200 Cherokees and other Native Americans sent a letter to Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) urging her to issue a public apology after “vague and inadequate” past steps to apologize for her claims of Cherokee ancestry.

“Your history of false claims to American Indian identity and the defense of these claims with a highly publicized DNA test continue to dog your political career,” the letter reads. “For Native Americans, this moment is more than an annoyance; it represents the most public debate about our identity in a generation.”  Tobias Hoonhout, Ditto

SANDERS PART IV:  "Bernie Sanders is, to put it gently, either terminally obtuse, mentally unbalanced, or dangerously dishonest.

"That Sanders could’ve visited the Soviet Union during the Cold War and, with all of the evidence before him, come back extolling the country’s systems, programs, and infrastructure, reveals either stupidity on a galactic scale, certifiable delusion, or a willingness to perpetuate the greatest lie in modern history."  Peter Kirsanow, Ditto

WARREN PART II:  “Sen. Warren has convinced me that Bernie isn't that worrisome.  He'll never get anything done,” Coulter tweeted. “SHE'S the freak who will show up with 17 idiotic plans every day and keep everyone up until it gets done.”  Matt Vespa, Townhall, 2/26

SANDERS PART V:  "Sanders isn't a European social democrat, warm toward Denmark and Norway. He's a lifelong communist -- a man who declared himself fully on board with the nationalization of nearly every major American industry in the 1970s -- and an advocate for anti-Americanism abroad. The fact that it has taken until the verge of his nomination as the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee for members of the media and fellow Democrats to take note of this rather important truth demonstrates that the left's gatekeeping function has been irrevocably broken."  Ben Shapiro, Ditto