As usual:
France and Egypt announced an initiative to stop the fighting in Gaza late Tuesday, hours after Israeli mortar shells exploded near a U.N. school sheltering hundreds of people displaced by the onslaught on Hamas militants. At least 30 Palestinians died, staining streets with blood.
The Egyptian and French presidents didn’t release details of their proposal, saying only that it involved an immediate cease-fire to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza and talks to settle the differences between Israel and the Islamic militants of Hamas who rule the small coastal territory.
They said they were awaiting a response from Israel.
Hopefully they’ll get a response by, oh, April or so. What everyone needs to do is step back, ignore Hamas propaganda and understand that Hamas has inserted itself deeply into the civilian community in Gaza for the purpose of having Israeli reprisals result in civilian casualties. Additionally: We don’t know if it was an Israeli shell that caused the deaths - could have been a Hamas rocket or mortar falling short or, indeed, a deliberate massacre by Hamas in order to have a pile of dead people to show to the media (remember, we’re dealing with inhuman savages in Hamas - they glory in killing the innocent in order to advance their sick ideology - you can’t put anything past them). To cause Israeli to stop short of the destruction of Hamas in Gaza because Hamas says that the Israelis bombed a school is the worst sort of asinine thing to do - even if one wishes to suppose the worst of Israel, all stopping Israel does at this point is ensure that more people will die at a later date at the hands of Hamas and then at the hands of the IDF in response.
This is a battle - fight it out to the end.
Tags: Gaza, Hamas, Israel/Judaism, terrorism
January 7th, 2009 at 01:10am
Mark Noonan
Anyone want to start a pool on how short Obama’s honeymoon period will be?
The chairman of the Senate Rules Committee has parted with many of her Democratic colleagues and says that the Senate should seat former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said Tuesday that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, however tainted by corruption charges, has the right to appoint someone to President-elect Barack Obama’s former seat. The Rules Committee decides whether Burris is qualified to serve.
Feinstein said that blocking Burris would have ramifications for other governors’ appointments.
It will also have ramifications for black turnout in 2010, possibly costing Democrats a large number of House and Senate seats. As I said before - eventually, Reid will back down. Only a voluntary Burris surrender will alter this iron-clad eventuality.
Tags: 2010 Campaign, Chicago, Dianne Feinstein, Harry Reid, Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, Roland Burris
January 7th, 2009 at 12:24am
Mark Noonan
And, drat it all, when an Islamo-fascist buys you he darn well insists you stay bought:
Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader lashed out at President-elect Barack Obama in a new audio message Tuesday, accusing him of not doing anything to stop Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to an intelligence monitoring center.
The recording purportedly by Ayman al-Zawahiri was al-Qaida’s first comments on the Gaza crisis since Israel launched its offensive against the Islamic militants of Hamas on Dec. 27.
On a more serious note - liberals, they hate us for what we are, not what we do. There is nothing Obama can do which will get those who hate us to stop hating us. Only God can so move hearts - all we can do is fight them and hope to convince the non-haters that we will emerge victorious.
Tags: Al Qaeda, Gaza, Israel/Judaism, terrorism
January 6th, 2009 at 09:24pm
Mark Noonan
…and he just went on for several minutes saying a whole lot without actually saying anything.
This what we’re going to have to put up with for four years?
Tags: Obama Cult of Personality
January 6th, 2009 at 01:39pm
Mark Noonan
Can’t think of anyone better:
Meg Whitman fired the starting gun on the race to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California governor on Monday when the former chief executive of eBay abruptly resigned from the boards of three companies.
Ms Whitman, who continues to own a 2 per cent stake in eBay, the internet auction site, worked on John McCain’s presidential campaign and has privately expressed interest in running for California governor in 2010 as the Republican candidate.
Her resignation on Monday from the boards of eBay, Procter & Gamble and DreamWorks Animation is the clearest signal yet that she is considering a run for the post.
“She’s potentially a very credible candidate,” said Dan Schnur, a Republican strategist who worked on Mr McCain’s presidential campaign in 2000. “She attracted very positive views as a surrogate for McCain last year and has developed a very extensive political network.”
The election in November next year for one of the most powerful positions in American politics promises to be hotly contested. Term limits will prevent Mr Schwarzenegger from running a third time but a range of other candidates are contemplating campaigns for governor of a state that would be the world’s eighth largest economy if it were a separate country.
In the Democratic corner, Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles and an ally of Barack Obama, and Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, are considering running.
Diane Feinstein, California’s senior senator, would be the overwhelming favourite if she stood as the Democratic candidate. However, she was recently nominated chairman of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, becoming the first woman to lead it in its 32-year history. Having secured that role, she is considered unlikely to mount a campaign for state governor.
Liberal as California is, I can’t imagine Whitman losing to Villaraigosa or Newsom, while Feinstein would be a heavy favorite to win if she were the Democratic nominee. Villaraigosa’s racist, anti-American background does him no harm in Los Angeles and would be a plus for him in San Francisco, but won’t play in the rest of the State. Newsom would probably lose Los Angeles (though doing very well in the ultra-liberal ‘burbs of Brentwood, Malibu, West Hollywood, etc.). Feinstein would entirely shut the GOP out in San Francisco and Los Angeles and make a huge play for the GOP strongholds of the inland empire and Orange County. Meanwhile, Whitman is the sort of person a California GOPer and moderate likes - successful, but not brash; sort of conservative, but not too much.
In a Feinstein/Whitman contest, I’d lay money on Feinstein, but wouldn’t count Whitman out - though even against the weaker candidates, Whitman will carry the millstone of Schwarzenegger ’round her neck just as McCain had to carry Bush’s legacy in to November. On the other hand, California Democrats have been making such a hash of things, and Schwarzenegger has moved so far left, that it might be possible for the GOP in 2010 to tie the Govinator to the Democrats and run against the whole mess in Sacramento (and, Arnie - love ya, buddy…but you should have stuck to your fiscal conservative guns).
This is just the first in what I believe will be many strong GOP candidates to announce for major offices in 2010 - in the normal course of events, the GOP will have a bounce-back from our drubbing in 2006/08. Add in a possible recession stretching in to 2010. Add in possible Obama meltdown as President. Add in a strong GOP message with interesting and new faces and voices. Mix that all together and we could get the perfect GOP wave.
Tags: 2010 Campaign, Antonio Villaraigosa, California, Dianne Feinstein, Gavin Newsom, Meg Whitman
January 6th, 2009 at 01:29pm
Mark Noonan
We could write about the slow disintegration of Team Obama, but we prefer to just watch it and laugh up our sleeves about it.
So, have at it on your own, boys and girls.
Tags: Open Thread
January 6th, 2009 at 09:49am
Mark Noonan
It does exist, and it is growing:
Bahrain will donate a plot of land to build a new Catholic church in the country. The decision by King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa comes in response to a request Pope Benedict XVI made to the Gulf State when its new ambassador presented its credentials last 18 December.
“Everyone is aware today that because of the rising number of Catholics, it would be desirable for them to have more places of worship,” the Pope said during the audience with Naser Muhamed Youssef Al-Belooshi, first representative of the Arab kingdom to the Vatican.
About 80 per cent of the 800,000 people living in the country are Muslim (60 per cent Sunni and 20 per cent Shia). Catholics represent about 10 per cent, mostly foreign workers from Asian nations.
Bahrain became the first country in the Persian Gulf to build a Catholic church, the Sacred Heart Church, which will celebrate its 70th anniversary this year, since it was inaugurated with a Christmas Midnight Mass in 1939.
Relations between the Holy See and the Gulf kingdom saw significant progress in 2008. Not only did the Vatican receive the first ambassador from Bahrain, but King Hamad met Pope Benedict XVI as well. After the meeting on 9 July the sovereign issued an official communiqué inviting the Holy Father to visit the country.
Over the past year, we’ve had as our associate pastor a foreign priest who has spent time in the Gulf Region and it was he who first brought to my attention the tacit approval given to Christian worship in some of the Gulf States - the Gulf States have imported a great deal of labor and, as it turns out, a lot of it hails from Catholic areas of Asia. Meanwhile, Evangelicals have also been busy and have, indeed, gained converts in the Islamic world. Boiled down, the concept of the Arabian penninsula being entirely Moslem is rapidly collapsing in the face of the demographic facts of Christian immigration. And for these Moslem nations, its either become tolerant or lose their labor force. Most are turning towards toleration - and there is even some discussion about opening a Catholic Church in Saudi Arabia, something which would have been entirely unthinkable even just a few years ago.
A good deal of this progress is resultant upon the quiet diplomacy of the Holy See - patience and tact do go a long ways. But, additionally, there are also the winds of change blowing…including those winds brought forth by the US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The times, they are a-changing, and wise Moslems know they have to bend a bit with the wind, or break. The Islamo-fascists, of course, refuse to bend - but they are more and more being marginalized as Islam begins to develope hope for a better tomorrow, and becomes ever more familiar with the inhuman and, indeed, un-Islamic savagery of the Islamo-fascists.
There should be no turning back from this, and only the most cowardly surrender on the part of the United States can undo the good work well begun.
Tags: Bahrain, Benedict XVI, Catholicism, Christianity, Islam
January 6th, 2009 at 06:40am
Mark Noonan
Seems that Obama didn’t mention this to Feinstein:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Senate’s incoming Intelligence committee chair, slammed President-elect Barack Obama’s choice of Leon Panetta as director of the CIA Monday.
“I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA Director. I know nothing about this, other than what I’ve read,” Feinstein said in a statement. “My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.”
A Feinstein spokesman told CNN’s Dana Bash that the California senator found out about Obama’s pick after her staff showed her a New York Times report.
“The President-elect will now have a chance to make his arguments,” the spokesman said. “Her next move is to listen.”
Feinstein is the new chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. While Panetta’s political career — as a congressman, and as President Clinton’s chief of staff — spans three decades, he has little hands-on intelligence experience.
Curiously enough, when I first heard of the Panetta appointment, I was pleased. Now, don’t get me wrong - Panetta is just another liberal, as far as that goes, but he’s also one of the few adults in the senior ranks of the Democratic party and if we’re to have a liberal in charge of CIA, might as well have one who knows the difference between, as it were, poop and shinola. But DiFi seems displeased - allegedly on grounds of Panetta not being a career intel person. As for me, that is one of the grand advantages of our way of government - we can get people from outside the asylum to check up on the inmates from time to time (that said persons are sometimes crazier than the internal loons is a risk we run - but Panetta isn’t one of the screwballs).
Its not like the Democratic bench is chock full of talent, ya know? Any party which can’t find replacements for Byrd and Ted Kennedy is a party facing a famine of talent. With Richardson out (yes, he’s got his questionable activities, but he’s also one of the few adults in the party) it becomes more important than ever to obtain and retain the few first rate Democrats we have. It would be a sad thing if DiFi obtains Panetta’s scalp over a pettifogging (and rather cowardly) bias towards alleged experts.
Tags: CIA, Dianne Feinstein, Leon Panetta
January 6th, 2009 at 03:39am
Mark Noonan
Once again, so much for the so-called “most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi’s proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office.
Pelosi’s rule changes — which may be voted on today — will reverse the fairness rules that were written around Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.”
Even our liberal friends here should be repulsed by this.
Tags: Congress, Nancy Pelosi, Newt Gingrich, partisan
January 5th, 2009 at 12:50pm
Matt Margolis
Victor Davis Hanson hits the nail right on the head, again:
There is something especially nauseating about the latest Middle East war — scenes of worldwide Islamic protests with photos of Jews as apes, protesters (in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida of all places!) screaming about nuking Israel and putting Jews in ovens, parades of children dressed up with suicide vests and fake rockets, near constant anti-Semitic vicious sloganeering, Gaza mosques stuffed with rockets to be used against civilians — all to be collated with creepy Hamas rhetoric about the annihilation of Israel. This is the world in which we now live.
Almost no other issue in recent memory has illustrated the moral bankruptcy of much of the international community. Hamas has no pretensions, like the PA, of being a governing authority; it used violence to rout the PA and then bragged that its charter pledging the destruction of Israel remained unchanged. Israel evacuated Gaza; Gazans in response looted their own infrastructure, alienated both the PA and Egypt,and then sent off more than 6,000 rockets against Israeli civilians, while eagerly becoming a terrorist puppet of theocratic Iran.
Nothing could be more clear: either the fact that a constitutional republic was trying to avoid civilian casualties while a terrorist organization was intent on killing Jewish civilians as it used its own citizens as shields to protect mostly young male terrorists; or the world’s craven reaction to all this.
Again all very creepy — the stuff of Tolkien’s Mordor. It is now clear that the so-called and much praised “international community,” the hallowed U.N., the revered EU, all pretty much are indifferent to the survival of a democratic Israel, or are actively supportive of its terrorist Hamas enemy. Only the U.S. (for now) stands by a constitutional state in its war against a murderous terrorist clique, with annhilation its aim and religous fascism its creed.
People who have read my stuff for a while know that I frequently refer to the modern era as the Age of Lies - we have just so much untruth passed off as truth that it gets overwhelming at times. There are those who are neither Israeli nor Arab (and thus have no dog in the hunt) who have been convinced that Israel is the evil aggressor in all of this. Only a society awash in lies can believe such a thing - and keep in mind, this has nothing to do with the worth of Israel’s current military operation. You can justifiably state that Israel should not be attacking right now - that is a rational position one can hold…but to hold that Israel is other than the aggrieved party and that Hamas is wicked is to be either a liar, or a complete fool.
As a for-instance in our pervasive the lies are: We’ve heard it reported that hundreds of Palestinians are dead. What is the source? The Hamas terrorists. Oh, you can probably find some report from some ostensibly non-partisan group saying this or that about casualties…but the battle is on going and no one in Gaza has the time to actually go around verifying the number of dead, and whether or not any particular dead person is civil or military. In other words, other than the certainty that people have been killed in the fighting, we have no other information which can be classed as news about the number of dead in Gaza. And yet, day after day, there goes the MSM toting up the body count as if they’ve actually got a verified number and each time an Israeli bomb lands there’s someone trotting over to the crater and counting the dead. Of course, they don’t - they’re calling their contacts at Hamas and the Hamas people are just making up numbers which sound horrific, knowing that whatever number they give out will be faithfully transmitted by the MSM. And this leave aside the entire issue of whether or not we should even ask Hamas for their views - we didn’t pause to get Goebbles’ view, did we?
To be fair about this, my side of the aisle has its share of lies on this matter, too. I do wish that those who advocate an aggressive stance against terrorism (a position I adhere to) would leave off the name-calling and callousness towards our enemies. For full disclosure, I used to do that, too - but with age comes (hopefully) some wisdom and I think I better understand the necessity of remembering that its our brothers and sisters on the receiving end of those Israeli planes and artillery pieces. Some of them are actually wicked and bent on evil, but most are just poor people bamboozled into supporting wicked acts, or people just caught in the cross fire and trying to keep their heads down until its all over. The truth is that they are people and have a claim on us - yes, even the person right now arming a rocket to be fired at Israeli citizens has a claim on us. A lesser claim, to be sure, than the Israeli citizens, but a claim none the less.
The truth is that war is a nasty business - but, also, that it isn’t the worst thing which can happen. The truth is that Israel, warts and all, is on a much higher moral plane than the people in Hamas. The truth is that Hamas started this battle. The truth is that a democracy must be permitted to defend itself against non-democratic enemies. The truth is that the enemy targets civilians. The truth is that Israel does not target civilians. The truth is that all decent and right thinking people want peace. The truth is that those who run Hamas are neither decent nor right thinking. Keep truth in mind as we go through this terrible time - and once the fighting is over, remember that the truth requires us to, as Lincoln said, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Tags: Gaza, Hamas, Israel/Judaism, terrorism
January 5th, 2009 at 09:19am
Mark Noonan
I only scored 16 on the Obama test.
Tags: humor
January 5th, 2009 at 06:15am
Mark Noonan
From Simon Tisdall:
Barack Obama’s chances of making a fresh start in US relations with the Muslim world, and the Middle East in particular, appear to diminish with each new wave of Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza. That seems hardly fair, given the president-elect does not take office until January 20. But foreign wars don’t wait for Washington inaugurations.
Obama has remained wholly silent during the Gaza crisis. His aides say he is following established protocol that the US has only one president at a time. Hillary Clinton, his designated secretary of state, and Joe Biden, the vice-president-elect and foreign policy expert, have also been uncharacteristically taciturn on the subject.
But evidence is mounting that Obama is already losing ground among key Arab and Muslim audiences that cannot understand why, given his promise of change, he has not spoken out. Arab commentators and editorialists say there is growing disappointment at Obama’s detachment - and that his failure to distance himself from George Bush’s strongly pro-Israeli stance is encouraging the belief that he either shares Bush’s bias or simply does not care.
This might actually work to Obama’s long term favor - given the way Obama ran very strongly against President Bush and American policy over the past 8 years, the impression given in the Arab would was of a 180 degree shift in American policy…which would translate into abandoning our friends and currying favor with our enemies. By not speaking out on Gaza, Obama has cast doubt about this, and therein lies his great opportunity.
Now, I happen to think that Obama hasn’t made a statement on Gaza because he, Biden, Hillary and the whole gang simply don’t know what to say. They are entirely at sea here, lacking even cursory knowledge of how things work in foreign affairs and military policy. You’re supposed to call for a cease fire, get the President of France over there, cobble together a truce which will be violated on a daily basis and then have some grand conference somewhere (with preference given to places with swank hotels and nice beaches). Its not working out that way because Israel just might possibly be determined to fight this out to the finish (and I suspect with the tacit approval of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and perhaps with such approval from the Egyptian government, as well) - what might happen here is complete Israeli victory, abject Hamas defeat and thus an end to the Gaza issue…there is no one in Obama’s team who can grasp this set of circumstances. But, no matter - it can still work to our advantage.
The befuddled silence on the part of Team Obama might start to convince our friends that Obama won’t actually abandon them and also convince our enemies that Obama just might fight them - and this will greatly strengthen our friends and dismay our enemies, who have already been greatly weakened by 8 years of President Bush relentlessly hammering them. The sole remaining bastions of State-sponsored terrorism - Syria and Iran - are both politically and economically on the ropes - they breathed a sigh of relief on November 4th as they contemplated what would at least work out to a period of truce allowing them to rebuild their shattered terrorist organizations…but now they’ll doubt, and if Obama presses, he can cause them to collapse upon themselves.
We’ll see - unfortunately, that same ignorance which is the likely explanation for Obama’s current reticence is likely to prevent his seeing this massive chance to finish the War on Terrorism with victory within a year or two.
Tags: Gaza, Hamas, Iran, Israel/Judaism, Syria, terrorism
January 5th, 2009 at 01:54am
Mark Noonan
The argument on the left is, essentially, that its just not fair for some people to make as much as some corporate CEOs. Such arguments are never made against Hollywood producer or superstar pay, nor against the amount of money Bruce Springsteen makes when not making what amounts to massive, in-kind donations to Democrats, but no matter. Buttressing the argument for caps is the immoral and asinine manner in which some corporations have taken bailout money and paid bonuses to executives of de-facto bankrupt firms. The other side of the argument goes thusly:
To be sure, executive pay in the United States is vastly higher than necessary. Executives in other countries, whose pay is often less than one-fifth that of their American counterparts, seem to work just as hard and perform just as well. The same was true of American executives in the 1980s.
So why not limit executive pay? The problem is that although every company wants a talented chief executive, there are only so many to go around. Relative salaries guide job choices. If salaries were capped at, say, $2 million annually, the most talented candidates would have less reason to seek the positions that make best use of their talents.
More troubling, if C.E.O. pay were capped and pay for other jobs was not, the most talented potential managers would be more likely to become lawyers or hedge fund operators. Can anyone think that would be a good thing?
I work for one of the larger corporations in the world. Previously, I worked for a smaller - though still quite large - corporation which was sold to the vastly larger corporation I currently work for. When this deal was transacted, the CEO of the smaller corporation I worked for received tens of millions of dollars…as if he had actually done anything in his entire life worth tens of millions of dollars. This was, of course, entirely legal and approved by the Board who, presumably, also made out very well in the deal. But it was immoral and should not have been done - I’d like to ask the guy how he sleeps at night, but I’d probably get an “on a pile of money with beautiful women” sort of answer.
Now, we must fight tooth and nail against Democrat attempts to let Congress set executive pay. This is because all we’ll have then is corporate CEOs bribing Democrats in order to be permitted to have high salaries (and anyone who thinks Democrats won’t go along with such things just hasn’t been paying attention to William “Cold Cash” Jefferson, Rod Blagojevich and, indeed, the entire pay-for-play ethos of Democratic politics). But this doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do.
As to the argument that we must pay massive salaries in order to entice the best of the best into our corporate executive offices, I call bullsh**. The CEOs who are bankrupting our corporations today are the very sort of geniuses we were enticing with high salaries, and look where it got us. I have in mind, right now, three people I work with who I’d much prefer to be in charge of the corporation I work for (no, none of them are me) and I’ll bet they’d take the job for, oh, $250,000.00 per year and they certainly couldn’t make more stupid decisions than are currently being made and they might make much better ones (which I actually believe is true as they have a genuine appreciation of what is going on out there, while the CEO and senior executives are entirely too far removed from the day to day grind of the average folks).
My preferred route to bring corporate salaries - top to bottom - in line with reality and inject a bit of sobriety and solidarity in to our economy is to create tax advantages for companies where executive salaries are in line with average employee salaries. Certainly the big boss needs a high income - but if Joe Average is making $50,000.00 a year then Jane CEO shouldn’t need more than $500,000.00 to rest content. Companies can choose to pay massive amounts for the hot-prospect CEO who appears a genius because his last corporation had a great couple years (likely due to macro-economic factors rather than CEO smarts, but no matter), but they’ll get a tax advantage if they go with the really hard working mid-level manager who has genuinely innovative ideas and the guts to make decisions (one of the primary failures of our corporate executives is their fear of making decisions…make a decision and you’re responsible for failure, and that could jeopardize the golden parachute!).
There is nothing wrong with being successful. There is nothing wrong with being rich - even multi-billionaire rich…but there is something wrong with someone just walking in to a long established firm and making money off it as if he built it from the ground up over a lifetime’s work. We must be wary of attempts by liberals to take control, but we must also work out the ways and means of bringing reasonableness into corporate life.
Tags: CEO Pay, Government Bail Outs, recession
January 4th, 2009 at 05:13pm
Mark Noonan
Citing an ongoing federal probe into a pay-to-play scandal, NM Governor Bill Richardson has withdrawn his name for Comrade Obama’s Commerce Secretary.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Sorry, liberals - you thought that you had elected Selfless Liberals to save America from the effects of Chimpy McSmirk BusHitler…well, turns out you’ve placed in power a bunch of corrupt, partisan hacks and you’re now praying that Obama is actually clean, but there is that fact he arose out of the very sewer of Democrat corruption known as Chicago.
Have fun!
Tags: Bill Richardson, Corruption
January 4th, 2009 at 01:57pm
Matt Margolis
Deep within all of us is not just the ability to do the right thing, but the desire to do it - some people still rise to the challenge:
They are the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. They wear long white habits, carry rosaries, live in community, teach, and attract so many new recruits that they’re building a new motherhouse big enough to house 100 women religious.
The community, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., is only 11 years old. It started as an offshoot of a large convent, with four nuns, but it has grown to 85 sisters. Their average age is only 28, more than 40 years younger than the average age of all women religious in the United States. They come from more than 30 states, plus Canada, Europe and the Caribbean. They have been featured on NBC, ABC, National Public Radio and Canadian TV.
Their lives, traditions and devotion are part of the 800-year-old Dominican charism. They form “a beautiful and alluring sign of contradiction,” says one of the foundresses, Sister Joseph Andrew, director of vocations. “You can get ‘the world’ wherever you go.”
Young women discerning religious life, she said, want authenticity, and with her community, “what they see is what they get,” that is, one with “a clear vision and identity.”…
…“I can’t imagine living religious life in an apartment,” said Sister Maria, a native of the Bronx, a first-year novitiate. “It’s not puppy dogs and rainbows every day; your sisters bring you up.”
She gave up a successful corporate career in the car business to enter the convent. She chose the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, she said, because of their devotion to Mary, traditional lifestyle and sense of humor.
“I knew that to go to heaven, I needed to be in a convent!” she said with a laugh. “I knew that I could slip into being greedy. I wanted more than a house on the lake and a closet full of shoes. Life is empty without Christ. It doesn’t make any sense without him.”
In the end, she said, she felt compelled to stand up for what she believed in, regardless of what other people thought she should do.
“Go big or go home,” she said. “No one will live my life but me.”
Sister Maria Jose, a second-year novice, grew up in a strong, Catholic, Mexican-American family and graduated from the University of Texas-El Paso. After working as a software engineer for six years, she entered the convent.
“I loved my career, but Jesus Christ is better,” she said. “I realized that there was more to life than going to a job. There was a lot of emptiness there. I could either do something to distract me, like going out to the bars, or I could pursue prayer, seek Jesus, and see what it was that Jesus was calling me to do.”
And the meek shall inherit the earth…or, at least in this case, the feminist movement. Wrap all the broads at NOW together and you won’t get something a tenth as worthy as these Sisters, and their like around the world. One of the wisest statements I’ve seen is that - “There was a lot of emptiness there.”. False feminism held that for women to be fulfilled they would have to follow men on the treadmill of corporate life…get a degree, slave away in a corporate behemoth, expend your sexual energy in pointless affairs, eschew children or - if you have them - consign them to the care of others…that terrible mistake men made was, for the feminists, precisely what women should do. Never in the course of human history was there ever a more stupid idea.
And here, now, is the signpost back - just as it was 2,000 years ago, it is the devoutly Christian women who will save our society (and, yes, devoutly Jewish and Moslem women will, too, but we’re a mostly Christian society and thus the lion’s share of it will be from Christians). In a large sense, the Greco-Roman world went insane and the only thing the women of Rome could think to do was to follow the men into their insanity. Along came the Christians - men, of course, but it was the sobriety and solidarity of the women, I think, who really made the running - to recall people back to sanity; and thus it will be again, in this time when our society has gone insane.
The most important thing for those who are not Catholic to understand here is that these women are not so much giving up everything, but mostly giving up nothing, and seeking for something…in fact, seeking for the only genuinely real thing there is. The biggest mistake anyone can make in contemplating this story is to think that these women are in retreat - they are in the vanguard, the sharp point of the revived world.
HAT TIP: The Anchoress
