Passings

Pope Francis, RIP

Mark Noonan16 Comments

And Democrats breath a sigh of relief: nobody will be talking about Maryland Man for a week.

That aside, this passing hits a lot differently from the death of St John Paul II. There is a deep divide over Pope Francis among Catholics – and probably among all those who take religion at all seriously. I’m not at moved as I was by John Paul’s death. This is because Pope Francis never captured the public imagination – but, then again, most Pope’s don’t. A John Paul II is a rare bird – someone universally respected and deeply beloved by the faithful. So, let’s not try to fuss with comparisons here.

The Papacy of Francis was ordained by God. We Catholics cannot believe otherwise. We might not fully see the reason, but there is one and it will all work to fulfill God’s plan. My view remains as it has been since Francis was elected: we did need to break down the barriers to entry into the faith. Too many were starting to look at being Catholic as a checklist…you must do A, B and C or you’re not Catholic. To be sure, there are the unmovable things of the faith – and Pope Francis was vigorous in defending these things. But he was right when he said that the Sacraments were medicine on the battlefield of life, not a reward for perfection.

I have prayed for the repose of his soul and I hope everyone will. From what we can tell, he did live a blameless life and I’m confident he is with God at this time. The Church will now select a new Pope and we will go on…and it should be noted that all around the world, the number of people entering the Church seems to be increasing. That is part of Pope Francis’ legacy and should not be forgotten.

Idiocy on the Basis of Sex

Mark Noonan14 Comments

President Trump gave out both a very nice off the cuff statement about RBG’s death as well as an excellent official statement. I am not bound by such conventions.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a relentlessly baleful influence upon the American body politic. She was one of the spear points in the Feminist effort to enshrine into law and custom the bizarre notion that only things men do have any merit. As Chesterton pointed out: feminism is the assertion that a woman is a slave if she serves her husband but free if she serves her employer.

RBG’s great claim to fame is, of course, her work to end discrimination “on the basis of sex”. They even made a movie about her titled just that. And all over social media the past 24 hours I’ve seen liberals bemoaning the fate of women’s equality now that RBG is gone.

Permit me to point out something:

Discrimination is not wrong. It is ok to discriminate. Not only is it ok, but you, yourself, do it all the time. You discriminate about who your friends are. Which family members you’ll regularly invite over. What you’ll have for lunch. And, hey, it isn’t just you: the NBA definitely discriminates all the live, long day against short guys. And women. And women.

There is, after all, a WNBA. You probably first heard of it when the players walked off the court during the anthem recently. You might have been vaguely aware of it before that event. But why, decades after RBG rescued us from discrimination against women, is there a WNBA? Because of discrimination. Because the NBA discriminates against anyone who can’t go toe to toe on the court against LeBron James. Say what you want about James (and I’ve said a lot; nearly all bad), the bottom line is he’s one heck of a basketball player…and any team which can’t put up people to contain him will get blown out. And, given this, not a single NBA team has signed a female player. And this is because even the cream of the WNBA crop aren’t up to being benchwarmers in the NBA.

Because they are women.

And that’s gotta hurt. But only dumb people; so, you know: the left.

What is wrong isn’t discrimination, but unjust discrimination. If you were to discriminate against someone capable of doing something simply because of their race or gender or creed that would be wrong. That would be something worth fighting against. And maybe early on RBG and the other feminists were fighting a good fight. But that was a long, long time ago. Once laws specifically prohibiting women from doing what men do were discarded, that was the end of the fight for equality. If you can try to do it, then you are free. That you end up not being able to do it would be either because of some failure on your part or that you lack some vital talent for the job. What the WNBA players lack, uniformly, is being 6 foot, 9 inches tall, 250 pounds of brute male muscle and skill. It is no shame that a WNBA player can’t compete with James; it is just a fact of life.

And everyone deals with it. No one really gets heartache over the fact that women aren’t placed on NBA teams or NFL teams of MLB teams. We all know that, person for person, the chances of a woman being able to compete on that level are nearly zero. Maybe someday we’ll find a woman who can do it, but it’ll be the rarest of rare birds. Meanwhile, it is just for there to be discrimination like that.

But outside professional sports, we’ve seen some rather odd things. We know that a woman can’t be an NFL linebacker and everyone is cool with that…but if you try to say a woman can’t be a combat infantryman, everyone is going to drop on you like a ton of bricks. And that is the ultimate legacy of RBG: the assertion that women can do whatever men do. Which is dumb: women can’t. Just like men can’t do what women do. That whole giving birth thing is rather exclusive, for instance.

This concept that women are just like men and can only be free if they do exactly what men do is insane. And it is made doubly insane by the insistence that women do the worst things men do: work too hard; neglect home and family; play around on the side. This, guys, is not an improvement over the wife of ancient days who minded the house and raised the children.

RBG is gone. Her legacy lives on: and will be with us for quite a while. But if we ever to recapture our sanity, it will be by a stern and knowing rejection of what RBG stood for.

November 11th, 1918

Mark Noonan7 Comments

A bit of family research by a cousin indicates my grandfather, George Childs Noonan, Sr, was being held as a POW by the Germans when World War One ended. He was involved in the Battle of the St Quentin Canal at the end of September, 1918, and he and his unit were captured after an epic stand against odds when they got cut off from their main body. My family was well represented in the War, with one grand uncle flying with the RAF and the rest in various American military units.

The War, when not simply forgotten, has a reputation of being nothing but a waste. But, it wasn’t. It was a war that had to be fought – the world couldn’t allow Imperial Germany to carry out its program of using unlimited military force to secure national ends. It is true enough that the Kaiser wasn’t nearly as evil as what came after him, but he was setting in train evil, and it had to be stopped.

And stopped it was. Though at a cost so high, as Churchill pointed out, that victory was indistinguishable from defeat. That is the real tragedy of the war – that the sides were so evenly balanced in power and military skill that no one could ever gain a decisive advantage until technological advances in 1918 made it possible for the superior mass of the Allies to just overwhelm the Germans with brute force.

No great Captains emerged from the war – no Rommel or Patton or MacArthur (though all three fought in the war). There was no spectacular victory on the field to fire the imagination. Just an intense, six weeks shock at the start of the war and then four very long years of grinding away at each other until one side quit.

It is worthwhile remembering them. They were very brave soldiers, on each side. They stuck it out in horrible conditions, year after year, and hardly a murmur of complaint arose. They were men, and they did their duty. And, now, 100 years later, that is all that really matters.

Barbara Bush, RIP

Mark Noonan14 Comments

The sad news:

Barbara Bush, in what her spokesman called failing health, had traded further medical treatments for comfort care at home —that included the “alert” 92-year-old former first lady enjoying phone calls, conversation and bourbon.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Office of George H. W. Bush confirmed her death, saying in a statement, “A former First Lady of the United States of America and relentless proponent of family literacy, Barbara Pierce Bush passed away Tuesday, April 17, 2018 at the age of 92.”

Hours before her death, the Bushes’ longtime friend Ambassador C. Boyden Gray, who was White House counsel to Barbara’s husband of 73 years, former president George H.W. Bush, told PEOPLE: “Some of the recent emails indicate she is not quite ready to sign off. She’s answering all of her phone calls herself.”

Now that reminds me of mom – a few weeks before she died, we had all been called out because it was thought she was dying at that time. By the time I had driven from Vegas to LA, she had already stamped and shouted enough to be taken home that my brother was just getting her back into her bed when I arrived. I went in to see her and she looked like death warmed over. I – everyone – thought it was the end. So, we started the vigil…which mostly worked out to sitting around the kitchen table not talking. After a couple hours, I hear a rustle down the hall and there was mom, staggering a bit as she walked into the kitchen. She said not a word, but went to the cabinet, grabbed a large cup and topped it off with vodka. She then looked around at all of us with a “what the F are you guys doing here?” look and then tottered off to her room.

Barbara Bush was a great, strong lady – an excellent First Lady and a credit to the name “American”. My prayers for the repose of her soul and the comfort of the Bush family.

Joseph F. Wilinski: July 5, 1927-July 5, 2017

Mark Noonan43 Comments

He was my father-in-law, and thus I’ve been in his debt ever since that wonderful day when I first met my wife. There is, in one sense, only a little to be said, but that is only because he was “just” a good man.

He worked, all his life. From childhood when he used to help his father deliver ice in New York City, to just a short while ago when he was still giving aid to the crew doing some modifications to his garage. This is what men of his time did: they worked. His main job of his life was working in iron – some of those fire escapes you can still see in New York were built by him. He started out doing that sort of work in the shipyards of World War Two, until Uncle Sam decided that he could just as well do that in the Navy. He might have made the Navy his career, but the death of his father meant that he was needed back at home, to help take care of his mother and his sisters.

He got married: another thing men of his time did. There was no need to run around – you found the girl you liked, and you married her. And then stayed married. Joe and Dolores were together for more than half a century, until she died in 2009. They had three children together and they did their best by them. Those kids have now turned into five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

He was not just my father-in-law: he was my friend. I’ve learned a lot from him. How to be a bit tougher. How to apply just a little more elbow grease to problems. How to not complain and just get the job done. I’m going to miss him.

UPDATE: Turns out, the old guy died on July 5th – his birthday. Little screw up in recording of times.

R.I.P. Maggie Thatcher & Annette Funicello

Cluster22 Comments

Two iconic ladies have passed away on us today. As for Thatcher, to this day she was the best PM in Britain since Churchill, and is famous for the line “the problem with socialism is that eventually you’ll run out of other peoples money”. She championed free markets, stood strong against aggressors, had a lovely demeanor and disarming wit, and was a steadfast and reliable ally to the US. She will be missed.

As for Annette, she certainly represents a time passed and an innocence lost. There is a complete 180 on how women in Annette’s time presented themselves vs how they do today. Lady Gaga anyone? I am not saying that it’s entirely a bad thing, but I wish we as a society would conduct our public personas with a little more class.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan:  the left, of course, is the left…and so when Obama’s White House issued a statement lauding Thatcher (and, of course, claiming absurdly that Obama is carrying on Thatcher’s work), the left got quite vile about it…mad as all get out that Obama had even a single kind word to say about Thatcher.  Twitchy has the round up of reactions (warning, extreme language!).  And they say we’re the haters…

One Life, An Entire World Changed

Matt Margolis16 Comments

I can’t say I know all that much about Steve Jobs, aside from using his inventions daily. One fact I did not know about him until yesterday was that Steve Jobs was adopted. National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote about his death and linked to the follow piece, which I find quite thought provoking.

Jobs’ birth mother, Joanne Schiebel, was an unmarried college student who got pregnant and would decide to give her child up for adoption.

It would not be overstating things to say that Steve Jobs is my generation’s Thomas Edison. As one observer put it, he knew what the world wanted before the world knew that it wanted it.

If you have an iPhone or an iPad or an iPod, or anything remotely resembling them, you can thank Steve Jobs.

If your world has been transformed by the ability to hear a symphony, send a letter, pay a bill, deposit a check, read a book and then buy theater tickets on something roughly the size of a credit card…you can thank Steve Jobs.

And: you can thank Joanne Schiebel.

If you want to know how much one life can matter, there is just one example.

But: imagine if that life had never happened.

Imagine if an unmarried pregnant college student 56 years ago had made a different choice.

Now, imagine all the unmarried pregnant college students who make that different choice today.

While some will be quick to point out that abortion was not a legal option in this country 56 years ago, but it was, nevertheless, an option.

Today the left equates abortion with “women’s rights” as if the act itself is as noble as voting, or refusing to give up your seat on a public bus. It’s a sad reflection on their values when even those who believe abortion should be a legal option try to silence those who wish to convince a potential mother that she should not walk through the doors of an abortion clinic. These people want the government out their bedroom or their uterus or whatever, but still want the government to fund abortions so this “choice” is even more accessible. They scoff at the idea that a child who needs a note from a parent to be excused from gym class should need parental consent in order to have an abortion…

But, as we can see, the left looks at abortion from the wrong perspective. Even they don’t believe life begins at conception they cannot deny a potential life with a whole world to contribute to exists in every unborn baby. Had Steve Jobs’ birth mother had the option, and took it, your life would be different today because the contributions made by one made actually did change the world.

Steve Jobs: 1955-2011

Matt Margolis20 Comments

It’s a sad day.

Steven P. Jobs, the Apple Inc. chairman and co-founder who pioneered the personal computer industry and changed the way people think about technology, died Wednesday at the age of 56.

His family, in a statement released by Apple, said Mr. Jobs “died peacefully today surrounded by his family…We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief.”

The company didn’t specify the cause of his death. Mr. Jobs had battled pancreatic cancer and several years ago received a liver transplant. In August, Mr. Jobs stepped down as CEO, handing the reins to Tim Cook.

“Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being,” Mr. Cook said in a letter to employees. “We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much.”

I grew up using Apple computers, had to switch to PC for college (architecture’s industry standard CAD software AutoCAD was PC only then) and switch back to Mac after graduation. I own various incarnations of iPods. I use my iPhone like my life depends on it. I will get the next iPad. Last year I started running with the encouragement of software that would not exist had it not been for his vision.

Jobs was a man of genius and vision. May he rest in peace.

Betty Ford, RIP

Mark Noonan2 Comments

From ABC:

Betty Ford, wife of former President Gerald Ford and the founder of the Betty Ford Center for substance abuse and addiction, has died at age 93.

In public, she was one of the most visible and outspoken first ladies in history. In private, she triumphed over serious personal adversity.

She was married to Gerald Ford for 58 years. Shortly after becoming president in 1974, Ford said, “I am indebted to no man and to only one woman, my dear wife.”

Ford died Friday at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., ABC News has learned. Her cause of death was not immediately clear…

God rest her soul.