A Brief Roundup

Thanks to Ad Orientem for noticing my Peter Jennings Report (towards the bottom), and for calling attention to this Dinesh D'Souza piece today, which may some day be seen as a prophecy.

De Virtutibus has quite a few good links today.

And Ut Unum Sint has a remarkable blog on some observations from a Lutheran theologian.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 11/07/02 10:56:09 PM
Categorized as Other.

Michael Moore Has Just Given Me a Great Deal of Satisfaction

Thanks to Lex Communis for leading us to this delightful piece.

Mike's Message:

Sunday, November 3rd, 2002
Years from Now, They'll Call It "Payback Tuesday"

Dear Friends,

Well, folks, Tuesday [Nov. 5, 2002] is the day! The day that George W. gets taught a long overdue lesson. The day that we, the MAJORITY -- the 52% who never elected him -- get our chance to reclaim a bit of our former democracy (back when ALL the votes used to be counted).

What if, on Tuesday, all of us, regardless of our political stripe, and just for the fun of it, decided to serve one big-ass eviction notice that said, you have two years to remove yourself from the premises-and you had better not damage anything on your way out?

I think we can give Bush the Mother of all Shellackings on Tuesday. It can happen if you, and the millions of others, who are now reading this letter, will do one simple thing:

TAKE THE DAY OFF THIS TUESDAY.

That's right. Call in sick, skip work, skip school, skip Springer, and then devote the next 12 hours to dragging as many people as you can out of their homes and getting them to the polls.

I know a lot of you cannot afford to do this. But, honestly, can we afford NOT to? Bush has been effectively stymied in his first two years from doing much of the serious damage he was hired to do (we owe a big thanks to Jim Jeffords for that). Yet, if he has both the House and Senate under his thumb for his final two years, we will all pay a huge price for many years to come.

On Tuesday, go down to the local candidate's office and volunteer to do whatever is needed: give a ride to the polls for senior citizens who can't get there, make last minute phone calls to probable voters who may have forgotten to vote, pass out handbills on street corners, do cartwheels in the middle of the mall -- you name it, I am sure it will work.

Or you could just start going door to door in your own neighborhood. Knock on every door and tell people in plain, non-political language why you would like them to go down to the polls right now and vote for so-and-so. Tell them you have never done this before, that you were just compelled to do it as an act conscience, to do something for our country. Or tell them you just needed to get some exercise. Tell them what they already know: that the corporate guys have made off like bandits while the rest of the country lives in utter fear over whether they will have jobs, health care benefits, or our pensions when they retire. EVERYONE can relate to this -- and trust me, it is on everyone's mind right now. Even many conservatives who have seen their job or their 401(K) go up in smoke are now livid and want their pound of flesh.

I know that for many of you this will be a new thing. Give it shot. I promise you, at the end of the day on Tuesday, if we succeed, you will never again doubt the power of just one individual who decides that she or he can make a difference.

Send this email to your friends and family so that they, too, can be informed of the good women and men who are running for the House and Senate (and for many local and state races as well). Visit my web site at: www.Michaelmoore.com for my recommendations.

We will deny Bush control of the Congress next week, and then we all work to get him out of the White House in 2004. 2004 will NOT and MUST NOT be a repeat of 2000.

As for local and state races, whenever possible support Greens and other progressive candidates like those highlighted on my web site. There you will find the list of progressive candidates who have a chance to win.

Will you join with me in doing this?

It's our only chance, right now, to receive a small measure of justice for what happened in Florida in 2000. And that is worth something.

Expect a wake-up call from me at your bedside 6am Tuesday! ....

Ironically, Moore may very well be right, but only at the very beginning, and not in the way he would have anticipated: Years from Now, They'll Call It "Payback Tuesday".

Sounds good to me.

Reading Moore's delightful rendition of proverbially Counting One's Chickens Before They Have Hatched reminded me of a comment I posted at Catholic Light yesterday, in response to the query What do you think did the democrats in this election?

They believed their own propaganda. Especially that George W. Bush is dumb, and that the result of the 2000 election was the greatest scandal in American political history which every thinking individual wanted to avenge. Also, the Senate Democrats have been ruling that body with a bitterly partisan iron fist, and a lot more people noticed, and disapproved, than the Democrats thought would do so. Monumental miscalculations, I think.

Moore is clearly somebody who believes his own propaganda. Fortunately, not very many other people do anymore.

P.S. Okay, he may be right somewhere else, too. In light of this bit ....

I promise you, at the end of the day on Tuesday, if we succeed, you will never again doubt the power of just one individual who decides that she or he can make a difference.

.... allow me to refer you to my thank-you to Senator Harkin. :)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 11/07/02 10:03:29 PM
Categorized as Political.

Does the Senate Parliamentarian Read This Weblog?

Random ruminations on Senatorial rules.

As I mentioned yesterday, Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy have ruled their respective roosts dictatorially. If Leahy really, really didn't want a vote on a prospective judge, there wasn't a vote. That simple. If Daschle really, really didn't want a vote on just about anything he didn't like, there wasn't a vote. That simple.

And The Mighty Barrister today took notice of Democratic threats of temper tantrums filibusters on... well... on any subject they really, really don't like.

I ask you this: is that any way to run an organization of grown ups?

Why do the rules give to one man (whoever he might be) so much power? Why can one man prevent a vote in a committee when he knows the committee is going to vote the way he doesn't want? Why can one man prevent a vote in the Senate when he knows the Senate will vote contrary to his desires? And why can one man effectively bring things to a stand-still if he doesn't even want discussion of a certain subject?

I ask you again: is that any way to run an organization of grown ups?

Why are these rules what they are? Why doesn't anybody change them? I know: everybody likes to have rules like that so they can take advantage of them if possible. But, surely, there were enough individual Senators on both sides of the aisle dismayed by the dictatorial rule of Daschle and Leahy to be able to force a change in the rules, no?

How can anybody stand to be the member of a supposedly democratic, deliberative body that leaves you at the mercy — or, rather, the lack of mercy — of one individual?

My advice to the Senate?

They're not in the Constitution; they're not even laws. They are just rules that the Senate has made and the Senate can unmake.

Maybe you think no Republican would ever use them so tyrannically to his advantage. Do not be so naive. And maybe you think it will be a long, long time before Daschle and Leahy get back in their respective positions with a Democratic majority. Do not be so stupid. And maybe you think that nobody down the road, on either side of the aisle, will have learned from the example of Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy — seeing that they did whatever they wanted to do, and nobody stopped them. Do not be so foolish.

What am I missing? Somebody tell me.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 11/07/02 08:01:09 PM
Categorized as Political.

A Closet Democrat?

My readers have a sense of humor, too:

You must be a closet Democrat ... with your fretting about whether the Catholic poetry page is "centrist" or "leftist" ...

See Catholic Poets @ ELCore.Net.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 11/07/02 06:52:48 PM
Categorized as Other.

Personal Note

Prayers will be appreciated.

I had an interview this afternoon at a local company. They are looking for someone to do general office work, but they do have a website over which they do a lot of business, and the president is thinking that the one-person team who maintains the website could probably use a backup now and, perhaps, some help in the future.

The best thing about this is that it's office work close to home. As opposed to retail sales or heavy manual labor or anything far from home.

Prayers for discernment all around would be appreciated.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 11/07/02 06:51:31 PM
Categorized as Other.

All the News That's Fit to Slant

Interesting errors in The New York Times.

From today's Best of the Web Today:

.... The Republicans' net loss of governorships doesn't seem to have been as great as expected, though you wouldn't know it from reading the New York Times, which published an error-filled map. Andrew Sullivan, who pointed this out, says there are five mistakes, but he undercounts. The Times map leaves Georgia and South Carolina blank and lists Alaska, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Vermont as Republican "wins." All of these states, in fact, were Republican "gains"--states whose governorships the GOP picked up from Democratic or independent incumbents. That's a total of seven errors, all in the Dems' favor....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 11/07/02 05:03:42 PM
Categorized as Media.

More on Maryland's Lt. Governor Elect

Another reader writes:

Not only is Michael Steele a black Republican, he's a practicing Roman Catholic who spent some time in an Augustinian seminary preparing for the priesthood.

And despite being a Roman Catholic Marylander who left the seminary, he's pro-life.

A pro-life Catholic lieutenant governor of Maryland. It will take some time getting used to the sound of that.

No wonder we don't hear much about his election in mainstream media: he's got three strikes against him. ;)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 11/07/02 04:42:27 PM
Categorized as Political.

Catholic Poets @ ELCore.Net

After installing Internet Explorer 6, I noticed that the individual lines in the poems at Catholic Poets @ ELCore.Net were being

I really hate that, and I certainly didn't want them to be rendered that way.

I believe I have now adjusted the pages so the lines will be displayed left-justified in IE 6. (I don't think it was ever a problem in Netscape.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 11/07/02 08:42:16 AM
Categorized as Other.

Election Coverage

Another reader writes:

Did you notice how quickly the major networks resumed their regular programming after the results were announced this morning? If the Democrats had increased their margins, the coverage would have been endless and the gloating obscene.

I had to check on Katie Couric this morning; she managed to look perky and smiley. At least she didn't wear black as she did after the Supreme Court put an end to the Florida nightmare in 2000.

Peter Jennings ashen face was worth all the anguish he has caused us conservatives over these many years with his flagrantly biased reporting. When will the networks "get it"? Maybe when the FCC pulls their licenses? I can dream.

I heard on the radio this morning that CBS Evening News last night did not lead with the election story! It was, they said, their third story!

I think I know what their reason excuse would be: it had been big news already for 12 or more hours, so why make a point of leading with it? I also think that, had the Republicans lost seats in the House (as had been expected) and had they failed to gain control of the Senate (as had been expected), CBS Evening News would have led with the story, though the outcome would have been what pretty much everybody had been expecting for at least a month or so.

The truth is this: they did not lead with the story, because it was bad news for Democrats. They would have led with the expected story, had it come true, because it would have been bad news for the Republicans.

Fortunately for all of us, more and more people are starting to see, and see through, this blatant bias.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 11/07/02 08:07:29 AM
Categorized as Media.