"Most St. Bloggers See CINO as Bad Practice — Not Bad Words"

Thanks, Earl.

I've been using vide for a long time: it comes from reading so much Newman.

I've been using CINO for an even longer time:

.... Frankly, I think the prognosis is bleak. The next ten years will be critical.

May God grant Pope John Paul II multos annos! Sooner or later, though, we will have another pope. Subversive traitors, in collusion with the secular culture, have trained a large number of Catholics to believe that “outdated, archaic” moral strictures — against divorce and remarriage, artificial contraception, homosexual activity, pedophilia — and “outdated, archaic” doctrines — such as male-only priesthood — have been retained beyond their time for no reason other than the current pope is (dare I write the horrible word?) conservative.

Gradually, as Catholics-In-Name-Only (CINO) come to realize that the Catholic Church is not going to approve divorce and remarriage, artificial contraception, homosexual activity, and pedophilia, and that the Catholic Church is never going to ordain women to the priesthood because it cannot do so — gradually, the rage will build even more than it has already. CINO have been deceived: the Catholic Church maintains its doctrines and practices, not because a given pope is conservative, but because the doctrines and practices are — surprise, surprise — Catholic.

The next twenty-five years will witness a fight over the future of the Catholic Church as has not been seen since the Reformation in England, from the schism of King Henry VIII, through the draconian demolition of Catholicism under Queen Elizabeth I, and past the forced abdication of King James II.

If the Catholic Church in the USA does not begin its own reformation soon, along the lines of the prescription sketched above, it will not be able to resist the fury of “dissenters” whose desires will be further stymied by the next pope. We do not have to wonder where this will lead: we already have ample evidence. In that case, the Church will, sooner or later, go the way of the Episcopal Church in the USA....

I'm sure CINO isn't original to me, but I don't remember whence it came.

I got the idea to use lege from Bill White's Summa Minutiae.

BTW, I now have before me on the desk my own hardcover copy of Strunk & White — third edition, with index — which I purchased in 1984. Though I have always disagreed with its treatment of data (it prefers treating the word as plural), I must say that Strunk & White is why it's "Lane Core Jr." not "Lane Core, Jr." :-)

P.S. Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 04/25/04 09:04:37 PM
Categorized as Religious.

Wallowing in Nuance

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXXIII

"Do Americans want to hand over responsibility for Iraq to someone who won't even take responsibility for the car in his driveway?"

One could hardly hope to find a finer analysis & explanation of the Democrats' contemporary situation than the latest from the Inimitable One.

It's a good rule of thumb that so-called moderate opinion is several degrees to the left of popular opinion. You can test this for yourself easily enough: pick a subject such as, say, illegal immigration and compare the position of every Democratic senator, the majority of Republican senators and 90 percent of the media with the position of the American people.

That's why the press were befuddled by last week's polls. A month of Richard Clarke, the 9/11 Commission, Bob Woodward, Muqtada al-Sadr, Fallujah and Basra, and a constant drip-drip-drip of conventional wisdom on the president's "vulnerability" from the Beltway to Hollywood to the Ivy League to that brave radio station in Plattsburgh, N.Y., that's now the flagship of Al Franken's Air America ''network'' — and what happens? Bush's numbers go up and Kerry's go down.

Another six weeks of Dick Clarke's book tour, of snotty network reporters condescending to the president at his press conference, of the sneering Richard Ben Veniste and emotionally unhinged Bob Kerrey badgering Condi Rice at their hack hearings, of Bob Woodward and his unreadable book filling up slabs of CNN's prime time every night with irrelevant arcana about what did Prince Bandar know and when did he tell Woodward he knew it, another six weeks of things that make Bush ''vulnerable,'' and he'd be heading for a 49-state blowout over Kerry.

Don't get me wrong: America's still a 50/50 nation. That's to say, 50 percent of the nation backs Bush, and the other 50 percent either loathe him, or are undecided, or aren't yet paying attention to Campaign '04. I think the president's numbers should be higher.

But the problem for John Kerry is that he and the networks and the New York Times are finding it all but impossible to make any dent in the Bush half. If it is a 50/50 nation, one side's 50 percent is pretty solid and the other's a lot softer.

How can this be? Well, let's turn to our senior political analyst, the late Osama bin Laden. In his final video appearance 2-1/2 years ago, Osama observed that, when people have a choice between a strong horse and a weak horse, they go with the strong horse. But, to take that a stage further, the strong horse doesn't have to be that strong when the other fellow's flogging a dead horse.

The 9/11 Commission? Nobody cares. You can't drive the car when you're staring in the rear-view mirror. And, as those polls showed, if Americans are forcibly plonked in front of that rear-view mirror, they lay more blame on eight years of Clinton administration policy than eight months of Bush administration policy.

WMD? Another dead horse. Whether you were pro-war or anti-war had nothing to do with WMD. Bush thought Saddam Hussein had 'em, but so did the French, Germans and Russians, and they were all anti-war. For most pro-war Americans, the need to whack Saddam was more important than the pretext on which he was whacked. He was unfinished business from Sept. 10. All the rest is footnotes, more rear-view mirror stuff.

That's why even the old quagmire scenario now playing 24/7 on the cable channels doesn't work for Kerry. Visiting foreigners often remark on that popular T-shirt slogan, usually found below the Stars and Stripes: "These Colors Don't Run." To non-Americans, it seems a trifle touchy. But for a quarter-century the presumption of the country's enemies was that those colors did run — they ran from Vietnam, from the downed choppers in the Iranian desert, from Mogadishu. Even the successful campaigns — the inconclusively concluded Gulf War and the air-only Kosovo war — seemed designed to avoid putting those colors in the position of having to run. As Osama saw it, these colors ran from the African embassy bombings, and the Khobar towers, and he pretty much expected them to run from 9/11, too.

A narrow majority of Americans get this: Being seen not to run — or, if you prefer, being seen to show ''resolve'' — is now an indispensable objective of U.S. foreign policy. So, when four contractors get lynched and hung off a bridge in Fallujah, poor foolish Sen. Robert Byrd may think it's time for an ''exit strategy,'' but most Americans want to see the thugs who did it hunted down and killed.

One day it will not be necessary to sell ''These Colors Don't Run'' T-shirts. But it is as long as Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Michael Moore & Co. are twitching to add Iraq to the pockmarked pantheon of Vietnam, Iran and Somalia.

The left resists this analysis. ''Resolve,'' they say, may sound macho but it's also simplistic. Not necessarily. In today's phony-baloney world, nuanced inertia is the simple choice, the default mode of international diplomacy, of the U.N. and the European Union. When you dig into what's holding up American resolve on Iraq, the people seem to be making more subtle distinctions than their elites.

Thus, the president's numbers aren't affected by the sob sisters of CNN's Baghdad bureau filing their heartrending reports on how thousands of Baathist apparatchiks haven't been paid since they were made redundant from Saddam's Department of Genital Mutilation and Electrode Clamping last April.

U.S. public opinion is hardheaded about this: The welfare of the Iraqi people is a bonus, but the welfare of the American people is the primary objective. That's why the United States went to war.

That's the problem for the Democrats. If ''resolve'' is the issue, can you beat it with ''nuance''? If I had to name the definitive Kerry campaign headline it would be this, from Britain's (left-wing, Kerry-backing) Guardian last week: ''Kerry Says His 'Family' Owns SUV, Not He.'' That Chevy Suburban in the yard has nothing to do with him. Who you gonna believe? A respected senator or your lying eyes?

His statement is true in the sense that his ''family'' (i.e., Teresa) also owns the house and the grounds, and indeed a big chunk of his presidential campaign. But it's hard to claim that your powers of diplomatic persuasion would have won over the French and Germans when you can't even win over your ''family.'' And do Americans want to hand over responsibility for Iraq to someone who won't even take responsibility for the car in his driveway?

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

One aspect of this can be put succinctly: George W. Bush has restored to many Americans — maybe to most Americans — the pride in our country that Marxists & Marxoids have spent about four decades trying to efface.

It's about damn time we say. :-)

Communist sympathizers and/or useful idiots like John Kerry are going to have a hard time getting past that, now that the Marxists & Marxoids of mainstream media no longer have a virtual monopoly on the mass dissemination of information and opinion.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 04/25/04 03:51:59 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.

The Third Sunday of Easter

Lege.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 04/25/04 02:38:02 PM
Categorized as Religious.

Three by Dowson

Three poems by Ernest Dowson.

My Lady April

Dew on her robe and on her tangled hair;
   Twin dewdrops for her eyes; behold her pass,
   With dainty step brushing the young, green grass,
The while she trills some high, fantastic air,
Full of all feathered sweetness: she is fair,
   And all her flower-like beauty, as a glass,
   Mirrors out hope and love: and still, alas!
Traces of tears her languid lashes wear.

Say, doth she weep for very wantonness?
   Or is it that she dimly doth foresee
Across her youth the joys grow less and less,
   The burden of the days that are to be:
   Autumn and withered leaves and vanity,
And winter bringing end in barrenness.

(from "Verses")

April Love

We have walked in Love's land a little way,
   We have learnt his lesson a little while,
And shall we not part at the end of day,
      With a sigh, a smile?

A little while in the shine of the sun,
   We were twined together, joined lips, forgot
How the shadows fall when the day is done,
      And when Love is not.

We have made no vows—there will none be broke,
   Our love was free as the wind on the hill,
There was no word said we need wish unspoke,
      We have wrought no ill.

So shall we not part at the end of day,
   Who have loved and lingered a little while,
Join lips for the last time, go our way,
      With a sigh, a smile?

(from "Verses")

In Spring

See how the trees and the osiers lithe
Are green bedecked and the woods are blithe,
The meadows have donned their cape of flowers,
The air is soft with the sweet May showers,
And the birds make melody:
But the spring of the soul, the spring of the soul,
Cometh no more for you or for me.

The lazy hum of the busy bees
Murmureth through the almond trees;
The jonquil flaunteth a gay, blonde head,
The primrose peeps from a mossy bed,
And the violets scent the lane.
But the flowers of the soul, the flowers of the soul,
For you and for me bloom never again.

(from "Decorations")

The Poems of Ernest Dowson (1900), pp. 9, 38, 165. The book is on line here.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 04/25/04 07:42:12 AM
Categorized as Sunday Poetry Series.