Bill Kassel's Blog

Occasional reflections on religion, culture, politics, and anything else that comes into my mind...

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A New Halloween Trick

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CULTURAL APPROPRIATION
ANOTHER WAY TO DIVIDE US

In case you don’t keep up with the swift-flowing currents of outrage on college and university campuses, one of the hottest of “hot button” issues right now is cultural appropriation.

What is cultural appropriation, you ask?

Simply stated, it’s adopting elements characteristic of particular cultural groups by people who are not of those groups. For instance, a white person who wears corn rows or dreadlocks would be considered guilty of appropriating hair styles.

If you aren’t of African heritage — so this thinking goes — you’d be trespassing on cultural territory to which you have no legitimate claim.

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Harvey Weinstein

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A TIMELY LESSON ABOUT
HOLLYWOOD HYPOCRISY

Outrage generated by The New Yorker exposé of movie producer Harvey Weinstein’s dubious sexual ethics (and apparently limitless appetites) revives old stories about the Hollywood casting couch.

I suppose it’s a positive sign that we can still be disgusted when we hear about some mogul abusing the beautiful women of La La Land. But this is really nothing new.

Gorgeous girls have always faced coercive sexual pressure. Movietown history is replete with tales of open-secret relationships, unacknowledged offspring, wild bacchanalia in the Hollywood Hills, and much else.

Consider the strong advocacy for abortion among the celebrity set. There may be more than Feminist devotion in play.

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Columbus Day

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CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
CHANGED HOW WE THINK

When I was a kid I always knew when Columbus Day was approaching. October 12 was also my mother’s birthday, and with my mom there was no forgetting that.

For some years now, an annual round of protests and critical statements have helped to build anticipation of the day on which we honor the great Genoese adventurer (in 2017 observed on Monday, October 9). This year in particular, there’s the proclamation of an alternative celebration in Los Angeles: Indigenous People’s Day.

This is meant to commemorate — or rather, to mourn? — that fabled moment, half a millennium ago, when Europe’s conquest of the Western Hemisphere began.

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An Artist’s Disappointment

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LINDA RONSTADT WAS
BETTER THAN SHE KNOWS

People who have the spark of creativity can be very hard on themselves. They’re often deeply dissatisfied with their own work.

I think pride accounts for that.

Ego is essential to creativity. You have to believe you’ve got something worthwhile to say in order to put your stuff out there for the world to see. But the reality of what you’ve created can fall short of what your pride tells you you’re capable of.

So the artist lives on a psychological rollercoaster, bouncing between the emotional rush of creativity and the realization that nothing you create will ever be perfect.

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The Great Principle

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POPE’S STATEMENT ON LITURGY
OFFERS A CHANCE FOR BALANCE

Pope Francis seems to have one ongoing mission: to stir the pot, both politically and ecclesiastically. But amid all the change and controversy, his latest pronouncement on liturgical language presents the Church with an opportunity to pursue reasonableness and balance.

The September 3 apostolic letter titled Magnum Principium (“The Great Principle”), charges the world’s bishops with greater responsibility for vernacular translations of the words we use at Mass. This move revives a controversy over worship language that has gone on with greater or lesser intensity since the Second Vatican Council. And it’s another step in the decentralizing of authority which appears to be high on the agenda of this pontificate.

According to Magnum Principium, the Holy See still retains the power of final text approval, thus ensuring fidelity to meanings embodied in the universal Latin standard. But national episcopal conferences now have greater authority to make prayers and responses better fit the linguistic structures and usages of the world’s many tongues.

To those outside the Church, all this might sound like a So-what? proposition, a procedural adjustment at most. But those who understand Catholicism and its internal stresses recognize that what Francis has done — as with his much-debated words about receiving Holy Communion in Amoris Laetitia — stokes anxiety in some quarters about the future shape of our Church and power relationships within it.

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It’s Still All About the Babies

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A DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
FOR ABORTED CHILDREN

Few things stir passionate debate, bitter feelings, and all-’round ill will more than abortion.

It’s fascinating — in a sad sort of way — to observe the stark and total contrast in views on this contentious issue. For some, abortion represents the ultimate safeguard of a woman’s freedom to find happiness and individual human fulfillment. For others it is the ultimate betrayal of our deepest and most sacred human values.

What is too often overlooked in this conflict of human absolutes is the reality of the small human who is sacrificed.

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The Alt-Middle

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A NEW MOVEMENT SNEAKS
ONTO THE POLITICAL SCENE

It seemed a strange request that we should meet at midnight by the dumpster behind Chick-fil-A. But the readers of my blog are an imaginative lot, so I wasn’t really surprised.

There I was with my antique Philips cassette recorder, doing a secret interview in response to a provocative and unsigned note sent from my Contact page.

The man shifted nervously on his feet as he stood next to my rusted Volkswagen Beetle, his face obscured by a knitted scarf.

He was clearly self-conscious about the unstylish face wrapping, and explained apologetically that he hadn’t been able to find any of those Guy Fawkes masks. You know, the ones with that creepy mustached grin.

They’re favored by activists who want to look a little sinister while remaining anonymous. But with all the street protests happening these days, novelty suppliers in China have a hard time keeping up with demand.

“I like your blog,” he said, his voice slightly muffled by the scarf. “Your posts make a lot of sense. And there aren’t too many typos.”

“Thank you,” I replied. “I try to proof my stuff before I put it up.”

“So, I’m giving you first shot at announcing our new political movement.”

“What movement is that?”

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Still Holding the Presses!

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JOURNALISM IS CRIPPLED BY
BOTH ECONOMICS & IDEOLOGY

I recently reread one of my posts from back in March of 2014, and it struck me as relevant to the news coverage we’ve been getting over the past few months — most especially in the last week as we’ve watched our media mavens discredit themselves once again. Here’s a somewhat edited version of my original post. See if you agree with its observations …

It should come as no surprise that the class I remember most fondly from my days as a Journalism major at Temple University would be Editorial Writing. But then, as I have confessed…

“I’ve always been opinionated and long-winded. Which pretty much proves I was born to blog.”

My least favorite class was Editing. It was taught by an old guy who had been a slot man for many years on a local paper, and who insisted we learn the names of every county seat in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. (Explanation: A slot man was the guy who sat in the center — or slot — of the horseshoe-shaped copy desk, directing the flow of stories to the editors seated around him.)

Spelling counted in Editing class. In fact, the course was all about accuracy and detail — which felt extremely tedious and restrictive to us students, raised as we were on equal portions of Edward R. Murrow and Clark Kent. Our idea of journalism was digging for dirt, uncovering corruption, defeating bad guys, bringing truth to the people.

Our professor’s idea was getting the names, ages and addresses right.

He used to tell us that former students who’d gone into the profession would come back years later to say how valuable his course had been to them. Which is the kind of thing guaranteed to set college kids’ eyes rolling. At least it set our eyes rolling, inclined as we were to late-1960s questioning of authority, and alert to the slightest whiff of adult pride.

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Good Luck, Kid

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SURVIVING THE POLITICS OF
HIGHER EDUCATION TODAY

The young man who lives next door is heading off to one of our state universities (which one I’ll leave unspecified). Having graduated at the top of his high school class, he’s looking forward to a career in engineering.

I wish him the best. And I pray that he emerges from the experience of modern higher education not only well prepared for a fruitful work life, but with his rationality and emotional resources intact.

Everybody knows about safe spaces and political correctness. All have heard of snowflakes and social justice warriors. The intellectual destruction of American Academe is well documented.

But this young man’s field of study will be engineering — a realm of accurate measurements, demonstrated principles, unchanging physical laws. And it’s generally assumed that, amid the many perversions of scholarly life, the quantitative, fact-based scientific / technical disciplines remain undistorted by trendy politics, free to focus on tangible reality.

With the exception of meteorology, which has been corrupted by the global-warming mafia, that’s mostly so. Mostly.

Science is still science, right? E still equals mc-squared, right?

If only it were that simple.

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Filling the Racks

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SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL
CATHOLIC BOOKSTORE

My novel about the family of Jesus — MY BROTHER’S KEEPER — was just premiered at the annual trade show of the Catholic Marketing Network.

Held in Schaumburg, Illinois, one of the fabled western suburbs of Chicago, this event is where retailers gather to check out the latest titles from Catholic publishers plus new products from manufacturers of religious objects and Catholic-themed items.

It’s a trade show much like any other, complete with eye-catching displays, free giveaways, and tireless networking. Yet, it’s unlike other business expositions in certain distinctive ways.

For instance, you aren’t likely to find Mass and confession offered during a plumbing supply expo. And how often do you run into a Eucharistic procession snaking its way through a convention center hallway?

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The Trusting Prayer

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THAT EVIL MAY BE DEFEATED
AND THAT RIGHT MAY PREVAIL

It’s hard to know how to pray these days.

The country is in such turmoil, and clearly, we need God’s help. But I find it hard to keep my daily supplication from sounding like a blog post (like my last blog post, for instance).

I know God cares about our welfare. But does He care about our politics?

How do I implore His benevolence, without presuming He endorses my particular agenda?

What’s the proper way to frame my appeal to One whose perspective is eternal and all-encompassing?

The cute graphic above — currently circulating online — hints at the difficulty of keeping willfulness from imposing itself on prayer. Apparently a lot of people face this challenge.

I suspect the answer to my quandary lies in trust. Which is to say: in trusting that God knows what’s best, and assenting to His will, no matter how He permits things to work out.

Easier said than done, I’m afraid.

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