Bill Kassel's Blog

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

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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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Change that Matters

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PRAY FOR TRUE REFORM IN
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

For the sake of argument, let’s assume Donald Trump is as reprehensible a person as the Democrats claim he is.

If that’s the case, what does it say about them (Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party leadership) that Trump won the election?

And, no. The Russians didn’t put him in the White House. Forget that. Everyone has always known it’s a stupid assertion. As Jonathan Tobin, opinion editor of Jewish News Service, observed in the New York Post…

“[Obama] saw that the hacking was having almost no impact on the course of the campaign and thus wasn’t going to mess with the results. Far from the crime of the century, it was, at worst, a minor annoyance to Clinton that Obama obviously felt didn’t warrant a major dustup with Putin.”

After Trump won, of course, Obama had second thoughts. He decided the email hacks and their disclosure by Wikileaks amounted to a gift from Russia with love. He saw — as in a bright light — how Putin’s cyber-tinkering proved the American people wanted Hillary all along.

The better to cast doubt on the election’s legitimacy.

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“Can’t Put It Down”

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REVIEWERS AGREE THAT
MBK IS A PAGE-TURNER

A couple of posts ago I shared a review of my novel about the family of Jesus — MY BROTHER’S KEEPER — from Catholic author Deanna Klingel, who described it as…

“a story well-told, well-researched, easy to read, with fresh imagination, and beautifully written …. Here’s a book you’ll be glad you’ve read; a book of substance, a book that will leave you wanting more.”

Now Virginia Lieto and Kelly Thatcher, two Catholic writers / bloggers with their own wide followings, express the conviction that this is a book that compels you to keep reading.

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Holy Attire — Examined

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DRESSING FOR CHURCH
IS A VERY HOT TOPIC

Last Saturday’s post — in which I raised the issue of wearing slovenly and/or immodest clothing at Mass — really struck a chord.

Each of the Facebook pages and discussion groups to which I linked the article has brimmed over with “Likes.” I’ve had more hits on this piece than any other essay in the history of my blog. Numerous comments have been posted all over.

Obviously, feelings about this topic are strong.

Most people agree with the point made by both Deacon John Amthor and myself that worship attire could stand some improvement.

But not everybody.

One objector put his view quite succinctly…

“Bullsh-t. Come as you are. God don’t care about how you dress. God cares about your heart.”

He saw the idea of applying standards to our physical appearance as a “doctrine of man,” which he rejects.

Another reader — named Lamont — had a similar edge to his critique, but he offered it with considerably more wit…

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Holy Attire

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LET’S TRY TO LOOK
DECENT IN CHURCH

When I was a kid attending a Presbyterian church, people dressed to the nines for Sunday service. Ladies wore hats. Gents came in suits. Little girls carried their collection money in their lace-trimmed white gloves. Little boys wore ties — grudgingly — and did their best to keep shirt tails tucked in.

Well…that was the 50s and early 60s. Times have changed.

When I began attending Catholic Mass, I was taken aback to see slacks on the women, open-neck knit shirts on the guys. That was the 70s. Things have gone completely to hell since then.

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Ink on Paper

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MY NOVEL IS AVAILABLE
IN A NEW PRINT EDITION

eBooks may be cutting-edge — and, Lord knows, those wondrous little electronic readers have distinct advantages. But there’s something timeless and reassuring about ink on paper.

Whether you read on the beach or in the john, the printed word offers a sense of contact with an author’s writing, and the inspiration behind it, that just feels more tangible.

So, I’m pleased to announce that MY BROTHER’S KEEPER, my novel about the family of Jesus, is now available in its first commercial print edition.

You can click HERE for more information.

At the moment, the book is obtainable from one source: the website of Saint Joseph Communications. (Those are the folks who distribute the Lighthouse Catholic Media catechetical CDs you probably have on display at your church.)

But in July, Saint Joseph Communications will present my novel to book dealers at the annual Catholic Marketing Network Trade Show.

So if you prefer to support your local Catholic bookstore — and in today’s unsteady publishing market that’s a good idea — swing over to your hometown shop and put in an order. That’ll provide a “heads-up” about the book, and encourage your store operator to touch base with the Saint Joseph people at CMN.

I’m also pleased to present a review of MY BROTHER’S KEEPER by Catholic author, Deanna Klingel, who has created a delightful line of historical novels designed to be read by the whole family (with subject matter and language that’s age-sensitive for children).

Deanna is wonderfully enthusiastic about my representation of Jesus’ relatives. In a Facebook post linked to her blog she comments that MY BROTHER’S KEEPER…

“will be the best book you read this summer. I’m not a book reviewer, I don’t get paid for my comments, but I can’t stop talking about this book….

“Jews, Catholics, Protestants and non-believers can enjoy this, learn and talk. You’ll be glad you read it.”

From Deanna’s blog…

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The Deaths of the Innocents

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MEMORIAL DAY IS A GOOD TIME FOR
CAREFUL THINKING ABOUT TERRORISM

The carnage at that Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England has brought forth some really stupid statements. For instance, interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN, terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank shared that…

“in recent months in Europe there’s been a number of false flag plots where right-wing extremists have tried to frame Islamists for terrorism.”

Blessedly, Cruickshank didn’t carry this line of speculation too far. Somehow, a guy named Salman Abedi blowing himself up with a bunch of innocent little girls didn’t have a right-wing feel about it.

Perhaps the stupidest pronouncement came from Katy Perry, a member of that exalted sisterhood of pop divas to which Ariana Grande belongs…

“No barriers, no borders, we all just need to co-exist.”

Okay, Katy. I’ll ignore the implied slam at Trump’s border wall and just suggest that you and all your sister pop tarts go over to Syria, look up the ISIS guys, and deliver your impassioned plea to them.

Let me know how that turns out.

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Whatever He Damn Well Pleases

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TRUMP’S FIRST PRIORITY
IS SELF-CONTROL

Donald Trump is learning a fundamental truth of life — that our greatest strengths often contain within them our profoundest weaknesses.

Certainly The Donald’s candor and spontaneity were tremendous assets during his campaign. People loved that shoot-from-the-hip attitude by which he gave voice to their frustrations. As I observed in a blog post back in August of 2015…

“Trump is rich enough to not worry about alienating anybody. This has had a refreshingly liberating effect on his campaign style, freeing him to say whatever he damn-well-pleases about things that are obvious but politically charged.

“The public is eating it up …. People are weary of being told that what they know to be true is simply a shadow of their own fears and biases.”

They ate up all of his tweets just as eagerly. The more blunt and colloquial, the better.

Here was a guy who expressed himself “just like you and me” — who wasn’t intimidated by “The Establishment.” Maybe he really could “drain the swamp” in Washington.

For my part, I’ve often been annoyed at this Trumpian verbal bent, criticizing it as “stream-of-consciousness rambling.” But hey, it got him elected, so I guess you can’t blame the guy for assuming it’s what people want.

Now that he’s President, however, Trump is finding that the tendency to vent his inner convictions-in-formation does not serve the objectives of governance as well as it did those of ambition.

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The Coulter Effect

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BLOCKING ANN COULTER
IS HAVING CONSEQUENCES

Ann Coulter is a force of nature.

I had occasion to interview her once, sitting in as guest host on Ave Maria Radio’s flagship talk show, “Kresta In the Afternoon.” I asked her an opening question, the content of which escapes me now.

And that was that. She was off to the races.

Who can remember what she said? It didn’t really matter at the time, and it doesn’t matter today. She was just being Ann Coulter, dominating the twenty-or-so minutes of our interview.

This is the inimitable Ann Coulter style: a barrage of ideas, pointed observations, and inflammatory lines, fired at machine gun speed. It’s how she’s made her name.

The nation is blessed that her fusillades are made on behalf of conservative ideals. If her political/philosophical bent was toward the left, she’d be a genuine threat.

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