Bill Kassel's Blog

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

bill kassel

Ideology & Politics

Trumpvirus?

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PLAYING POLITICS
WITH PEOPLE’S LIVES

Okay, it’s like this…

If Trump should bring about the scary scenario that Democrats and Never-Trumpers have been touting, and he succeeds in setting up a true Fascist regime, don’t put me in charge of the purge that follows. Given the mood I’m in, I’d stand a whole lot of people up against the wall, and put a quick end to the sedition, obstructiveness, and general nay-saying that have accompanied The Donald’s every move.

First on my list would be the New York Times desk editor who headlined a piece by columnist Gail Collins…

Let’s Call It Trumpvirus

If you’re feeling awful, you know who to blame.

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The Decline of Good Old Joe

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BIDEN’S FADING PROSPECTS
ARE A SIGN OF THE TIMES

Drawing conclusions from early primary elections is always risky, because states vary. A candidate who flops in one region can perform impressively in another part of the country. And in politics a couple of months is an eternity.

A lot can change.

Nevertheless, after Iowa and New Hampshire, things aren’t looking good for Joe Biden. There’s enough of a geographic spread between those two states to give the impression that “momentum” — the elusive sense people impute to a politician’s progress on the campaign trail — has abandoned him.

But, even allowing for the (increasingly remote) possibility of a recovery, the results of Biden’s sputtering effort would seem to imply more than just the winding down of his long career in public life. One recent incident is suggestive.

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Rush to Judgment

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GLEE ON THE LEFT ABOUT
RUSH LIMBAUGH’S CANCER

Tulsi Gabbard’s gracious tweet stands out in sharp contrast to a flood of invective that’s greeted Rush Limbaugh’s announcement of his lung cancer diagnosis. Indeed, social networks and news site comment pages have been buzzing with nasty tweets, memes and wisecracks.

Simple, direct and typical was…

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Who’s Being Dumb?

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ANTI-TRUMPERS PUSH NONSENSE
INSTEAD OF REAL CRITICISM

A video circulating on Facebook shows Donald Trump crowing about a new coin that commemorates the hundredth anniversary of women’s suffrage. In typical self-congratulatory mode he wonders why such a token wasn’t issued “a long time ago,” and boasts of being someone who can “get a lot of things done,” and so accomplished it.

The circulators of the video aren’t criticizing him for his tendency to claim credit — a trait he exhibits frequently — but for a silly slip of the tongue. Naturally, a coin commemorating an anniversary wouldn’t be issued “a long time” before the anniversary occurs. What Trump insists we should have commemorated earlier is women voting.

It’s the kind of common malapropism everyone makes from time to time. But as far as the circulators are concerned, for The Donald it’s proof positive that the “stable genius” really is “that dumb.”

Petty, petty, petty.

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Columbus Day 2019

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AGAIN WE NOTE AND DEBATE
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

Anti-Columbus fever is becoming virulent here in Michigan. State Senator Jeff Irwin has introduced legislation (Senate Bill 568) to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.

No surprise he would take the lead in such an effort. Irwin is a Democrat from Ann Arbor, which adopted the awkwardly named celebration in 2016. Home of Irwin’s alma mater, the University of Michigan (and referred to frequently as “Berkeley on the Huron”), Ann Arbor is one of eight Michigan cities that have tossed Christopher Columbus overboard.

I recently read historian Hugh Thomas’ trilogy on the Spanish conquest of what would become Latin America: Rivers of Gold (2003), The Golden Age (2010), and World Without End (2014).

It’s a fascinating book series that offers a comprehensive, balanced assessment of the goods and the bads of this world-changing historical event (a process, really, carried on over more than two centuries).

Thomas’ work makes especially evident the contrast between the U.S. experience — rooted mostly in decentralized, entrepreneurial colonialism — and what unfolded to the south, which was an importation of royalist medievalism which Latin America has never fully transcended.

At this particular moment, when slavery is much discussed, these books also make clear how limited a portion of this vast human tragedy unfolded on the soil of what would be the United States. Indeed, most — an overwhelming majority — of captured Africans were taken to Mexico, Central and South America, and the islands of the Caribbean.

I mention all this in anticipation of Columbus Day, which this year will be observed on Monday, October 14. Likewise, I offer the thoughts below, first posted on this blog back in 2017…

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Division and Disorder

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IMPEACHMENT IS THE
NEXT PLANNED TACTIC

During this now-past summer in which I’ve kept a low profile, blogging-wise, I’ve been reading, scanning the web, speaking with people, and working on a new project (to be announced soon).

And I’ve been thinking.

All that thinking — which tends to make my head hurt — has confirmed me in the opinion that the country is indeed divided.

No surprise there. That’s a pretty easy conclusion to reach.

The most obvious divisions run along left-vs.-right, Trump-vs.-anti-Trump, religious-vs.-secularist sorts of lines. But there are many other ruptures as well.

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Corporate Censorship II

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A REPLY TO SOME ARGUMENTS
IN DEFENSE OF AMAZON.COM

(This essay refers to my last post, below. If you haven’t read that, scroll down and give it a look, then come back to these current observations.)

My last post elicited several comments in defense of Amazon.com’s right to refuse carrying products its managers deemed objectionable — specifically, books by the late Catholic psychotherapist, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi.

A reader named Eric suggested…

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Corporate Censorship

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BIG MEDIA APPROVES
THE BANNING OF BOOKS

Some years back, a reader complained that Christians were always whining about being discriminated against and having their views marginalized. “You’re the largest religious group in the country,” she wrote “Nobody’s persecuting you.”

It was a sentiment that shimmered with ignorance. But it could perhaps be explained by how hard press outlets were working to obscure the many ways traditional religious ideas are systematically excluded from public discussion. At that time, suggesting people of faith weren’t able to express their opinions freely would have brought derision from across the media spectrum.

These days, making any sort of moral pronouncement that reflects a traditional faith perspective is very likely to get you called a bigot, a Nazi, a purveyor of hate — or worse. It can also get you banned from Facebook and other online platforms.

And it’s become harder to cover up that reality.

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Following the Right Map

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THE NATION’S FOUNDERS
GAVE US GOOD DIRECTIONS

The following reflection is adapted from an essay I posted on this blog for Independence Day 2014…

One summer during college I worked for the Bucks County Historical Tourist Commission. My job was to drive around eastern Pennsylvania and nearby portions of New Jersey, stocking the map racks of gas stations, restaurants, motels, and other tourist haunts with copies of “Highways of History,” a large, folded map highlighting places of historical and cultural interest in Bucks County.

My favorite place to drop them off happened also to be the best-known site on the map: Washington Crossing. This was the riverfront location from which George Washington launched his fabled Christmas-night foray across the ice-bound Delaware to attack Trenton and Princeton, turning the tide of the Revolutionary War.

The focus of Washington Crossing Historic Park (located about 30 miles northeast of Philadelphia) was the Visitors Center. This modest structure contained a museum, the requisite gift shop, and a small auditorium where tourists could view the famous painting, “Washington Crossing the Delaware.”

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I Post, Therefore I Am (2)

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POLITICAL BIAS IS NOT
APPROPRIATE OVERSIGHT

(The thoughts below were intended as a supplement to my last post. But a week of wrangling with some rather extreme upper-respiratory nonsense kept me from completing and posting them. Better late than never.)

About 20 years ago I was incubating an idea for what would eventually become two mystery novels (both of which are no longer in print). The books included a couple of characters who had (as it might have been tactfully put at the time) irregular inclinations.

In order to present their motives and reactions authentically, I turned to the Internet in search of psychological insight and analysis. It didn’t take long to discover that there was a lot more than clinical information available.

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I Post, Therefore I Am

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WE MUST FLING WIDE
THE ONLINE GATES

An item posted recently on Facebook recalled that in October of 1982 a joint House and Senate resolution acknowledged that Holy Scripture, as “the Word of God,” is “the rock on which our Republic rests,” and declared that 1983 would be celebrated as the “Year of the Bible.”

Almost four decades later — after countless debates over religious symbols in public spaces, a near-complete cleansing of faith from public education, and relentless efforts to force church-related institutions to adapt their policies and procedures to some highly questionable secular legal standards — it’s hard to imagine such a robust governmental salute to our nation’s spiritual roots.

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