Bill Kassel's Blog

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

bill kassel

The Shape of Things to Come

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WE’VE FINALLY SEEN THOSE EUROPEAN TERRORISTS
AL QAEDA PROMISED THEY WOULD SEND US

The title of H.G. Wells’ 1933 science fiction classic has been applied over and over to incidents or movements or products (or even people) that appear to presage future trends.  Now that the second of the Boston bombers has been captured, a startling realization has dawned:  There are Muslims who don’t look like Arabs.  Actually, they are true Caucasians, people from the Caucasus, that region largely unknown to Americans, where eastern Europe elides into western Asia.

So now, guys of Caucasian Muslim descent who’ve grown up in the United States and are really, really angry about that are being seen as “The Shape of Things to Come” in domestic terrorism. [Read more…] about The Shape of Things to Come

Misfire

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THE DEFEAT OF GUN LEGISLATION WAS A SIGN OF WEAKNESS
BUT THE ADMINISTRATION HAS MORE TRICKS UP ITS SLEEVES

There’s no doubt about it — the defeat of the gun-control bill was a setback for Barack Obama. As headlined in Britain’s Telegram, “Barack Obama can’t pass gun control despite 90 per cent support.  Truly, he is a lame-duck president.”

“Yesterday, the most modest of gun control proposals died in the Senate,” wrote Tim Stanley, Telegram U.S. political correspondent.  “It would have expanded background checks to people purchasing weapons at gun shows and online sales, enjoyed 90 percent support among the public and came on the back of the tragedy at Newtown.  Yet, despite all that it had going for it, the Toomey-Manchin bill raised just 54 votes — six short of the number necessary for passage.”NRA Logo

Obama did his best to spin the defeat as a product of disinformation on the part of the National Rifle Association and other opponents. [Read more…] about Misfire

The Boston Massacre

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WE MAY NOT LIKE THINKING ABOUT TERRORISM BUT THERE
ARE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BRING DOWN THE “GREAT SATAN”

Okay, is everybody convinced now?  We really are at war.

Sometimes it seems like all that other stuff never happened.  Not the hostage taking in Iran back under Jimmy Carter.  Not the killing of all those Marines in that barracks bombing in Lebanon during the Reagan years.  Not the hijacking of the Achille Lauro and the murder of poor, wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer.  Not the first bombing of the World Trade Center or the attack on the USS Cole.

Not even 9/11.

That was 12 years ago — can you believe it?

There’s been a whole lot of other stuff since then, too, and nobody wants to think about those, either.

Fort Hood?  Wasn’t that some kind of workplace incident?  A guy went postal or something.  Just where is Fort Hood, anyway?

Oh, we think about Afghanistan, and we argue about Iraq.  But those things happened…over there.  They were big and expensive, and they ran up the deficit and screwed up the economy, and that’s what really matters, after all.

Airplanes crashing into buildings here at home?  Well…we’re not likely to see something really dramatic like that again.  So how much damage can anybody really do to us?

Welcome to Boston. [Read more…] about The Boston Massacre

Sticker Shock

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A TEXAS CONSERVATIVE TAKES BUMBER STICKER RIVALRY
TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL OF CREATIVE ABSURDITY

In the ongoing game of dueling bumper stickers the Left has always been way ahead.

They were out in front with the terse but memorable “Save the Whales.”  There was the sappily emotive “War is harmful to children and other living things.”  And don’t forget the John Lennonesque “Give peace a chance” — a desperate but beguiling plea based on the assumption that no one ever considered the possibility that peace might be better than war until sometime around the late 1960s (and suggests it probably isn’t all that certain a proposition anyway).

CoexistMy personal favorite is “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” a feminist cry that achieved theretofore unequaled heights of ideological surrealism.  And of course, one mustn’t overlook the famous “Coexist” sticker, ubiquitous in Berkeley, Ann Arbor, and other bastions of progressivist hopefulness. [Read more…] about Sticker Shock

I Never Hide My Feelings Very Well

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Here’s another of my songs without their music.  Too often we hold back from human contact until an opportunity to touch someone has been lost.  This lyric was written back in the 1970s with my friend, Al Ferber, a poet of some distinction in Philadelphia.  Former Hillsdale College colleague, Sue Sweeney, has described it as “‘Eleanor Rigby,’ only more personal.”

 

I Never Hide My Feelings Very Well

By Bill Kassel and Al Ferber

 

Her painted face in funny colors,
her netted hair in streaks of gray,
her wrinkled stockings run and sagging,
she passes by here everyday
The flowers faded on her dresses
like wilted buds of yesterday,
she walks in slow and measured footsteps
and never pauses on her way

Sometimes I think that I should call to her
and sit with her awhile
and listen to the story she could tell
But I’m afraid she’d only see the pity in my eyes
I never hide my feelings very well
I never hide my feelings very well

 

How many gardens has she planted?
How many flowers has she sown?
How many lovers once enchanted
when she was young and on her own?
How many times I’ve looked and wondered
about the life she might have known
But still I hesitate to ask her
and she walks by here all alone

I know I’d really like to call to her
and sit with her awhile
and listen to the story she could tell
But I’m afraid she’d only see the pity in my eyes
I never hide my feelings very well
I never hide my feelings very well

 

She passed here once again this morning
I stood and watched her from my door,
her footsteps measured in my memory,
her face more painted than before,
her flowers cut and wrapped in paper
for lonely gardens of the poor
I sat remembering all my questions
She won’t pass by here anymore

And now I know I should have called to her
and sat with her awhile
and listened to the story she could tell
And maybe she’d have never seen the pity in my eyes
I guess I hide my feelings pretty well
I always hide my feelings very well.

Copyright © 1974 Bill Kassel & Al Ferber

Drum Beating

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WAR TALK IN NORTH KOREA PROBABLY HAS
MOSTLY TO DO WITH INTERNAL POLITICS

So what’s the deal, are we going to have a nuclear war with North Korea or not?

U.S. and South Korean forces are on high alert.  American naval anti-missile vessels are in place.  The Chinese are positioning troops along their border, anticipating a mass influx of North Korean refugees.  The Japanese are so nervous that a false alarm about a North Korean missile launch was released and then rescinded.

North Korea FlagAn analysis from the Associated Press speculates that Korea’s rants about how its first strikes will be “a signal flare marking the start of a holy war” are probably aimed at loosening up UN sanctions, prying money out of the big nations, and bettering its position on the peninsular chessboard. [Read more…] about Drum Beating

Mea Culpa — NOT!

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SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH MAY SHED LIGHT
ON WHY PEOPLE SHY AWAY FROM CONFESSION

You’ve all heard it at Mass: Father’s reminder that he’s available for confession at certain hours, or perhaps by appointment.  Sometimes it’s tossed off in a breezy, just-came-to-mind manner.  Sometimes there’s an edge of frustration after manning the reconciliation room for hours with no one coming in.  During Lent his hints about confession — or attending the upcoming penance service — can contain the merest tinge of threat.Confession

Priests often find it difficult to understand why people shy away from what’s regarded as the least-used sacrament.  It’s no mystery to me.  Ever since my first confession, upon becoming a Catholic, I’ve understood it clearly.  Admitting your shortcomings, faults, and stupid actions is painful.  Even humiliating.

Priests will emphasize the wonderful feeling of relief that can follow a good confession.  And indeed, I’ve experienced that relief, on those occasions when I had been carrying a heavy burden of guilt or conflict and found the sacrament truly cleansing.  But there have been other times when I’ve come away from confession not feeling cleansed at all and asking myself, “What was the point?” [Read more…] about Mea Culpa — NOT!

The Iron Lady

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A REFLECTION ON MY HOUR
WITH MARGARET THATCHER

Times CoverThe passing of Margaret Thatcher brings to mind a small experience of my own with the former British Prime Minister.

Some years ago, when I served as Director of Public Affairs for Michigan’s Hillsdale College, Baroness Thatcher was a featured speaker on campus and headliner at a major fund-raising event.  I was assigned to escort her through a tiresome series of introductions to what seemed an endless line of donors and other guests eager to meet Britain’s famous Iron Lady.

[Read more…] about The Iron Lady

Prom Night Dreams

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DO GIRLISH FANTASIES REFLECT
ACTUAL GENDER-IDENTITY CONFLICT?

Is it any wonder we sometimes feel confused by the challenges facing society today?

Especially in any issue related to sex and gender we’re faced with contradictions between claim and appearance that quickly bring us to a state of utter befuddlement, what psychologists refer to as cognitive dissonance.

Our eyes behold something we recognize as a self-evident reality, while we are told that the thing we see is not what we assume it to be — and that, in fact, we’re wrong to draw any conclusions about it at all.

Such is the case of a TV news report about a Texas student who describes himself as transgendered.  Tony Zamazal had asked for permission to attend prom at Houston-area Spring High School wearing a dress, wig, high heels, and other feminine accoutrements.

[Read more…] about Prom Night Dreams

Mass Panic

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A NEW POPE RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT LITURGY
AND THE CHURCH’S STANCE TOWARD ISLAM

The Catholic Church is not known for rapid change.

Generally speaking, practices and traditions have evolved and theological insights or doctrinal understanding been refined over centuries.  True, there were occasional marked shifts in direction — the Second Vatican Counsel most dramatic, though even in that case, it took the better part of a decade for liturgical changes inspired by the conciliar documents to be implemented. [Read more…] about Mass Panic

Ginni

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MEMORIES OF A DEAR FRIEND
FROM HIGH SCHOOL DAYS

The people who remain dearest in our memories of youth are those who shared the milestones of our lives — especially the moments of our youthful triumphs or, even more so, of our greatest youthful foolishness.  Ginni was on hand for many of mine, in both categories. [Read more…] about Ginni

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