CSO Continues its Reign

Even though Maestro Muti won't be at Ravinia, it's always a great time to sit on the lawn on a beautiful summer evening listening to one of the world's best symphony orchestras. Muti's coming to Chicago to lead the CSO demonstrates that this symphony continues to attract the best talent.

Ricardo Muti, CSO a potent combination New conductor brings energy, experience
By John von Rhein Tribune critic
May 11, 2008

I wouldn't blame the orchestra players for gloating up a storm right now.

With last week's announcement that Riccardo Muti will become the next music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra finds itself the envy of the symphonic world.

To make the coup even bigger, the CSO stole the brilliant and charismatic Italian maestro right out from under the New York Philharmonic, which has been unable to secure formal commitments from him, despite offering him the music directorship at least once. Muti's current guest conducting arrangement with that orchestra will cease when he begins his five-year tenure here in 2010-11.

Muti is too diplomatic to say so, of course, but the reasons he chose Chicago over New York seem implicitly clear: Chicago has the better orchestra; management promised him conditions he couldn't find in New York; and he faces nothing here like the podium competition he would encounter on the East Coast.

What A-list senior conductor in the Indian summer of a distinguished career—Muti is a vibrant 66—would not wish to set down roots here? It's the Chicago Symphony, after all.

It has not taken long for the bloggers to weigh in. There are worries that Muti's repertoire may be too conservative. The New Yorker's Alex Ross questions the "jet-set celebrity conductor" mind-set that supposedly brought Muti here, while the San Francisco Chronicle's Joshua Kosman worries that the CSO may be trading long-term security for a "short-term payoff."

If you look at Muti's programming with the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he was music director from 1980 to 1992, you'll see he conducted a fair amount of new music in many styles—including Chicago's Ralph Shapey and Shulamit Ran, Gyorgy Ligeti, Luciano Berio, Bernard Rands, William Bolcom, Christopher Rouse, Richard Wernick and Vincent Persichetti. There is no reason to assume Muti will be any less adventuresome with the CSO. He already has commissions in mind.

The CSO did not hire just a marquee name, but a marquee name who is also a superb musician and strong orchestra builder and who seems to be fully committed to the institution, the city and the community.

I don't recall anyone raising the slightest objection when the CSO hired Georg Solti—another "jet-set celebrity conductor," if you will—to take over the CSO in 1969.

In these perilous economic times, an orchestra that only recently extricated itself from years of serious deficits and is slowly reversing the audience erosion that occurred after 2001 has to ask: Which world-class conductor has the best shot at ensuring long-term solvency and artistic pre-eminence? In both respects Muti was the best, perhaps only, choice for the Chicago Symphony.
Riskier choices
Both the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic recently hitched their fortunes to talented but relatively untested young music directors, Alan Gilbert and Gustavo Dudamel respectively. It's a high-risk gamble. Each podium dervish could carry his orchestra to new heights and stir new excitement among the public; or each could crash and burn, taking his orchestra with him.

The Chicago Symphony is not a gambling orchestra. It chose age and experience over youth and flash. The modus operandi has proved spectacularly successful for the orchestra over the years. Why change now?

Beyond Solti's historic achievements in Chicago, look at all the good things Bernard Haitink, 79, and Pierre Boulez, 83, are doing in their capacity as the CSO's interim leadership team. The challenges Muti will face at the CSO will be made easier by the strong impression he has made with the musicians, public and press after only a month of concerts last September at Orchestra Hall and on the orchestra's European tour.

Already he has developed a productive working relationship with CSO association president Deborah R. Card and the rest of the staff.

"Right now I am full of enthusiasm," the music director-designate said last week, viewing his appointment in the context of his long career. "I feel like a marathon runner does when he nears the finish line. You run with even more energy because you are happy about the victory."

Clearly the management and board are looking to Muti to do for the Chicago Symphony what Michael Jordan did for the Bulls during the 1990s—pull in more people who would not ordinarily be interested in the "sport" and make them a permanent part of the crowd that cheers the home team to glory.
Promoting music
That's a tall order, but Muti says he is willing to proselytize for classical music within the community and engage with potential donors and new audience members. This immediately sets him apart from his elitist predecessor, Daniel Barenboim, who shunned responsibilities that did not relate specifically to the music.

"I believe an orchestra exists for everybody in the community, not just for the people who can afford to give money and buy tickets," said Muti.

"A music director also has to work with the sponsors to convince them the money they give to support the arts, music in particular, is something that serves the community," he added. "I am prepared to go everywhere to make people aware of the importance of music, to prepare for the next generation."

Muti's contract with the orchestra association calls for him to spend a minimum of 10 weeks a season with the CSO, at home and on tour. That is par for the course for today's jet-propelled international conductors. Those who believe it's too short a residency should remember it is about the same number of weeks Barenboim gave Chicago for most of his 15-year tenure. Whether we like it or not, the days of the live-in music director are over. (Muti says he and his wife, Christina, will be living out of Chicago hotels, at least for the time being, because, as he jokes, he can't even boil an egg for himself.)

An extremely focused musician who's known for the energy and concentration he brings to each musical project, Muti may be counted on to make maximum use of his weeks here. "For me," he said, "to be a music director means to be involved deeply in the life of an institution, not just to be the sort of conductor that conducts more weeks than others."

His 19 seasons as music director of Milan's famed Teatro alla Scala found him taking charge of many aspects of the operation of that historic opera house, just as his 12-year tenure as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra saw him stumping for funds and campaigning for the creation of the new concert facility that eventually became Verizon Hall.

Muti gained the reputation for being arrogant following his departure from La Scala in 2005, in a testy imbroglio involving members of the orchestra and other workers in the theater. Even so, I have yet to hear any Chicago musician voice the complaint that Muti is arrogant. To adhere to high standards and to expect those around you to adhere to them too is not the same as being arrogant or dictatorial, CSO members point out.

"The orchestra has adapted to Muti's musicmaking style with complete ease, and each concert [registers] a greater mutual understanding between us," said CSO assistant principal oboist Michael Henoch, a member of the search committee that enthusiastically recommended the board engage Muti.

Along with his experience as one of the world's great operatic conductors, Muti will bring a wide symphonic repertoire to Chicago, as his voluminous discography proves.

He has recorded complete cycles of the Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann and Tchaikovsky symphonies, with notable success. He conducts a great deal of Haydn, Mozart, Bruckner and other German and Austrian works central to the CSO's repertoire, even if Mahler has claimed his attention only selectively. No living conductor has done more to bring the broad range of Italian music to audiences, from Giovanni Pergolesi to Berio. He should fit fine into the orchestra's musical tradition.

We can expect him to bring concert opera back to Orchestra Hall, just as he did in Philadelphia. His 20th Century repertoire is wider than commonly believed. He has championed the music of Hindemith, Dallapiccola, Petrassi, Ligeti, Britten and Shostakovich to wide acclaim. His taste in contemporary music is a good deal more inclusive than Barenboim's. Also, as one blogger who had been disgruntled with Barenboim's programming observes, Muti doesn't do Elliott Carter.

Muti is famed as a strict-constructionist conductor who gives you the score and nothing but the score. As with all such generalities, that is far from the whole story. While he is well known for preventing the singers with whom he works from inserting unwritten notes into certain arias, the maestro is by no means pedantic about doing everything come scritto (as written). Flexibility is key to his approach.
Man of culture
So exacting is his ear for orchestral sonority that you are unlikely to mistake his Debussy for his Wagner. The jury is still out about his Mozart. The Muti performances I have heard have tended to overly prettify Mozart in a romantic style Orchestra Hall heard rather too much of under Daniel Barenboim.

A man of wide culture, Muti advises musicians and audience members wishing to better understand the meaning of a given piece of music to consider it in the context of contemporaneous art works—a mass by the Italian composer Luigi Cherubini alongside the sculptures of neoclassical Italian sculptor Antonio Canova, for example.

Given his ear for clean-lined objectivity in performance, he has sometimes been likened to Arturo Toscanini, a great predecessor at La Scala. That may be true for certain performances of certain pieces, but Muti, in the last analysis, is his own man.

And he is a masterful architect of orchestral sound and structure.

It was clear from his CSO performances of Scriabin, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky last September that he can pull from this orchestra nuances of sonority, line, phrasing and articulation that it did not know it possessed while making something viscerally exciting of the whole.

Based on everything I know about how Muti and the CSO function together, I predict some spectacular concerts are in the offing. I believe the maestro and his musicians are going to be very, very good for each other over the long haul. And together they will be very, very good for the city and its standing in the cultural world.

jvonrhein@tribune.com
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

Chris W. Cox's Remarks at NRA's 137th Annual Mtg

Best Ever

(Another) Great Mark Steyn Column

Killing Her Softly
Hillary Clinton and the contradictions of the West.

By Mark Steyn

‘Someone wins, someone doesn’t win, that’s life,” Nancy Kopp, Maryland’s treasurer, told the Washington Post. “But women don’t want to be totally dissed.” She was talking about her political candidate, Hillary Clinton. Democratic women are feeling metaphorically battered by the Obama campaign. “Healing The Wounds Of Democrats’ Sexism,” as the Boston Globe

headline put it, will not be easy. Geraldine Ferraro is among many prominent Democrat ladies putting up their own money for a study from the Shorenstein Center at Harvard to determine whether Senator Clinton’s presidential hopes fell victim to party and media sexism. How else to explain why their gal got clobbered by a pretty boy with a resume you could print on the back of his driver’s license, a Rolodex apparently limited to neo-segregationist racebaiters, campus Marxist terrorists and indicted fraudsters, and a rhetorical surefootedness that makes Dan Quayle look like Socrates. “On this Memorial Day,” said Barack Obama last Monday, “as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today…”

Hey, why not? In Obama’s Cook County, Illinois, many fallen heroes from the Spanish-American War still show up in the voting booths come November. It’s not unreasonable for some of them to turn up at an Obama campaign rally, too.

But what of the fallen heroine? If it’s any consolation to Senator Clinton, she’s not the only female to find that social progress is strangely accommodating of old-time sexism. There was a front-page story in London last week about a British Indian couple in Birmingham — she’s 59, he’s 72 — who’d had twins through in vitro fertilization and then abandoned the babies at the hospital when they turned out to be daughters, announcing their plans to fly back to India for another round of IVF in hopes of getting a boy. In the wake of the media uproar, the parents now claim something got “lost in translation” and have been back to the hospital to visit the wee bairns. But think of mom and dad as the Democratic party and the abandoned daughters as Hillary, and it all makes sense.

There’s a lot of that about. Sex-selective abortion is a fact of life in India, where the gender ratio has declined to 1,000 boys to 900 girls nationally, and as low as 1,000 boys to 300 girls in some Punjabi cities. In China, the state-enforced “one child” policy has brought about the most gender-distorted demographic cohort in global history, the so-called guang gun — “bare branches.” If you can only have one kid, parents choose to abort girls and wait for a boy, to the point where in the first generation to grow to adulthood under this policy there are 119 boys for every 100 girls. In practice, a “woman’s right to choose” turns out to mean the right to choose not to have any women.

And what of the Western world? Between 2000 and 2005, Indian women in England and Wales gave birth to 114 boys for every 100 girls. A similar pattern seems to be emerging among Chinese, Korean, and Indian communities in America. “The sex of a firstborn child in these families conformed to the natural pattern of 1.05 boys to every girl, a pattern that continued for other children when the firstborn was a boy,” wrote Colleen Carroll Campbell in the St Louis Post-Dispatch the other day. “But if the firstborn child was a girl, the likelihood of a boy coming next was considerably higher than normal at 1.17-to-1. After two girls, the probability of a boy's birth rose to a decidedly unnatural 1.51-to-1.”

By midcentury, when today’s millions of surplus boys will be entering middle age, India and China are expected to account for a combined 50 percent of global GDP. On present trends, they will be the most male-heavy societies that have ever existed. As I wrote in my book America Alone, unless China’s planning on becoming the first gay superpower since Sparta, what’s going to happen to all those excess men? As a general rule, large numbers of excitable lads who can’t get any action are not a recipe for societal stability. Unless the Japanese have invented amazingly lifelike sex robots by then (think Austin Powers’s “fembots”), we’re likely to be in a planet-wide rape epidemic and a world of globalized industrial-scale sex slavery. And what of the Western world? Canada and Europe are in steep demographic decline and dependent on immigration to sustain their populations. And — as those Anglo-Welsh statistics suggest — many of the available immigrants are already from male-dominated cultures and will eventually be male-dominated numbers-wise, too: circa 2020, the personal ads in the Shanghai classifieds seeking SWF with good sense of humor will be defining “must live locally” as any zipcode this side of Mars.

Smaller families may mean just a boy or a girl for liberal Democrats, but in other societies it means just a boy. The Indian writer Gita Aravamudan calls this the “female feticide.” Colleen Carroll Campbell writes that abortion, “touted as the key to liberating future generations of women,” has become instead “the preferred means of eradicating them”. And, while it won’t eradicate all of them, Philip Longman, a demographer of impeccably liberal credentials, put the future in a nutshell in the title of his essay: “The Return Of Patriarchy.”

Enlightened progressives take it for granted that social progress is like technological progress — that women’s rights are like the internal combustion engine or the jet aeroplane: once invented they can’t be uninvented. But that’s a careless assumption. There was a small, nothing story out of Toronto this week — the York University Federation of Students wants a campus-wide ban on any pro-life student clubs. Henceforth, students would be permitted to debate abortion only “within a pro-choice realm”, as the vice-president Gilary Massa put it. Nothing unusual there. A distressing number of student groups are inimical to free speech these days. But then I saw a picture of the gung-ho abortion absolutist: Gilary Massa is a young Muslim woman covered in a hijab.

On such internal contradictions is the future being built. By “The Return Of Patriarchy,” Philip Longman doesn’t mean 1950s sitcom dads. No doubt Western feminists will be relieved to hear that.

© 2008 Mark Steyn

I just love the piece at the end -- the part about the proposal to suppress anyone from promoting pro-life views. You may recall that Weather Channel meteorologist Heidi Cullen made a similar proposal: that any meteorologist who denied the "fact" of global warming be decertified and not allowed to work as a meteorologist.

What is it about liberals that they find it so abhorrent that they should have to defend their views in the marketplace of ideas?

Decisions, Decisions

Recently acquired this:

to go with this ...

... and this.
















Now, I have to decide whether to get rid of one, or keep all three. :-)

Thank God for Those Who Serve

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln

You're Probably Going to ...

... regret this decision in the morning.

Appease, Appease Me

Boy, did you hear how Pres. Bush totally dissed Barak Obama? Wow, did he trash Barry big time. In case you missed it, here's what W had to say:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

What? You missed it? What do you mean he didn't even mention the hyper-sensitive liberal. Kind of makes you wonder why Obama made such a stink about it. I mean, if he saw himself in Bush's words, I guess there must be something there to see. In other words, Bush struck a nerve.

Here's the inimitable Mark Steyn's take on it:

Mark Steyn: Obama an appeaser? How dare you

"That's enough. That – that's a show of disrespect to me."

That was Barack Obama, a couple of weeks back, explaining why he was casting the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into outer darkness. It's one thing to wallow in "adolescent grandiosity" (as Scott Johnson of the Powerline Web site called it) when it's a family dispute between you and your pastor of 20 years. It's quite another to do so when it's the 60th anniversary celebrations of one of America's closest allies.

President Bush was in Israel the other day and gave a speech to the Knesset. Its perspective was summed up by his closing anecdote – a departing British officer in May 1948 handing the iron bar to the Zion Gate to a trembling rabbi and telling him it was the first time in 18 centuries that a key to the gates of the Jerusalem was in the hands of a Jew. In other words, it was a big-picture speech, referencing the Holocaust, the pogroms, Masada – and the challenges that lie ahead. Sen. Obama was not mentioned in the text. No Democrat was mentioned, save for President Truman, in the context of his recognition of the new state of Israel when it was a mere 11 minutes old.

Nonetheless, Barack Obama decided that the president's speech was really about him, and he didn't care for it. He didn't put it quite as bluntly as he did with the Rev. Wright, but the message was the same: "That's enough. That's a show of disrespect to me." And, taking their cue from the soon-to-be nominee's weirdly petty narcissism, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Joe Biden and Co. piled on to deplore Bush's outrageous, unacceptable, unpresidential, outrageously unacceptable and unacceptably unpresidential behavior.

Honestly. What a bunch of self-absorbed ninnies. Here's what the president said:

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

It says something for Democrat touchiness that the minute a guy makes a generalized observation about folks who appease terrorists and dictators the Dems assume: Hey, they're talking about me. Actually, he wasn't – or, to be more precise, he wasn't talking onlyabout you.

Yes, there are plenty of Democrats who are in favor of negotiating with our enemies, and a few Republicans, too – President Bush's pal James Baker, whose Iraq Study Group was full of proposals to barter with Iran and Syria and everybody else. But that general line is also taken by at least three of Tony Blair's former Cabinet ministers and his senior policy adviser, and by the leader of Canada's New Democratic Party and by a whole bunch of bigshot Europeans. It's not a Democrat election policy, it's an entire worldview. Even Barack Obama can't be so vain as to think his fly-me-to-[insert name of enemy here]concept is an original idea.

Increasingly, the Western world has attitudes rather than policies. It's one thing to talk as a means to an end. But these days, for most midlevel powers, talks arethe end, talks without end. Because that's what civilized nations like doing – chit-chatting, shooting the breeze, having tea and crumpets, talking talking talking. Uncivilized nations like torturing dissidents, killing civilians, bombing villages, doing doing doing. It's easier to get the doers to pass themselves off as talkers then to get the talkers to rouse themselves to do anything.

And, as the Iranians understand, talks provide a splendid cover for getting on with anything you want to do. If, say, you want to get on with your nuclear program relatively undisturbed, the easiest way to do it is to enter years of endless talks with the Europeans over said nuclear program. That's why that Hamas honcho endorsed Obama: They know he's their best shot at getting a European foreign minister installed as president of the United States.

Mo Mowlam was Britain's Northern Ireland secretary and oversaw the process by which the IRA's Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness became ministers of a Crown they decline to recognize. By 2004, she was calling for Osama bin Laden to be invited to "the negotiating table," having concluded he was no different from Adams: Stern fellow, lots of blood on his hands, but no sense getting on your high horse about all that; let's find out what he wants and give him part of it.

In his 2002 letter to the United States, bin Laden has a lot of grievances, from America's refusal to implement Sharia law to Jew-controlled usury to the lack of punishment for "President Clinton's immoral acts." Like Barack Obama's pastor, bin Laden shares the view that AIDS is a "Satanic American invention." Obviously, there are items on the agenda that the free world can never concede on – "President Clinton's immoral acts" – but who's to say most of the rest isn't worth chewing over?

This will be the fault line in the post-Bush war debate over the next few years. Are the political ambitions of the broader jihad totalitarian, genocidal, millenarian – in a word, nuts? Or are they negotiable? President Bush knows where he stands. Just before the words that Barack Obama took umbrage at, he said:

"There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously."

Here are some words of Hussein Massawi, the former leader of Hezbollah:

"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."

Are his actions consistent with those words? Amazingly so. So, too, are those of Hezbollah's patrons in Tehran.

President Reagan talked with the Soviets while pushing ahead with the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. He spoke softly – after getting himself a bigger stick. Sen. Obama is proposing to reward a man who pledges to wipe Israel off the map with a presidential photo-op to which he will bring not even a twig. No wonder he's so twitchy about it.

Remember Iraq?

Sure, you do. It's a "quagmire", remember? But, the news from Iraq has been muted lately. Here's a great piece from Ralph Peters of the New York Post explaining why.

SUCCESS IN IRAQ: A MEDIA BLACKOUT

By RALPH PETERS

May 20, 2008 -- DO we still have troops in Iraq? Is there still a conflict over there?

If you rely on the so-called mainstream media, you may have difficulty answering those questions these days. As Iraqi and Coalition forces pile up one success after another, Iraq has magically vanished from the headlines.

Want a real “inconvenient truth?” Progress in Iraq is powerful and accelerating.

But that fact isn’t helpful to elite media commissars and cadres determined to decide the presidential race over our heads. How dare our troops win? Even worse, Iraqi troops are winning. Daily.

You won’t see that above the fold in The New York Times. And forget the Obama-intoxicated news networks - they’ve adopted his story line that the clock stopped back in 2003.

To be fair to the quit-Iraq-and-save-the-terrorists media, they have covered a few recent stories from Iraq:

* When a rogue US soldier used a Koran for target practice, journalists pulled out all the stops to turn it into “Abu Ghraib, The Sequel.”

Unforgivably, the Army handled the situation well. The “atrocity” didn’t get the traction the whorespondents hoped for.

* When a battered, bleeding al Qaeda managed to set off a few bombs targeting Sunni Arabs who’d turned against terror, that, too, received delighted media play.

* As long as Baghdad-based journalists could hope that the joint US-Iraqi move into Sadr City would end disastrously, we were treated to a brief flurry of headlines.

* A few weeks back, we heard about another Iraqi company - 100 or so men - who declined to fight. The story was just delicious, as far as the media were concerned.

Then tragedy struck: As in Basra the month before, absent-without-leave (and hiding in Iran) Muqtada al Sadr quit under pressure from Iraqi and US troops. The missile and mortar attacks on the Green Zone stopped. There’s peace in the streets.

Today, Iraqi soldiers, not militia thugs, patrol the lanes of Sadr City, where waste has replaced roadside bombs as the greatest danger to careless footsteps. US advisers and troops support the effort, but Iraq’s government has taken another giant step forward in establishing law and order.

My fellow Americans, have you read or seen a single interview with any of the millions of Iraqis in Sadr City or Basra who are thrilled that the gangster militias are gone from their neighborhoods?

Didn’t think so. The basic mission of the American media between now and November is to convince you, the voter, that Iraq’s still a hopeless mess.

Meanwhile, they’ve performed yet another amazing magic trick - making Kurdistan disappear.

Remember the Kurds? Our allies in northern Iraq? When last sighted, they were living in peace and building a robust economy with regular elections, burgeoning universities and municipal services that worked.

After Israel, the most livable, decent place in the greater Middle East is Iraqi Kurdistan. Wouldn’t want that news getting out.

If the Kurds would only start slaughtering their neighbors and bombing Coalition troops, they might get some attention. Unfortunately, there are no US or allied combat units in Kurdistan for Kurds to bomb. They weren’t needed. And (benighted people that they are) the Kurds are pro-American - despite the virulent anti-Kurdish prejudices prevalent in our Saudi-smooching State Department.

Developments just keep getting grimmer for the MoveOn.org fan base in the media. Iraq’s Sunni Arabs, who had supported al Qaeda and homegrown insurgents, now support their government and welcome US troops. And, in southern Iraq, the Iranians lost their bid for control to Iraq’s government.

Bury those stories on Page 36.

Our troops deserve better. The Iraqis deserve better. You deserve better. The forces of freedom are winning.

Here in the Land of the Free, of course, freedom of the press means the freedom to boycott good news from Iraq. But the truth does have a way of coming out.

The surge worked. Incontestably. Iraqis grew disenchanted with extremism. Our military performed magnificently. More and more Iraqis have stepped up to fight for their own country. The Iraqi economy’s taking off. And, for all its faults, the Iraqi legislature has accomplished far more than our own lobbyist-run Congress over the last 18 months.

When Iraq seemed destined to become a huge American embarrassment, our media couldn’t get enough of it. Now that Iraq looks like a success in the making, there’s a virtual news blackout.

Of course, the front pages need copy. So you can read all you want about the heroic efforts of the Chinese People’s Army in the wake of the earthquake.

Tells you all you really need to know about our media: American soldiers bad, Red Chinese troops good.

Is Jane Fonda on her way to the earthquake zone yet?

Taking it to the Moonbats

My new favorite blog is Moonbattery. It's not only very well informed, it's also very witty and dead-on accurate in skewering liberals. This site calls for regular visits. Here are a couple of recent posts for your enjoyment:

Heidi Cullen Openly Advocates Using Weather Channel for Propaganda

At least the Weather Channel's leftist "climate expert" Heidi Cullen is forthcoming about her belief that even weather reports and Google Earth should bend to her political agenda.

At a circle jerk entitled "Covering a Changing Climate: The Media Challenge," Cullen announced that TWC's Weather.com is "the most powerful tool that exists" for duping the gullible into believing in the global warming hoax. She wants to use Google Earth to simulate the catastrophic changes that would allegedly occur if the hoax were real.

The Weather Channel's founder John Coleman has loudly denounced the increasingly preposterous hoax, even pointing out that Al Gore ought to be sued for fraud. But the outfit has been taken over by moonbats like Cullen, who is "horrified" that her objectivity has been questioned, despite being such a bare-knuckle ideologue that she called for meteorologists who won't play along with the hoax to be silenced with decertification.

Meanwhile, desperate hoaxers have been forced to admit there won't be any global warming for the next seven years — but after that we're really in trouble unless we cough up more money now.

Cullen proves that with moonbats, even the weather is a lie.

DNC Inflicts Totalitarian Moonbattery on Its Own Convention

The Democratic National Convention will offer a glimpse of future life in America if Dems are able to impose their absurd yet increasingly repressive liberal fascism:

Fried foods are forbidden at the [Denver 2008 Host Committee's] 22 or so events, as is liquid served in individual plastic containers. Plates must be reusable, like china, recyclable or compostable. The food should be local, organic or both.

Denver is semi-arid and up in the mountains. Local produce consists of Coors and pine cones.

It gets even crazier:

And caterers must provide foods in "at least three of the following five colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white," garnishes not included, according to a Request for Proposals, or RFP, distributed last week.

Why not? If Dems weren't pathologically obsessed with color, Obama wouldn't be on the ballot.

Obama Repackages Himself as Christian for Kentucky

Despite downplaying expectations regarding the May 20 primary, Obama is making a big push for Kentucky. Here's how he's marketing himself to the locals, who are evidently suspected of clinging to their Bibles like they do in rural Pennsylvania:

Apparently they couldn't think of a way to work a gun into the picture — or to get the arrogant sneer off Obama's face.

Passing off the abortion-friendly Obama as a Christian candidate is particularly risible in light of his religious background. Raised a Muslim, he was converted to Black Liberation Theology by Jeremiah "God damn America" Wright.

Although Black Liberation Theology adherents may call themselves Christians, their pernicious cult is distinguishable from Nation of Islam mainly by its emphasis on leftist economics. They worship not Christ, but Marxism and their hatred of white people. To quote Wright's hero James Cone:

What we need is the destruction of whiteness, which is the source of human misery in the world.

They work in Jesus by blaming Caucasian Romans for the Crucifixion. I doubt many churchgoers in Kentucky would recognize Obama's black supremacist Christ.

God help white people if Obama's version of Jesus were real.

'Nuff Said!

Protecting Idiots from Themselves

Here's a good op-ed.

Leonard Pitts: Freedom's Less-considered Costs
09:53 AM CDT on Monday, May 12, 2008

I'd like to think it was the sangria talking.

But the plain truth is, when Anna said she doesn't find this country to be especially free, it was Anna talking. Granted, her complaint is hardly new. People often grouse about the lack of freedom in the land of the free.

But you see, Anna is from Estonia, a former republic of the old Soviet Union. As in, the Evil Empire, world's leading exporter of communism. So when Anna says she feels less free in the United States, where she now lives, than in the once-totalitarian regime where she was born, well ... it gets your attention. And when she says Americans sometimes remind her of the gray, fatalistic men and women who shuffled along under communism, unwilling to think too deeply, say too much or laugh too loudly for fear of offending the State, it is striking, to say the least.

You won't know Anna from Estonia. She is a friend's fiance and these insights were not part of some think tank paper but, rather, came in the ebb and flow of table talk one recent night at a Mexican restaurant. Still, I think Anna is onto something.

Americans, she said, love to trumpet their freedom. But it's hard to square that with political correctness that straitjackets communication for fear of giving unintended offense, hair-trigger litigiousness that requires major corporations to treat customers ("Caution: Coffee is hot") like idiots for fear of being sued, zero-tolerance policies and mandatory sentencing guidelines that remove human judgment from human encounters for fear of rendering unequal justice.

You do not have to agree that Americans compare unfavorably with the dull and dispirited Party men and women of a generation ago – I don't – to believe Anna has a point. A nation of iconoclasts and originals seems hellbent on becoming a nation of hall monitors. A nation born in revolution has lived to see revolution neutered and co-opted. So much so that even that which poses as a threat to the status quo (hip-hop, for example) nowadays has commercial sponsorship and corporate tie-ins.

It's hard to imagine an Elvis Presley happening in such an era. Or a Malcolm X, a Miles Davis, a Marlon Brando, a Bob Dylan, a Walt Disney, a Betty Friedan or any of the other American originals who pole-axed the 20th century. After all, originality is anathema to uniformity and, make no mistake, uniformity is what we're talking about here, the campaign to regulate language, law, culture and every other aspect of human intercourse in the hope of thereby removing from that intercourse every hint of risk or danger of unequal treatment.

And if this impulse toward uniformity sounds noble in theory, what it leads to in practice is kids kicked out of school because Midol violates the zero-tolerance drug policy or a guy getting 25 to life because the pizza he stole violates the three-strike law.

And, too, it leads to Anna from Estonia making it a point to show visiting friends a sight they could never see in the old country. They laugh, they point, they whip out cameras and take pictures. Of the Everglades? No. Of Mount Rushmore or Lady Liberty? No.

Anna said they take pictures of the idiot signs. These she said, crack her friends up. "Caution: Coffee is hot." Apparently, elsewhere in the world, you don't need a sign to know this.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald. His e-mail address is lpitts@miamiherald.com.

"Idiot signs" is a great term for these warnings.

My personal favorite is the warning on my frozen pizza which soberly warns me to remove the plastic wrapper and cardboard tray before putting the pizza in the oven. Whew. Thanks for the heads-up!

20 Years in a Federal Prison for what??

I don't know if you're familiar with the Megan Meier story. (If not, you can get the background here and in the article below.) Now, I think what this lady did was despicable, but punishments need to fit the crime. Harrasing a teenager over the Internet, even if that teen later commits suicide, does not merit a 20-year jail sentence.

Woman Indicted in MySpace Suicide Case

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

LOS ANGELES — In a highly unusual use of a federal law generally employed in computer fraud cases, a federal grand jury here on Thursday indicted a Missouri woman accused of using a phony online identity to trick and taunt a 13-year-old girl, who committed suicide in response to the cyberbaiting.

The woman, Lori Drew, was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing a computer without authorization and via interstate commerce to obtain information to inflict emotional distress. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Ms. Drew lives in O’Fallon, Mo., where, according to the indictment, she created a MySpace account under the name Josh Evans in 2006. Prosecutors said she used the social networking account to contact a young girl named in the indictment as M.T.M. with sexually charged messages from “Josh.” The girl, who has been identified by her mother as Megan Meier, was a former friend of Ms. Drew’s daughter.

After a few weeks of chatting, “Josh Evans” began to send Megan nasty messages, via the MySpace account, ending with one that suggested “the world would be a better place” without her. Megan, believing she had been rejected by “Josh,” committed suicide in her home.

Missouri law enforcement officials said they had not found enough evidence to bring charges in the case, and Ms. Drew, who was 48 when Megan died, has repeatedly denied creating the account.

But because MySpace, a unit of Fox Interactive Media, is based in Beverly Hills, Calif., and its server is here, federal prosecutors decided to wield a federal statute that is generally used to prosecute fraud that occurs across state lines.

The statute applies in the case, the indictment says, because by violating the user agreement of MySpace, which prohibits phony accounts, Ms. Drew was seeking information “to further a tortuous act, namely, intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

“To my knowledge it is the first case of its kind in the nation,” said Thomas P. O’Brien a United States attorney in California. “But when an adult violates terms on a MySpace account to gain information that creates this type of reaction, it caused this office to take a really hard look.”

Calls to Megan’s parents, Tina and Ron Meier, were not returned Thursday. Mr. Meier told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “It’s a good day. It’s an awesome feeling.”

Ms. Drew’s lawyer, H. Dean Steward, said: “I am deeply disappointed. We thought when the St. Louis prosecutors took a look at the case and decided not to bring charges that was the end of it. I don’t think the statute they used fits the facts in the indictments.”

Ms. Drew is scheduled to be arraigned in Los Angeles in June.

Experts were skeptical that the charges would withstand close legal scrutiny.

“It is an extremely aggressive indictment,” said Rebecca Lonergan, a law professor at the University of Southern California and a former federal prosecutor. “I have never in 18 years as a prosecutor seen the statute used that way. Cybercrimes is a relatively new area, but I am not sure this statute technically covers the essence of the harm.”

Officials at MySpace said in a written statement, “MySpace does not tolerate cyberbullying and is cooperating fully with the U.S. attorney in this matter.”

Various state and local governments have passed or introduced laws that prohibit cyberbullying, often through requirements that school districts have cyberbullying policies.

“I have concerns about the term ‘cyberbullying’ being applied to this situation,” said Nancy Willard, executive director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use. “Cyberbullying usually occurs between peers. It is not this kind of action.”

Ms. Willard, who is also a former lawyer, said she also had doubts about the prosecutor’s tactics. “I, like everyone else, would like to see Lori Drew see her comeuppance,” she said, “but I have some concerns. I don’t think the statute was written to apply to this case.”

Blast Off

A reason why it might make sense to vote for McCain ...
... kind of.

The next President will almost certainly be putting one or more people on the Supreme Court. The prime opportunity will come from Justice John Paul Stevens. Right now he is 88 years old. I suspect that, even if he doesn't have health issues, the thought of retirement must be on his mind. Also, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsgburg is 75. I also heard somewhere that she does, in fact, have health issues.

So, it seems probable that the next president will be putting one, maybe two, people on the Supreme Court.

The "kind of" comes in because who the president picks and what kind of Justice they turn out to be is not exactly a scientific process.

Ronald Reagan put Sandra Day O'Connor on the Court and she was considered moderate; he also put Scalia on the Court who is obviously a conservative. Same president, same criteria, different results. Then you have David Souter -- one of the most liberal Justices -- who was put on the Court by a Republican, the first President Bush. (I'll bet he's still not talking to the numb-skull (Warren Rudman) who vouched for him.)

Of course, the most famous Supreme Court nomination "gaffe" would be the infamous Earl Warren -- who never knew a criminal he didn't want to coddle. He was put on the Court by Republican President Eisenhower -- who is later alleged to say that nominating Warren was "the biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made" (I wonder if Warren Rudman was in the Eisenhower administration).

The bottom line is that a President Obama would nominate reliable liberals to the Court. A President McCain may or may not nominate a "conservative"; and, any Justice he nominates may or may not turn out to be conservative. However, there's zero chance of getting a solid Justice from Obama. At least there's a slight chance McCain could pick a good Justice (even a blind hog finds the occasional acorn).

The question then -- does this "slight chance" of a good Justice justify a vote for McCain?

How the Dems Intend to Get Tough on Terrorists

Thomas Sowell's 'Random Thoughts'

Some samples of why he is the best:

• A review of one of the many environmentalist books says that even if you can't do all you would like toward "living green," you can at least "congratulate yourself on taking small steps to improve the planet." That is what environmentalism — and much else on the political left's agenda — is really all about, self congratulation.
• Whenever I hear terrorists referred to in the media as "militants," it is a painful reminder that we have degenerated to the point where we no longer even have the courage to talk straight.
• One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans — anything except reason.
• We all believe that people are innocent until proven guilty. Some on the left believe that they are innocent even after being proven guilty.
• Of all the presidential candidates in both parties, Barack Obama is the best performer on stage. He has the most presence, the most command of his words, the most quietly dramatic style. What he actually says, however, is mostly warmed-over 1960s ideas that have been failing ever since.

Put Me Out To Pasture

Boy, do I feel old. Just this week I learned of the "Rick Roll" meme, the "latest" Internet rage. Now, in the same week, I find out that "Rick Roll" is over, its passe, it's already 16 minutes into its 15 minutes of fame. Get the details here.

Remember the 'Zune'?
that's OK, neither do I

I saw this article in the Journal today and my mind starting wandering. The focus of the article is about the social networking site, MySpace, coming out with its own music service to try and take on Apple's iTunes. (Good luck guys).

What got my mind wandering was last part of the first paragraph:

MySpace and the music industry unveiled Thursday an online music service to challenge Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store, even as the digital retailer announced it has become the top music seller in the country after less than five years in the business.

I'd say that calls for a little more fanfare than an aside in an article about the latest pretender to the iPod/iTunes throne. I guess the reporter could be forgiven for taking world iPod hegemony for granted. But, perhaps someone could give this guy a little perspective.

Five years ago, Apple was a pc maker struggling just to stay afloat as a viable alternative to the nearly universal Windows monopoly. Then Apple introduces the iPod and ignites a world-wide digital music revolution. The iPod conquers the world and, by necessity and in consequence, iTunes creates an entirely new market for online digital music services. And don't forget, the wild success of the iPod has had no little impact on the success of subsequent Mac computers.

So, to summarize, Apple creates the iPod. Five short years after its introduction, it is the most dominant and unquestioned leader in the multi-billion dollar digital music device market it created. Can you even think of any viable competitors to it? The 'Zune'? Sure, yeah, right.

As a consequence of the success of the iPod, five years later, iTunes is the country's (and probably the world's) market leader, not just in the online music services market it created, but in the multi-billion dollar retail music services market. I take this to mean, iTunes sells more music than any other retail outlet: amazon, Wal-Mart, Tower Records, etc.

As a further consequence, Mac computers are selling pretty briskly as well, thank you very much.

That one iPod device created and globally dominates two industry markets and provides a significant boost to a third. Somehow I doubt that was even in the upside projections when the Apple folks put their business case to Steve Jobs 5 years ago.

To say the iPod has exceeded their expectations would be a slight understatement. My guess is that business schools will be doing case studies on the iPod a hundred years from now and still get blown away.

Santo Subito!

Pope remembers John Paul as sainthood pleas grow

Wed Apr 2, 2008 9:55am EDT

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Catholics around the world on Wednesday marked the third anniversary of Pope John Paul's death and Vatican officials said they were receiving a steady stream of pleas from the faithful convinced he was a saint.

Pope Benedict, John Paul's successor, presided at a solemn Mass before tens of thousands of people in St Peter's Square, from the same spot on the steps of the basilica where John Paul's simple wooden coffin lay three years ago.

"For many days, the Vatican basilica and this very square were really the heart of the world," Benedict said in his sermon as members in the crowd waved flags of the late pope's Polish homeland and banners bearing his image.

Benedict did not use the word "saint" in his sermon but said John Paul had "many human and supernatural qualities" and was a mystic endowed with exceptional spiritual sensitivities.

Crowds at John Paul's funeral on April 8, 2005 chanted "Santo Subito" ("Make him a saint now").

In May, 2005, Benedict put John Paul on the fast track by dispensing with Church rules that normally impose a five-year waiting period after a candidate's death before the procedure that leads to sainthood can even start.

The first phase of the process for his beatification, the last step before sainthood, is now nearly complete. Church officials say they have found a miracle attributed to the intercession of the late pope with God.

Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, a 47-year-old French nun who had been diagnosed with Parkinson's -- the same disease that the late Pope had -- said it inexplicably disappeared two months after his death after she and her fellow nuns prayed to him.

If the pope approves the miracle then John Paul can be beatified. Another miracle would be required after the beatification in order to move on to canonization.

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the archbishop of Krakow who was the late pope's secretary of nearly 40 years, told reporters his office receives daily letters from people who say they have received "graces" after praying to the late pope.

"Most of them are people who have been cured of cancer or couples who were considered infertile but had children after praying to John Paul," Dziwisz said. "We get so many of them we don't even pass them on to Rome anymore".

Three years is an unusually short time for the completion of the first phase of a sainthood cause, which can usually take decades or, in some cases, hundreds of years.

The evidence includes testimony from hundreds of people and scrutiny of John Paul's life, spoken words and writings.

Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Vatican official in charge of the beatification process told reporters he has nearly finished a document of about 2,000 pages long summarizing evidence that John Paul should be made a saint.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella)

The Thomas Sowell
No Nonsense,
Plain Speaking,
Common Sense Award

I'm also awarding the Thomas Sowell No Nonsense, Plain Speaking, Common Sense Award to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

What do you mean I can't make a second award so soon after the inaguaral award? It's my award and I'll give out to whomever I please as frequently as I please. That's the beauty of having your own award to hand out. This isn't an awards democracy -- I make up the rules here.

The second presentation of the Thomas Sowell No Nonsense, Plain Speaking, Common Sense Award goes to Justice Thomas for his concurrence in the Adarand affirmative action case. If you've read many Supreme Court cases you're already painfully award of how pedantic, obtuse and bloviating they can be. Which is all the more reason to recognize and honor Justice Thomas for his no nonsense, plain speaking and common sense.

[T]here can be no doubt that racial paternalism and its unintended consequences can be as poisonous and pernicious as any other form of discrimination. So called "benign" discrimination teaches many that because of chronic and apparently immutable handicaps, minorities cannot compete with them without their patronizing indulgence. Inevitably, such [affirmative action] programs engender attitudes of superiority or, alternatively, provoke resentment among those who believe that they have been wronged by the government's use of race. These programs stamp minorities with a badge of inferiority and may cause them to develop dependencies or to adopt an attitude that they are "entitled" to preferences. ...

In my mind, government sponsored racial discrimination based on benign prejudice is just as noxious as discrimination inspired by malicious prejudice. In each instance, it is racial discrimination, plain and simple.

The Thomas Sowell
No Nonsense,
Plain Speaking,
Common Sense Award

I've been thinking about doing this for a while. I mean, why not? Liberals have dozens of meaningless awards recognizing fellow liberals in worthless, narcissistic ways. Why not have an award that actually means something? -- an award that recognizes someone who has their head screwed on straight, who says something that makes sense, who isn't "stuck on stupid"?

Now, I figured I'd be "presenting" the award to Thomas Sowell more often than not. (Who else speaks offers as much no nonsense, plain speaking and common sense as the great man himself?) However, to my pleasant surprise, a week or so ago I read a very interesting article by playwright David Mamet in which he tells of his discovery that he was a conservative (and not, in his words, a "brain dead liberal").

What was even more of a pleasant surprise, Mamet refers to Thomas Sowell in his article as: "our greatest contemporary philosopher".

Couldn't have said it better myself. And with that, David Mamet is the first recipient of my Thomas Sowell No Nonsense, Plain Speaking, Common Sense Award.

Santo Subito!

HOLY MASS ON THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH
OF THE SERVANT OF GOD, THE SUPREME PONTIFF JOHN PAUL II

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

St Peter's Square
Monday, 2 April 2007

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Two years ago, at a slightly later hour than now, beloved Pope John Paul II departed this world for the house of the Father.

With this celebration, let us first of all renew our thanksgiving to God for having given him to us for well near 27 years as a father and reliable guide in the faith, a zealous Pastor and courageous prophet of hope, a tireless witness and passionate servant of God's love.

As we offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice in suffrage for his chosen soul we remember the unforgettable devotion with which he celebrated the Holy Mysteries and adored the Sacrament of the Altar, the centre of his life and of his untiring mission.

I want to express my gratitude to all of you who have wished to take part in this Holy Mass. I address a particular greeting to Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, Archbishop of Krakow, imagining the sentiments that must be filling his heart at this moment.

I greet the other Cardinals, Bishops, priests and men and women Religious present; the pilgrims who have come here expressly from Poland; all the young people whom Pope John Paul II loved with a unique passion and the many members of the faithful from every part of Italy and the world who have gathered here in St Peter's Square for today's appointment.

The second anniversary of the departure of this beloved Pontiff is taking place in a particularly favourable context for recollection and prayer.

Yesterday, in fact, with Palm Sunday we entered Holy Week and the Liturgy makes us relive the last days of the Lord Jesus' earthly life.

Today, it takes us to Bethany, where, precisely "six days before the Passover", as the Evangelist John notes, Lazarus, Martha and Mary asked the Teacher to supper.

The Gospel account impresses an intense paschal atmosphere on our meditation: the supper at Bethany is a prelude to Jesus' death in the sign of his anointing by Mary, a homage she pays to the Teacher which he accepts as foretelling his burial (cf. Jn 12: 7).

However, it is also an announcement of the Resurrection through the very presence of Lazarus restored to life, an eloquent witness of Christ's power over death.

Not only pregnant with Paschal significance, the narrative of the supper at Bethany is imbued with an anguishing resonance filled with love and devotion, a mist of joy and pain: festive joy at the visit of Jesus and his disciples, at the resurrection of Lazarus and at the Passover now at hand; deep sorrow because this Passover might be the last, as they were led to fear by the scheming of the Jews who desired the death of Jesus and by the threats to Lazarus whose death they were also planning.

One action in this Gospel passage is drawn to our attention, and which even now speaks to our hearts in a special way: Mary of Bethany, at a certain point, "took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair" (Jn 12: 3). This is one of those details of Jesus' life which St John cherished among his dearest memories and which is charged with inexhaustible feeling.

He speaks of love for Christ, a superabundant, wondrous love like that "costly" ointment poured over his feet. This event symptomatically shocked Judas Iscariot: the logic of love clashed with the logic of profit.

For us, gathered in prayer in memory of my Venerable Predecessor, the gesture of the anointing of Mary of Bethany is full of spiritual echoes and suggestions. It evokes John Paul II's shining witness of love for Christ, unreserved and unstinting.

The "house", that is, the entire Church, "was filled with the "fragrance" of his love (cf. Jn 12: 3).
Of course, we who were close to him benefited from it and are grateful to God, but even those who knew him from afar were able to enjoy it because Pope Wojty³a's love for Christ was so strong, so intense, we could say, that it overflowed in every region of the world.

Was not the esteem, respect and affection expressed to him at his death by believers and non-believers alike an eloquent witness of this?

St Augustine wrote, commenting on this passage of John's Gospel: ""The house was filled with the fragrance'. The world is filled with the fame of a good character: for a good character is like a sweet scent.... Through the good, the name of the Lord is honoured" (In Io. Evang. tr. 50, 7).
This is really true; the intense and fruitful pastoral ministry and, even more, the calvary of the agony and serene death of our beloved Pope showed the people of our time that Jesus Christ was truly his "all".

The fruitfulness of this witness, as we know, depended on the Cross. In Karol Wojty³a's life, the word "cross" was not merely a word. From his childhood, he was familiar with suffering and death. As priest and Bishop and especially as Supreme Pontiff, he took most seriously the Risen Christ's last call to Simon Peter on the shore of the Lake of Galilee: "Follow me... Follow me!" (Jn 21: 19, 22).

His whole life, particularly with the slow but implacable advance of the disease which gradually stripped him of everything, became an offering to Christ, a living proclamation of his passion in hope brimming with faith in the resurrection.

He lived his Pontificate in the sign of "prodigality", generously spending himself without reserve. What motivated him other than mystical love for Christ, for the One who, on 16 October 1978, had him called with the ceremonial words: "Magister adest et vocat te - the Teacher is here and is calling you"?

On 2 April 2005, the Teacher called him again, this time without intermediaries, in order to take him home to the house of the Father. And once again he promptly responded with his brave heart in a whisper: "Let me go to the Lord" (cf. S. Dziwisz, Una vita con Karol, p. 223).

He had been preparing for a long time for this last encounter with Jesus, as the various drafts of his Testament reveal.

During the long periods he spent in his private chapel he spoke to Jesus, abandoning himself totally to his will, and entrusted himself to Mary, repeating the Totus tuus. Like his Divine Teacher, he lived his agony in prayer. On the last day of his life, on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday, he asked that the Gospel of John be read to him.

With the help of those who were nursing him, he wanted to take part in all the daily prayers and in the Liturgy of the Hours, he wanted to do adoration and meditation. He died while he was praying. He truly fell asleep in the Lord.

"And the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment" (Jn 12: 3).

Let us return to this most evocative annotation by the Evangelist John. The Pope's sweet scent of faith, hope and charity filled his house, filled St Peter's Square, filled the Church and spread throughout the world.

What happened after his death was for believers an effect of that "fragrance" which reached everyone near and far and attracted them to a man whom God had gradually conformed to his Christ.

For this reason, we can apply to him the words of the first Song of the Servant of the Lord which we heard in the First Reading: "Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations..." (Is 42: 1).
"Servant of God": this is what he was and this is what we in the Church call him now, while the process of his Beatification continues.

This morning, the diocesan investigation into his life, virtues and fame of sanctity was concluded. "Servant of God", a particularly appropriate title for him. The Lord called him to his service on the path of the priesthood and little by little unfolded before him ever broader horizons: from his own Diocese to the universal Church.

This dimension of universality reached its apex at the moment of his death, an event the whole world lived with a participation unprecedented in history.

Dear brothers and sisters, the Responsorial Psalm has placed words full of trust on our lips. In the Communion of Saints, we seem to hear them spoken aloud by our beloved John Paul II, who, from the Father's House, we are sure of it, never ceases to accompany the Church on her way: "Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord!" (Ps 27[26]: 13-14).

Yes, let your heart take courage, dear brothers and sisters, and burn with hope! With this invitation in our hearts let us continue the Eucharistic Celebration, already looking at the light of the Resurrection of Christ that will shine out in the Easter Vigil after the dramatic darkness of Good Friday.

May the Totus tuus of the beloved Pontiff encourage us to follow him on the path of the gift of ourselves to Christ through the intercession of Mary, and may she herself, the Virgin Mary, obtain it for us while we entrust to her motherly hands this father, brother and friend of ours, that he may rest in God and rejoice in peace. Amen.

© Copyright 2007 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

My New Hobby

This Should Be an Interesting Meeting

Pope Benedict XVI, President Bush To Meet At White House

WASHINGTON, D.C. (USCCB)—Pope Benedict XVI will visit the White House, April 16, as part of his visit to Washington and New York.

This is the second visit of a pope to the White House. Pope John Paul II visited President and Mrs. Carter at the White House in October 1979 on the final leg of a six-city United States tour. Pope Benedict will visit President and Mrs. Bush on April 16, the pope's birthday and the first full day of his six-day visit to the United States.

The White House announced that the pope and president will continue discussions they began during President Bush's June 2007 visit to the Vatican, when they discussed their shared commitment to "the importance of faith and reason in reaching common goals." These goals, said the White House, include "advancing peace throughout the Middle East and other troubled regions, promoting inter-faith understanding, and strengthening human rights and freedom, especially religious liberty, around the world."

Pope Benedict XVI will be greeted by President and Mrs. Bush at the South Portico. The president and pope will deliver prepared remarks on the South Lawn and then enter the White House for a private meeting in the Oval Office.

In 1979, Pope John Paul II was greeted by President and Mrs. Jimmy Carter at the North Portico. The pope and president made a few brief "informal" remarks, then proceeded indoors to the Blue Room for a welcome reception held in the manner reserved for visiting heads of state. Following the reception, Pope John Paul and President Carter adjourned to the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room for private meetings.

Historical notes from President Carter indicate that he and the pope discussed international affairs, in particular, situations then underway in the Middle East, Philippines, South Korea, China, and Europe.

I'm sure the Holy Father and W. will have some good discussion about a number of topics of common interest. I'd really be interested in hearing if their discussion extends to personal spiritual matters. You never know -- Tony Blair recently converted to the Church. And, as you might know, W.'s sister-in-law is reportedly a devout Catholic. She's likely been availing herself of some pretty powerful intercessors on the president's behalf. In fact, I seem to recall -- why, yes, here it is -- a picture of Bush with then-Supreme Court nominee John Roberts that shows (though its hard to see here) an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the table between them.

You know, Ronald Reagan, though not a Catholic, was reportedly tight with JPII. I'll bet they were -- they were two giants of the 20th century and collaborated in bringing down one of the greatest evils of the century. I'm sure defeating Communism gave them ample opportunity to take each other's measure and form the basis for a relationship of mutual respect and friendship. I'm sure it was not often JPII encountered a man of similar stature to himself.

Reagan was also very fond of Mother Teresa. She visited Ron and Nancy after the assassination attempt on Reagan. According to Dinesh D'Souza's biography of Reagan, entitled "Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader", the assassination attempt "infused Reagan with a sense of mortality and mission." ... The late Mother Teresa, who visited the White House that June, told Reagan, "you have suffered the passion of the cross and received grace. There is a purpose to this. Because of your suffering and pain you will now understand the suffering and pain of the world. This has happened to you at this time because your country and the world need you." Reagan was speechless. Nancy Reagan wept."

See What Love Can Do

Despite what movies, tv and just about every cultural information says, they don't have a clue what real love is. Meet some folks who do.

Couple, married 83 years, share their secret
Minnesota duo’s longevity earns them a place in ‘Guinness World Records’
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 12:52 p.m. CT, Mon., March. 17, 2008

The year was 1925. Calvin Coolidge was president, Adolf Hitler released the first part of his book, “Mein Kampf,” Charlie Chaplin’s big movie was “The Gold Rush,” flappers were singing and dancing to “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “I’m Sitting on Top of the World,” the Scopes Trial played out in Tennessee, the first television images were broadcast, Al Capone ruled the streets of Chicago, flagpole sitters were all the rage, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were the newest recording artists, the price of a first-class stamp hit 2 cents.

And in Hugo, Minn., an 18-year-old man named Clarence Vail married his 16-year-old sweetheart, Mayme. They had met in the eighth grade, and marriages at such young ages were more the norm than the exception back then. Unremarkable at the time, that union, now 83 years old and still as strong as ever, has finally claimed a place among the historic events of the year.

NBC’s Kevin Tibbles reported for TODAY on Monday that Clarence and Mayme Vail are going into “Guinness World Records” for being married longer than any other living couple on earth.

They don’t have a magic formula to explain the success of their marriage. They just took seriously what they said to each other when they stood at the altar.

“You take your vows, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer,” Mayme said. “I guess you just stick to it, come what may.”

They say they haven’t had an argument since 1946, something that Mayme attributes to the fact that her husband, who is 101, is the strong, silent type who isn’t given to argument. “That’s why we got along so well,” joked the 99-year-old Mayme. “He never spoke out of turn. I didn’t give him a chance.”

The 1920s were in full roar when they were married and moved into their first home — a one-room house. They survived the Great Depression and World War II, raising six children along the way. But their biggest challenge came in 1948, when Clarence was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

‘Look to the future’
According to “The Catholic Spirit,” the newspaper of the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Mayme promised that if her husband survived, she would attend Mass every day for the rest of her life.

She kept it up for nearly 60 years, until the couple moved into a retirement home within the last year. Now, she’s down to two Masses a week, but she still says the rosary regularly — another daily ritual for nearly her entire life. She offered few secrets to long life and a long marriage, other than to say they never smoke or drank — both seemed a waste of money.

Their faith told them to stay faithful through thick and thin, and they did that. It also told them to be fruitful and multiply, and they did that, too.

Their six children — three have been married for 50 years or longer — begat 39 grandchildren, who begat 101 great-grandchildren, who have so far begotten 40 great-great-grandchildren. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s 186 descendants.

One of those great-great-grandchildren, David, has been married for two years to Christine. He was asked if he was shooting for the record.

“Two down, 81 to go,” he said. “Yes, yes, absolutely we’re working on it. Look to the future — no matter how old you are.”

Clarence and Mayme are still doing just that. He’s slowed down considerably and spends much of his time napping, but Mayme, who looks a decade or more younger than her age, continues to make quilts as she has all her life. And she takes care of her husband.

Just as she vowed to do 83 years ago.

© 2007 MSNBC Interactive