In the 1980s our creator of Travis McGee was getting old, confronting the fact he was nearing his own deep blue good-bye. He turned his attention to the Eternal and wrote "One More Sunday." It is a tale of two preachers
One leads a giant organization of teevee priest craft. He is the exploiter of advanced technology to generate millions from the book-free living rooms of the sick, the lonely, the hopeless. My God how the money rolls in. And those naive virginal girls all in white, Oh My.
The other is a a bona fide backwoods fundamentalist, and MacDonald makes him a hero. Primitive though his theology may be by allegedly sophisticated standards, he rejects the offer of fame, big money, and all the alluring young ladies of the choir. He prefers to continue his personal quest, exploring with his small flock a way of finding meaning in a brief human life, a single strobe flash between the eternal Before and the everlasting After.
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It's a rather long book and, I believe, not one of MacDonald's best. But if John's narrative powers were beginning to fade, his unmatched reporting skill was intact. "One More Sunday" justifies your reading time with a wholly believable set of observations on the difference between God as the temple money changer, leading in all the polls, always heading the Top 40 Chart...
...and God as the ultimate mystery; God as sublime mathematics, or as the purest poetry, or as a Creator anxious for us to understand His nature and desires. Or Hers. John also leaves the reader perfectly free to reflect on a God identical to the image presented by Jews, later joined by Christians, over the past few thousand years of human history as recorded in the the Middle-East and the "West."
I doubt he would have endorsed The Almighty as fund-raising tool for defeated Iowa politicians. Further, my personal conceit this morning is that John may have given me a pleasant nod for calling "One More Sunday" a useful tool for understanding the snake ball of American -- and especially Iowa -- presidential politics.
(TBC)
Dec 22, 2011
The joys of the season to you, Padraig
Are you naked? Have you painted yourself blue? Have you taken a wee nip to fortify yourself for a sunrise jig around the oak tree?
Me neither, and I suppose the Druidic recording angel has jotted down my apostasy.
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(P.J. O'Rourke went to Ireland, thought about hitting the beaches, then decided, Naaaah, " No one wants to see an Irish girl in a bikini." P.J. is rarely full of it, but on this point he proves he never spent a couple of warm spring evenings in Galway City as the university colleens paraded.)
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A light dusting of snow comes with the solstice here. It will be gone shortly. I again thank Al Gore for the localized global warming. By our usual northern-plains standards the winter has been tropical. It's pleasant, and I encourage one and all to continue venting fluorocarbons into the atmosphere.
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By the way, this solstice also begins 365-day countdown to the end of the world according to the astronomical predictions of High Priest Kwaxaholemowthful. It mayant happen, but you still should double-check your bugout bag.
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By the way, this solstice also begins 365-day countdown to the end of the world according to the astronomical predictions of High Priest Kwaxaholemowthful. It mayant happen, but you still should double-check your bugout bag.
Dec 21, 2011
Gary Johnson, a good man done gone
Johnson has made it official. He's going to join the Libertarian Party candidate zoo -- Bob Barr, guys like that. I wish you well, Gary, but it's a political mistake.
You 're a good man and young. You have time to submerge your ego just a bit, align yourself with the liberty wing of the GOP, and shoot for 2016. Quite a lot of us were hoping you would do just that.
I don't know what your political Plan B is, but I hope it's a good one. I'd really hate to see you making your living on satellite radio, feeding straight lines to Howard Stern.
You 're a good man and young. You have time to submerge your ego just a bit, align yourself with the liberty wing of the GOP, and shoot for 2016. Quite a lot of us were hoping you would do just that.
I don't know what your political Plan B is, but I hope it's a good one. I'd really hate to see you making your living on satellite radio, feeding straight lines to Howard Stern.
More free money: Our morning giggle
The Federal Housing Administration to the rescue.
The victim is a fellow who signed up for a mortgage he couldn't afford, especially after his $400,000 house became a $200,000 house, the transmission fell out of his nothing-down Escalade, and his local taxing authorities decided hiking his property taxes was a sterling idea.
So he declares bankruptcy after the bank starts foreclosing on his house. Enter the forces of virtue, led at this point in history by one Barack Obama and Benjamin Bernanke, screaming the battle cry of the early 21st Century: "Buck up Boy; we gawn hep y'all."
The FHA is directing this foray. Get a foreclosure notice on your underwater house, declare Chapter 13 bankruptcy, and Uncle Washington will see that you get to keep living in your McMansion essentially free.
"The plan under review by the Federal Housing Finance Agency would call for the mortgage financing companies to allow bankrupt homeowners who owe more on their housing debt than their homes are worth to pay zero per cent interest for five years..."
Zero per cent is a handsome deal for these folks in the early years of 30- or 40-year mortgage when the interest eats up about 99 per cent of the monthly payment. You get to keep enjoying your travertine and water view for -- what? -- fifty bucks a month or so, whatever the payment allocation to principle happens to be. Plus property tax, of course.
This is utopia and we should all be for it. Only soreheads would remark that banks, being what they are, would demand someone replace five years of lost interest and that politicians would shout, "Yes. Too Big to Fail." So the discount window at the Fed would open wider, shoveling money (so to speak) to them and to Freddy and Fannie.
But, errrr, the Fed doesn't have any money, Mr. Sorehead observes. What a fool he is. Who in his right mind would Wiki-Wander through entries such as "fractional reserve banking" and "high-speed printing presses" and "Wiemar," and so forth. Only subversive bastards, that's who.
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A qualification: This may be very slightly too harsh on Mr. Foreclosed Consumer. After all, he just did what his government and the great financiers told him he should, going back at least as far as the time of Monica Lewinsky and the Community Development Reinvestment Act. And continuing right down to the present day of His Ineptness the President, John Corzine, and sidekick Ben.
Mr. Consumer had, just as you and I do, a complete, sincere, and child-like trust in the wisdom of his betters.
The victim is a fellow who signed up for a mortgage he couldn't afford, especially after his $400,000 house became a $200,000 house, the transmission fell out of his nothing-down Escalade, and his local taxing authorities decided hiking his property taxes was a sterling idea.
So he declares bankruptcy after the bank starts foreclosing on his house. Enter the forces of virtue, led at this point in history by one Barack Obama and Benjamin Bernanke, screaming the battle cry of the early 21st Century: "Buck up Boy; we gawn hep y'all."
The FHA is directing this foray. Get a foreclosure notice on your underwater house, declare Chapter 13 bankruptcy, and Uncle Washington will see that you get to keep living in your McMansion essentially free.
"The plan under review by the Federal Housing Finance Agency would call for the mortgage financing companies to allow bankrupt homeowners who owe more on their housing debt than their homes are worth to pay zero per cent interest for five years..."
Zero per cent is a handsome deal for these folks in the early years of 30- or 40-year mortgage when the interest eats up about 99 per cent of the monthly payment. You get to keep enjoying your travertine and water view for -- what? -- fifty bucks a month or so, whatever the payment allocation to principle happens to be. Plus property tax, of course.
This is utopia and we should all be for it. Only soreheads would remark that banks, being what they are, would demand someone replace five years of lost interest and that politicians would shout, "Yes. Too Big to Fail." So the discount window at the Fed would open wider, shoveling money (so to speak) to them and to Freddy and Fannie.
But, errrr, the Fed doesn't have any money, Mr. Sorehead observes. What a fool he is. Who in his right mind would Wiki-Wander through entries such as "fractional reserve banking" and "high-speed printing presses" and "Wiemar," and so forth. Only subversive bastards, that's who.
---
A qualification: This may be very slightly too harsh on Mr. Foreclosed Consumer. After all, he just did what his government and the great financiers told him he should, going back at least as far as the time of Monica Lewinsky and the Community Development Reinvestment Act. And continuing right down to the present day of His Ineptness the President, John Corzine, and sidekick Ben.
Mr. Consumer had, just as you and I do, a complete, sincere, and child-like trust in the wisdom of his betters.
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