More still to come before we are through.

Victor Davis Hanson writes at National Review,

...The ruling generation in Hollywood is out of creative ideas mostly because it invested in political melodrama rather than human tragedy.

...Political correctness has become Maoist: All art must serve progressive struggle, defined in Hollywood as good race and gender warriors pitted against bad racists and sexists. The result is monotony and boredom. All the cleavage, flexed biceps, cheap obscenity, rap-music scores, and car crashes cannot hide that lack of an idea.

This generation’s NFL apparat, the ESPN commentariat, and the higher-education administrative cadre also reveal generational symptoms of exhaustion. They all have forgotten their original mission: respectively, athleticism; sports commentary; and inductive thinking, civic education, and disinterested inquiry. Instead, given their money and adulation, sports and colleges puffed themselves up as Olympians who from high could sermonize and implicitly insult their own patrons (fans, viewers, students, and alumni).

...the NFL bureaucracy rammed its extraneous agendas down the throat of America, as if twentysomething, half-educated multimillionaires were the moral superiors to those who paid their salaries. Politics are destroying the NFL.

...Today’s journalists graduate with majors that confer thinly disguised degrees in different sorts of activism. But -isms and -ologies come at a cost of shorting literature, history, or fact-based knowledge of any sort, so today’s journalistic doyens have few referents either of the past or in the abstract in general. The result is that every passing psychodrama becomes the most important in history. “Watergate” is a name dropped daily, but few journalists know anything about the genesis or nature of that scandal, the same way that referencing “Ferguson” omits its fraud and fantasies that even Eric Holder’s Justice Department was forced to concede.

...tenured radical professors eventually became sixty-something administrative bureaucrats and are now being devoured by the very radical offspring they have sired. We lament political correctness and Stalinism on campuses, but the real crime is the ignorance that empowers it.

The unspoken fuel that drives so many protests on campus is the self-awareness that so many students simply cannot do traditional college work and desire weaker courses, personal exemptions, and time off. A sense of student inferiority naturally leads to demands for everything but a more comprehensive education. The result of politicizing mediocrity is the classic toxicity of youthful ignorance and arrogance.

Orwellian administrative language, sanctioned from those who should have known better, masks an anti-democratic reality of which even its adherents are ashamed. “Safe spaces” mean segregation. “Affirmative action” is synonymous with implicit racial quotas. “Theme houses” are race-based apartheid living quarters. “Trigger warnings” are censorship. “Student loans” are paramount to indentured servitude for over a decade. And “diversity” ensures monotony and orthodoxy in thought and expression.

University overseers managed to ensure that the B.A. degree is no longer necessarily proof of education in science, math, language, history, or philosophy. Private employers see elite colleges, at best, not necessarily as places where job applicants were educated or trained, but rather where they were once prescreened by colleges, on the basis of high-school test scores and GPAs. So they hire college graduates by brand names, because earlier, as incoming students, they were once admitted to, rather than graduated from, a good college on some sort of objective basis. Employers write off what followed later as either a wasted four years or irrelevant.

Our generation also, inevitably, became divorced from both nature and the muscularity of the physical, desperate ordeal of surviving. The result was a vicarious romance about the wild and an ignorance of and disdain for those who must fight the wild to produce our food, wood, steel, concrete, and fuel. The result, again, is a vicarious life. Silicon Valley grandees pontificate about open borders, “undocumented migrants,” and “sanctuary cities,” but beneath their noses are streets lined with tightly parked Winnebagoes in which thousands of poor Mexican nationals sleep, live, eat, and prep for another day servicing the masters of the universe. To suggest that the geography of the Bay Area is still vast and its open spaces ripe for affordable housing is the heresy of “how dare you even suggest getting near my Portola Valley estate”?

Our culture and financial elite are primarily a coastal tribe, cut off from both the poor and the material conditions that face the poor. They find penance and exemption for their privilege in loud but empty virtue-signaling and in easy contempt for the supposedly grasping middle class. But what we wanted from them was excellence, competence, and leadership; yet they had neither the education nor character for any of that. It is hard to destroy the NFL or to discredit a liberal-arts degree from Yale, or to turn NBC or CNN into a bastard of Pravda or to make the Hollywood of John Ford, Frank Capra, and Alfred Hitchcock into that of George Clooney. But we managed it — and more still to come before we are through.

Read more here.

"Character strength can be built in the same way that muscle strength is built through energy investment."

Fausta writes,

Imagine being a ten year old child during the London blitz. On the first night your house is being bombed by the Luftwaffe, you and your parents rush to the Underground, where you sit in the dark for hours. Tense as the situation is, it gets worse when the exit is blocked by debris from the bombing and you and hundreds of others must wait, not only for the bombing raid to end, but to be dug out.

After you get dug out, you go back to your life.

Compare that with the college students so distressed out by President elect Trump’s Tuesday night victory that they need counseling, vigils, safe spaces, therapy dogs, coloring books and play doh.

I did not invent the London blitz scenario. A friend (now deceased) lived through it. Aside from a reluctance to being in dark enclosed spaces (such as movie theaters or red eye flights), she lived a long, happy and successful life. She firmly believed that resilience can be learned, just as she had.

Many years ago I came across an excellent book by sports psychologist Jim Loehr, Toughness Training for Life: A Revolutionary Program for Maximizing Health, Happiness and Productivity, which changed my life.

Loehr’s thesis is that you can develop everyday habits that will help you cope with life’s stresses. His approach includes physical activity, mental focusing, and developing healthy personal habits (such as healthy eating and avoiding smoking, drugs, etc.). Once these habits are ingrained, they become valuable tools through which you will overcome life’s travails.

Physical activity, mental focusing, and developing healthy personal habits are exactly the tools my friend and her family in wartime London relied on; in their case they also relied on their Faith as part of their focus.

Why is this approach important?

From his more than 30 years of experience and applied research, Dr. Loehr believes the single most important factor in successful achievement, personal fulfillment and life satisfaction is the strength of one’s character. He strongly contends that character strength can be built in the same way that muscle strength is built through energy investment.

Rather than counseling, vigils, safe spaces and coloring books, I recommend that colleges across the nation hand out copies of this book and make it required reading.

Read more here.

Left behind

At the Wall Street Journal Brett Stephens laments that the Republican party has left him. On immigration he remembers a debate between George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan:

At a 1980 Republican primary debate in Houston, candidates George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan were asked whether the children of illegal immigrants should be allowed to attend public schools for free. Mr. Bush said they should. “We’re creating a whole society of really honorable, decent, family-loving people that are in violation of the law,” he lamented.

Reagan agreed. Instead of “putting up a fence,” he asked, “why don’t we . . . make it possible for them to come here legally with a work permit, and then, while they’re working and earning here, they pay taxes here.” For good measure, Reagan suggested we should “open the border both ways.”

Where, in the populist fervor to build a wall with Mexico and deport millions of human beings, is that Republican Party today?

Trade: In one of his final radio addresses as president, Reagan warned “we should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends—weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world—all while cynically waving the American flag.”

Where, in the tide of Tea Party opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and all those other “disastrous trade deals” that Donald Trump never fails to mention, is that Republican Party today?

Foreign policy: In 1947 Harry Truman asked Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to support his efforts to shore up the governments in Greece and Turkey against Soviet aggression. Vandenberg agreed, marking his—and the GOP’s—turn from isolationism to internationalism.

Since then, six Republican presidents have never wavered in their view that a robust system of treaty alliances such as NATO are critical for defending the international liberal order, or that the U.S. should dissuade faraway allies such as South Korea and Saudi Arabia from seeking nuclear weapons, or that states such as Russia should be kept out of regions such as the Middle East.

Where, amid Mr. Trump’s routine denunciations of our allegedly freeloading allies, or Newt Gingrich’s public doubts about defending NATO member Estonia against Russian aggression, or the alt-right’s attacks on “globalism,” or Sean Hannity’s newfound championship of WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, is that Republican Party today?

Culture, civility and character:

For decades, conservative publishers have issued a long succession of titles on the importance of personal character to the preservation of democratic institutions. Notable on the list is William J. Bennett’s “The Book of Virtues,” whose first chapter deals with the importance of self-discipline. The former secretary of education followed that one up with “The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals,” timed to the Lewinsky scandal.

Where, in the apparently limitless forgiveness GOP voters are willing to extend to Mr. Trump for his public affronts to “that face” Carly or that “nasty woman” Hillary Clinton, is that Republican Party today?

... I don’t see the point of belonging to a party on the increasingly dubious assumption that it’s slightly less bad than the opposition. If I can’t get my Grand Old Party back, I’d rather help build a new one.

Read more here.

Keep your nerve. Don't be a sucker.

Datechguy is staying the course with Trump.

I’ve chosen this moment, Catholic Blogger that I am, to double down and re-endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States!

…I know that there will be times that Donald Trump will disappointment me just as I expected Mitt Romney to disappoint men on social issues and John McCain to disappoint me on immigration and George W Bush who disappointed me on spending and the bank bailouts.

But while Trump will occasionally disappoint me (when he does I’ll call him on it) I am convinced he will neither persecute me nor strip me of my rights for holding my Conservative Catholic beliefs and acting on them.

I am very sorry to say I can not make that same statement about Hillary Clinton, and I’m even sorrier to see the day when I would say this about a presidential candidate.

...the basic corruption, the wholesale theft, the selling of the office of the president of the united states and the enabling of both islamic terror and our enemies in Russia, Iran, North Korea and China that will take place and the subsequent nuclear arms race that will follow.

Our friends in the press and in culture say we should judge Donald Trump unacceptable by his words. They don’t like what he’s said about the border, about Rosie O’Donnell, about Kahn, about Islamic Terror etc etc etc. By these words in their eyes Donald Trump is unacceptable as president of the united states

These same people however do not want us to Judge Hillary Clinton / Barack Obama by their deeds. From paying ransoms that finance terror to Iran for hostages (It’s not really ransom), for exposing classified data to the russians and lying directly about it repeatedly, Hillary Clinton actually left people to die in Benghazi, actually blamed a video for it, actually imprisoned the person who made said video.

Clinton’s actual policies turned victory in Iraq into defeat, Syria into a mess, created ISIS, destabilized Libya, enabled Russia in the Ukraine and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

And that’s not even going into using the Clinton foundation for payola or protecting Bill Clinton from the consequences of his actions when it comes to sexually abusing women.

...Finally do you really think the Democrats are going to allow Trump to be replaced on the ballot at this stage? There will be lawsuits in 50 states challenging any attempt to pull him and the Bob Torricelli precedent notwithstanding you aren’t going to see a judiciary upholding such a move.

...If we concede that Donald Trump’s character is bad, Would it be better for the country to have a President of poor character who will be under intense scrutiny by the press, pols and law enforcement agencies (Trump) or to have a President of poor character who will be given a pass and or defended by the press, the pols and apparently the FBI regardless of what they say or do (Hillary).

Read more here.

Melting pot?

On Facebook Lenina Close posts,

I had the most interesting dream last night. I was staying at my beloved Abbey (St. Walburga in Northern Colorado) and my friend Tom Krannawitter came to visit me to discuss the recent violent events in the nation and the subject of race. I told him that I could no longer teach my students that America was the glorious "melting pot" the founders intended. It seemed to me that we had become no better than yesterday's "dirty laundry," where the colors must be separated or there would be "bleeding." I explained that the exception was sometimes in cold, the colors could be mixed without "bleeding" but never in hot. Further, that skin color was as insignificant to one's character as the clothing one wears but until we evolve past the idea of "race" that we would never be any better than yesterday's dirty laundry. (I'm tagging a few friends and students for discussion) Feedback? Analysis?

“Character is what you do when no one is watching”

Jonah Goldberg writes at National Review,

I always liked the old line, “Character is what you do when only God is watching.” The alternate version, “Character is what you do when no one is watching,” is actually theologically and philosophically a very different statement. But both have their relevance in the age of the Digital Panopticon.

...The only way to guarantee you don’t get “outed” as an adulterer is not to commit adultery in the first place. Behave as if God is watching you and you won’t much care who else is watching you.

...The phrase “Character is what you do when no one is watching,” is really a way to get you to imagine that someone is watching you. We are relearning that someone is watching us, but we aren’t being taught that that someone is God. We’ll see how that works out.

Read more here.

Good grace and character

Salena Zito writes at Trib Live,

We all face hard decisions and revelations in our lives; some we have direct responsibility for, some we do not. Yet, no matter from where the arrows come, most of us have the good grace and the character to look in the eye of whomever we wronged and to apologize.

We all make mistakes. But how we handle those is what defines us.

Go here to read what she is referring to.

What is beauty?

Thanks to Ann Voskamp for reposting this video.

What sets him apart?

From the Denver Post
Guest Commentary by
By Laurie Lattimore-Volkmann

I am not a sports reporter, not an NFL analyst, not a former player.

I've never studied film, and I've not catalogued all the best and worst moments in football history.

I know the game of football well, though I still can't figure out why you can challenge a first-down spot but not a pass interference call.

What I have done is played some seriously rugged flag football games, donned blue and orange every Sunday from August to January for the past 43 years, sat through some unbelievably frigid games at Mile High (once while seven months pregnant), and cheered for the Denver Broncos since before I can remember ... even during the heart-crushing games.

I even named my beloved black lab after John Mobley (who I still believe is responsible for saving the Broncos' victory in Super Bowl XXXII against the Packers).

And, most proudly, I am a mom of two little boys who adore their No. 18 jerseys and can't wait to find out "how Peyton Manning's team did" every Monday morning.

So I am undeniably biased.

And it is because of my bias — and lack of NFL analysis experience — that makes me far more qualified to talk about your legacy than any of those analysts, former players, coaches and commentators (I'm looking at you, Mike Greenberg and Cris Carter). They operate in a world where urgency dictates everything, and controversy and sensationalism make the headlines.

No, I am more qualified because I am a mom.

I actually understand — on the most basic level — what legacy truly means.

Legacy is something handed down that matters. It is something that matters to young players and athletes and kids looking for mentors to help them find their way.

You don't hand down Super Bowl trophies. You don't hand down NFL MVP titles or franchise records. And you don't hand down touchdowns, statistics or win-loss records.

You hand down an example of work ethic, of courage to come back after a career-threatening injury, of humility in victory and graciousness in defeat, and of perspective on one's own accomplishments. That legacy matters, and that's why yours is untarnished, even — and especially — after last Sunday's Super Bowl XLVIII loss.

It matters that you're professional in the way you talk to reporters.

It matters that you give credit to others — coaches, teammates, mentors.

It matters that you don't give up in a bad game and keep fighting, no matter the odds.

It matters that you take time to write notes to fans and sign autographs — even after crushing defeats.

It matters that you know the difference between being embarrassed by your team's performance and just not being the best team on the field that day.

And it matters that you meticulously prepare to play the game ... and encourage everyone around you to do the same.

I doubt you take stock in what those analysts say about your legacy (no doubt a trait your father has bestowed upon you and your brothers), but I want you to know that this mom of two young boys (who already recognize you're different from the others) believes your legacy has never been stronger.

And I'm confident thousands of others agree with me.

Whether you win another game, your accomplishments in football are nothing short of remarkable — alongside many other outstanding players. But it's your character that sets you apart from so many of your predecessors and peers.

And that's a legacy that matters.