If I have called you—and continue to do so—my friend, you do know that I have the best things to say about you. Know that I appreciate you in my life for reasons that I make aware to you on a regular basis. If you feel I’ve been in remiss in doing so, I am sorry. I want to thank you all for the love you have shown me. It’s kept me going through some very tough times.

Some of you are going through the worst of times at this season of the year. You are in my prayers.

I have learned early in school that Christmas is the fulfillment of God’s promise to his people. The story of the Christmas miracle is one that transcends faiths. Treat it as a fairy tale that teaches a lesson, if you want. If you’re of the Body Of Christ, this day is the foundation of half of our theology. May it inspire you to do good. May you be in the company of people who love you.

And if you need me: you know how to reach me. You already know I am here for you.

Then, all the True Conservatives turned on him on matters of principle and competence, all the while trotting out Bachmann and Cain like they were better than Perry and Romney combined, and, to make a long story short, we’re going to be stuck with Romney.

How in the world did this happen? Perry’s debate gaffes are easily explicable. As governor of Texas, he’s had an amazing record in limiting the scope of the government. The problem is that he hasn’t been forced to justify his policies as if they were bad policies. I look at his gaffetastic debates and I see a man who finds it difficult to explain the obvious. We all know that the obvious is the hardest to explain.

This is why Perry has had such a tough time at the debates, and answering to questions about how he needle-raped little girls with Liquid Whore (a brilliant Ace of Spades -ism, perhaps the most brilliant one), or the TX educational initiative for the children of illegal aliens, or the license to hunt destructive wild boars from helicopters. To him, it is all obvious, which will make a Perry presidency, should it happen, very difficult. I still want him to win. I just wish more people did.

I have spent some time following accounts of what’s going on in Zucotti Park and especially in Oakland, CA. Brady Cremeens has the definitive laundry list of why the entire Occupy movement, not just the one in NY, has lost its moral standing.

They’ve occupied “Wall Street” for over 45 days and in the time since, we have seen this “community” lose its sense of order. It started off as thefts; and the irony was so delicious when we read about an Occupier’s “$5000 mac laptop” getting stolen. For a bunch of folks who don’t believe in the property rights of those wealthier than them, they sure do complain when their property rights get violated. When I read about how the “food committee” started separating the “professional homeless” from the rest of the occupiers and recommended they go to a local charity, the irony and hypocrisy levels of the movement reached immeasurable heights.

But neither irony nor hypocrisy are enough to invalidate this movement, nor the petty thefts, nor the sympathy of the Communist Part of the USA nor that of American Nazi Party. None of those, from a purely legal standpoint, have any weight as to why Michael Bloomberg and the NYPD have the obligation to do their jobs and disband this “organization” and its occupation once and for all.

Reports of multiple instances of rapes—not just sexual harassment—and even child abuse have started to come out. Occupiers in DC accosted a Conservative conference, preventing people from leaving a building. Occupy Oakland has marauding bands of goons shutting businesses and ports down/ We’re hearing of Occupiers fearing for their own safety from each other. Instead of turning in these offenders to the police, we hear “official” statements from Occupiers about how they have “dealt with” the issue “internally.” Zucotti Park is now, officially, a haven for rapists.  Those participating in the occupation are guilty of complicity in the violation of their own women and children.

Morally, this was an eventuality. Despite all the allusions to appealing to peoples’better natures, the entire Occupy Wall Street movement was a protest grounded in the envy of success. As a matter of criminality and public safety, this is to be expected of any movement that involves camping out in protest for an extended period of time, but those who say so miss one very important point: those who already are aware of that eventuality won’t even dream of doing what OWS is doing.

How ironic, that increased coverage of this event—meant to attract coverage—will be its downfall. Once OWS becomes a political liability for the Left, it will be time for Bloomberg, other mayors in other cities and their respective police departments, to crack down. In the meantime, the rapists will always find a tent to hide in.

Certainly it doesn’t merely mean knowing the accidents of American history and existence. There are things you can ignore—fried butter, Harley-Davidson, Viet Nam era student protests—as white noise in the data, but there is still a there to being American. There’s a je ne sais quoi, some might say, but I disagree. The whole concept to being American is so simple, it’s frightening.

It’s about Liberty: the kind that allows you to do as your conscience tells you; the kind that makes you face the consequences of your actions; the kind that doesn’t protect you from your own mistakes.

There is, however, an even more powerful freedom that this Liberty offers all Americans, immigrants and natural-born alike. Here’s a clue, from Max Brooks’World War Z in the words of a (thinly veiled) Howard Dean as he recounts his time as vice president under (an equally thinly veiled) Colin Powell:

I was pointing to them, shouting and gesturing with the passion I’m most famous for. “We need a stable government, fast!” I kept saying. “Elections are great in principle but this is no time for high ideals.”

The president was cool, a lot cooler than me. Maybe it was all that military training … he said to me, “This is the only time for high ideals because those ideals are all that we have. We aren’t just fighting for our physical survival, but for the survival of our civilization. We don’t have the luxury of old-world pillars. We don’t have a common heritage, we don’t have a millennia of history. All we have are the dreams and promises that bind us together. All we have … [struggling to remember] all we have is what we want to be.“

American existence is freedom from ethnographic baggage, if you choose to do so. As in immigrant, this is an exhilarating opportunity, and I am not alone. Listen to our stories, but most of all, listen to us when we start telling you about how we wouldn’t be anywhere close to the horizontal and vertical mobility we enjoy in this country.

If I had stayed in the Philippines with my biology degree, my mother would’ve broken her back trying to fund med school. Or, she could’ve dropped dead from the strain of working 60 hours a week here and living a life of self-denial, such that I wouldn’t have been able to finish and, well, who knows what I would’ve done. How many immigrants would tell you today: “I wouldn’t have gone anywhere back home.”

For an American born and raised in America, this freedom is an unbearable lightness. The story of natural born Americans is the search for identity. In this context, one can view the caricatural search for self-esteem and self-actualization in a fairer light. Europeans sneer at how Americans of Irish descent (and of not) celebrate St. Patrick’s day. Cultural celebrations of Old World customs reach comical proportions, and there is a reductive quality to the way natural born Americans pick and choose cultural aspects of their heritage. On its face it seems disrespectful. What does a natural born American of Irish descent know about the Irish’s struggle for survival during the great potato famine? Should he bear the weight of IRA’s terrorism?

Consider the Stuff White People Like blog in this light. It’s been called a damning critique of yuppie hipsterism, but more than that, it is the story of how Americans try to find or build their identity. I want to tell my American friends: by all means, go to the country of your lineage. Visit it. Take it in, whether it’s Warsaw or Prague, but remember: being American means you don’t have to worry about what it means to be Polish, or Czech.

I was born and raised in the Philippines, as I am wont to remind everyone. Many Filipinos in central Luzon—especially in the great rice plains of Pampanga, the ranchlands of Bulacan and the Metro Manila megalopolis—are of mixed descent over many generations, but an equally large population have features that are more provincial (rural) in nature. This is not just a question of fair skin as inherited from our Castillian colonists or the Chinese, but a matter of bone structure, of facial features and body types.

Humans crave the exotic, and there are anthropological bases of beauty grounded in signals for good health and symmetry that transcend cultures, but the sheer assault of Western—not just American but European—aesthetics upon other lineages has gotten ridiculous. And it’s not just Asians, but African Americans with their history of living with their White masters that serve as cautionary tales of how worship of the different can—when taken to extremes—be detrimental to the psyche not just of an individual but to that of an entire people.

Hair straightening in black people is not a new phenomenon; their girls in the slave era have been observed as trying to straighten their hair with everything from kitchen grease to tar. All to wash the stink of difference, to achieve a sense of sameness that may lead to the respect that comes with being equals. Tough shit, though the Afro hairdos as popularized in the disco era, along with creative ways to deal with the unruliness of curls, are making headway into the popular culture.

But what of my people? Culturally we have always been a melting pot, so I am in no mood to indict those among us who like to adopt the mannerisms of rap artists or gangbangers nor exclusive school preps or whatever catches their fancy. However, what of our standards of beauty? The Filipino male, given the proper diet, will tend towards a barrel chest and a mild paunchiness of the belly despite being generally low in body fat. We are shaped differently, and yet the media we consume—Stateside or back home—fills us with imagery of statuesque Caucasian men and svelte women. Perhaps Zainudin Maidin, then Information Minister of Malaysia, had a good idea striking Brad Pitt from a car advertisement airing in his home country.

Some of the best male physiques in tv and movies—Teddy Sears, Alexander Skasgaard, Paul Walker, Peter Facinelli, Ryan Gosling, Cam Gigandet—to name a few (of my favorites) all have shapes that are unachievable by anyone who isn’t white. I see this at the gym every day. We have a lot of non-white lifters in varying degrees of fitness, but despite being low in body fat (and skin taught enough over their muscles and whatnot) they do not come close to the sillhouettes of white paragons of physique.

And where did this contemporary standard come from anyway? Look no further than Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, a modern marvel of sports photography and cinematography. That’s right. That Leni Riefenstahl, whose art I have praised in this blog years before and still do so today for its technical merit, skill and craftsmanship. Despite that, we must recognize her role in reviving the popularity of Classical sillhouettes as the standard for beauty.

As for how Madison Avenue has messed up the self images of women, with the unrealistic goals of unhealthy emaciation, let us cite the insightful Nora Vincent, in her book Self Made Man:

[...] A lot of women have asked themselves why so many men are so fond of modern porn stars and centerfolds, women who aren’t real women, whose breasts are fake, whose hair is bleached into straw or perversely depilated, whose faces are painted thick, and whose bodies have ben otherwise altered by surgery or diet to conform with doll-like exactitude to something that isn’t found in nature. Why, I had so often wondered, didn’t men want real women? Was it misogyny, a kind of collective repressed homosexuality or perhaps pedophilia that really wanted a body type that more resembled a man’s or a child’s, fatless and smooth?

For some, this is no doubt true, or why would magazines like Barely Legal, full of pre- and parapubescent girls, sell so well? Why would the fashion industry, long dominated by gay men, demand that women starve themselves until their bodies, hipless and breastless, look like the bodies of adolescent boys?

I’m going to let the gay-as-a-pedophile stereotype pass for now. Not in the mood. But Madison Avenue—such a beautiful metonym for such a vicious industry—is not in the habit of creating beauty; it used to be, but now it’s been reduced to assaulting one’s self-image, convincing a person to hate himself enough to just want their product as in insufficient salve against the sense of deficiency that they inflict upon their customers. Advertising hasn’t always been like this. Advertising shouldn’t stay like this.

My friend, David Jones makes an excellent point about voters’myopia when approving of programs with unintended and unforeseen consequences. Make sure you read the comments, wherein a rant and rail against AARP’s terrible and just the way marketers sell to the elderly. A teaser: “Not that anyone should be telling them what to do, but what happened to ads where gramps is talking to his grandson about such things like The War, or just growing up in harder times? What if the sunset of one’s life were not—as Madison Avenue is selling—about catching up on the better aspects of a second childhood, but to impart as one best could, the lessons of a life long lived?”

Via Ken Brown, a Democrat in Ohio was voted out of office and he was suffering so terribly in the polls that the DSCC pulled financial support. What does he do? He sues the Susan B. Anthony List for contributing to his loss of livelihood. Now, this case should’ve been laughed out of court, but the circuit judge let it through. I wonder who Obama will sue when he finally gets voted out.

Kevin Holtsberry on student debt as a symptom of economic illiteracy: in which he asks, and answers: “But I want to ask a higher level question: is universal college education really the universal good we make it out to be and is subsidization by the federal government really good policy? I would answer a no to both of those.”

Cf., with this Rutgers “economic historian” who sets out to prove his conclusion—consumer debt and government spending are they keys to economic growth—by sampling only the past hundred years of economic activity. To his credit, some Liberals think that history started when Obama won office; he chose a hundred years ago. Never mind that the Medicis, who invented banking and investment as we know it, lived roughly six hundred years ago.

Aaron Gardner, a friend and fellow before-day-one Perry supporter, with an appeal to reason:

I understand that people were disappointed with Gov. Perry’s debut in the debates. I can also understand people having a difference of opinion on issues like In-State tuition rates and, to a degree, mandatory vaccinations for cancer causing STDs.

What I can’t understand is the desire of some to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, maybe even the great. I doubt anyone could honestly make a case for any other candidate having a more conservative record of governance, a greater depth of experience, or a better record of winning elections, than Gov. Perry.

If only this Republican primary has been a matter of reason (not necessarily reasonability but rationality). Also consider Melissa Clouthier’s warning to anyone who’s having way too much fun with the Republican debates: they don’t exist to serve Republicans.

Politics

Blake Gober on the GOP field. His money is on Romney. Mine is on Perry. Either are acceptable to me. However, I’d like to see the rest stick around until after Iowa and New Hampshire and Florida before anyone drops out.

On the social contract:

Our friend, moronette Dagny, said last week, “The social contract exists so that everyone doesn’t have to squat in the dust holding a spear to protect his woman and his meat all day every day. It does not exist so that the government can take your spear, your meat, and your woman because it knows better what to do with them.”

Design

I have been fascinated by this series of posts on the history of Arial from Paul Shaw. He’s been trying (hard) to trace its history and the intent with which it was created.

Reading that has led me to Nick Shinn’s indictment of Helvetica, and the entire modernist, humanist, completely outdated family of sans serif typefaces. (PDF)

Prayers and Petitions
Elizabeth Scalia’s son’s fiancee is having a CAT scan. Details are scant, but may they find what ails her, and may she recover from it fully.

Deepest of condolences to Sarah Smith, for the passing of her dear friend John Corckran, who passed away at the tender age of 35.

There comes a point in a nation’s history when, under the heavy weight of an oppressor such as Gaddhafi—especially one as Gaddhafi, who ruled for forty-two years—the “rule of law” is the rule of the victorious rebels. This is not an excuse for further hunting and killing of  Gaddhafi loyalists; they will have to be brought to justice in an orderly manner once the new Libyan government (which has been formed, might I remind everyone) officially takes power.

Or not, and the elements of anarchy will turn on them an impose something worse the Gaddhafi. We don’t just know right now. But we will, soon enough.

While the Monday Morning Quarterbacking from everyone and their mother was annoying, the level of crazy goes to new heights with this praise of Gaddhafi as some national hero who freed his country from the yoke of some central bank or the other. Or something.

~~oOo~~

Niall Ferguson on the geniuses we’ll never know. It’s a lot about Steve Jobs, but it’s a lot more about how America is a great incubator for talent. This is the land of opportunity after all, which we should contrast to those who protest the fact that there are unequal outcomes in this nation. Forget the income-equality gap (a concept which makes me sick); let’s start with the opportunity-outcome intellectual gap and make it wider, enough to let people know that the concepts are distinct. (Link credit: Ken Gardner on Twitter.)

Contrast Ferguson’s article about the plentiful opportunities of the USA with this young man. He’s eighteen years old, can’t afford the third year of his forty-thousand dollars per year bachelor of arts in sociology. He is one of the 99%. And he does it in style, what with his Abercrombie And Fitch v-neck shirt. But that’s, as we tend to say when we’re running out of words, the thing with these people. The sheer lack of self-awareness, the total obliviousness to irony and hypocrisy, are just annoying. The young man is rather fetching. Most of the submissions on that tumblr account have resorted to prostitution. He should be glad he’s not there yet.

Maybe he should read Sarah Bowman’s advice: occupy a job. Or he should listen to @kimberlyhaney (proud mother that she is) describe her son on Twitter thusly: “My 18 y/o works 30 hours a week, goes to school full time & buys his own clothes & gas. Buys his own books, owns his car. He wears Polo, because he shops at the outlet malls & asks for nice clothes for birthdays & Christmas. He also buys silver.” Scandalous bastard that I am, did respond by telling her to vet whoever the lucky lady he decides to bring home. He is a prime target for gold-digging women, and even the young ones have sharp hooks that sink deep.

All this talk of the American Dream reminds me of a different time in my life. I had a dream once. I could’ve been, if everything happened according to plan, a Ph.D. in a biology field. I could’ve written tons of academic papers, or done corporate research for a biotech firm, or I could’ve chosen a more Spartan lifestyle in marine biology. But I was dealt a different hand due to some unfortunate circumstances back in 2001. I could’ve despaired and wallowed in self pity, but thankfully my mother taught me well and taught me right. I learned to design websites instead. I wouldn’t be who I am today if not for the events that brought me here and by God I swear, I am very happy to have different dreams and different goals now.

Finally, let’s remember the dreams that were snuffed before they could even begin. Melissa Clouthier on “choice:” “The majority of women say that parents, boyfriends, and worst of all, husbands forced the woman to abort the baby. The trauma is devastating and long lasting.” I would never know the horror of having to make this choice, and heaven help me on the day I pressure a woman into aborting a baby.

Prayers and Petitions

Deepest of condolences to Fingers Malloy on the passing of his mother. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him at CPAC and Right Online this year and he is an upstanding gentleman.

May the victims of Gaddhafi’s long reign finally rest in peace.

While I oppose Occupy Wall Street 100%, I think “I am the 53%” is a political loser and messaging at its worst. We need to look at who the 47% are. Some of those people simply don’t make enough enough money to have federal tax liability. While I think everyone should pay something in the way of federal taxes, this sends a bad message as it appears to vilify those who don’t make enough, while leaving out they still may pay state, local, sales, Social Security, and property taxes. Also, some of these people still have taxes taken out their check, they just get it back – after the govt uses it as an interest free loan. I think if we wish to call out President Obama for his pathetic use of class warfare, we should be careful we don’t head down that same road.

Occupy events across the nation are resembling the Arab Spring in embarassing ways: sexual harrassment and assault. The other day we were treated to the reports of Nan Terrie and her $5500 laptop, whose value she overestimated, as she has her self worth. I’ve tried my damned hardest to not comment on the Occupy Movement until I could get a handle on the very nature of the effort, but I give up. Not on commentary, but on figuring them out. They can’t be.

Megan McArdle on Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan: says more about her assessment of the candidate than the plan itself, which, as most policy wonks have agreed on is dead in the water, politically and economically.

Ace of Spades on Herman Cain’s foreign policy know-nothingness. And here’s the sad thing about all this Herman Cain bashing (on this first edition of my new daily edition, no less!): I think he’s a great guy, someone who means well and has ideas that would fix the ills of this country. He’s no Ike Eisenhower, and the critique that he’s never held elected office is an important one. The Presidency is not the same as being a CEO: Congress says “no” more often than a Board of Directors does. I would support a candidate who understands the inherent roadblocks built into our system of government as set in place by the Founding Fathers.

Miscellany:

William Newton on the role of art in how we Catholics worship: This should shine a light for anyone who considers us idolaters; though if you’re going to hold that opinion about Catholics, then a reasoned explanation would hardly move you anwyay.

Bad Catholic (a young man of a mere 18 years) on the cure for pornography: It involves the use of actually more naked women, but by expressing beauty and truth. He quotes John Paul II: “the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.”

Only 3% of Ford buyers choose “trend [colors],” like ochre or pink. They’re not trends; they’re freaks. (Side note: Joe Clark is one of my favorite authors; he’s Canadian and is wont to fix the spelling of material he quotes to fit his country’s orthography. Turnabout is fair play.)

Passive-aggressive “Help Wanted” note. We should look on Tumblr to see if the former employee has posted her “We are the 99% note.”

Prayers and petitions:

Elisha Krauss, former Sean Hannity radio show producer, has a friend named David who was in a parachuting accident. He’s conscious and is able to answer questions, but is in need of spinal surgery. May the Lord guide his surgeons’hands and may he recover as much as God wills it.

Safe travels to Ryan Gilbert, who is on a road trip from Enid, OK to San Diego, CA. He’s in his hometown of Ogden, UT right now and will get back on the road after the weekend. I have had the pleasure of meeting him in my recent trip to OKC. May his tires stay inflated the rest of the way.

Deepest of condolences to John Brodigan on the passing of his father.