The Necropolitan Sentinel

I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving.

My day yesterday included lots of stops, including mass (one of the last of the old-form masses). Then I went to the Thanksgiving Charity Breakfast at the Knights of Columbus hall, with with some high school football playing in hi-def in the members’ area.

From there, my sons and I went to my brother’s place, to spend the afternoon with his family, my mother, and her sister (my 90-year-old aunt). It was a pleasant day, but my wife didn’t have the day off, and all that pleasant company and conversation still can’t replace her.

There was a rather amusing moment in the conversation at my brother’s house, concerning whether our aunt/great aunt should have been helping to wash the dishes. I maintained that it is important for the elderly to be useful rather than treated as fragile; my nephew, who works at a nursing home, concurred—and he followed up with the line of the day:

. . . Besides, the men don’t want to do it, so it’s a win-win all around.

Ain’t it the truth?

I’m delighted to say that we did not discuss the tragedy of abortion at the dinner table, despite the recent entreaties of a local Planned Parenthood group to “convert” people to the Culture of Death.

Planned Parenthood also encourages people to push abortions of disabled unborn children on their Thanksgiving guests, by telling them, “We can try to imagine the heartbreak of a family when they get the news that a test has shown there is something wrong with their baby.”

One might wonder at the type of person who would do this—but then again, when you kill children for profit a little impolite conversation may not be much of a leap.

My wife has today off, and was torn between a post-Turkey Day turkey dinner and a little Black Friday shopping—but as you can see from this photo, the miracles of modern technology have solved that problem.

It hasn’t, however, solved the problems the Occupiers may be causing the Democratic Party:

A campaign under the name “Occupy Black Friday” is trying to enlist supporters to boycott just about every major retailer, and quite a few mid-sized ones, the day after Thanksgiving. The protesters are casting a wide net, urging people to demonstrate against the top retail stores — a list that includes everything from Wal-Mart to Target to Dick’s Sporting Goods to Dollar Tree.

Yup—the Occupod is going to win a lot of friends among the general public with this kind of demonstration.

That being said, I’ve never understood the idea of camping out the night before in the hopes of saving 50 bucks on a laptop, and if you are pepper-spraying people in a store to get a deal, you may be taking a few discounts much too seriously.

Oh, and—speaking of pepper spray, it’s looking an awful lot like the Occupier pepper spaying at the UC Davis campus had a lot less to it than met the eye:

One of the pepper-sprayed students told Goodman, “We had encircled them [campus police], and they were trying to leave, and they were trying to clear a path. And so, we sat down, linked arms, and said that if they wanted to clear the path, they would have to go through us.”

The video of the interview (and remember this is a sympathetic interview) is here:

I think Brent Bozel put it well:

“The Occupying Rabble needed a boost, and got it with the story of campus police pepper-spraying protesters at the University of California, Davis. It was a remarkable jump-start for every left-wing journalist looking to regain his mojo for championing the protesters against ‘The Man.’”

They certainly prefer it to updating the occupy rap sheet.

But our friends on the Left apparently have decided that just spinning isn’t enough, anymore, so now we find them coaching:

In what appears to be at minimum a breach of journalistic ethics, [Ezra] Klein spoke to a group of Senate Democratic Chiefs of Staff last Friday about the Supercommittee, just days before the Committee announced its failure. “It was kind of weird,” said a longtime Senate Democratic aide, explaining that while people “enjoyed it” and gave it “positive reviews,” this sort of thing is far from typical.

A longtime Washington editor who deals with Capitol Hill regularly also said this is not the norm: “”I have never heard of a reporter briefing staffers. It’s supposed to be the other way around. This arrangement seems highly unusual.”

I don’t see why a “longtime Washington Editor” would find this unusual at all, considering the revolving door between Democratic Congressional staffers and the media. It’s even less surprising from Ezra “JournoList” Klein. Then again, the mainstream media doesn’t usually like to speak about such things out loud, or have them brought to the public’s attention.

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Hey, remember the bad old days in the Middle East, when dictators like the still-standing Assad slaughtered and oppressed those who opposed him? It looks like Libya and Egypt have proven that you don’t need a dictator to be violent:

The death toll from the latest wave of violence in Egypt between protesters and security forces has reached 41, the health ministry said Thursday.

Clashes have raged since Saturday between police and protesters who demand that the ruling military cede power to a civilian authority.

Here’s Libya:

Thousands of people, including women and children, are being illegally detained by rebel militias in Libya, according to a report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Many of the prisoners are suffering torture and systematic mistreatment while being held in private jails outside the control of the country’s new government.

The document, seen by The Independent, states that while political prisoners being held by the Gaddafi regime have been released, their places have been taken by up to 7,000 new “enemies of the state”—“disappeared” in a dysfunctional system, with no recourse to the law.

And we aren’t even touching on the slaughter of Christians here.

As Bruce McQuain says, “Wonderful stuff. Just gets your freedom- and liberty-loving bones stirring, doesn’t it?”

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As financial turmoil continues in Europe, I’ll wager—along with Michael Barone—that the British are feeling really good about having retained the Pound Sterling.

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A little sports? While the Patriots were demolishing the overmatched Chiefs this past Monday, basketball fans were treated to a re-airing of Game 4 from the 1984 NBA playoffs, with Bird Parish and McHale facing Kareem, Magic and the gang. In terms of entertainment, it was no contest—but how sad is it that pro basketball fans are reduced to re-runs?

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You never really know with sports. Last year the Boston Bruins became the last major Boston sports franchise to win a championship. As a promotion, Jordan’s launched a contest wherein if you purchased your furniture by a particular date and the Bruins won the Cup again, you would get your purchase for free.

The Bruins promptly started with a whimper, and sat in last place; Jordan’s quickly produced a follow-up ad to extend the deal, pointing out that anything could happen. The timing was perfect, and the B’s have launched themselves into a winning streak and got themselves back into first place.

That’s why you actually play the games.

Incidentally, one of my longtime advertisers, Central Plaza Pizza in Townsend, Massachusetts, offers a chance to win free Bruins tickets monthly with each purchase. It’s quite a deal.

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Well, the second turkey is just about done. As I get ready to head to the table, I have the #2 movie from 1939, Gunga Din, on in the background. It’s a good old-fashioned swashbuckler, with clear heroes and villains, and the good guys come out on top in the end.

By an odd coincidence I saw The Expendables (2010) for the first time yesterday. Sylvester Stallone stars as the head of a group of mercenaries who go after a bunch of bad guys. Although the critics were unimpressed, it seems that the public thought differently; it was a box office success that appealed to both men and women. In fact, The Expendables became, aside from the Saw franchise, the most successful movie Lionsgate ever released. A sequel is slated for next year.

Apparently, to the disgust of papers such as The Guardian, there is still and always will be a market for movies wherein the good guys win, the bad guys lose, the girl is saved, and those who falter are redeemed.

It will always be so, for the justice of those things are written in the hearts of men by their Creator.

And what one wants over one’s reprise turkey dinner is not always capital-A Art, but often simple and fulfulling craftmanship.

Give thanks for that dinner, then—and for those stirring and lovely fables that often stand the test of time.