ROTFLOL…

Thanks John. Finally someone who speaks the truth about the veep debate!

My husband and I were distracted from the debate..it wasn’t difficult...by our new “baby’s”
(our newly adopted 2yr-old Boxer)
latest antics with a new toy!

*rolling eyes*

:o)

Mr. Zmirak:  a number of us don’t really care about what TV shows you watch, or what
your girlfriend thinks, or even whether you have a girlfriend or not.  Please can the
self-references.  Some of the things you said were funny.  They’d be funnier without
incessant self-references.  Also, on the matter of sex—that you would mention the
porno ads is not over the line, as you could be mocking the state of society.  But then
you make the quip that those stations probably aren’t featuring Sarah Palin, which goes
to the question of whether she’s a mom whom—you?  the country?  the advertizers?—
would like to f***.  That is close to the line, even if it is across.  The logo above
with McSame (boy, are these Mc-jokes lame as hell—try finding something that actually
rhymes with “Cain” for the ending) and MILF.  That is just insulting.  In a civilized
society her husband would kick your apparently no longer quite so fat (again, why do
we care?) ass.  In response to Taki’s tacky (see, those words actually sound alike) paean
to adultery, I said that I did not see how self-respecting Catholics could write on the
same website with someone who praises and advocates lechery.  Now I see, as you mockingly
refer to Palin as a MILF, that you are either not self-respecting, or insufficiently
Catholic.  So you and Taki aren’t so incompatible after all.  Was scandal worth your
puerile jokes?

EVEN if the point might be some sort of allegation that Palin is being advertized to the nation as
a “MILF” (is that what you’re claiming?), the joke is not worth the scandal and the
chance of misunderstanding.

“My cognitive skills aren’t equal to the task of connecting all these dots. It’s like singing in Braille.” An example of Gonzo journalism at its finest with some memorable phrases.

But to me Sara Palin lost most of her charm. Her handlers turned the pit bull into a wind-up doll that wits itself.  She even repeated the stinking corpse thing verbatim. And then the two lap dogs up on the podium vied over who loves Israel more.  Well I too love Israel.  But I also love Egypt and Poland and Italy and Armenia and Ireland and Mexico, and yes, Germany and Palestine.  Why weren’t the candidates competing over who loves Kosovo more?  Don’t the Kosovars contribute to their campaigns?

Tobias, if you don’t care, don’t read it. Why torture yourself?

Mr. Zmirak,
The criticism of your writing style is an obiter dictum.  If that was my sole criticism,
I would not have bothered writing.

The shamelessness and lewdness and scandalousness of the mock campaign ad, the crudity
that is unbecoming of a self-acknowledged Catholic writer, are the reason I wrote. 
Perhaps I would have done myself a rhetorical favor by limiting my criticism to the at
least potentially *sinful* aspect of your writing, as opposed to the mere torturousness,
which I admit would not be a universal response.

She arrived as a cipher, and she left that way. Her “answers” to Gwen Ifill’s spongy questions were as substantial as Quaker Rice Cakes, and had all the genuineness of a Nigerian internet helpdesk.

This just isn’t the year for Little Mary Sunshine glad-handing and “hey, sailor” winks. More than any other time in memory, voters want - need - specifics. Less wink, more wonk - comprende!

Palin’s rote, memorized script responded to questions that weren’t asked, as if she’d showed up at a different debate. When the subject was about foreign policy in Africa, she talked about… energy. When she was asked about nuclear proliferation, Palin practically blinked and said “buffalo”.

With Biden’s dull-but-smooth performance as evidence, the Obama people are geniuses. They are successfully executing an effective, “anti-Rovian” tactic - setting quiet traps into which blustering opponents blunder. They’ve sold their tax reform plan the same way, steadily attracting a working-stiff electorate ready for a class-war offensive of their own.

On MSNBC last night, Pat Buchanan, apparently swept away by Palin’s “style”, went a little bonkers - suggesting that the financial collapse was the only factor in Obama’s widening margin in voter polls. But the charts don’t reflect that; they show McCain’s stock steadily falling after the GOP’s expected post-convention bump in early September. And that was weeks before the credit industry and Wall Street laid their eggs.

The key to the election, as Buchanan is fond of saying to advance a much different point, really is Obama, or, more to the point, Obama’s announced policy of shifting the burden of public revenue off the backs of the working class. From the perspective of those making less than a quarter of a million a year, this “redistribution of wealth” - as per Palin’s accusative tag - seems pretty fair.

The Obama campaign’s other talking points - end the war, reform health care, police the greed that has so rotted high finance - are the ones resonating with voters this year. Palin offered no specifics simply because she didn’t dare: A McCain administration seeks to extend the Bush-Era status quo for as long as possible, and plainly outlining that goal will go down like a carbolic acid cocktail among this year’s restive citizenry.

This country simply cannot afford to continue doing business so corruptly, so completely free of restraints. And we don’t need a den mother who apparently prizes so highly such negligence.

Tobias, I woefully fear that you are the variety of Catholic who, in spite of your Popish proclivites, would have cheered when Cromwell & Co. closed the theatres and pubs, banned public dancing, and legislated perpetual frowns upon all English “saints”.

You have neither humour nor levity in your dreadful little life.

I will stick with the license and frivolity of the Restoration where authentically Catholic sensibilities could be found.

Well at least Tobias did not wish for the Venetians to kick the crap out of Mr. Z’s Byzantines, take down Hagia Sophia and put it next to San Vitale in Ravenna....but then I am still celebrating how Santa Anna (also known as me) repelled Taylor and Scott from Mexico on my computer.

Liam, please.  I have laughed aplenty in my dreadful little life, thank you, and my, your
humor goes away fast when someone says something you think runs contrary to it (you’d
have made a better impression if you’d shown a bit of humor yourself in your rebuke,
instead of “woefully fearing” for me). It is precisely because I am inclined to laugh at Zmirak’s lewd joke that I objected.  Tell me, please, which saint would have winked a conniving eye at a Catholic writer using the term “MILF” of a married woman who is not publically known to have committed any sexual misdeed?  You see, it’s one thing to call a woman a whore or a slut—there you are ascribing, rightly or wrongly, appropriately or inappropriately, some misdeed to her, and you are not condoning it.  Is anyone criticizing Mrs. Palin’s sexual life?  No, referring to her as a MILF is simply recognizing that she fits a certain stereotype that younger men have of older ones, that they’d like to “do” them. Is that a criticism of Palin?  How is she fair game to be referred to as such?  How is it relevant?  And using this crudity on the same day that Taki has an article up about why young men should go out and start affairs with married older women—MILFs, I dare say, though Taki probably
would not use the word—struck me as particularly offensive.  How is calling Palin a
“mom I’d like to fuck” (and I’ve used the expletive in order not to gloss over what
we’re talking about here) at all part of “authentic Catholic sensibility”?  Your
indignation is misplaced.

Okay, I confess, I should not have gone off on Zmirak in the way I did about his use of
personal anecdotes.  Sorry.  I understand that he is trying to satirize modern life and culture and personal anecdotes are an effective way of doing that.  The fact that this grates on me from time to time, as I
want him to get to some substantive point, is just a personal reaction.  If I met
him in person and he started sharing personal anecdotes, obviously it would be
inappropriate and, more importantly, untrue if I told him, “Sorry, I don’t care.” Most of this
article was good, and Zmirak made a number of trenchant points.  But he merits a stern
rebuke for the MILF bit, without a doubt, and one does not have to be a Puritan to see that.

And this will come back.  Someone will discount “the pro-lifer and Catholic John Zmirak”
on the grounds that he called Palin a MILF.  Never mind the fact that in the actual
article he said that he liked her.  I’m sure she could do without people who like her so
much as to display offensive ads about her.  This could be used by—neocons?  liberals?
-- to dismiss Zmirak and his sterling writings.

C’mon Zmirak, give it to us straight--Palin is the older woman you lust for.  That kind of stuff makes Taki a _man_ around here.

Good lord, Tobias, shut the hell up and get a sense of humor and chill out!

And I thought I was too prudish!

Dear Tobias,
Please try to view my satirical comments in context, and keep in mind Flannery O’Connor’s words to the effect (I don’t have it before me) that “we have a duty not to be perpetual children, not to be perpetually scandalized.” I didn’t coin the term MILF—it came from the movie “American Pie,” I believe—but it is now in popular parlance. Regardless of what the acronym stands for, in day-to-day usage, it refers simply to a woman of a certain age who has had children, who has kept her looks. In fact, I plan to write a column here about the perversity of a culture that finds it SURPRISING that a woman who has children would still be attractive, and has to invite a silly acronym to express that fact.

Nevertheless, in common use the term is NOT an insult, or an expression of lust, but a mildly bawdy compliment. The term contains a profanity, but its literal sense has almost been lost—like the word “awe” in “awesome.” As in “She got a totally awesome tan.” Most people, hearing this, would not mistakenly infer that the tanner’s shade inspires religious awe. Most women who use say MILF—and in my experience, more women use it than men, including devout Catholic women whom I know from Latin Mass—are not in fact lesbians. Since my girlfriend uses it, I certainly hope not.

I doubt VERY much if Mr. Palin would be offended that people referred to his wife as a MILF; if I were married and had a wife who’d (through hard work) kept her figure after five children, I’d be proud of her and grateful for her efforts… and would actually find such a term (in the proper context) funny and flattering to her. I would ask any moms who read this site to comment on how they would feel if someone light-heartedly used this term about them. Perhaps I’m wildly deluded, but I don’t think most of them would be offended.

The campaign sign was obnoxious and funny. Like the Web site. If you don’t like that sort of thing—as apparently you don’t—you really ought to stick to “Chronicles,” an excellent magazine/site which promotes similar politics but is quite earnest. That will spare you references to Michelle Obama’s face as a “puckered elephant orifice.”

Someone might claim that Catholics shouldn’t write things like that. If being a public Catholic really entailed the kind of nicey-nice blandness one finds in diocesan newspapers, I would have to trade in my union card and stop defending the Church and her teachings and the sanctity of life. I just can’t write that way. And lefties would have one more reason to believe that THEY are the only ones “courageous” and “candid” enough to look at contemporary culture except through rose-colored glasses, in sanitized, G-rated summaries intended not to offend the most thin-skinned young fogey who might happen to see the article. 

I do NOT apologize for the personal material in the columns. A number of readers, at least, find it funny, well-written, and pertinent. In drawing on personal foibles, I am following in the line of my betters, a long list of self-referential humorists such as Erma Bombeck, Fran Liebowitz, Kinky Friedman, Florence King, Woody Allen, H.L. Mencken, Mark Twain… the list goes on and on. If you don’t like that sort of thing, again—don’t read it. Which applies to the site as well.

What I was surprised about the whole thing was that even though she wasn’t asked, to volunteer her strongest beliefs on abortion.  She made sure to talk about McCain the maverick when not asked, it certainly wouldn’t have hurt her in many voters eyes t oput Biden on the spot and at least force him to admit how he thinks of children as a mistake.

Like it or not, there are plenty of American men who think of Gov. Palin as a milf. That’s the reality.

And it also may explain why some of them would want to vote for her.

I’ll be the first to admit that John’s article was rather crude.

However, Palin’s “performance,” her flirting and winking at the audience; not to mention her tone of voice and smirk when she was saying “drill, baby, drill” was beyond the pale in a professional/
political setting.  I can’t imagine HRC or KBH behaving in such a manner during a debate.

My 21 year old son watched the debate with us. He thinks that Palin is a “white-trash cougar”
("w-tc’s" always have lots of kids but don’t spend much time with them..because they’re too “busy,” even when they’re not working.)Soo......

Hey John Z..Maybe you should ditch the long distance relationship with your Texas darlin’...and marry her before you’re over the hill.

Oh, and P.S. 

Regarding Mr Palin..If someone called me a “MILF” my hubby would punch them in the nose!  That’s not the kind of language we use in our home. ;-)

Dude, we get it. You’re an early forties guy with a LTR after a long dry spell. But really, this mentioning your ‘gal’ in every piece irritates readers and makes you look pathetic. Ditto for your efforts at weight loss.

Uhm… MILF is actually kind of a compliment.

Offer something free to people and they still complain.

Re Stari:

Er, “Dude,” if my stories of intestinal examinations, driver’s ed classes, destructive household pets and the frustrations of a long-distance romance strike you as boasting.... Well, bless your HEART!

Many years ago I fell for a woman who was a very manufactured production and still have the scars to prove it.  Under the exquisitely contrived surface she combined the worst of Typhoid Mary and Calamity Jane.  Mr.

Zmirak shows much greater perception than I had at the time.  Conservatives take note and be very afraid.  One who has worked with Gov. Palin remarked that the current in-power leader she most closely resembles in terms of operating style is VP Cheney.  Do we need another who has a slick surface persona?

Crystal meth?

Yeah, yeah, John is a competent writer. 

Though many times he make me angry with his inconsistencies (ie. fervent catholicism but lowbrow, vulagar characterizations of arabs)sometimes, he makes even ME laugh.

Sometimes, he probably even means to but the hartiest laughs i get are when he is unintentionally amusing, viz:

<<I am following in the line of my betters, a long list of self-referential humorists such as Erma Bombeck, Fran Liebowitz, Kinky Friedman, Florence King, Woody Allen, H.L. Mencken, Mark Twain…>>

That gave me a good, deep guffaw, thank you very much.

She is not going to be a milf for to much longer, she is going to be a gilf in about a month.

Although not quite as old as Taki, I must be too old for this particular thread, anyway.

Just break it to me easy then: what is a MILF? I had thought from the context it must be a digital TV term, but perhaps not?

Back in the day the only acronyms we dealt with were from USARV in the RVN as we tried to stay ahead of the NVA (AKA the parents of the cheerful young capitalists I met there on my return earlier this year).

@ Woody Jones.......

I didn’t know what J.Z. was talking about (MILF) either; until
I looked it up at:

http://www.acronymfinder.com/

Like I said in another post, that isn’t the kind of language we use in our home.

@ Woody Jones

You must not have read all of Tobias’ comment above:

“ ... How is calling Palin a
“mom I’d like to fuck” (and I’ve used the expletive in order not to gloss over what
we’re talking about here) at all part of “authentic Catholic sensibility”?  Your
indignation is misplaced.”

I like John’s blog because he has a fresh perspective, and sometimes he’s just fresh.

There is nothing more absurd than Takimag readers in a periodic fit of priggishness. But if it makes you feel any better, lots of people (males AND females) who refer to a still-attractive older woman with children as a MILF don’t even know what the acronym means; if they do happen to know, they no more think in explicitly sexual terms than when they say John McCain “sucks” or the Obama/Biden ticket “blows.” Yes, all three words are vulgar, but ubiquitous, so it’s just ridiculous to get the vapors and be oh-so-very-offended-and-scandalized by commonplace crudeness. This is a TAKIMAG article for godssakes, not a papal bull.

p.s. if you DO think about a sexual act everytime someone says “sucks” or “blows” or “MILF” you either need to retreat to a cave forever or seek treatment immediately.

Anyone who thinks Sarah Palin doesn’t know and exploit that she is a hotty hasn’t studied her background very well.  She was chosen for her sex appeal and wink, wink, her ability to cause hearts to flutter in the likes of Pat Buchanan.

Bill Clinton, eat your heart out…

What a bunch of girlymen: Sarah Palin has more balls and guts than anyone on this thread. All she has been doing is having a large family with a happy satisfied husband. She has been a city council member,mayor, head of the Alaska oil and gas commision, reformer and no nonsense governor. She went out yesterday after NBC, ABC and the whole media tried to destroy her and her family for the last month. She more than held her own with a crooked moderator who probaly gave the questions to Biden. I am sorry you twerps don’t like her. My wife and I sure love her and like the way she brings her baby out all the time. That is the most prolife statment I have ever seen.

From here from Sydney, she looks plain dangerous. the whole"darn folks” thing would be pathetic if she wasnt running for the second highest office in the land. What does it say about you people? No wonder the international prestige of the “good ol’ US of a” is shot…

There’s a good reason for conservatives belief in the separation of the private and the public.  It can be funny to cross the boundary sometimes, but it’s also possible to go too far in revealing one’s private life and, um, inclinations.  I’m referring to Mr. Zmirak’s very open and apparently quite shameless announcement in this article that he listens to NPR.  I really think that goes beyond what should be acceptable at this site.

I see from this article and the comments that there are people talking about SEX at Takimag!  Is Taki aware of this?

Geez!
Please quit picking on John, he’s an excellent writer! If you don’t like him, don’t read him, it’s real simple.
What’s an MILF?
I like sweet Sarah but she’s pro-war (taking “democracy” to the Middle East) and she’s in favor of giving the theives that screwed up banking another trillion or so! What’s that all about?

St Augustine, in experiencing “worldly” love, was perhaps better able to understand the true nature of love in ALL its manifestations than the tormented celibate whipping the lust out of himself in the isolation of a cell.  Who knows, the great Augustine may even have found the odd mother attractive ... in those days before chastity. 

I enjoy your articles Mr Zmirak - including the self-referential anecdotes !

Mom-shell is easier on the ears than the word used here, but it wouldn’t fit as easily into a porn title.  I guess that’s the point.  Oh well. 

Sarah Palin was more attractive as an Alaskan separatist, but I can’t deny her Pro-Life appeal.

Just to clarify, I posted my comment without noticing that someone else had complained about your inability to write without ‘inviting’ us into your private life. Wasn’t trying to pile on.

But man, when I got to the ‘elliptical trainer’ bit I just had to stop reading. The mental picture of JZ huffing and puffing and sweating while talking to his ‘Texas darlin’ over the telephone was just too much to take.

You’re not helping your career as a columnist, John.

“Mom-shell”! That is terrific. Never heard it before… Much preferable to the acronym. I will use “momshell” exclusively from now on.

But will she share her recipe for mooseturd pie?

I have to say, these columns are quite embarrassing.  Is this what paleo-conservatism (or whatever you want to call it) has come to? No wonder we’ve lost.

I apologize for the tone of my comment - Mr. Zmirak does not deserve such vitriol.  He means well and is obviously a conscientious fellow.  My not liking his columns does not mean they should be followed by vile personal attacks.  So I do apologize.  Bad morning for me I guess.

Tobias: you are indeed humorless; I can’t help but think you and all the other nay-sayers are simply jealous of what an intelligent and witty writer Mr. Zmirak is. And Mr. Zmirak, you have no need to defend yourself (I am so very glad you did not apologize); your article was perfectly harmless, and only the most priggish and, perhaps a better word, *pharisaical* of readers would take offense. (And I speak as a traditional Catholic who cares deeply about things like holiness and piety.)

Keep writing as you do, and pay no mind to the grumps in the audience…

All right busters, first this mention of “cougars” and then the comment that the Governor is about to become a “GILF”.....why, this is just not right...it’s intemperate and ...and...well, it’s distracting me and there’s only so much time I can spend in this black rubber corset listening to the Governor say “massive oversight” before heat rash breaks out.

As authoritarians , Cheney and the boys have been downright amateur but with perky Sarah a winkin and a smilin and saying “massive oversight”, well, it will be all over donchiknow. It will be Modern America’s crowning contribution to the history of government: Dominatrix Fascism. Who needs a toga when we got leathers?

This really is one of the funniest elections in the history of mankind. One just cannot make this stuff up.

By the way, to the new Boxer owner, many congratulations and kudos to your first rate taste. You are in for a great time, if you have kids, the animal will be one of the best friends they ever have ....they are one of the finest dogs known to mankind...even if their beer farts make couch potatoing something akin to wallowing in low tide along the banks of the Bronx River. They are such a considerate animal that even they get embarrassed over their emissions on occasion and will slink off and look back at you with pained moon-eyes.

Stari Momack: “The mental picture of JZ huffing and puffing and sweating while talking to his ‘Texas darlin’ over the telephone was just too much to take.”

You are a first-rate pervert, Stari. Why don’t YOU take your petty jealousies and pervy mind somewhere else if you can’t control yourself.

@ Ploni, You’ve got to be kidding.  Now you dislike Mr. Zmirak because he dares to listen to NPR?  Pretty soon you’ll want to start burning books.  Crawl back in you cave.

iI doubt VERY much if Mr. Palin would be offended that people referred to his wife as a MILF; if I were married and had a wife who’d (through hard work) kept her figure after five children, I’d be proud of her and grateful for her efforts… and would actually find such a term (in the proper context) funny and flattering to her.</i>

I can’t speak for Mr. Palin, but I have a wife (born the same year as Mrs. Palin) who has borne five children and kept a good figure, and while I would appreciate hearing that people found my wife attractive, if they chose that particular set of four letters with which to express their admiration, I’d tell them to keep their God-damned (or at least God-damnable) filthy minds to themselves.

Christine,

If you re-read what I wrote, my primary objection is to the ad.  I admit that the rest
is primarily a matter of taste.  One word:  MILF.  Do I really have to be a prig to
object to the use of this lewd expression?  If the Pope, or a confessor, or a saint, were
reading this, do you think that he would accept such a word as part of a writer’s
license?  This isn’t a question of layperson vs. monk, but of Christian vs. worldling.
Mr. Zmirak is too good a writer to let such crudities seep in.  The joke was not worth
this debate. 

Again, I should not have launched into a criticism of Zmirak’s self-referential humor.
Some of the best humor is self-referential.  I just don’t like Zmirak’s brand all that
much.  I don’t have to be humorless in order not to like a particular writer’s comedic
style.  So *on that point* I’ll have to add my apology to Sebastian’s. 

And then there’s recrimination.  I’ll confess right here:  I am a grump, a hypocrite,
a prig, an invidious jerk, a troll, a wretched sinner with more pressing faults of my own to deal
with.  Absolutely.  AND the ad at the top of this page should still come down.

Seamus,
To be perfectly frank, if someone called your wife a MILF there is a 100% chance that said person is not having “God-damned filthy” thoughts about your wife, but rather paying her a simple compliment, however vulgar. But the probability that this would ever happen is very slim, as I’ll explain below.

Women who are truly over-the-top beautiful are accustomed to such “compliments” as they realize that there is nothing “filthy” in the mind of the complimenter, but rather such a crass sentiment is just an unfortunate side effect of our increasingly vulgar society. Such women have most probably been stunningly beautiful (not simply “very attractive” with a “nice figure") their entire lives and are therefore used to giving people the benefit of the doubt when “complimenting” them in dubious terms. The men in their lives, after years of other men gawking and head-turning and occasionally voicing “inappropriate” appreciation, are accustomed to this dumbing down of civility as well and take it in the spirit in which it was meant - an expression of appreciation for exceptional beauty.
In our youth-obsessed culture where 40 is positively ancient, there are truly so few “older” women who would qualify as a MILF (Christie Brinkley, Vanessa Williams, etc. Sarah Palin is of average attractiveness, but is a supermodel by female-politician standards), that Esmerelda and Seamus personally fretting about this very improbable hypothetical is a waste of time and energy.

Tobias wrote:

“If the Pope, or a confessor, or a saint, were reading this, do you think that he would accept such a word as part of a writer’s license?  This isn’t a question of layperson vs. monk, but of Christian vs. worldling.”

I assume you’d place yourself in the Christian camp and Mr. Zmirak--along with the rest of us who see his humor as totally benign--in the worldling camp?

The Catholic Catechism teaches that charity requires that we give others the benefit of the doubt. Assuming the worst of Mr. Zmirak’s humor, you accused him of being “insufficiently Catholic,” while the rest of us could see his remark as well-intentioned and benign. If there’s any failure of charity in this column, it isn’t coming from him.

About ten years ago, National Review was taken over (is that the right phrasing?) by a bunch of youngsters with names like Goldberg and Lowry who sprinkled their columns with snarky one-liners and pop culture references. They were (and are) a most unserious group. It was at that point that I, as a young conservative, joined the Paleocons. Zmirak is an entertaining fellow to be sure. But I do hope the same isn’t happening to Takimag.

I find little to laugh about in these dark times but Zmirak’s columns almost always amuse me.  Is that bad? 

Is it bad for him to imply that those who helped John McCain select Palin as running mate were cynically hoping for a Milf-factor to counter act McCain’s old and kind of creepy public image?  Would something like that actually attract male voters...or will it have the opposite effect since most men don’t really think of good looking women as the executive type and unless they tend towards masochism and harbor a closet longing for a dominatrix to tell them what to do when they are bad they may not seek to put a woman in power above themselves.  Will women everywhere feel threatened by their husbands sudden lust for this new woman? 

Can any of this actually be really happening?  Am I as bad a Catholic as Zmirak for raising these questions?

I have no idea who created the McSame/MILF yard sign featured and debated above, but a tip of the hat nonetheless to Mr. Zmirak for incorporating it into his column - it would be funny if it weren’t so vividly certain.

PS - the Neocons get a toofer with Governor Palin: relative youth/vitality/beauty and an utterly blank slate on which to defecate their most heinous foreign policy machinations - conduct so utterly representative of Neocon tribesmen and termagants.

In response to a cogent letter, written in a charitable spirit, I’ve decided that the sign decorating the story ought to be removed, and have asked the editor of the site to take it down. (It’s up to him, of course.) You get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, folks....

...and unless they tend towards masochism and harbor a closet longing for a dominatrix to tell them what to do when they are bad ...

Ok, I admit it I do fantasize about that but I’m still not voting for her.

between mcCains obnoxious interview with the des moines register and ms palins apparent lack of intellectual depth I have really started to actively dislike the GOP ticket and refer to them as the gruesome twosome in my mind.

Thanks for responding to my comment.  Made my day.

I thought it was funny.

Blog.

I think John is funny and I like his self-referential humor.  I’ll admit I myself am
also a bit of an egoist.  I agree with Tobias (though not with such temerity) that MILF
is not a respectful term for a woman and should be avoided.  I think Tobias should be
thanked for bringing up a relevant point and doing his best to correct his Christian
brother.  This is TRUE charity at its best and as usual the world recoils and lashes out at
it. 

You can tell Tobias likes John so give him a break.  Maybe he should be an example to
us all, even if he was a little hard on John at first.

I know John personally and I would like to thank him for getting us all into hot water
again.  He is quite adept at the task.  I hope I in his image also turned up the heat a degree or two.

To The Original Jack,

I just read a brief piece by Joshua Mercer that you and your wife might enjoy just as I and my hubby did. Mercer quotes
Cardinal O’Malley on the real star of this campaign season:

“I very seldom get to see any television, but I did watch part of the political conventions, and for me the star of the conventions was Trig Palin, whose mother said that he was ‘beautiful’ and ‘perfect.’ And when his little sister used that spit to slick his hair down, I mean, I stood up and applauded.”

Mercer says that the Cardinal went on to note sadly that 90% of Downs children are currently aborted. Her decision, coupled—if you’ll excuse the expression—with her response to her teen daughter’s pregnancy, is as pro-life a witness as we’re ever likely to get in the political arena, and btw, she’s also a baptized Catholic, though I don’t believe she ever received any instruction in the faith or any other Sacraments.

Worm, I am an egoist myself (in case that isn’t clear from my chest-thumping fulminations). 

Thank you very much, Mr. Zmirak, for taking down the ad.  As you can see, I have not evolved spiritually beyond the stage you described in one of your articles—what was it?  Hit first and hit hard?  Sigh.  God bless the gent or lady who sent you a more levelheaded letter.  I have done things infinitely worse than make an off-color remark, so dishing out all that hell to you was quite unmerited.  My sincerest apologies once more, and may your courting of the Texan belle be successful. 

Fighting scandal with
more scandal since the
days of CCD,
Tobias

Christine,

Worm was kind and charitable enough to assume that I was doing my best.  Well, I certainly didn’t succeed, as I should have been more charitable.  Using that expression as it was used above would be an *act* that would be unworldly and lacking in Catholic manners, I’d say.  That Zmirak as a man exceeds me in Catholicity in every other respect other than this one remark, I’ll conceed.  It was a fault worthy of rebuke, and I wish someone better than I had been here to deliver the rebuke. 

For one who criticized self-referentiality, I certainly have indulged in my fair share of it in writing here.  Kyrie eleison.

John Zmirak you call the barracuda,pitbull on a shortleash MILF ? Your sexual preferences scare the living day lightlights out of me.I can now understand why you are loosing weight and telling us about it Moore grease on your elbows mate.

I’d hit it.