Showing posts with label Frank Bruni. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Bruni. Show all posts

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Someone needs to wake George Will and tell him Ronald Reagan is dead

They tell the story in England of a British politician who dreamt he was addressing the House of Lords. When he awakened, he found that indeed he was!

Today I read the Review section in the Sunday Times and the Opinion section of my local newspaper. I had the feeling all the political pundits are asleep or that they're living in the 1980s.  In the Times, Timothy Egan wrote a rambling and largely incoherent essay about Bernie Sanders. Egan said Bernie's plan for a free college education and universal health care "are no more thought out than a bumper sticker."

Egan's observations are so false as to be almost libelous. Sanders' health care plan and his higher-education proposal are quite sound, and both are less expensive and more egalitarian than Obamacare and our federal student-loan nightmare.

In my local paper, George Will dismissed the rise of Trump and Sanders as "political silliness," and lumped them both with the simplistic socialist politicians of Great Britain.  Will  derided supporters of both candidates, calling them Trumpkins and Sandernistas.

I am astonished by the near unanimity among political columnists on both the right and the left regarding the upcoming presidential election. Almost with one voice, they ridicule both Trump and Sanders--basically implying by their arguments that Americans would be better off if Crooked Hillary became President

Some write from a conservative perspective and some call themselves liberals, but almost all of them share one thing in common--their columns appear under photographs of themselves that are about 20 years out of date.

Indeed all these people are from another era--from a time when the oligarchs had Americans convinced that our politicians were aligned into two political parties based on political principles. But of course we all know now that the Democratic-Republican divide was a charade--just a puppet show to amuse the rubes while politicians on both sides of the aisle lined their own pockets.

But the saps woke up. Some threw their support behind Trump, and some went to Sanders. Now the media elites are hysterical, writing mad drivel that cannot be identified by ideology. Froma Harrop insinuates Bernie Sanders is a racist, and Bill O'Reilly ridicules Bernie as doddering Socialist. Or is the other way around?

All these people--Froma Harrop, George Will, Timothy Egan, Frank Bruni, Steve and Cokie Roberts, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, etc.--need to  wake up and join the 21st century. The peasants are rising, and their fury will not be assuaged by stale prose written by people who come across like eccentric  nursing-home inmates writing letters to the local newspaper.

Image result for george will images
I hate to break it to you, George, but Ronald Reagan is dead.

References

Timothy Egan. Bernie's Last Stand. New York Times, June 5, 2016, Review Section, p. 2. Accessible at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/05/opinion/sunday/bernies-last-stand.html?_r=0

George Will. Britain, too, is infected with political silliness. Baton Rouge Advocate, June 5, 2016, p. 7B. Also accessible in the Washington Post at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/britain-too-is-infected-with-political-silliness/2016/06/03/77560a20-28e8-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html







Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Barney Frank, World Class Sleaze, Accuses Bernie Sanders of McCarthyism

Barney Frank, former Congressman from Massachusetts, will be one of Hillary Clinton's Super Delegates at the Democratic Convention. Indeed, Frank is on the Convention's Platform  Committee. That fact that Barney Frank is a Hillary partisan is reason enough to be a Bernie Sanders supporter.

Most people have forgotten that Barney Frank paid for sex with a male prostitute, hired the guy to be a personal assistant and then turned a blind eye while the prostitute ran a prostitution ring out of Frank's apartment.  (Frank claimed he did not know his apartment was being used for prostitution, and he may have been telling the truth.) And all of this while Frank represented the state of Massachusetts in Congress. The House of Representatives reprimanded Frank, not for hiring a prostitute, but for writing a misleading letter to the prostitute's probation officer. Oh yes. And Frank used his congressional privilege to fix more than 30 of the prostitute's parking tickets

You don't have to believe me.  Read about it in the New York Times and other respected newspapers.

Frank was on the House Financial Services Committee in 2005, when he downplayed concerns about the bubble in the housing industry. Millions of Americans suffered losses in the financial downturn of 2008, but not Frank. As  Liz Peak  reported in 2011, Frank did quite well during the financial crisis and retired from Congress comfortably fixed: 
As a steward of the nation’s purse during the financial crisis Mr. Frank may not have succeeded, but he did quite well personally. Unusually, Mr. Frank’s personal finances sailed right through the downturn. In 2006 he reported assets valued between $525,020 and $1.6 million; by 2010 Mr. Franks’ net worth had soared to between $1.9 million and $4.6 million, with nary a down year in between. No wonder he can afford to retire. 
 And now Frank, speaking as a Super Delegate for Hillary Clinton, has the effrontery to accuse Bernie Sanders--the only decent person left in the presidential race--of McCarthyism!

Barney Frank is one of roughly 400 Democratic Party insiders who have profited from politics while the American economy spirals downward. And Frank's vote as a Super Delegate is worth more than a coal miner's vote in the West Virginia primary or a Walmart clerk's vote in the Oklahoma primary.

The media elites--all self-proclaimed progressives--have closed their eyes to Hillary's cronyism and self-dealing and have thrown their support to Bernie's opponent.

But I have a message for all Hillary's media lap dogs who are disparaging Bernie Sanders--Frank Bruni, Froma Harrop, Cokie and Steve Roberts, etc. etc. etc. Hillary Clinton will not be the next president of the United States.  And the public will remember the journalists who were confronted with a choice between sleaze and decency during the 2016 presidential campaign and who chose to support sleaze.


Barney Frank's quarter century in Congress was interrupted by a scandal that would have buried other men. But this openly gay congressman, who has one of the fiercest wits and sharpest minds on Capitol Hill, remains a force to be reckoned with.
Barney Frank, a Hillary Super Delegate, Accuses Bernie Sanders of McCarthyism

  
References

 Allan Gold. Frank Acknowledges Hiring Male Prostitute as Personal Aide. New York Times, August 25, 1989. Accessible at http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/26/us/rep-frank-acknowledges-hiring-male-prostitute-as-personal-aide.html?pagewanted=all

Mark Finkelstein. Hillary Fan Barney Frank Accuses of Bernie Sanders of 'McCarthyism."MRC Newsbusters, April 6, 2016. Accessible at http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2016/04/06/hillary-fan-barney-frank-accuses-bernie-sanders-mccarthyism

Froma Harrop, Bernie Sanders and Racism Lite. Seattle Times, May 19, 2016. Accessible at http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/bernie-sanders-and-racism-lite/

Frances Romero. Sinful Statesman Barney FrankTime Magazine, June 8, 2011. Accessible at http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1721111_1721210_1883878,00.html

A Timeline of Politicians and Prostitutes. U.S. News & World Report, March 11, 2008. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/03/11/a-timeline-of-politicians-and-prostitutes

Liz Peek. Barney Frank Won't Have To Worry About Money In Retirement. Fox News, December 2, 2011. Accessible at http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/12/02/barney-frank-wont-have-to-worry-about-money-in-retirement.html

Cokie and Steve Roberts. Bernie Sanders plays a dangerous game. Baton Rouge Advocate, May 30, 2016, p. 5B.  Also accessible at  http://kpcnews.com/opinions/other_columnists/kpcnews/article_ac1c34ff-ce96-5376-89c8-26841b44436a.html

Monday, May 23, 2016

Froma Harrop insinuates that Bernie Sanders is a racist: Is Froma pimping for Hillary?

The media elite are furious that Bernie Sanders won't go away and that he continues to win primary elections. And some journalists have resorted to making wild accusations about Sanders and his campaign.

Froma Harrop's piece, which appeared last week, is particularly nasty. Appearing under a headline entitled "Bernie Sanders and Racism Lite,' Harrop insinuated that Bernie's campaign is associated with racism. She even accused "Sanders' white posses" of "invading campaign events of other presidential contenders, including Donald Trump rallies. But Harrop cited no evidence to support such a charge.

The liberal media can't have it both ways. Most liberal commentators argue that Trump's rallies are disrupted because Trump incites violence by his message and tone. But now Harrop suggests that it is those nasty Bernie supporters who are causing all the ruckus.

She also cynically interpreted Bernie's observation that his rallies were largely peaceful even when held in "high crime areas."  According to Harrop, "high crime areas" is a veiled reference to African American neighborhoods.

Harrop admits--as she must--that Bernie has a "staunch civil rights record." Indeed, Bernie was arrested in 1963 for participating in a civil rights protest against segregated schools in Chicago; and he was active in the Congress On Race Equality (CORE) during the 1960s. Does Hillary have a comparable civil rights record? No, she does not.

Perhaps the most ridiculous part of Harrop's hatchet job on Bernie was her insinuation that he moved to Vermont, which she described as "the whitest state in the nation," for racist reasons. Vermont, Harrop confides, "had become a safe haven for liberals leaving--the word then was 'fleeing'--the cities."

What a pile of horse manure! A great many states have low minority populations--Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Vermont, Maine. Is Harrop suggesting that people who move to those states are a bunch of racists? If that's true, then pack me to a re-education camp because I lived in Alaska for nine years during the 1980s.

In my view, Harrop is one of a band of panting puppies eager to assist Hillary Clinton clinch the Democratic presidential nomination by denigrating Bernie Sanders--the only genuinely decent candidate left in the race. Cokie and Steve Roberts performed a similar service for Hillary in an op ed essay as did Frank Bruni of the New York Times, who suggested that Bernie was a sore loser because he didn't drop out of the race for president.

But it is the liberal media elites who are the sore losers. And what they have lost is the public's respect for their journalistic integrity. And that's why millions of Americans have decided to think for themselves during this election cycle instead of allowing CNN, the New York Times, and journalistic lap dogs like Froma Harrop to do their thinking for them.

I hate to break the news to you, Froma, but a lot of Americans find Hillary totally unacceptable as a president; and insinuating that Bernie is a racist is not the way to persuade Americans to change their minds.

Who is that guy?
References

Frank Bruni. The Cult of Sore Losers. New York Times, April 26, 2016. Accessible at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/opinion/the-cult-of-sore-losers.html?_r=0

Froma Harrop. Bernie Sanders and Racism Lite. Seattle Times, May 19, 2016. Accessible at http://www.seattletimes.com/author/froma-harrop/

Tim Murphy. Here's What Bernie Sanders Actually Did In the Civil Rights Movement. Mother Jones, February 11, 2016. Accessible at http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/02/bernie-sanders-core-university-chicago



Sunday, November 23, 2014

You can't win if you don't play! Elite colleges engage in "promiscuous" recruiting to get their acceptance rates down

Frank Bruni wrote a provocative op ed essay in the Times awhile back about aggressive recruiting practices by elite colleges and universities.  The spokespeople for these joints say they want to make sure they don't overlook "candidates of great merit" who might miss the golden opportunity to matriculate at tony institutions like Swarthmore.

But, as Bruni pointed out, private colleges maintain their elite status by keeping their acceptance rates low; and the only way elite institutions can lower their acceptance rates is to increase the number of applicants.  So--in essence--colleges are trying to lure as many applicants as possible just to set them up for rejection.

Bruni quoted one person who said Tulane University sends everyone a "VIP application," and Rensselaer invites some applicants to apply with "Candidate Choice status!" (bold type and explanation mark supplied by Rennselaer).

The headline for Bruni's essay is entitled "Promiscuous College Come-Ons," and "promiscuous" is probably the right word. Our elite colleges are engaging in recruiting practices that are basically identical to the gambling industry: "You can't win if you don't play!"

All across America, high school students are sweating over college-application essays that will make them stand out when their applications are scanned by beady-eyed admissions committees at places like Williams, Wesleyan, Hamilton, Colby, Swarthmore, and Smith. Meanwhile, parents are trying to figure out the difference between the sticker price and the real cost of educating little Suzie or Johnny at an elite school after scholarships, grants, and loans are factored in.  Very much like trying to get a good deal on a new Chevy.

And what is the value of the prize that little Suzie and Johnny win if they get into an exclusive college? For many of the people who matriculate at America's elitists institutions, all they will have received when they graduate is an expensive introduction to postmodern cynicism and a lot of student-loan debt.

I think it is time for bright young Americans to make the bold and courageous decision to  just skip the whole elite-college experience. I think it is time for American young people to explore less exalted options for their post-secondary educations and training like attending a foreign university, getting a technical education in the energy field, or just staying near home and attending a nearby state college.

In my view, our brightest and most idealistic young people should be asking themselves if they want to become the kind of people who run our elite universities or who teach at them. I don't think they do.

Our best young Americans want a post-secondary education that will allow them enter occupations that are fulfilling and will pay enough for them to care for their families. They want educational experiences that will help them develop a reasoned basis for making ethical decisions. And I think they want educational experiences that will help them determine the ultimate meaning of their lives--something liberal arts institutions once purported to do.

 It is true, as the higher education community constantly reminds us, that people who graduate from college make more money than people who don't.  But I wonder if people who borrow thousands of dollars to attend our nation's most expensive elite universities make more money or have more fulfilling lives than people who graduate from West Texas University with no debt.


References

Frank Bruni. Promiscuous College Come-Ons. New York Times, November 22, 2014. Accessible at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-promiscuous-college-come-ons.html?_r=0




Monday, June 16, 2014

Why Humiliate Yourself To Get into an Ivy League College? The Search for a Richer Life

Years ago I had a professor at the University of Texas who hung his college diploma in the guest bathroom of his home--right above the toilet.  As I recall he was a Harvard graduate.

I remember being offended by the gesture, intended I suppose to be ironic. If I had the opportunity to go to Harvard or any Ivy League university, I told myself, I would hang my diploma in a place of honor.

Years later I obtained a doctorate degree from Harvard, one of the stupidest things I ever did. For years I hung my diploma in my office, but today it hangs in a back hallway of my home.  I didn't put my Harvard diploma in an obscure place to be ironic.  I just came to realize how meaningless my Harvard degree really is.

Yesterday, Frank Bruni had an op ed piece in the New York Times about people humiliating themselves in their college admissions essays in order to stand out and perhaps improve their chances of being accepted at an elite college.  One young woman, Bruni wrote, confessed in her essay that she had once urinated on herself rather than interrupt an intellectually stimulating conversation with a teacher. Another young man revealed his disappointment with size of his genitals. Other students enroll in college-application camps, which can cost up to $14,000, where they are taught how to polish their college admissions essays to make them more appealing to Ivy League admissions officers.

Why do young people turn themselves inside out to get into an elite American university--Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Duke, Columbia, etc. I suppose they believe that these institutions hold the key that unlocks the golden door. If only I can get a degree from Harvard, these people tell themselves, I will have a richer life.

But I think many people who hanker to go to an elite college will be disappointed if they actually enroll. For the most part, these institutions are intellectually vapid, surreptitiously  racist, and pathetically provincial in their outlook on the world. They are openly contemptuous of American culture and traditional American values.  The people who run these cesspools of privilege think they embrace diverse philosophies and points of view, yet they harass traditional Christian student groups.  The professors and administrators of these intellectual ghettos think they are guardians of truth and beauty, yet they scorn the very notion that there are universal truths. Indeed, a great many people who inhabit our elitist universities seek nothing more from life than money, power, and public recognition.

If only I could get into Harvard!
Moreover, our elite institutions are not producing people who can analyze and solve problems, as evidenced by the way the Obama administration is running the country. Almost everyone connected withe the present  administration in Washington has a degree from an elite British or American university, and yet it is evident to nearly everyone that these folks do not know what they are doing.

And of course, all these prestigious colleges and universities are outrageously expensive. It will cost you around sixty grand a year to hang out with a bunch of nincompoops.

I was ruminating on Bruni's essay yesterday morning when I walked into my parish church to attend Mass. I saw four nuns of the Missionaries of Charity sitting in the back of the church--sisters of Mother Teresa's order. They are quite distinctive in their white veils with the blue stripes--veils that always remind me of my grandmother's tea towels.

As I looked at these nuns I realized that there is a great gulf between a humiliating life and a life lived in humility. Some people are willing to humiliate themselves in order to get into Harvard or Yale. Others are humble enough to give their lives to God.

And I wondered, as I turned to genuflect before the tabernacle, who has the richer life--the people who dedicate their lives to God or the people who get a degree from Harvard?

References

Frank Bruni. Naked Confessions of the College Bound. New York Times, June 15, 2015, Sunday Review Section, p. 3.




Monday, June 9, 2014

For what we have done to you, we are truly sorry: The Baby Boomers should apologize to the Millennial Generation for the student-loan mess

Frank Bruni wrote a long op ed essay in yesterday's Sunday Times about the wrongs the Baby Boomers have committed against the Millennial generation.   According to Bruni, the Baby Boomers are leaving today's youth with towering problems: climate change, a sick economy, and a mounting national debt. Bruni quotes former governor and U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey as saying the nation is spending too much on the last generation (Medicare, Social Security, and Veterans' benefits) and not enough on the next one.

Dear Millennnials: We're Sorry for the Student Loan Crisis (burp)!
Kerrey is right of course, and so is Bruni. The Baby Boomers have bequeathed the young people of our nation with a host of problems--problems that are only going to get worse because this generation doesn't have the courage or integrity to face them.

Bruni's op ed essay was in harmony with an editorial that appeared in the same issue of the Times entitled "Starting Out Behind." The Times points out that young people are graduating from college with massive indebtedness only to face a sickly job market.  Unemployment among people in their early 20s is higher than the national average, and underemployment (those people who are unemployed, employed part-time or who have given up looking for work) is very high--16.8 percent.

The Times editorial quoted statistics showing that 44 percent of today's college graduates hold jobs that do not require a college education.  There was a time, the Times observed, when people working in jobs that did not require a college degree made decent money--tradespeople like plumbers and electricians, union workers, etc. Today, a lot of college-educated young people are working as waitresses, bar tenders and store clerks.

Perhaps the most disturbing bit of data the Times mentioned is the fact that more than half of young adults (55 percent) still live with their parents. Nobody wants to see that number go higher.

The Times editorial did not mention the burgeoning student-loan indebtedness that is crushing this nation's young adults. And this is odd, because  of all the problems this generation passed on to the Millennial generation, the federal student-loan mess is the most egregious and the easiest one to fix.

Addressing climate change,  the national debt, and our sickly national economy are complicated problems with no easy or certain solution. But we could easily do some things to ease the burden of student-loan indebtedness on our nation's young people; and we could do these things today.  Here are a few things we could do that would be helpful:

1) The federal government could remove any higher education institution from the federal student loan program that does not freeze tuition and fees at current levels.   In essence, our government would be telling the nation's porky colleges and universities that the party is over.

2) Congress could amend the Bankruptcy Code to allow insolvent student-loan debtors to discharge their loans in the bankruptcy courts so long as they file for bankruptcy in good faith.

3) The Obama Administration could instruct the Internal Revenue Service to stop garnishing the Social Security checks of elderly people who defaulted on their college loans.

4) Congress could easily shut down the private student-loan industry by making it easier for distressed debtors to discharge their private student loans in bankruptcy.

5) Congress could shut down the for-profit college industry, which has the highest student-loan default rates and which is riddled with fraud and abuse,  simply by making all for-profit colleges ineligible to participate in the federal student aid program.

Of course none of these things are going to happen.  So far, the Obama administration, which is fully aware of the magnitude of the student-loan crisis, can think of nothing better to do than extend students' loan repayment period from 10 years to 20 or 25 years.  Not very bold or creative in my opinion.

But Frank Bruni is right: the Baby Boomers generation owes the Millennial generation an apology.  But it should apologize for more than global warning and the national debt; it should say it is sorry for corrupting higher education with a corpulent and abusive federal student loan program that has put this nation's young people in debt to the tune of $1.2 trillion.

References

Frank Bruni. Dear Millennials, We're Sorry. New York Times, June 8, 2014, Sunday Review Section, p. 3.

Editorial. Starting Out Behind. New York Times, June 8, 2014, Sunday Review Section, p. 10.


Sunday, January 19, 2014

We live on different planets: The World of the New York Times is not the world of the average American

I live in fly-over country and can't get home delivery of the New York Times. Nevertheless, I get the Sunday Times  delivered to my home; and I can pick up a copy of the weekday issues at Benny's Car Wash on Perkins Road. I try to read it every day as part of my effort to stay informed about world events.

Lately, however, I have begun to suspect that the New York Times writers and I don't live on the same planet.  And today's issue heightened my suspicion.  Here are some stories that make me shake my head.

First, I read Frank Bruni's op ed essay excoriating the state of Texas for keeping an unborn baby alive even though its mother is brain dead, the victim of a pulmonary embolism.  The woman's husband and parents want the pregnancy terminated, but doctors say they are bound by law to bring the pregnancy to term.

As Bruni himself said, there are no happy outcomes to this sad scenario, but Bruni says Texas is devaluing the lives of the baby's father and it grandparents by not snuffing out the baby's life. 

I'm sorry, but I just don't get it. I think most husbands would want the baby to live in this situation and so would most grandparents.  I think it is unfortunate that they apparently find the baby inconvenient.  But to say that the state of Texas and the doctors in charge of this unborn baby's care are cruel is nonsense.

Let's move on.  Today's Sunday Review section contained two--count-em two--positive articles about legalized gambling.  Moises Velasquez-Manoff  wrote a piece on Indian casinos in which she compared casino distributions to Native American families to a mother nurturing her child  Yeah, right.  Ms. Velasquez-Manoff should spend some time strolling around the nation's casinos. She will see a lot of stressed-out, chain smoking elderly people pumping cash into slot machines--cash that most of them don't have to spare. Do those people looked nurtured?

And then there is an article by Greg Grandin, a professor at New York University (where students graduate with the highest average student-loan debt in the country).  Grandin analyzed an obscure Melville novel that Barack Obama once read and somehow linked it with contemporary American racism, Sarah Palin, Rand Paul, and the Tea Party.  Wonder what it costs NYU students to take a course from this guy?

Then we have an essay by Sam Polk, a wealthy former financier who claims to have been addicted to making money.  He was dissatisfied, he confessed when he only got a  bonus of $3.6 million.  Hey, fellah. Dorothy Day's got a cure for that addiction. Read Matthew 25.

And finally we have an op ed essay by Thomas Friedman, who urges President Obama to tell Americans in his next State of the Union speech that American kids are not doing as well in school as kids in other countries because American parents aren't demanding that their children be challenged more in the classroom.  OK, we get it.  The American education crisis is the parents' fault.

After pondering all this, I felt like I was reading news from a parallel universe--a world in which I do not live.  Some people might point out that the New York Times is not meant to be read by people like me and that I should stick to reading the Farmer's Almanac.  And they may be right. Certainly, all the advertisements for luxury goods that appear in the Times' supplements are not aimed at me or my family.

But here is the problem.  The  New York Times, the people who read the Times and the politicians that the Times adores (Barack Obama) are contemptuous of the people who live in fly-over country; but they want to dictate how these people live. They express outrage when state legislatures try to put reasonable restrictions on abortion or try to maintain marriage in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  They imply that politicians who speak for some of us are white supremacists. They show disdain for American values but they want people who hold those values to fight and die in foreign wars the Obama administration doesn't even believe in.

I do not write this from a partisan political perspective. I am no red-stater.  I have no more regard for Sarah Palin than the New York Times editorial board.  I write from the perspective of a person who believes that traditional American culture--what we might call middle-class culture or Judeo-Christian culture--is basically benign and healthy. And I am alarmed to see powerful political forces  show disdain for the traditional values that served this nation pretty well for over 200 years.

References

Thomas Friedman. Obama's Homework Assignment. New York Times, Sunday Review section p. 1.

Greg Grandin. Obama, Melville and the Tea Party. New York Times, Sunday Review section p. 6.

Sam Polk. For the Love of Money. New York Times, Sunday Review section p. 1.

Monica Velasquez-Manoff. When the Poor Get Cash. New York Times, Sunday Review section, p. 12.




Monday, December 23, 2013

Bah humbug: Why are the secularists so mean spirited?

Ross Douthat  recently wrote a perceptive essay in the New York Times about the spiritual condition of American society.   Today, Douthat wrote, Americans can be categorized into three groups.  The
first group is made up of people who have a biblical view of the world. They believe God literally entered history in the form of a man named Jesus and redeemed humanity.

Catholics and evangelical Protestants belong to this group, but Catholics believe something more. We believe that Mary is the mother of God and fulfills a unique roll in God's salvation plan for humanity. We also believe that Christ is present in real form in the wine and bread of the Eucharist.

A second group, Douthat explained, has a spiritual view of the world. For this group, "the divine  is active in human affairs [and] every person is precious in God's sight." But broadly speaking, people with a spiritual point of view "[don't] sweat the details." For them, religion is "Christian-ish, but syncretistic; adaptable, easygoing and egalitarian."

Many Americans with a spiritual worldview don't care whether Jesus was born of a virgin or whether an angel conversed with Joseph.  But they ascribe to the Christian virtues; they are kind-hearted, congenial, and generous.  And just as importantly, they are tolerant of other world views, lifestyles and cultures

Finally,  Douthat identifies a third group of Americans--the secularists. This group "proposes a purely physical and purposeless universe, inhabited by evolutionary accidents whose sense of self is probably illusory." As Douthat points out, the purely secularist world view is rare among most Americans, but predominates among the intelligentsia--including the nation's political and media elites.

Douthat ascribes moral purpose to this last group--a commitment to "liberty, fraternity and human rights." Indeed, as Douthat points out, although secularists renounce a spiritual meaning to human existence, they "insist on moral and political absolutes with all the vigor of a 17th century New England preacher."

 Douthat is right to compare contemporary secularists to 17th century Puritans. In fact, the priggish self-righteousness of postmodern secularists is evocative of Cotton Mather.  We see this puritanical intolerance exhibited daily in the New York Times and especially in the writings of Bill Keller and Frank Bruni.

And here is where I disagree with Ross Douthat's description of secularism. Unlike Douthat, I do not believe there is any moral center to secularism, any real commitment to human rights. On the contrary, once you scratch the surface of secularism, you find only shrillness, intolerance and mean-spiritedness.

The atheist-sponsored Times Square billboard, proclaiming that  no one needs Christ in Christmas, says it all.  The secularists are the Ebenezer Scrooges of the 21st century: Christianity? Bah, humbug.

We also see the true nature of secularism in the presidency of Barack Obama, the nation's supreme postmodern secularist. Contrary to the President's rhetoric about hope and change, we see nothing in his leadership but deception, manipulation and hollowness--dished out with an air of self-righteous superiority.

Douthat concludes his essay by asking where the nation is headed. Will biblical religion gain some of its lost ground, he asks, or will  the spiritual worldview ultimately prevail? He also asks whether "the intelligentsia's  fusion  of scientific materialism and liberal egalitarianism  will eventually crack up and give way to something new."

Personally, I don't think the secularists' world  view will long prevail in the United States. How can secularists insist they have a moral purpose if they believe that human life has no ultimate meaning? If there is no God, why not turn toward materialism, why not join the empty quest for power and recognition--which in fact is what the secularists have largely done.

I agree with Alexis de Tocqueville's  prediction about the future of American religion, which he made in 1835.  O]ur posterity," he observed, "will tend more and more to a division into only two parts, some relinquishing Christianity entirely and others returning to the Church of Rome." In other words, the day will come when Americans will either be Catholics or nothing at all.

It is a lonely view, I grant you, but I believe that the foundations of Western civilization were laid on the bedrock of the Catholic faith. Eventually, as  de Tocqueville has said, Americans will drift into one of two camps--Catholicism or secularism. Although the secularists appear now to be in the saddle, God moves through history in mysterious ways.  In God's own time, He will send us new saints who will witness to God's presence in the world and inspire us to return to the ancient doctrines of our Mother Church.

Even now we have the lives of past saints to inspire and guide us: Saint Catherine of Sienna, Saint Edith Stein, Saint Katharine Drexel, Saint Teresa of Avila, and Servant of God Dorothy Day.  And though the secularists may say "Bah, humbug," let us cling to our childlike belief in the Christmas story.

References

 Ross Douthat. Ideas From a Manger. New York Times, December 22, 2013, Sunday Review Section,p. 11.

Alexis de Tocqueville. Democracy in America, edited by Phillips Bradley. New York; Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1945.