CSotD: The Crowlin Ferlies
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Yes, that would be a good name for a band.
Meanwhile, it's also a good theme for the day, taken from Robert Burns' classic poem about a prideful woman in church who doesn't realize the people behind her are not admiring her fashionable beauty but watching a louse crawl around on her.
Let's start with a Juxtaposition:
As I was listening to the President address that gathering of leaders of Muslim nations yesterday, it occurred to me that he seemed to be explaining Islam to them, and I wondered how that was going over.
I wasn't alone, and this Atlantic article describes how American presidents have labored to educate their Muslim friends on the nature of Islam.
Jordanian cartoonist Omar Al Abdallat is not the only Middle Eastern cartoonist at Cartoon Movement who has fun with "Oh, so now you're one of us?" sarcasm, but his piece suggests the wisdom a sheik is expected to provide, undercut by the dollar signs and the idea that Trump's authority is financial rather than the result of scriptural study and reflection.
Meanwhile, Telnaes asks why we should trust anyone with such a clear, indisputable track record of bare-faced lies?
I'm hesitant, given the overlying topic of cross-cultural arrogance, to assume too deep an understanding of an Arab cartoon, but I do see a potential crossover here.
A large part of the Mystery of Trump, to American thinkers, has been the way he can say one thing one day and contradict it the next with no blowback from his followers. Promises made on the campaign trail are broken daily, and, while these breaches nibble away at the edges of his support, the faithful seem utterly unshaken by them.
Had I seen Telnaes's piece alone, I'd have liked it, but I'd have shrugged it off. Yes, he's an outrageous liar. He doesn't even try to cover his vast lies with half-vast explanations. We know that.
But "We know that," in concert with "What do the Muslims make of this?" opens an interesting door.
Both Saddam Hussein's ridiculous "Mother of All Battles" pre-war boasting, and the ongoing, intemperate bombast of Iranian hard-liners have given American chickenhawks plenty of fodder to build their case for sending other people's children off to die in the sand.
However, those who know the Middle East say, "It's customary posturing. It's expected, but we don't take it literally, nor should you."
And I wonder if the Trump faithful are equally enjoying the sound and fury, but not taking any of it literally?
Perhaps we could find a wise Muslim leader to come explain us to ourselves.
Point of personal privilege:
As Francis notes, there seems to be a lack of humility within the institutional church, and tall hats are not the least of it, though a little more foot-washing and a little less bell-ringing and swinging of incense burners might not be such a bad thing.
For all the promises of the new Pope and the optimistic tone of the comic strip that emerged with his name on it four years ago, there have been fewer substantive changes than progressive Catholics had hoped for.
Which is to say, I love the guy in the comic strip, but the other one has some catching up to do.
Meanwhile, unless you somehow came unplugged over the weekend, you saw headlines of "Dozens Walk Out On Pence At Notre Dame Graduation."
Many decades ago, I read a column in which the writer said that the thing Marines and Notre Dame alums have in common is that they manage to work those facts into the first five minutes of any conversation.
I laughed in shame-faced acceptance, but both experiences required dedication, sacrifice and willing acceptance of misery.
I don't know if that remains true today, now that ND is co-ed and going there no longer entails four years of celibacy and lousy weather.
However, I assume the weather is much the same, and I have my suspicions about how much difference coeducation makes when the bulk of students are conservative Catholics.
I do know, however, that the school has swung deeply to the right since the days when Father Hesburgh and I strode the campus, and it's been many years since I've contributed to the upkeep of what has become a bastion of buttoned-down neocon Catholic sophistry.
I also know that whenever pre-season college football polls come out, Notre Dame always seems to rank in the Top 20 regardless of who or what it plans to put on the field, because the school has an outsized presence in the national mind.
So, on the one hand, I have become inured to the fact that the school has, since my era, become so bloated with self-importance that having presidents speak there is a must, though, granted, inviting Pence was actually a compromise because thousands of students and faculty petitioned not to have Trump speak.
But, on the other, I'm not impressed that "dozens" walked out.
Eight-and-a-third dozen.
100.
Out of a graduating class of 2,081.
I can't help but suspect that if 100 kids had walked out of commencement at the University of Northern Iowa or even Yale, both of which have roughly the same enrollment as ND, the headlines might have said, "Pence speaks" with a few people walking out as kind of a fourth-paragraph footnote.
This being in line with my theory that, while Domers may mention their alma mater in every conversation, they aren't the only ones fascinated by its aura.
But, if I'm disappointed with the press, I'm moreso with the students.
Pence's appearance is not the least bit out of character with what the school has long since become, leaving me to wonder why that allegedly progressive one-half-of-one-percent* stayed through four years only to wise up on the final day.
You Catholic kids start much too late.
* (Update: That's five percent, not 0.5 percent. This actually makes it worse, not better.)
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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