Well, another ‘Canada Day’ has come and gone, celebrating the founding of this Dominion in 1867, which achieved further ‘liberation’, if one wants to use that term, from Britain in 1982 with our ‘Charter’ under Pierre Elliot Trudeau, whose election as Prime Minister, it seems, was helped along by legions of screaming female fans, which makes me wonder about universal suffrage. There must be more to voting than just ‘being 18’, and, with Chesterton, I think families should vote, or at least have more of the vote, than single, wandering unattached individuals. But that is a topic for another day.
Like father, like son, as the current Prime Minister, the erstwhile offspring of Pierre’s ill-fated marriage to Margaret Sinclair (30 or so years is junior), our own selfie-loving Justin, is now accused of some vague, inchoate, non-sexual ‘groping’ incident, reported second-hand, way back at the beginning of the millennium, which does seem like a long time ago, when Mr. Trudeau was a 28-year old teacher of, ahem, ‘drama’.
Sad. The ‘Me-Too’ movement ironically comes full circle to bite even some of its most vocal and gung-ho proponents in the butt, which may be classed also a vague, inchoate, non-sexual groping, of sorts. Trudeau claims no memory of the incident, which seems to have been dredged up somehow from a local newspaper, and the aggrieved ‘victims’ wants nothing more to do with it, wishing to remain anonymous. I hope the Prime Minister learns from this that these decades-old, hidden allegations are themselves a crime against justice. For how does one possibly defend oneself, when the victim does not come forward, the evidence is all hearsay, yet the very taint is the punishment. Once accused, one is a ‘groper’, even if the ‘touch’, whatever that might have meant, is inadvertent.
For a further analysis of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s tenure on the Supreme Court of America, and his own ‘philosophical’ basis for the tragic, destructive majority opinions he wrote, peruse this article in Crisis. This evinces my deeply-held belief that everyone should have a solid grounding in the ‘liberal arts’, the best that has been thought and written, especially as consolidated under the guidance of the Church’s revelation and Magisterium, which would save us from such vaporous, lazy moralizing from the brain of soon-to-be plain-old Mr. Kennedy, which I wish he had remained, perhaps selling cars or insurance somewhere and taking his grandchildren fishing. He could have bloviate all he wanted at barbeques and family reunions, about the right to define the concept of the universe and one’s existence, blah, blah, and ‘Uncle Tony’ could have been innocuously ignored. As it is, ‘Justice Anthony’ cannot…
Our halls of legislation, jurisprudence and even academia are filled with ill-educated minds who shine not with the ‘splendour of truth’, as Pope John Paul might put it, whose disciplined, sanctified intellect should be the measure and mode, the light and lodestar, of us all (along with his collaborator Josef Ratzinger, of course).
The words of another Pope, not a Pontiff, but rather by name, wrote in 1709, apply universally to the Kennedy’s of the world, and all of us, who may be tempted by ambition to seek high offices beyond our capacity, and for which we are unsuited:
A little learning is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
Retire well, Mr. Kennedy, and please stay out of the limelight.
Global cooling, global warming, climate changing, so here’s a warning, to complete the rhyme. Confirmation bias is a constant threat in any scientific endeavour, even those simple, impromptu ones we perform in our everyday lives, from lake water (always cold!), to sea water (filled with flesh-eating sharks!), to restaurants, books, films and products galore. A few warm days like the ones we’re having, and we assume the entire Earth is frying like a southern green tomato on a cast iron grill; a few weeks ago, we were having one of our coldest springs (here where I live) and the lake down the road was a frozen sheet until the first week of May, a mini ice age, if you will.
I would paraphrase the Gospel: Let the temperature of the day be sufficient thereof, and fret not about the heat or cold of the morrow. Deus providebit, and we cannot do all that much about the temperature of a planet, unless we find a way to start modifying the Sun energetic output.
So stay cool, for now and, soon enough, stay warm, and rejoice in what weather the good God sends.