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CSotD: A Reason to Believe

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Mike Peterson March 3, 2020 1 minute 8 comments

I’ve held this Joe Heller cartoon too long, since it obviously ran on Ash Wednesday, nearly a week ago, but I hadn’t forgotten it and there’s a reason for that.

There’ve always been jokes about giving things up for Lent. One of my favorite Mr. Dooleys is about his father trying to give up smoking for Lent, and that was in a 1899 collection of his best.

And, sure enough, there were jokes on the topic scattered across the funny pages last week.

But here’s the difference: Nobody really believes in Lent anymore, or, at least, there’s very few who believe in a season of penitence.

Even in Heller’s cartoon, the little boy’s spirit is more in giving the money saved to the homeless than in not eating the candy himself, though that is included.

Part of Vatican II reforms, along with guitar Masses, was the idea of doing something positive for Lent instead of giving something up.

But there was a time, O Best Beloved, when being Catholic involved a sort of penitence that was more a matter of self-discipline than of sacrifice.

That is, Pope Paul VI reportedly wore a hair shirt, and this article says the more ascetic monks and nuns still do, but you didn’t have to be Simeon Stylites to get into heaven.

The average Catholic was content to abstain from meat on Fridays, to attend Mass each Sunday, to fast before Communion and, yes, to give up something for Lent.

When the Church speaks of “mortification,” it’s not a matter of being embarrassed or ashamed but, rather, of rejecting pride, always with the dilemma that you are apt to become proud of your humility.

Like wearing a yarmulke or a hijab, it was a constant reminder of community and faith.

There were many not-so-good things about the old Church, including the pressure to pretend you believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast, but I miss that sense of community.

I’d also suggest that jokes about giving things up for Lent fall flat when they no longer reflect the sort of black humor in that story of Mr. Dooley’s father.

Gallows-humor stories of sadistic grade school nuns provoke both laughter and fury, and it’s even possible to joke about pederast priests as a release from anger and horrified disillusion.

Heller’s cartoon works because it’s not intended to be funny.

And without that intense involvement, without that level of belief, jokes about giving things up for Lent are as flat as gags about Groundhog Day.

Though speaking of rodents and misplaced faith …

Every time I think I’ll never run another surgical mask joke, one comes along that I can’t resist.

Michael de Adder strikes with a triple myth:

1. Lemmings don’t mob up and jump off cliffs.
2. Those surgical masks won’t help you avoid the coronavirus.
3. The stock market is ruled as much by groupthink as by logic.

To which I would add that we can make jokes about our retirement nest eggs because of our underlying fear of destitution.

We were talking about retirement at the dog park the other day, a good number of those who gather in the afternoon being in the retirement demographic.

And watching the dogs play is better than watching daytime TV and having Joan London prattle on about “A Place for Mom.”

It’s all well and good that some people can afford those chi-chi country-club-style assisted-living places with swimming pools and yoga, but most of us are happy just to be able to buy groceries and occasionally go visit the grandkids.

I was reminded of a meeting I covered where school board members and local officials talked about either rehabbing or replacing a badly out-of-date school building.

The board members tossed out a figure that would only mean a small increase in property taxes, but the local pols made the point that old women living on their late husbands’ survivor benefits took an $80-a-month tax increase pretty seriously.

Well, the Dow began to recover yesterday and, while indeed I did tell you so, I am also right that jokes about 401k’s are only funny if you’re lucky enough to have one.

And smart enough to leave it the hell alone.

Speaking of belief

Clay Jones notes the way the Cult of Personality has decided they hate commies when libtards like them, but are content to let Dear Leader smooch the most hardline communist dictatorship in the world.

Which is true and scary, but, then again, not the only current example of belief overwhelming logic.

I’ve been hearing that moderates can’t win and that, if they could, Hillary Clinton would be president.

That’s a theory I’ll believe when I see the Venn diagram of people who believe that but who also believe that she was robbed by the Electoral College.

Meanwhile, I’ll concede that Obama was a risk that paid off, though less for his policy proposals than his color and his personal charisma. Pete had some of that, but evidently not enough.

But the anti-moderates also claim that Bill Clinton won as a progressive rather than a moderate.

Well, I voted for him to restore common sense, not overturn the system.

I didn’t think he was radically different. I mostly thought he wasn’t George HW Bush, who was running on the “Reagan Lite” ticket.

Clinton’s youth and charisma were bonuses, sure, but I’d have voted for Wilfred Brimley that year.

Arlo’s got the right idea. Election night in newsrooms is pizza night, with everyone scrambling to get results and write them up and push them out.

But for those of us outside the storm, it’s enough to vote and then sit back and watch the game, which is to say, we can still have the pizza and we don’t have to work the phones.

And, as with Super Bowl Sunday, it’s entirely likely that our favorite team is no longer playing, but wotthehell, it’s still a game.

Besides, as Matt Davies points out, nobody remembers who the geniuses predicted would be hoisting that trophy when it was over.

Mock 2024 drafts begin November 4.

We’ll be ready!