Lee Duigon

We hear a lot of talk these days about the need to keep guns out of the hands of mentally disturbed people (unless they happen to be members of Congress). According to statistics available from the National Institute of Mental Health, this could be a herculean task.

NIMH says that “one in four adults–approximately 57.7 million Americans–experience a mental health disorder in a given year.” Wow!

But before we get too downhearted about that, the U.S. Dept. of Labor reports that there are 552,000 mental health professionals to handle this–psychiatrists and psychologists, sex therapists, grief counselors, etc.

Which raises a question:

With over half a million mental health pros on tap, probably the largest number of them in all of human history, how come so many of us seem to have come unglued?

If you had a town full of exterminators, you wouldn’t expect that town to have a major termite problem, would you?

It’s always sad when a store that’s been around for years goes out of business. I noticed recently that such a store has disappeared from my local shopping mall.

For the longest time it stood between the Carvel ice cream shop and another store that used to sell chicken, then health food, and I don’t remember what it is now.  The store I’m thinking of had a certain panache, reflected in a great, big sign that read:

FRIED CARPET

I never actually got around to enjoying a nice plate of fried carpet, but I’m sure it was very nice.

Nancy Pelosi–who was last seen parading around with a giant gavel to celebrate her triumph over the American people in saddling them with Obamacare–has been whining about Republicans not showing enough respect for Kwanzaa.

Thank goodness. I could never summon up the slightest iota of respect for anyone who respected Kwanzaa. Maybe there’s hope for the GOP, after all.

Only Democrats and teachers’ unions care about Kwanzaa. Normal people don’t. And just in case you haven’t heard, Kwanzaa–like the Jedi Religion–was made up out of nothing. In this case the inventor was self-proclaimed communist Ron Karenga, who dreamed up Kwanzaa in 1966 as an “African festival” that no one in Africa ever heard of. Unlike the Jedi Religion, Kwanzaa has no entertainment value. It is merely annoying.

A guide to life: whatever you see Congresswoman Pelosi doing, do the opposite. The opposite is bound to be moral and good.

I consider it very bad taste to comment on yesterday’s horror at the Sandy Hook School in Connecticut. The facts aren’t in yet. But there is one aspect of it that I will address.

Did anybody notice how dazzlingly fast the “gun control advocates” swung into action? It was almost like they were ready for it, just waiting for their cue.

Almost as fast, certainly while the bodies of the victims were still warm, the vulture media started spewing out their anti-Second Amendment message, not even pausing to identify the killer accurately. (That was eventually straightened out.) Just as eager to feed on tragedy and suffering, the hyena politicians–the usual crew, Bloomberg, Cuomo, Mr. Voter Fraud in the White House–joined in on the feast. Can’t let a good crisis go to waste!

Does anybody seriously expect that criminals will obey gun control laws? Only law-abiding folks obey the law. You can totally ban guns, and repeal the Second Amendment–and the criminals and the homicidal maniacs will still get guns. But their victims won’t be able to.

The United Kingdom’s official Census reveals that the “Jedi religion” is by far the most popular “alternative religion” in England and Wales (see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9737886/Jedi-religion-most-popular-alternative-faith.html ) It has more than 176,000 self-identified adherents.

And that’s after dropping by more than 50% over the last ten years! Jedi is still way ahead of the Heavy Metal “religion” (I don’t know what that is, and I don’t want to know). Meanwhile, some 29,000 Brits identified themselves as atheists. Of course, atheists get to dictate to everybody else, so they might as well be tens of millions.

What are the tenets of the Jedi religion?

If you know the answer to that question, you have seen way too many Star Wars movies.

St. Gildas didn’t know when Britain was well off.

Meanwhile, here in the USA, the Dept. of Defense recognizes Jediism [sic] as an official and bona fide religion.

We are living in the Golden Age of Idiocy.

The big Christian/pro-family organizations today are dancing the kazatzka to celebrate the Supreme Court taking it upon itself to decide what shall be the definition of marriage in America. Can you say, “Be careful what you wish for”?

We already have a definition of marriage. God gave it to us at the very beginning. So I don’t care what nine political appointees in Washington have to say about it. If they say, “God’s wrong–marriage is two men, two women, a man and an alligator, whatever,” they’re only farting out their mouths and, incidentally, imperiling their souls.

My confidential sources tell me that after the Court decides what marriage is, they’re also going to rule on presidential infallibility, the law of gravity, and whether 2 + 2=5.

Boy howdy, is America in trouble.

Sitting here with a nasty head cold this morning, going over my email, I found a fund-raiser email from Tim Wildmon of the American Family Assn. (AFA), on the need to resist efforts to abolish Christmas. As I read, I found myself thinking, “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” And then: “Wait a minute! I did say these things myself!”

Mr. Wildmon, to raise funds for his organization, had lifted several paragraphs, verbatim, from a column of mine published two weeks ago by News With Views, “Atheists Gunning for Christmas, Again.” (If you scroll down to the right, you’ll find it archived on “Lee’s Twitter.” I received no credit for my words.

So here’s a big bopper in the pro-family movement, who has lunch with presidents and senators, hosts the Values Voters Summit every year… and he’s lifting lines from l’il ol’ me, Mr. Nobody. It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?

I’ve been taking flak from Christians who are too holy to celebrate Christmas. They don’t even want to defend it from the atheists. (See my News With  Views column, “Atheists Gunning for Christmas, Again”–scroll down a little, and you’ll find it posted under “Lee’s Twitter.”) I am informed by a few of them that because I celebrate Christmas, that makes me some kind of pagan.

But the reason for celebrating Christmas is so simple, even the self-righteous should be able to understand it. We celebrate Christmas as a way of proclaiming to the world the birth of Christ, the Incarnation, as an event in history–that is, something that really happened.

The Bible doesn’t give us the date. Yeah, yeah, save your breath–I already know the Church, many centuries ago, chose December 25 as a means of co-opting the pagans’ winter whatsit holiday. Any other date would do as well.

Why do we give presents and decorate our homes? To express our joy that Christ is come into the world, and make it a joyful occasion. If the presents and the decorations become an end in themselves, then that’s a problem–but isn’t it entirely up to us to see that that doesn’t happen?

Has Christmas in our time become so commercialized, so bastardized, as to be almost a pagan celebration? Well, yes, of course–but only because we Christians have let it happen. But the solution to that problem is hardly to ignore Christmas and give a victory to the ungodly in taking it over.

Look, if you’re too holy to do Christmas, fine, God speed you. But please don’t bug me with that stuff about the pristine purity of the Early Church. If you think the 1st century Church was pure and perfect, re-read Paul’s Epistles. The Galatians had him practically tearing his hair out, and he winds up writing to the Corinthians, “Don’t make me come down there with a stick!”

Folks, don’t get this wrong. Atheists don’t sue to abolish Christmas because they want to get rid of Santa and Jingle Bells and candy canes. They do it to get rid of Jesus Christ. Maybe some of you can’t see the connection anymore between Jesus Christ and Christmas, but Christ’s enemies sure do.