There are plenty of stories I would like to write about more often.  For example, earlier today I was reading about a small town in rural Japan that was short on ninjas.  Now, like many contemporary people, I am deeply interested in ninjas and occasionally fancy myself to behave somewhat ninja-like [1].  Yet rural Japan is running short of ninjas because children do not want to stay home in the country but they want to see the bright lights of Tokyo and other large cities, despite the fact that they could earn a very high salary as ninjas.  To be sure, not everyone has it in them to be a ninja, but surely there ought to be some way for the town to keep its reputation alive and preserve its history of martial prowess.  Now, this is a classic example of a story I would like to write about often, as it is odd and strange and brings up questions about the decline of rural life not just in the United States but all over the world, and how one can make rural life appealing to contemporary young people.

But that is not the news story I end up having to muse over.  A day like today presents plenty of news that I have little interest in writing about, including questions of constitutional law and the hypocrisy that seeks to provide the best possible face on stories of friends and allies and the worst possible face on stories about enemies and rivals.  In many respects, this self-serving sort of approach to stories is something that we can expect in hypercompetitive environments.  Yet not all of us celebrate the depths of partisanship that our society has fallen into, even if we are pretty fierce ourselves in public discourse.  When I hear someone making death threats to our current administration, there is a certain carnal part of me, and not a small part either, that wishes that their threats would be tried out on themselves.  As someone who preached (and did my best to practice) respect towards authority in the previous administration, I feel it important to preach and practice the same now, even if different people are deaf to the message now than was the case before.

At times news stories are unpleasant to deal with for other reasons.  As a result of accidentally befriending some conservative Catholics over my reviews of their writings and commenting on their tweets, I am far better informed than I would ever wish to be on the goings on of the Roman Catholic Church.  Suffice it to say that the results have not been enjoyable, especially given the moral corruption of so many contemporary priests and the rampant homosexuality and pedophilia that have damaged the lives of many sincere and conscientious believers.  I wonder if that was always the case, though, as I knew quite a few young people who showed all of the signs of sexual abuse and its resulting damage that I simply did not know how to recognize in others at the time.  Nor is this isolated in Catholic circumstances.  As one of my new online friends commented today, behind every broken child star of Hollywood, there is likely some sort of sexual predator who remains important and working there.  And so it goes, as the abuse of power in these days of an absence of self-restraint tends to lead to a literal abuse of vulnerable people.

Maybe it is not only small Japanese towns that need ninjas.  When illegal immigrants run rampant and kill American young adults with bright futures, a ninja is definitely useful to mete out swift and sure judgement.  When one is dealing with political opposition that crosses the line of legitimate consent and moves into attempts to destabilize governments, with their own paramilitary wing active and public, ninjas are definitely useful.  When one is trying to ensure that pedophile priests and Hollywood sexual predators, male and female, are given some earthly justice, ninjas are pretty useful for those purposes as well.  Come to think of it, we might need a lot more ninjas than we currently have employed, as there are many people who the world would be a lot better off without, and few people in these humane times who are willing and able to dispatch them in the proper style so that the pollution of wickedness on this earth may be reduced to a manner that less ominously threatens divine discontent.

[1] See, for example:

I’d Rather Be A Ninja Than A Pirate

Audiobook Review: Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

Big Machine