Reform and Flying Lobsters

"A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer & remains at large." Mr. Dooley ( Finley Peter Dunne)

Reformation. Lovely word. It calls to mind the Council Trent in reaction to the Protestant wind that swept Europe and spilt Christianity right down its Middle Class.

Catholics got thumped by the Jesuits and the Jansenists and once they honed their skills lit up the Huguenots

The folks who did away with candles and smells and bells in worship produced zealots like Zwingli and Calvin who begat Oliver Cromwell, who begat America's Father of Reform Cotton Mather - the great grand daddy of Progressivism!

Old Cotton didn't cotton to uppity females, wild West Indian negresses, or Papist sluts and pronounced them witches:

Some were executed* and some died in prison. This Enthusiasm that begat Abolitionism, Suffragism, Prohibitionism and Abortionism coupled with good old Yankee Nativism in the Reform Fever that is rooted in American journalism.

The breathlessly moralizing earnestness that inks onto the pulp of our papers throughout every election cycle is cute: Cop bashing, political witch hunts that help ambitious prosecutors and hypocritical judges who do not feel that another judge gave a heavy enough sentence to a prominent politician, abortion parsing, listing the legitimate incomes of political people or tradesmen as if they were ill-gotten-gains are the media methods of Reform.


As Old Dooley said about Reforming Ink-Slingers -

"Th newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, controls th' ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward".

Wow, and he never used the word snark.

Reform is refuge of the hypocrite, the hack, the really dumb person, the fired lightweight, and usually the Marxist.

God save us from Reform. Oh, and . . . keep reading the newspapers while you can.
















*The Dead
Nineteen accused witches were hanged on Gallows Hill in 1692:

June 10
Bridget Bishop
July 19
Rebecca Nurse
Sarah Good
Susannah Martin
Elizabeth Howe
Sarah Wildes
August 19
George Burroughs
Martha Carrier
John Willard
George Jacobs, Sr.
John Proctor
September 22
Martha Corey
Mary Eastey
Ann Pudeator
Alice Parker
Mary Parker
Wilmott Redd
Margaret Scott
Samuel Wardwell

One accused witch (or wizard, as male witches were often called) was pressed to death on September 19 when he failed to plead guilty or not guilty:

Giles Corey

Other accused witches died in prison