Denver Catholic

22 MARCH 11-24, 2017 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives A new Lenten discipline F or Lent 2016, I adopted a new Forty Days discipline in addi- tion to intensifi ed prayer, daily almsgiving, and letting my liver have its annual vacation: I quit sports talk radio, cold turkey. This was not easy, as the purchase of a car with an XM radio years before had turned me into a reasonable facsimile of a sports talk radio addict. I'd listen to Steve Czaban when driving early in the morning, Dan Patrick when driving mid-to late-morning, Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon on my way home, and whatever-was-avail- able-that-wasn't Stephen A. Smith at other times. I never called in, mind you. But I had half a dozen sports talk shows pre-set on my car's XM system, and if nothing grabbed me among the nationally-broadcast yack fests there were always the locals in Washington and Baltimore. It's now been a year since I tuned-in to a sports talk radio pro- gram and I am, I hope, a better man for it — albeit no less a sports nut. I should admit that, before I made the decision to shake o' the coils of this addiction, the sports talk radio world, ESPN (from which I auto-liber- ated at the same time), and Sports Illus- trated (which I've been reading since the fourth or fi fth grade) were begin- ning to annoy me with their self-con- scious political correctness. As if to prove that sports people, those who make a living jabbering about sports, and sports fans really aren't knuck- le-dragging Neanderthals, sports talk radio and a lot of the rest of the Sports Industrial Complex has become an avid promoter of the LGBTQ agenda, often in the silliest ways. Sports Illus- trated may have something useful to say about the concussion epidemic in football; Sports Illustrated has nothing useful or sensible to say to the citizens of North Carolina about their views of "bathroom rights." Enough of this was enough, and I was glad to be quit of it, as we say below the Mason-Dixon Line. More positively, breaking the sports talk radio habit cleared my mind. I didn't have to pretend that even the best of the talkers, like Mr. Patrick, weren't constantly repeating themselves while trying to fi nd that sweet spot where the millennials, and others with the disposable income advertisers crave, live and breathe and have their being. And when you get below the Dan Patrick level, there's a ton of nonsense being talked to fi ll all that airtime, for there's really only so much to be said about our games. Then there was the aggrava- tion of artifi cially ginned-up hyste- ria. As mainstream television news became weather-hysteric after Hur- ricane Katrina, the sports talk radio world was indulging in one hysteria after another, all surnamed "-gate", of which Defl ategate was the most ludi- crous in breadth, depth, and length (if not necessarily in, er, volume). Better yet, breaking the habit opened up all sorts of other possibil- ities while driving. I could pray the rosary. I could listen to a lot of good music – and I did, discovering clas- sical masterpieces I hadn't known before (like Handel's Keyboard Suites), or fi nding renditions of previ- ously beloved compositions I hadn't heard before (like Anne-Sophie Mutter's transcendent performance of the Dvorak Violin Concerto), or reliving the best of '60s rock. What, I ask you, is the audiocast of "Pardon the Interruption" compared to that? And then there was the happy pos- sibility of simply driving in silence, seeing things I hadn't noticed before, and thinking thoughts I hadn't thought before, when I was being harried by prattle about the incom- prehensible, like the NFL Combine or the Cleveland Browns' draft choices. Silence, as Cardinal Robert Sarah argues in a fi ne book being published next month, is essential to the spiritual life. God came to Elijah, not as a sport talk radio host would — loudly — but as a "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12). That voice is hard to hear amidst the cacophony of contemporary life. If we wish to hear it more clearly, we have to tune out the static, turn down the volume and listen to the silence. So my fraternal counsel to fel- low-Catholics of the sports-nut sub- division: take a break from sports talk radio this Lent. It's a good discipline in itself, and it just might open you up to some surprising, if quiet, transmis- sions from another Source. The Catholic Di± erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL Taking back the true dignity of women R emember back in the old days, when they used to say that a beautiful woman "could stop tra¡ c"? Well, it seems that modern-day feminists are reviving the idea, but with a twist. Apparently we women are sup- posed to actually stop tra¡ c. And not with our beauty. March 8th has been designated as A Day Without a Woman. On that day we women are, "in a spirit of love and liberation," supposed to walk o' our jobs (paid or unpaid — hence incorpo- rating our duties as wives and moth- ers), refuse to shop, and wear red "in solidarity." And, apparently, stop tra¡ c. Lit- erally. Former Black Panther and honorary event co-chair Angela Davis co-authored an op-ed piece in which she said of the day: "The idea is to mobilize women [...] in an international day of struggle — a day of striking, marching, blocking roads, bridges, and squares, abstain- ing from domestic care, and sex work [...]" Because nothing says "love and liberation" like skipping out on our duties, wreaking havoc on the streets and keeping emergency vehicles away from emergencies. Many women I know and respect marched in the fi rst Women's March. I am a big fan of authentic women's rights. And yet skipped the march, for several reasons. I wasn't clear on the message; the parts of the message I was clear on I either disagreed with or found irrelevant; and I failed to see the what role genitalia hats and vul- garity could possibly play in enhanc- ing women's dignity. It seems to me that our su' ragette fore-mothers worked and sacrifi ced so that women would be taken seri- ously — demonstrating that we were capable in areas previously reserved for men. And, thankfully, that goal has largely been attained. We have opportunities women in previous ages didn't dream of. The world is our oyster. Women are represented in virtually every area of society. In fact, several major world powers have been led by women, and a woman just narrowly missed being elected Presi- dent of the United States. So now we're walking o' the job en masse to protest — what? What message are we delivering to the last, dying vestiges of "the patriar- chy"? That they should pay us more money because we wear p***y hats, or because we leave our employers and families in the lurch so that we can go out and block tra¡ c? They'll be lining up to hire us now. To the extent that these protests are about "women's issues", they fur- ther illustrate that modern feminism has bought into the lie of the pre-fem- inist era: that it is better to be a man, and that we become "equal" to the extent that we become like men. Or rather — as repeatedly demonstrated in the marches around the world — like the worst stereotypes of men: vulgar, career-driven and sex-ob- sessed. "Reproductive rights" insure our bodies, like men's bodies, will not be subject to pregnancy. "Equal pay for equal work" attempts to create a workplace gender parity that doesn't refl ect the reality of our lives. Studies consistently show that, when apples are truly compared to apples, wom- en's wages keep pace with their male counterparts. As they should. The "wage gap" is not so much a function of discrimination against women as it is the discrimination of women themselves, who often opt for shorter hours and less demanding positions because they are less motivated by career, and instead want to spend more time at home with the children they birthed. Call me crazy, but I've been a woman my entire life, and I have found very little to complain about. I have neither needed nor desired "reproductive rights," and I remain Guest Column Bonacci is a syndicated columnist based in Denver and the author of We're On a Mission from God and Real Love. MARY BETH BONACCI

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