The next target: ROCKS MUST GO!

If you haven’t yet read Martin Mosebach’s The Heresy of Formlessness: The Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy (Revised and Expanded Edition) you are in for a treat. US HERE – UK HERE

To give you a sense of his subtlety in explaining how changes to liturgical worship disturbs the whole life of the Church, Mosebach describes how a rock probably feels resentment if it is shifted from its perennial, traditional, place.  It might require centuries for the rock to settle down.

Today I saw a story by Mike Huckabee about something at Western Journal about something deeply stupid here in loopy Madison, (aka “77 square miles surrounded by reality”).

University Moves Forward on Plan To Remove Boulder After Activists Claim It Is Racist

A geologically and archeologically-significant boulder on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus may be slated for relocation, burial, or total destruction after two groups deemed it a racist symbol.

Here’s Huckabee…

Dumber Than Rocks

If your kids attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison, you might be interested to hear what they plan to blow a big chunk of your tuition money on.

School officials want to remove a large black boulder from Observatory Hill after a black campus activist group and a campus newspaper declared it a racist rock (and no, “Racist Rock” is not an old ABC afterschool series.)

Its name since 1926 has been Chamberlin Rock, after geologist and then-campus president Thomas Crowder Chamberlin. But showing that at least someone there is studying history, the activists discovered that in the first half of the last century, such rock formations were sometimes called by the racist name, “’N-word’-heads.” And this rock was once referred to by that term, albeit in quotation marks, in a newspaper article…in 1925.

So of course, it has to be removed because black students might feel oppressed by it. The estimated cost is between $30,000 and $75,000, which would pay for a nice scholarship for a promising black student. But removing the rock that was referred to by a racist name one time 95 years ago is far more urgent.

The removal will require the okay of the Wisconsin Historical Society, which notes that the boulder is a “Pre-Cambrian era glacial erratic that is an iconic representation of Wisconsin glaciation period.” FYI: the Pre-Cambrian period stretched from 4.6 billion years ago to about 541 million years ago. That’s how long the rock had been sitting there minding its own business before anyone decided it was racist and had to go.

The most shocking part of this story isn’t that the school’s administrators are actually planning to blow $75,000 of desperately-needed school funds on removing a rock that’s been there since the dawn of time because someone called it by a racist term 95 years ago. The shocking part is that we pay these people to teach our kids when they are apparently dumber than a box of Pre-Cambrian rocks.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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10 Comments

  1. APX says:

    So what I’m seeing is that this rock was here first and is native to the land. I think we’re the ones in wrong here and owe the rock an apology for infringing ourselves upon its land and before every class and gather publicly acknowledge that we are on its land, rather than blow it up.

  2. GHP says:

    I have a better idea for the activists: protest the “Wisconsin State Journal” and demand its disestablishment. Boycott them and send an invitation to their favorite race-baiter who was “ordained” at age 9 or 10 (and never attended seminary)!

    That poor rock was just sitting there and the WSJ called it a racist term! How terrible.
    https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Newspaper/BA7994

    PROTEST THE “WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL”!

    — Guy

  3. Greg the Geologist says:

    The rock hasn’t been sitting there since the Precambrian. It moved – during a time when climate was changing (naturally! – can you believe that?!). It was ‘plucked’ from its source area (where the other “rocks of color”, er “colour”, were minding their own business, probably in Canada), given a lift by a glacier, and dropped off during the Wisconsin glacial stage (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago) where it remained – naturally – until Leftists decided that nature isn’t good enough, it has to go. Wonder if they’ll deport it back to Canada? Not very welcoming…

    [“rocks of color”!!]

  4. Greg the Geologist says:

    But, I have to correct myself. Entire Pleistocene epoch started at about 2.6 million years, while the Wisconsin stage (the most recent of 4 major North American glacial stages, interspersed with an interglacial phase like the one we’re currently experiencing) ranges from approx 115,000 years to 11,700 years. So the rock is a relative newcomer. Mea culpa – but I live in Southern California (glaciers? what glaciers?). Or I can always blame The Plague(c). Thanks for the Gold Star!! 73,

    – KM6GTC (add me to the list!)

  5. Nell says:

    Huckabee says the rock has been in that spot “since the dawn of time” — but it actually hasn’t: [So?]

    “In 1925, workers pulled the rock out of the side of a hill on campus and named it ‘Chamberlin Rock’ after Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, a 19th century glaciologist and University of Wisconsin president. The rock was adorned with a plaque commemorating Chamberlin and placed at the university’s Washburn Observatory, where it remains today.”

    https://www.thecollegefix.com/uw-madison-eyes-removal-of-historic-70-ton-boulder-due-to-black-student-union-demand/

    [In terms of news cycles 95 years ago is the “dawn of time”. And, you’ve missed the point.]

  6. TRW says:

    No need to pay an exorbitant sum to remove the boulder. If the boulder is indeed Canadian, they should just ask it nicely to go back from whence it came. It will probably politely acquiesce.

  7. tho says:

    Every ethnic and racial group in America, and the world, has had pejorative or humorous expressions aimed at them. How super sensitive can we become, let us ban the mackerel fish, because Catholic were referred to as mackerel snappers. And the Irish were associated with numerous puns about the potato, there is no end. Keep in mind “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me”, and it won’t cost the college any money.

  8. brasscow says:

    Once again the crazy left showing they don’t care about the unborn. We all came from rocks and this rock will eventually evolve into a human.

  9. Josephus Corvus says:

    What next? Ban Brazil nuts because of their nickname?

  10. TonyO says:

    We could hope that the crazy-stupids will do themselves in and be lost to the progress of the generations – if only they were “reproducing” by unnatural means, i.e. by causing YOUR children to become crazy-stupid by the indoctrination they call “education”. They are like AIDS viruses that cause your own cells to generate more AIDS viruses.

    So, the only solution is to keep your kids out of THEIR schools. Back in the day, the Church taught vociferously that parents had a duty to put kids in Catholic schools. (This would now include homeschooling, assuming you have a Catholic home.)

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