Maybe it's because it's a leap year...

...but usually, it rains on Good Friday, and the sun is out on Easter Sunday. This year it was the other way around.

On my desk, waiting to be buried by other stuff, is this month's copy of Catholic World Report. I recommend the magazine highly to other Catholics, but particularly the current issue, which can sometimes be found in the magazine racks at big-chain bookstores. Editor Phil Lawler pulls no punches in his commentary on the bishops ("Invincible Arrogance"), and a series of articles offers continued in-depth analysis on the whole Scandal thing. In addition, fellow-Saint-Blog's-parishioner Domenico Bettinelli does a piece on the phenomenal success of the movie The Passion of the Christ and "the ideological gap that separates media elites from ordinary Americans." (Gee, Dom, you really think so?)

The night before Palm Sunday, "Sal" and I went out dancing. Nothing big, mind you. There's this nightclub at a nearby Holiday Inn, where they crank up the disco lights and party mix, while a few people sitting at the bar watch an empty dance floor. Pretty pathetic, huh? Until we got there at least. We had the whole floor to ourselves for over an hour. You'd be amazed what a little ballroom-latin-swing experience can do in a variety of situations. Eventually another ballroom-dance couple joined us on the floor. I had my harmonica set strapped on, which came in handy for the blues-based numbers. That got attention from the bar, where there was a Garth-Brooks-look-alike who's actually heard of zydeco.

Other than that, I've been falling behind in my party-animal routine, eschewing zydeco events for other diversions. At our "Theology of the Body" class last week, we discussed a scene in a bar, where one of our members observed people cheering a group of women who were standing on a pool table and baring themselves (or something along those lines). We commented on the degenerate behavior of otherwise normal adults in today's society. I've noticed it more among people in some of my heretofore usual social circles -- grown men and women, in their forties and fifties, behaving like jerks; in public, toward each other, and (once or twice maybe) toward me.

The latter has been going on for awhile now, emerging gradually. The difference between now and, say, a year ago, is that it doesn't affect me as much.

Because, somewhere down the road, there's always a better class of people. Stay tuned...