What Christmas Carol Are You?
Blog move
I have now moved my blog over to my own web site: http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester.
I'll be bach (pronounced using the Ah-Nuld dialect)
I always wanted to get as many hits as Amy Welborn, and now that she has shut down her blog I guess I will.
I plan to probably return at some future date with a new blog (non blogspot), scaled back and focusing on parody and poking fun at news not otherwise covered extensively in St. Blogs.
Some possible titles.
"Pretentious Spewage" (Thanks to Patrick Madrid)
"Preaching to the Choir"
"dd" (abstract but a good title for a pun on "parody - pair of d's")
"Punny Pundit"
"Punning Papist"
"Grudge Report"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
(Makes sure I am listed at the top of any alphabetical blogroll)
"Puns to make Scott Hahn moan"
In the meantime I will leave comedy to the good hands at And Then, Et Cetera, Oblique House.
Blogus Interuptus
I am flying in the morning to Portland, Or, which is where I grew up. My mom's condition with cancer has deteriorated so it will more than likely be the last time that I get to see her. I haven't been back to Portland since 1985 so it is going to be very bittersweet going back because of this.
I am certainly thankful that God has brought me into the faith prior to some of the most difficult parts of my life. My Mom came into the Catholic Church during the 70's and has told me about the doctrine-free cathechesis she received. If Madison Avenue would have been employed during this time they could have advertised the Church as "100% watered down and now with no doctrines or dogmas harmful to your own opinions." The side effects of this listed in the small print would have to be very long. She also told me that the first priest who gave me a run down on the watered down faith had left the Church and married.
So chances will likely be low for any blogging until Feb 3.
Listening to Tom Daschel is Exhausting
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle called yesterday for one-time rebates of $300 per person, as much as $1,200 per family, as the centerpiece of Senate Democrats' economic stimulus plan. [Full Story]
Let's see before on the original Bush Tax Cut he said the rich would be able to buy a Lexus and those earning 50,000 dollars would be able to buy a muffler for a used car. I remember that tax rebate was 300 to 600 dollars previously so that means by his calculations his one time tax cut means each person could buy a used car muffler. Now it was obvious that he has never shopped for a used car muffler so we actually had more muffler for the buck then he proposed. Not having a memory of previous comments must be very convenient in modern politics.
I just remembered how much I like the words "Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle."
Saddam's report card
VIENNA, Austria - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) will get a "B" on his report card from nuclear inspectors who update the U.N. Security Council next week, and the United States is weighing the option of extended inspections to appease anxious European allies, officials said Friday. [Full Story]
Funny, I thought he deserved an F as in F-16 and F/A-18 But I guess a B as in B-1B and a B-52 is OK also. But seriously, I think Eve Tushnet sums up the reasons for not going to war articulately.
Man fisks self
Today is my six month blogiversary since I started blogging on 24 Jul, 2002. Today I went over 10,000 hits and 465 comments, and yes hitting the refresh button so many times to increase my count was exhausting. I would like to thank Catholic Light for first mentioning my blog and Victor Lams for first sending traffic my way. Also those readers and commenters who have challenged me and helped me back on track when my charity was lacking. A special thanks to those who have blogrolled me and linked to my posts.
When I first starting blogging I would see Mark Shea post the addresses of new blogs. After a while when I never saw mine listed I thought, gee I must really suck. Only later did I find out from the posting of other bloggers that they emailed Mark asking for the listing. Boy did I feel stupid, of course that doesn't mean that Mark doesn't think my blog sucks.
Blogging has been very very good to me. It has helped reign in my natural tendencies to want to read every back issue of the Wanderer and to bash Hillary Clinton at every opportunity. Sometimes I actually think first before posting.
This was my first post six months ago.
First entry to blogdom:
And I said let there be blog, and there was blog and it was good.
Put myself in the first person like God on the very first sentence, I must have listened to Here I am Lord too many times.
"It is a good sign in a nation when things are done
badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is bad sign in a
nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few experts
and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking on."
- G.K. Chesterton "Patriotism and Sport," All Things Considered
Hopefully my blogging will be a good sign, even if done badly. While reading through the blogs of the parishioners of St. Blog's Parish, I have been tempted to add my two cents to the discussions. Not all blogs have comment sections and there is the vanity in me that prefers not to have my ideas hidden in the comment section. This blog is my comment section on life.
"The vanity in me", what was I doing trying to get points for alleged humility? "Comment section on life"? Can you imagine the arrogance of myself for spouting such dribble.
I throw my blog on the mercy of Nihil Obstat.
Well guess what the unknown one wasn't merciful and mentioned a spelling error that got corrected before the anonymous one posted. At least the title of Nihil Obstat's post was No Mercy.
Abortion
(Sung to Tradition from Fiddler on the Roof)
All: Abortion Abortion,Abortion (repeat)
Candidates: who day and night ignore their misgivings,
Appease NARAL and NOW
And Emily's List appear
Proclaiming woman's right to have no children in the house
to kill them while in the womb.
All: The candidates the candidates, Abortion (repeat)
Non Mamas: Who must know the way to make a proper home
A quiet home, a childless home?
Who must make sure nothing gets in the way
So we are free to ignore the holy book?
All: The non mamas the non mamas Abortion (repeat)
Predatory males: At thirteen I started having sex
am thankful for contraception
Without the backup of abortion
I couldn't have kept my fortune
All: Predatory males the Predatory males Abortion (repeat)
Media: And who must hide the facts and only mention choice
Preparing the lawmakers to silence the child's voice
All: The media the media Abortion (repeat)
I wonder where Barney stands
Declaring they are convinced Saddam Hussein isn’t such a bad guy and therefore "there is no need for war," Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (the Olsen Twins) led a spontaneous anti-war demonstration that ended in their arrest outside the White House. Both Mary-Kate and Ashley are demanding that President Bush use diplomacy to end the crisis with Iraq .
...Being entertainers, the Olsen Twins are longtime political activists whose first protest—shortly after their birth in 1986—was against the Reagan Administration’s support of the Nicaraguan Contras. Predictably, the twins also opposed the use of force to remove Manuel Noriega and won widespread respect in Hollywood when they protested the Gulf War by refusing to eat pizza until it was over. [Full Story]
This is getting harder by the day. I am not exactly certain that the possible war with Iraq is just, but I dislike being on the same side as Hollywood celebrities. Usually they are such a reliable pointer as to what the wrong position is. I don't remember any of them coming out when we were bombing the civilian population of Serbia to get Slobodan Milosevic to step down. I also suspect that during a Republican administration if the same situation arose as in Nazi Germany that they would also be on the streets demanding peace. Peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice. I just get tired of brutal dictators around the world being hugged and called not such a bad guy. Obviously they haven't seen pictures of children and adults laying on ground gassed to death by not really bad guys
30 years and 40 millions + lives later
In dishonor of this tragic anniversary I have listed some lyrics to some pro-life songs. I have listened to a lot of secular music mainly of the heavier and alternative types and I can't remember hearing any pro-abortion anthems, though I wouldn't be surprised if there were some. Some years back when Pearl Jam did their unplugged set that Eddie Vedder drew pro-choice on his arm with a marker and I remember laughing at the stupidity of this profound statement.
Kings X - Legal Kill
I only know what I believe
The rest is so absurd to me
I close my eyes so I can't see
But the picture just gets clearer everyday
I read somewhere to learn is to remember
And I've learned we all forgot
There was peace in her before but that was yesterday
But I can see the beauty that is here for me
The chance to live and walk free
From a legal kill
I know your side so very well
It makes no sense that i can tell
The smell of hell is what i smell
And you hand it out with handshakes every day
I have trouble with the persons with the signs
But i feel the need to make my own
Yes there two ways to be
And truth does not depend on me
But I can feel the fight for life is always real
I can't believe it's no big deal
I'ts a legal kill
Tragedy Ann - Your Escape
look at my babies cute toes and the smile that's on their
face
i though of them before they were born i love them so much
don't tell me it's ok to stop this gentle newborn heart
don't tell me its ok to escape this way
is your convenience something that's justified to you
if you could ask her what she would want
would she want to be away from you?
just look at my babies just look into their eyes
Grammatrain - Execution
Watch while I'm burned in salt
tell me now where's my fault
I'm torn in two, you pull me through
oh ignore my shout now scrape me out
Oh, nation murders me, me, me
such me down your hose
pieces of my fingers and toes
use me to brew your lab rat stew
oh dissolve my voice for your woman's choice
my execution, it's your revolution
spill my blood on "civil" hands
and I pay to make you free
oh, nation murders me
yeah, with poiticians dreams
now silencing my screams, screams, screams
Railing against the Raelians
Entering the headquarters of the Raelian religious sect, past a sign welcoming visitors to UFOland, is like strolling onto the set of a bad 1950s sci-fi movie, complete with a replica of the flying saucer that supposedly brought the space aliens who visited Rael, the sect founder. But the display lights don't work and inflated plastic pool seats create the command post.
It is interesting that the media has been calling the Raelians who are atheists and don't believe in any type of God a religious cult. I know that in modern dictionaries one of the definitions for religion is "a set of strongly-held beliefs, values, and attitudes that somebody lives by", though I doubt many atheists would accept atheism being called a religion. Whenever it suits the media's needs to disparage someone they will attach the label religious to them. I just don't seem to recall them attaching religious to any other atheistic organizations.
Divine Rhythm Society
Check out the "Divine Rhythm Society" (DRS) of San Francisco's Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, which holds "All Night Dance Celebrations" (ANDCs) in the church proper, at which some are reported to use "entheogens" (drugs used to enhance religious experience).
And if that's hard to believe, documents obtained by The Christian Challenge also suggest that the use of entheogens has been backed by both St. John's gay rector, Kevin Pearson, and gay retired Episcopal "bishop in residence," Otis Charles--who is said to have admitted trying entheogens himself.
The religious raves may be on limited-time offer, however. Conflict over the DRS*, which has been part of St. John's* since 1996, finally broke out in the liberal parish last year--after one reveler suffered (but fortunately survived) an overdose of the illegal "date rape" drug (GHB) last June. [Full Story]
Here is some info on DRS
"Divine Rhythm Society" (DRS). The DRS says
that it has two purposes: "First, we create space for direct, experiential
forms of spiritual practice. Recognizing that divine rhythm is everywhere, the
Rhythm Society celebrates spirit through music, dance, meditation, and play.
Second, we cultivate community in which we can play out
the daily life implications of insights gained from primary religious experience.
We are One in the Dance!"
Kali, Your vengeance Is such sweet sorrow You shatter all illusion
Mother Earth
You provide and destroy
Your majesty shines bright In this Milky Way.
Sophia
Please protect the children
Sanctify our knowing
With love comes wisdom.
Mother Mary
Be with us now
And at the hour of our death
Amen
I wonder if their Christmas program had "Angels we have heard are high?"
On hard cases
Read Alicia's posting on Fructus Ventris about a woman whose baby was diagnosed prenatally with a lethal defect. This woman's statement is both powerful and priceless.
From the "Get a life" department
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo., Jan. 16 — Suzanne Lewis was in for a shock when she sat down at home one recent night to watch television.
On came a commercial for Metamucil, the laxative, that showed what looked like a National Park Service ranger pouring a glass of it down Old Faithful and announcing that the product keeps the famous geyser "regular."
..."My eyes got bigger, and my jaw dropped," Ms. Lewis said. That is because she is the superintendent of Yellowstone and the chief steward of the park and its geysers.
The park responded to complaints with a letter saying that Procter & Gamble had not filmed the real Old Faithful or an actual park ranger and that the company was within its legal rights. But, the letter added, "This advertisement goes against all of the National Park Service's efforts to encourage people not to put foreign objects into the thermal features." [Full Story]
I understand what they mean, when my children were younger I constantly had to keep telling them "stop sticking things into thermal features." On a more serious note the scariest thing I ever saw in my life was turning around and seeing my three year old son sticking two nails into the kitchen electrical socket. Luckily nothing happened and my heart returned to a more normal pulse a month or two later. My wife and I immediately went out and bought those electrical outlet covers for all of the empty electrical sockets, so if you have young'uns I encourage you to do the same. My son was quite inquisitive and industrious, one day he told us "I fixed mommies door." Only to find out that he had managed to remove the lower and middle pins from the hinges of our bedroom door. And while I am relating childhood stories I will include one more. My son was a big He-Man Master of the Universe fan and constantly carried a He-Man sword I had made for him. I was carrying him around on my shoulders one day in a park while he was swinging his sword and evoking He-Man lines. I offered to let him walk around instead, reasoning to him saying "He-Man isn't carried around all day", he blithely replied "How about Battle Cat?
ET Clone Home
The controversial organization Clonaid said Sunday that
a cloned Japanese boy may be born as early as Monday.
Clonaid is funded by the Raelian Movement religious cult.
The cult maintains that two cloned girls have been born -- one each in the United States and Europe -- with their techniques. It has provided no scientific proof to back its claims. [Full Story]
Which reminds me of my favorite clone joke.
Not too long ago a scientist tried to clone himself. However, his
clone was very obnoxious and lewd, while the scientist was well
received and respected. Finally fed up with his experiment gone
wrong, he threw his clone off the roof of the laboratory; killing the
clone. He was arrested by the local police for... making an
obscene clone fall.
Isn't Communism wonderful
AVANA - President Fidel Castro and millions of other Cubans voted yesterday in parliamentary elections where all 609 candidates ran uncontested. Many Cuban dissidents labeled the vote a farce and refused to participate.
State television showed Castro voting in the eastern city of Santiago, where he traditionally casts his ballot.
''We are perfecting our revolutionary and socialist democracy,'' Castro told hundreds of cheering supporters during a lengthy address outside the voting place. [Full Story]
Isn't it amazing what communism can do? Obviously only the 609 people most qualified for a post ran, thus preventing people the confusion of choosing between two or more candidates. One of the people elected was Elian Gonzales' father, I guess it is play ball and Castro will reward you. Actually I wonder what could Castro do that would actually cause the ire of the Hollywood left (yes, I know that's redundant) and the media elites, besides going to capitalism?
Lets see, I got my amice, alb, cincture, maniple, stole, tunicle, dalmatic, chasuble, surplice, cope, and bulletproof shoes
A priest (SSPX) saying Mass at St. Jude's church in Eddystone escaped injury when a bullet fired at him on the altar bounced off his shoe, police said.
Several parishioners attending the 8 a.m. Mass at the Delaware County church tackled and disarmed the assailant, whom police identified as Joseph George Barder, 31.
Police said Barder has been charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering others, and carrying a firearm without a license. [Full Story]
Blogroll update
Tom Abbott of the blog GoodForm
has left the blogosphere in a sudden manner. I will miss his unpretentious postings
and the day in the life of someone living the Catholic faith.
Additions:
Maureen McHugh A Religion of Sanity Which is back to steady posting so I have added it again.
Peggy Rettle Pilgrimage
Karl Schudt Summa Contra Mundum
(which I have enjoyed for a while but forgot to blogroll)
Alicia Fructus Ventris
The Catholic Nerd Blog Which
I guess is a group nerd blog (how do I join?)
And from the Disturbers of the Peace Institute:
DPI News and Commentary
The DPI Bullies 'N' Bozos BLOG
Now all I need is a Latin translation guide to Latin blog names in St. Blogs.
Update: jesus gill has abandoned blogspot to go to blogmosis and so I have updated his URL http://ibidem.blogmosis.com/ for ibidem.
Also added a new blog by Long Islander Gen
X Revert. His comments have appeared around St. Blogs and he has now taken
the plunge.
Abortion and Christianity.
Interesting article
about the variances in statements about abortion in various Christian Churches.
The Episcopal Church, 1994
"While we acknowledge that in this country it is the legal right of every
woman to have a medically safe abortion, as Christians we believe strongly that
if this right is exercised, it should be used only in extreme situations. We
emphatically oppose abortion as a means of birth control, family planning, sex
selection or any reason of mere convenience. . .
Right? This certainly concedes a lot on their part. The word right is bandied about by a lot of groups but the definition seems to be all over the map. The declaration of Independence says "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Inalienable rights are those rights that can not be taken away, and in this reference those given us by God. If rights are only given by the government then they can be taken away. If you believe in the governments ability to create rights then pro-abortion groups shouldn't complain if the so-called rights are taken away. If you don't believe in God-given rights, then what becomes the source of rights in a random universe? If your chances for existence are a massive improbability then how does this associate with rights that pertain to every human being? Because you are a more highly evolved organism then other you then automatically have rights assigned to you? In a society where morality is more and more subjective why are rights, especially abortion rights, seen as absolutes?
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 1992
"We affirm the ability and responsibility of women, guided by the Scriptures
and the Holy Spirit, in the context of their communities of faith, to make good
moral choices in regard to problem pregnancies.
"We call upon Presbyterians to work for a decrease in the number of problem pregnancies, thereby decreasing the number of abortions.
I really don't like the choice of the words "problem pregnancies." Pregnancy is not the problem but the acceptance and support by family members and friends. How many abortions would there be if family members and friends were very supportive of that person and were helping them out?
Southern Baptist Convention, 1984
"Be it further resolved, that we deplore the practice of performing abortions,
as well as dispensing to minors without parental consent or even notification,
contraceptive medications which have potentially dangerous side effects, and
deplore also the use of tax funds for such activities; and
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2002
"Abortion is a violation of human rights incomparable in magnitude and
an atrocity for the whole human family. . . . We are committed, no matter how
long it may take, no matter the sacrifices required, to bringing about a reversal
of this tragic Supreme Court decision. We will speak out on behalf of the sanctity
of each and every human life wherever it is threatened, from conception to natural
death, and we urge all people of goodwill to do likewise."
Before becoming Catholic I thought I was pro-life. I was an increasingly pro-life atheist, even though I wouldn't have been able to defend my beliefs with my belief system. I didn't believe in the existence of souls, but I believed in human life at conception. It would have been more consistent if I believed that the development of thinking processes built up to a point where it then wouldn't be right to have an abortion, that would have been more in line. I also had no problems with contraception and sterilization. It seems to be a state secret that some forms of contraception can also act as abortifacients , where they don't prevent conception but starve to death the embryo or don't allow them to implant. Now the absence of this information isn't to surprising for most of the major media, yet I have heard thousands of hours of conservative talk radio and I never heard this mentioned. This information also seems to be missing from Protestant churches (and also in Catholic parishes), where even if they don't believe in abortion they support it through those forms of contraception. I was also for the rape and incest exemption. I might not have thought that the death penalty should be used for rapists, yet as a result I was for the death penalty for a child as a result of rape. On my way into the Church the Pope's encyclical The Gospel of Life was greatly influential to me. This was a consistent across the boards message on the sanctity of human life, from abortion and contraception to the death penalty; this was a cohesive overview of the Churches teachings. When I hear the label on politicians of being 100% pro-life I wonder if that includes rape/incest exemptions, embryonic Stem Cell research, cloning of any form, and In Vitro Fertilization? A real 100% percent pro-lifer is very rare in political circles, yet I am glad for those who are pro-life in any way. Whether that person is an atheist who is against partial birth abortion or someone who is against abortion in most cases, I am thankful for those of goodwill. The Bishop's message and the Pope's encyclical were both addressed to people of goodwill, not just those who support 100% catholic beliefs and I hope those with some pro-life convictions will grow in them.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three wrights make a plane
HER siblings called her "Sves", a diminutive meaning little sister, but the world knew her as the third Wright brother.
Without Katharine Wright’s sacrifice, the aeroplane pioneered by Orville and Wilbur would, if you will excuse the pun, not have got off the ground.
But that unique contribution was overshadowed by the renown of her brothers after they achieved the first powered and controlled flight in 1903.
A century on, history has forgotten Katharine. [Full Story]
Hollywood Star Takes a Stand for Decency
It is kind of a sad indictment that when I saw the headline, I knew it was
about Patricia Heaton, star of ''Everybody Loves Raymond." I didn't have
a hundred, ten, or five possibilities going through my head of which I might
try to tie the headline to.
Then Abraham drew near, and said, "Wilt thou indeed destroy
the righteous with the wicked?
Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt thou then destroy the
place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?
Mothers, daughters and decades of abortion
An adopted teenager, the suddenly radiant offspring of an impoverished orphan, has begun learning about abortion. Its very existence comes as a shock. It is a heart-wrenching conversation for mother and daughter.
In the 30 years since the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, the mother's thoughts have ebbed and flowed. It doesn't seem that long ago, her childhood 40 years past, when birth control methods were few, unreliable and hard to get, and women were butchered and killed at the hands of abortionists with no medical training.
...The daughter, this precious fruit of an unintended pregnancy, asks, what will I do if I get pregnant?
The mother said whatever they would decide, she would help her and love her, and her life would go on. "But I would hope," said the mother, "that you would do what your birth mother did. That would be a beautiful thing." [Full Story]
A day in the life of a Guardian Angel
Angels Angels
Watcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do
When our sins make you blue
Angels, Angels
Watcha gonna do, watcha gonna do
When our sins make you blue
You know Joe being a Guardian Angel isn't all that it is cracked up to be. Yeah Uriel, I know what you mean. We are out on the mean streets all day among those who totally ignore us and generally pay us no attention. Out of the twelve choirs of angels we are on the lowest rung with no chance of promotion. Not only that Joe, but how about those pompous Seraphim sitting around all day in the bosses office, getting face time and singing over and over again. Your right about that Uriel, they have a real cushy job, almost as cushy as being Mary's Guardian Angel. Gabriel will never let us live that one down, he keeps bragging how Mary always did the Lord's will and that he only had to pop into her presence once and the rest of the time he kicked back without a worry in the world. Well Joe, that was a one time shot and the rest of us have to contend with humans of the non sinless type. What really aggravates me is that when humans do get on an Angel craze they decide to represent us as stunted chubby cheeked cherubs or as emotional fumbling double mocha latte drinking Angels. That gets me too Uriel, sometime I would like to show myself to them, then they will quake with fear at my glory and they won't mistake me for some Gerber baby wannabe.
Listening in on the Guardian Angel Scanner
...Subject turning on prime time TV, possible Code 10th (commandant) in progress. Request prayers for purity.
...Subject Catholic politician about to vote against an abortion ban. We have a Code 1st and 5th in progress, request backup.
...Subject has started a weblog, be on the lookout for a code 8th.
...Subject walking into the confessional. He has detailed his sins and wait; check we have contrition. Subject has done his penance. Request that his record be excised with a recommendation of minor temporal punishment.
Skirting the issue
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Galled by a court ruling last year that let two men get
away with pointing cameras up women's skirts in public, Washington state legislators
are proposing updated anti-voyeurism laws to outlaw the practice.
Filming a person's "intimate areas" would be made illegal, even in public places, and DNA samples would be collected from offenders to better track them under a bill written by State Rep. Patricia Lantz, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. [Full Story]
Gay City Rollers?
First the news about Pete Townshend and now the Bay City Roller's manager has been arrested for abusing a male child. I can't tell you how much I hated the Bay City Rollers, but after dylan's rant against disco and a Bee Gee died within the same week I think I will be temperate (for a change).
These problem will all stop when rock musicians and managers are allowed to marry and they allow female bands. I am starting a group called Voice of the Fans (VOTF©®) our motto is "Keep the music, change the bands" in which are task is to get rid of musicianism. No longer should musicians be held on a pedestal or stage above the listener. We will foster basic listener involvement in the guidance and governance of bands. We want to make members of bands accountable for their actions. How long do we have to put up with lame sophomore releases and start to do something about it. We accept the screeching authority of bands, including the role of managers and the preeminent role of the Smoking Pope's.
Update: Andy says about Tom Paton's arrest "Actually, he was arrested on drugs charges stemming from an investigation into possible child abuse."
January 15, 2003
Television presenter Matthew Kelly and former Bay City Roller manager Tam Paton
have been arrested in connection with a police investigation into child sex
abuse allegations.The Stars in Their Eyes host was arrested by Surrey Police
at a Birmingham theatre on Wednesday.
Kelly is being held overnight at a Surrey police station and will be questioned on Thursday morning.
Paton was arrested at his home in Edinburgh.
Police said the allegations against both men related to offences against boys under the age of 16 during the 1970s. [Full Story]
March 3, 2000
Bay City Rollers drummer Derek Longmuir has pleaded guilty to possessing child
pornography, the Reuters news service reports. [Full
Story]
Fertilizers and party favors
Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Rural health care workers in the Philippines reportedly are using contraceptives in ways never anticipated by donor agencies.
The country's health secretary, Manuel Dayrit, was quoted this week as saying that contraceptive pills are being used to fertilize plantations of orchids, while condoms have found a new role as party balloons.
Dayrit attributed the novel uses for the items to the fact that the supply is so abundant, the pills and condoms aren't needed.
But in the mostly Roman Catholic Philippines, birth control acceptance levels are also relatively low. The church opposes artificial birth control methods.
According to official figures cited late last year, only 3.7 million Filipinos -- or about one-tenth of the sexually-active population -- use contraceptives. Of those, 43 percent take the pill and just under 10 percent use condoms. [Full Story]
I once read a story about the introduction of contraceptives into Africa. They demonstrated condom usage via a stick and showed the women how to use birth control pills. When they came back some time later they found that pregnancies hadn't decreased and on further investigation found that the men took the pills instead of the women and that they stuck condoms on sticks and placed them by their beds.
It's amazing what can happen in a country where the Church actually teaches about contraception instead of dissenting. My wife is Filipina and so I can attest to the fact that they have a very Catholic culture there (she probably prayed as much for men as St. Augustine's mother did for him). When the Pope visited the Philippines in 1995, four million people attended a Mass in Manila making it the largest crowd in history.
Monday we are celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Jesse Jackson Day
From the Donahue transcript for 1/15/03.
JACKSON: No one has inspired more blacks for hope in America than I have.
I beg to differ. With Martin Luther King it was "I have a dream", with Jesse it's "I have a scheme."
"Roe" speaks out
Due to health reasons, Norma McCorvey, the former "Roe"
of Roe
v. Wade is limiting her interviews on the 30th anniversary of Roe
v. Wade. However, her attorney, Allan Parker, CEO & founder of The
Justice Foundation will be available for interviews in Washington,
D.C. on January 20, 21, 22, and 23.
Parker will be available to discuss her legal and social
efforts
to overturn Roe v. Wade. Norma McCorvey now is the executive
director of Roe No More Ministries and speaks out against abortion
and the damage it does to women and children.
Her attorney, Allan Parker, CEO & founder of The
Justice
Foundation will be available in Washington, D.C., for interviews
concerning Norma McCorvey and her efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The Justice Foundation is currently assisting women who have been
hurt by abortion, and is collecting affidavits from women who have
had abortions. [Full
Story]
Somehow I doubt that 60 Minutes, 20/20, CNN/ABC/NBC/CBS, etc. will be beating a path to her door. I would like to be wrong on this.
You know your a Catholic nerd when
On Kathryn Lively's blog are a few suggestion added in response to a new blog, to which I add a few more
Jesse Jackson must be looking for a job at the National Inquirer
Jesse Jackson, in a speech on Wednesday, declared that New York's financial district was built on an "African burial ground" and achieved prosperity "on the backs of African people."
...Jackson compared opposition to slave reparations to denying the holocaust.
Not thinking a policy is right or prudent is the same as denying a historical event?
...Jackson also claimed that the influx of immigrants to America during the late 19th century stemmed from government handouts. "People didn't come here looking for religious freedom; people came here looking for 100 free acres, the right to kill an Indian, and free labor." [Full Story]
He's complaining about government handouts? That's pretty ironic. I guess if the Irish would have shaken down companies to include more of them on their boards that it would have been more seeking of his approval. I am sure that during the potato famine in Ireland that as soon as they found out they would have the right to kill an Indian that that was drove Irish immigration. Starving and not being able to practice their religion in the open had nothing to do with it all. Free Labor? Slavery isn't exactly free labor, but wasn't it already abolished in the late 19th century? I am no history expert but was 100 free acres still a promise at this time during history?
The idea of the wealth of the US being founded on slavery is a modern myth. If you compared the North and the South during that period the North was a lot wealthier and their wealth wasn't dependent on the South. I think an argument could be made that relying on slavery probably hurt the South. After slavery was ended the South didn't stop being an agrarian culture, but actually over time became more productive. The South relying on slave labor instead of industrializing their economy didn't make the south richer and slavery actually became a crutch that weighed them down financially and morally. So this idea of Wall Street being built on an "African burial ground" is just more of the unjustified rhetoric that Jesse Jackson spews forth.
Random Thoughts
Would southeastern white supporters for the Florida senator running for president be known as Graham Crackers.
Do monks get frequent friar miles?
Is being a Boy Scout a real in tents experience?
Deadly celebration
WICHITA, Kansas, January 14, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com)
- Notorious abortionist George Tiller plans on giving free abortions in celebration
of the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that decriminalized
abortion on demand. But the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue West says,
no abortion is free. [Full
Story]
Maybe he is on to something. On the Fourth of July we could celebrate by killing British people and on Veterans Day (formerly Armistice Day) we could kill Germans.
Spilling the beans on coffee
This post by Ellyn vonHuben of Oblique House got me to thinking about my first experiences with coffee. I use to go to work with my father who was an actor and puppeteer in a children's theater at the Portland Zoo. This theater quaintly called the Ladybug Theater was in the shape of a you-guessed-it a ladybug and had toadstools for chairs (actually more like knee or shin destroyers for those not careful moving through a darkened theater). This theater was later burned down by the security guard hired to protect zoo property, obviously this security guard had been greatly influenced by the childhood song "Ladybug, Ladybug fly away home your house is on fire." My father use to drop me off at a Denny's while he would go into a bar with his friends. You could only nurse a coke for so long to try to pass time so I started ordering coffee since I had observed that coffee drinkers got free refills. I was around the age of ten and so I made my coffee as close to hot chocolate in taste and appearance as possible by filling it with massive dosages of cream and sugar. One day a waitress there asked me "Don't you know that coffee will stunt your growth?" I replied in my best geriatric impersonation "I am 60 years old and it hasn't affected me yet." Well the waitress was probably expecting any reply but that one and left laughing. No surprise that I was an equally strange kid.
"Faster than government spending. More powerful and with a loco motive. Able to leap the issues in a single bound --- 'Look, up in the sky,' 'It's not Robert Byrd,' 'It's a plain politician,' 'It's Lieberman...' "
Calling himself "a different kind of Democrat," the 60-year-old repeatedly vowed to "rise above partisan politics" to push an agenda through Congress that includes "strengthening homeland security while protecting Social Security," "healing the racial divide," making health care more affordable and available, fixing failing schools and making college more affordable.
....Describing President Bush as being driven by "extreme ideologues in the administration" and beholden to "major financial interests," Lieberman claimed promises made during his 2000 campaign were not kept.
...Lieberman pledged to "bring back the prosperity of the Clinton-Gore era." [Full Story]
Yep, driven by "extreme ideologues in the administration" and beholden to "major financial interests," that is really rising against partisanship. Though partisanship doesn't bother me, I want those that I support to be extremely partisan in their positions. We have enough of Janus-like politicians talking out of both sides of their mouth at once.
A different kind of Democrat? Lets see, what would that be:
Oh well, I give up. I couldn't figure out what he meant by that statement.
And yes let us go back to the prosperity of the Clinton-Gore years when some corporations were hiding their massive debt behind bookkeeping scams and the stockmarket was based on the tech stocks of a phony internet business boom. What are the odds that his education reform will only be about more money to schools and that his plan for making education less expensive would actually drive up prices? What industry has the government got involved in that actually made it more competitive and reduced prices? The only help that the government can be is to not interfere and get out of the way.
I wonder what his first words will be?
Blanche Skelton was feeding her baby when she heard something besides the soothing sound of ocean waves coming from a toy attached to the crib.
It was saying, "I hate you."
After asking her husband, her parents-in-law, and everyone else in the home east of Hazel Dell, they were convinced. The toy was definitely, albeit quietly, saying "I hate you."
Blanche's 6-month-old son, Alex, got the toy as a Christmas present. It makes soothing sounds and music for baby to fall asleep to, with an illuminated picture of a cartoon-style aquarium on the front.
But in between the white noise of ocean waves, a tiny babyish voice pipes up with childhood angst.
Made in China, the toy was sold by Wal-Mart and carries the Kid Connection brand, which is a store brand. [Full Story]
Next Javascript project
I am thinking of developing a way to automatically update a blogroll with the current name of dylan's ever changing blog name. This might take a dedicated server tied to an atomic clock to get the requisite sampling time resolution. Possibly I could get people to volunteer their extra computer cycle times to the task as they do for scientific projects that require massive computing power.
Why Jesus got the last supper all wrong
This article, 62 Reasons Why... In Conscience, We Cannot Attend the New Mass, by a priest in the archdiocese in Campos, Brazil I think is pretty unintentionally funny.
23. Because the changes such as: table instead of altar; facing people instead of tabernacle; Communion in the hand, etc., emphasize Protestant doctrines...
What was Jesus thinking when he instituted the Eucharist? The Apostles were gathered around a table at the last supper and received using their hands. Not only that but Jesus faced them when he talked to them. Shouldn't he have know that he was supposedly going against the Council of Trent?
28. Because beautiful, familiar Catholic hymns which have inspired people for centuries, have been thrown out and replaced with new hymns strongly Protestant in sentiment, further deepening the already distinct impression that one is no longer attending a Catholic function.
What do these modern hymns have to do with attending the new Mass? This would just be a function of the parish as to what hymns were sung. I have heard the older familiar hymns at Mass in some places. This is really a very weak argument.
32. Because Holy Mother Church canonized numerous English Martyrs who were killed because they refused to participate in a Mass such as the New Mass!
The English Martyrs refused to participate because of the issue of authority and the fact that the English Church went into schism. The martyrs did not accept the King of England as head of the church. The form of Mass did not immediately change there, but over time changes were made to more and more separate themselves from the Catholic Church. Because of the changes of the understanding of the priesthood they also came to loose apostolic succession.
33. Because Protestants who once converted to Catholicism are scandalized to see that the New Mass is the same as the one they attended as Protestants. One of them, Julien Green, asks: "Why did we convert?"
This one is just plain wacky. I am somewhat familiar with forms of Protestant worship services and I don't think I could ever confuse them between the newer form of Mass. Maybe some high church Lutherans and Anglicans would be somewhat familiar with it, but nobody else.
39. Because many good Catholic theologians, canonists and priests do not accept the New Mass, and affirm that they are unable to celebrate it in good conscience.
What is the definition of good "Catholic theologians, canonists and priests?" I guess it is the ones who agree with your viewpoint. I don't think even radical traditionalist would want to go by popular opinion when it comes to liturgy. I don't believe that St. Athanasius would agree with this.
48. Because the New mass embodies numerous errors condemned
by Pope St. Pius V at the Council of Trent (Mass totally in vernacular, words
of Consecration spoken aloud, etc. See Condemnation of Jansenist Synod of Pistia),
and errors condemned by Pope Pius XII (e.g., altar in form of table. See Mediator
Dei).
Mass in the vernacular is bad? What about when Latin was the vernacular language. The Latin translation of the Bible is called the Vulgate because it was translated into the vulgar (from vulgus, “the common people”) language of the people. I guess they should have used a dead language to conduct the Mass in. Vatican II nowhere said that Latin was to be eliminated from the Mass.
60. Because we recognize the Holy Father's supreme authority in his universal government of Holy Mother Church, but we know that even this authority cannot impose upon us a practice which is so CLEARLY against the Faith: a Mass that is equivocal and favoring heresy and therefore disagreeable to God.
Those gates of hell must have slammed down upon the Church despite Jesus' words. If the Pope in union with the Bishops can give us a heretical Mass, then we have a lot more to worry about then just the format of the Mass.
I personally like the Latin Mass, but I also can pray the new Mass also when it is done reverently. I favor the combination Latin/English Mass that is shown on EWTN and I think it is more in keeping with the reforms of Vatican II. But bad music and some bad translations will not keep me away from the highest form of worship on earth.
Bumbling Baptism
By God, a rite should be done right.
That apparently was the thinking of a Pointe Calumet woman who complained in 1996 that her grandchild was given a botched baptism, a claim that led Catholic Church investigators to determine that about 300 children hadn't received the holy sacrament.
Instead of having one designated person sprinkle the child with holy water while proclaiming "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," a priest handled the water while a lay person, properly designated to do baptisms, recited the sacred line, according to a Presse Canadienne report.
"It should be done by one (properly designated) person at the same time ... in one movement," Gaetan Baillargeon, director of the church's national office of liturgy, said yesterday. [Full Story]
I like my beer and doctrine not watered down
A French Government drive against alcoholism has incurred the wrath of Belgium's famous Trappist monks.
Famous for vows of silence, the Trappist monks are also well known for brewing strong beers, including Chimay and Westmalle.
But the French Government now wants to slap high taxes on any of those beers that contain more than 8.5% alcohol. [Full Story]
Marin County, what a surprise
Even as U.S. troops inch toward the Persian Gulf for a possible war with Iraq, anti-war activists say it can be difficult to rally outrage or media interest back home. So a group of Marin County women has resorted to the ultimate attention grabber: getting nude.
Whatever happened to "Dressed are the peacemakers." [Full Story]
Do you speak Engrish?
This website has pictures of the use of Engrish in Japan.
Q. What is Engrish? A. Engrish can be simply defined
as the humorous English mistakes that appear in Japanese advertising and product
design
Most of the Engrish found on Engrish.com is not an attempt to communicate -
English is used as a design element in Japanese products and advertising to
give them a modern look and feel (or just to "look cool"). There is
often no attempt to try to get it right, nor do the vast majority of the Japanese
population (= consumers) ever attempt to read the English design element in
question ...
Here is text from one of the pictures:
Please Keep chair on position &
Keep table cleaned after dying.
Thanks for your corporation.
I spent two years stationed in Yokosuka, Japan on the U.S.S.
Midway (CV-41) and I well appreciated the people and culture of Japan. There
were many strange juxtapositions of Japanese and American culture. The first
time I went out into Yokosuka it was a culture shock with almost all of the
signs being in kanji and the total alien feeling of the architecture. Walking
along in this environment it was pretty strange to see a seven foot plastic
Colonel Sanders in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, it just looked
so out of place with the rest of the Asian ambiance.
Most people there were taught English in the schools and had to have a minimum
vocabulary, but they didn't really get a chance to converse in it. Normally
if you wrote something out and used hand gestures you might be able to converse
a little bit. They also seemed to have a vending machine for every product.
There were machines out in the town that dispensed beer, cheeseburgers, and
cough syrup. At bus stops they had umbrellas available in case it was raining
and there were too many people to fit under the bus shelter. When I saw this
I thought that those umbrellas would have a street life of about five seconds
before someone would have stolen them here in the US. At there rock concerts
people would sit in their chairs and watch without hardly a sound. A friend
of mine and I were walking around one day and we got mooned by a group of Japanese
teenagers in their car, good to see American culture being spread far and wide.
Or is mooning a result of the fallen natures? I just can't imagine a group
of Roman kids hanging out their posterior from their father's chariot.
Japanese shipyard workers were used to help keep up the maintenance of the ship. The U.S.S. Midway was a forward deployed ship so it's home port was in Japan and she didn't go back to the united states (until the ship was decommissioned). I was amazed at the hard work and dedication that these shipyard workers performed. They were able to do in a month or two what would have taken at least five times longer in the US. When a ship I was on was dry-docked in Portsmouth, Virginia I observed quite the opposite. Some shipyard workers in the US would urinate and defecate in parts of the ship instead of finding a working bathroom. Fast food wrappers were left everywhere. The only way you could tell the difference between an homeless person and a shipyard worker is that the homeless person would ask you for money. Once in Portsmouth they built a new aircraft elevator door (which is gigantic on an aircraft carrier), it was hilarious watching them try to get it into position - especially since it turned out they made this one inch too tall.
One of the times they were doing an overhaul on the ship, a group of us went on detachment to Iwakuni to support our ship's A-6E aircraft avionics out of avionics vans located at the the Marine Core Air Stations there on the flightline. These were real Marines uncorrupted by working alongside of us Sailors. The Gunny Sergeant there soon put us on night check to keep us degenerate sailors from influencing his Marines (and looking back, I don't blame him). We rented bikes from the base there called "benjo bombers." These were named such probably from the predilection of drunk Americans crashing these cheap bikes into benjo ditches (open Japanese sewer ditches). In fact one of our group (surprisingly drunk) did manage to crash into one of these ditches and loose his glasses, he was treated with a plethora of shots because of this. On one of our sober jaunts into the countryside, a family waved us down and invited us in. We were in an area far away from the base and not frequented by Americans. They had been educated in the states and wanted a chance to converse in English again. We were introduced to their grandfather who had fought in W.W.II and were served seaweed covered rice. It took all my acting expertise to keep my face from reflecting the disgust of my palette. It was an Oscar deserving performance and I don't think our fine hosts ever caught on. They were very nice and we later went out camping with them.
The trains were another interesting experience in Japan. They employed people to try to almost shoehorn people in to get as many people on the train as possible. I am only 5'8 but was almost a giant in this culture. One of the advantages was that even in a tightly packed train, my head protruded above the crowd into the stratosphere of the train compartment ensuring a fresher air supply. While at Iwakuni we visited Hiroshima. You would not have realized the death and destruction that had occurred with the thriving city that had been rebuilt everywhere but at the epicenter. Seeing Peace Park and the lone library that withstood the destruction brought the reality of this history into my conscience. It is one thing to read about the events and quite another to have it brought home to you.
I was also able to spend two months at the cushy (at least by Navy and Marine Corps standards) Kadena, Air Force Base in Okinawa while I was going to micro-minature repair school (advanced soldering and circuit repair). I also will never forget my trips into Tokyo, which has to be seen and experienced to be believed. For the most part people were very pleasant and courteous to us, except for the infrequent anti-American demonstrations at the gate of the naval base and the few "Japanese Only" shops and restaurants. I probably experienced more anti-military discrimination in Norfolk, Virginia (at least in the pre-Desert storm days of "Dogs and Sailors keep of the grass" signs).
Yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed Go along
to get along
From Michelle's And then? blog comes:
two of Fr. Van Deerlin's comments riveted my attention. He doesn't wear a crucifix, even in a relatively friendly Arab country where he apparently ministers openly, because he "wants to blend in, not offend." Be sure to note that his reason for not wearing his crucifix is not that he fears for his life or that he fears losing the toehold the Church has in the region. He does not want to offend. "'We want to be low key,' Father John explains. 'I think it's better to be low key.'"
Blessed are the low-key for they shall not offend?
He also refrains from proselytizing. "'In the Muslim world, you cannot proselytize, and we respect that,' he says. His job is to minister to Catholics, not try to convert Muslims."
The Great Commission (or in this case the Great Omission): Go out into the whole world and don't make waves. You are the stealth fighters of the world. A city set underground cannot be seen ...rejoicing that they were counted worthy to not suffer at all in his name.
The new Pauline line would be: I have become nothing to no one so that I might save myself. ..For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, and just possibly I might get around to the Muslims (but don't quote me on that).
Did they make them eat Carmel Candy?
There is a photo Nicole Ingra keeps in the living room of her Kenilworth home of "clothing day" - the day she received her habit as a Carmelite nun. A crown of flowers rests on her head.
"That was a big day," Ingra recalled. "It was the first time I was called Sister John of the Cross."
All she wanted that February day in 1984 was to spend her life in cloistered meditation and prayer behind the walls of a Morris Township Carmelite monastery.
"Here I thought I was going to be basically forgotten by the world, living my life in solitude and seclusion," she said last week. "And look at what happened. I haven't had seclusion or solitude since then."
Her dream of obscurity as a cloistered nun was lost forever when Ingra and four other Carmelite nuns locked themselves in the monastery infirmary in October 1988 for a nine-month protest. Their fear: that they would be evicted because of their opposition to what they saw as attempts to liberalize what their religious order stood for.
..."We were commanded [by the prioress] to watch a video film, eat candy, and go outside in the parking lot, and we shouldn't have been out there," she said. "Bright lights were being put in our chapel, which is supposed to be subdued during prayers ." [Full Story]
When St. Teresa of Avila saw the condition of the Carmelite order while she lived she longed to return to the original Carmelite charism, thus the discalced (shoeless) branch of Carmelites came into being. I guess now we are going to need the dis-candied/dis-video/dis-bright light branch of Carmelites. I can understand their being upset by a more liberal Carmelite order, but I think obedience would have been better then locking themselves up for nine months. This seems to be the opposite of St. John of the Cross who was forced to be locked up for about a year. He came out of his imprisonment more in love with God and the fruit of this was the "Ascent of Mt. Carmel" and the "Dark Night of the Soul." The fruit of these nuns was leaving the convent and becoming certified in reflexology and aromatherapy. St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross were always obedient to their superiors, whether or not they agreed with them. Of course it is easy for me to say this sitting from my lofty perch and looking on their actions and condemning them. I am a member of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, what use to be called Third Order Carmelites. But most of the time I am a Disordered Carmelite.
Sybil Disobedience
"You have the right to remain silent ... and so do you, and you, and you."
That's what police could be reciting from now on in the wake of a unique court ruling from the same Montana county that dealt with Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.
A judge there has decided that once is not enough when
it comes to Miranda warnings for criminal suspects who have multiple personalities.
[Full
Story]
I wonder if one of the personalities would be allowed to testify against the
other. And what if one personality was guilty of a hate crime but the others
weren't. I could see this conversation happening when one or more personalities
were found innocent.
All right, you can go now. Hey, where do you think you are going. What are you
still doing here I told you that you were free. Come back here I told you that
you have to stay behind and are remanded to prison ....
If Carly Simon was around during Jesus' life
She might have wrote:
You walked into Jerusalem
Like your lies would never be caught
Your phylacteries broad with your fringed hems
Your robe it was apricot
You knew you were God's chosen
But were acting worse than Lot
As you called for God now and then
Israel is God's vineyard you were taught
You're so vine
You probably think this psalm is about you
You're so vine
You probably think this psalm is about you
Don't you? Don't you?
The prophets came many years ago
With guile you tried to deceive
Well you said, onto the Lord you swear
And that you would never leave
But to idols you worshiped like God above
And soon you would forget me
When Elijah prayed came clouds from the sea
Clouds from the sea, and
You're so vine
You probably think this psalm is about you
You're so vine
You probably think this psalm is about you
Don't you? Don't you?
When Elijah prayed came clouds from the sea
Clouds from the sea, and
You're so vine
You probably think this psalm is about you
You're so vine
You probably think this psalm is about you
Don't you? Don't you?
Well, I hear you went up to the temple
And you tithe mint and dill and cummin
Then you flew into a rage at the people
But you didn't even notice God's Son
Well, you're a brood of vipers all the time
And when you plot, you're with
Some Sad'ducees or cause strife with the zealots
strife with the zealots, and
You're so vine
You probably think this psalm is about you
You're so vine
You probably think this psalm is about you
Don't you? Don't you?
Silent No More
WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- After 30 years of legalized abortion, women from coast to coast who have had abortions will gather in January at state capitols and in Washington D.C. to speak about their experience. Many of the women will share their stories while others hold signs that read "I Regret My Abortion."
The Silent No More campaign will tell the truth about abortion's emotional, spiritual and physical consequences.
Actress, model and author, Jennifer O'Neill, is joining the Silent No More Campaign as their national spokesperson. As a woman who was forced to have an abortion, Ms. O'Neill understands the pain, "To have the opportunity to encourage and comfort the hearts of women who have suffered is humbling, and making the whole truth known about abortion is absolutely necessary."
"We are the voice that hasn't been heard," said Georgette Forney, Executive Director of NOEL, and a co-founder of Silent No More who had an abortion at age 16. "There is a lot of talk about rights and choice, but very little attention is given to women who have abortions. I regret my abortion and I know others who feel the same way. After 30 years it's time to listen to us -- the women who have experienced it." [Full Story]
An abortion by any other name would smell just as putrid
The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) is softening its pro-abortion identity by promoting 'choice' as part of its new name.
Thirty years after the Supreme Court legalized abortion, NARAL now fears that the Republican-dominated White House and Congress are plotting to roll back Roe v. Wade.
In response, the pro-abortion group has plotted a massive mobilization campaign and added the words "Pro-Choice America" to the end of its name. The group now refers to itself as NARAL Pro-Choice America. [Full Story]
I am tired of all the hiding behind the word "choice" and I think that we should all start using it the way the pro-deathers do. A little verbal gymnastics to drive them just as crazy as they do to pro-life supporters The next time President Bush is asked about the potential war in Iraq he should just say that that he is pro-choice. He doesn't need to mention war at all, he can just talk about the president's right to choose. Anybody that disagrees with him he can call anti-choice or say that they just can't understand because their not a president Another line he could use was "If you don't like war, don't start one." The Republican rank and file can say "I personally don't support war in Iraq, but I support the President's right to choose.
Mark Shea proposes a new game
Following in the footsteps of this
worthy writer, I propose a new game. Beginning from any premise whatever
(sexual abuse, low SAT scores, bad school lunches, war with Iraq, spanking,
etc), write a brief editorial which somehow manages to conclude, against all
logic, "The solution for much of this is painfully obvious: Ordain women,
and drop the celibacy requirement." Extra points if you can drip with condescending
sarcasm and contempt for the stupidity of those who do not see the logic of
your conclusion. [Link]
Check out some very funny entries submitted in the comment box at his blog.
Here is my entry:
Cleveland Browns lose playoff games due to male hierarchy
Many people have attributed the Cleveland Browns loss due to letting their guard down and becoming over confident. But let us examine the real reasons for this loss. If we were to go into the teams locker room before the game or during half-time we would find members of the clergy there available as team chaplains. We would observe the total one sidedness of an all male priesthood, there was no one there of the female sex in which to help those players get in touch with their feminine side. We needed to put the cleavage in Cleveland. If only we had woman priestesses, then the feminine influence would have led them to contemplate their female side and thrown a "Hail Mary" pass instead of a short pass and not getting out of bounds before the game ended. This "short pass and get into position to kick a field goal mentality" is what is wrong with the church today. Men would rather do it all themselves instead of putting it all into a woman's hands. Having unmarried male priests promotes this false idea of men being able to do it all alone. The idea of celibate men in the confessional giving advice on sexually related matters is hypocritical. There is a Dear Abby column and a Ann Landers but no Dear Joe or Dear Butch columns (and nobody wants a Dear John), people would prefer women's advice in the confessional over a repressed XY chromosome type. What is more fitting then having the XX in the confessional. A pope Joan Paul would have kept the scandal from occurring in the church in the first place.
Student Essay Bloopers
...The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a partiarch who brought up his twelve sons to be partiarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.
Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fougth with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines. [Many more student essay bloopers]
There is a good reason they call it "Outcome based education" instead of "Income based education," you are guaranteed not to learn anything that will lead to an income.
Martha's new food magazine
NEW YORK (AP) — Martha Stewart's new magazine all about food — and only a little about her — debuted at grocery stores and newsstands Monday.
Everyday Food enters a crowded field of food publications
and a tough business climate, but many advertisers and industry analysts think
that, despite Stewart's troubles of last year, she may once again succeed
...Everyday Food, which features recipes with easily available ingredients that
can be made in about 30 minutes, is a significant departure from Stewart's previous
magazines. [Full
Story]
And I thought it would be a 101 cake recipes to hide a file in with pull outs including insider trading tips.
"Higher" Biblical Criticism
Jesus was almost certainly a cannabis user and an early
proponent of the medicinal properties of the drug, according to a study of scriptural
texts published this month. The study suggests that Jesus and his disciples
used the drug to carry out miraculous healings.
.."There can be little doubt about a role for cannabis in Judaic religion,"
Carl Ruck, professor of classical mythology at Boston University said.
[Full
Story]
Mythology professor, well at least that is consistent with this new wacko myth.
This guy probably did too much research on the "medicinal
properties of the drug" and thought the picture of the guy on the
ZIG ZAG cigarette papers
was Jesus. This would fit in nicely with the Jesus Seminar's explanation of
the miracle of the loaves and fishes as the miracle of sharing. Jesus gave everyone
the munchies causing them to share the food. Well, you got to love professors
at Catholic universities for their inventiveness. How does Peter
Kreft put up with this nonsense at Boston College?
Homerphobia
On the Simpsons episode last night I noticed the sign outside the town church said "Welcome Pissed Off Catholics."
The sacred and profane
Victor Lams of et cetera has a great post on current liturgical music. His last paragraph was dead on and I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing if you haven't already.
What not to put on your resume
These are ten lines culled from real resumes: [Full Story]
Couldn't you have gotten a dog instead?
The dispute, which has landed in federal court, is about
a 1- year-old girl named Amber who lives in a quaint cul-de-sac on Northwest
11th Court. The homeowners association has asked her parents to kick the baby
out.
Sanford "Hank" Marcus, 36, a small-business owner, bought his home
in the neighborhood in 1994, two years before a majority of Paradise Gardens
Phase One homeowners reportedly voted to restrict the neighborhood to homeowners
55 years and older.
Read more, including an excerpt from the letter sent by the association's attorney...
The age restrictions did not affect Marcus and his wife,
Penny, because they bought their house before the change. But last year, Amber
was born. The family received a letter in the mail this year from the association
and another from the association's attorney, Kenneth Zeilberger.
"Demand is hereby made upon you to cause the immediate
removal of the infant ... from your home," Zeilberger wrote. "While
we understand the inconvenience such a demand will cause you, the association
has determined its preference [to be a seniors-only community]."
[Full
Story]
New parody contest
Pete Vere of Catholic Light/Envoy Encore has started a new contest:
Listening to the debate over Church music during the ChristMass holydays, I got an idea for a contest! Basically, write a parody about liturgists to the lyrics and tune of that most insipid of modern Christmas carols, Gramma Got Run Over by Reindeer.
An invitation that I couldn't resist, so here goes.
Liturgists have stopped the priests reign, dear
They let them still say Mass on Christmas eve.
You can say there's no such thing as rubrics,
But as for me and James Akin, we believe.
She'd been reading too much NC Reporter
And we'd begged her not to go.
But she said forget meditation,
So she stumbled out the door into the snow.
When they found her Christmas mornin',
At the scene of the Mass.
"Gather Us In" had knocked her dead
And incriminatin' blood flowed from her ears
Liturgists have stopped the priests reign, dear
They let them still say Mass on Christmas eve.
You can say there's no such thing as rubrics,
But as for me and James Akin, we believe.
Now we're all so proud of Father,
He's been takin' this so well.
Seen him stopped watching Dan Rather,
And told all the liturgists to go to ...
It's now Christmas with decent singing
The Mass is no longer out of whack
And the songs are no longer cringing
Respect for the Lord in the Eucharist is back
Liturgists have stopped the priests reign, dear
They let them still say Mass on Christmas eve.
You can say there's no such thing as rubrics,
But as for me and James Akin, we believe.
Now the tabernacle is back behind the altar
And they brought back the crucifix.
And the priest now prays his Psalter,
No more of the liturgist's bag of tricks
I've warned all my faith community.
Better watch out for yourselves.
They should never give a degree,
To someone who sings or hums to OCP.
Liturgists have stopped the priests reign, dear
They let them still say Mass on Christmas eve.
You can say there's no such thing as rubrics,
But as for me and James Akin, we believe.
Glory of Purgatory
Thanks to those who said a prayer and/or left a comment, greatly appreciated. This has caused me to reflect more on the mystical body of Christ and especially purgatory. I am also thankful of purgatory, especially with the statement in the book of Revelations
But nothing unclean shall enter it [heaven]
So if I make it that far I will be more than happy to receive the deep cleaning
and scrubbing required to look at God in the Beautific Vision. In some ways
I see the blogosphere as a metaphor for the communion of saints. We ask for
others to pray for us even though normally we don't see them or know what they
look like or even where they are located. And we pray for others who we also
can't see. It was a great mercy of God that he allows our prayers to work in
his will (it certainly wasn't required). One of the best descriptions I head
of this was the example of the mother who lets her child help her in the baking
of cookies, the mother certainly didn't require this help - but through love
included the child in the preparation.
The prayer of a just man has great power in its effects.
--James 5:16
Well I'm just a man so hopefully that will be good enough. I have often heard of the spiritual cleansing fire in purgatory and thought about the fact that we always seem to concentrate on the seemingly negative aspects of things. We normally don't see the great joy of having faults and imperfections removed from us. When we think of detachment we think of having to force ourselves from the attachment to things. There is that famous statement of St. Augustines' "Give me chastity and continence, but not yet." I try to think of it as attachment instead; attachment to God alone. To attach ourselves to God alone we must remove those many tentacles of attachment to things. Just another of those many seeming paradoxes, such as dying to ourselves to live. Our society sees many things as a zero-sum game, such as if someone earns another dollar then someone must be losing a dollar. We think that to love and devote ourselves to God more is to love and devote ourselves to our neighbor less. This zero-sum game in economics is patently false and it is even more false in our relation to God and neighbor which is dynamic. Another example that I have heard used is of a triangle; where one side of the triangle is the love of God and the other side is love of neighbor, as you approach the apex both sides get closer and at the top they are perfectly united.
My Grandmother has two sisters both living (one who is 99) and I know that
there time here is closing and I have another Grandmother in her late 90s. My
mother is dying from cancer and my Aunt is also not in very good condition.
I certainly don't look forward to when they do die and know there will be great
pain in this (just admiting this to mysellf and writing the last couple of sentences
was more painful than I thought it would be), but the reality of redemption
and salvation also makes me rejoice in their hopeful union with God alone.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.
And let the perpetual light shine upon them.
And may the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
Prayer Request
Please pray for the repose of the soul of my Grandmother who died yesterday at 97.
Just ants no rants
Check out this story
about contact lenses, an ant, and prayer.
[Via Spiritual Pyromania]
And for more ant fun as opposed to antiphons. Go to antwar.com to create your own colony of ants from a selection of ant types. The cartoon host is Adam Ant, because of the site name I would have chosen Antwar Sadat for the host's name.
Biblical ant tie in from Proverbs 6:
Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.
Without having any chief, officer or ruler,
she prepares her food in summer,
and gathers her sustenance in harvest.
How long will you lie there, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
Advertising on my mind
DE WITT, Iowa - Jeff Swanson is using his head - as a billboard.
Swanson, 39, is offering to let an advertiser tattoo his head for $100,000.
He listed his offer twice on the Internet auction site
eBay, and says at least one person has already called to express interest.
[Full
Story] [Via
Listen Don't Speak]
Anti-Catholicism on parade
(AP) (PHILADELPHIA) The archbishop of Philadelphia said Friday that a satirical sketch mocking sexually abusive priests, scheduled to be performed in the city's annual Mummers Parade, is an "attack on the Catholic faith."
The sketch, put on by the Slick Duck Comic Brigade, will admittedly stretch the bounds of good taste, with priests being chased by police officers and nuns in a go-go cage.
Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, in a one-page statement, called on Catholics to "express their displeasure" with the skit, which is to be performed Saturday after rain delayed the traditional New Year's Day parade.
"This group plans to do an insensitive and tasteless skit which can only be extremely painful for any victim who has experienced any type of abuse. I am horrified that any person or group can be so callous," Bevilacqua said.
"At the same time, I express outrage over the demeaning
caricature of our Holy Father, bishops, priests and religious women. While such
mean-spirited mockery may be protected as free speech, it is still hateful speech
and as such has no place in a city parade."
..."That is the whole point of the comics. It is
political satire," said Eddie Hall, a Mummer and longtime comic who supervises
the parade division that includes the Slick Ducks. "This is a group of
people who are really ticked off about the scandal, and they want to make that
known."
[Full
Story]
In this tolerance-charged politically correct society anti-Catholicism remains the protected bigotry of choice. If they had a bunch of suicide bombers being chased by police officers with women in burkas in go-go cages, I don't think this would have been accepted. Exactly how does nuns in go-go cages reflect that people are ticked off about the scandal? If people want to engage in mockery of the church, fine; just don't have the city endorsing it. I don't think we are going to hear form the People for the Separation of Church and State on this one.
Liturgy and Sin Reply
David Ancell of Danger!
Falling Brainwaves asks:
Is it a sin to use OCP materials in your liturgy?
That depends:
Using OCP material is in itself "grave matter", but the person using
it must have known it was wrong and also must have had sufficient reflection
before using it.
As the Catechism states:
1859. "Using OCP material to be a sin requires full
knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character
of the act, of its opposition to God's law. It also implies a consent sufficiently
deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart[Cf.
Mk 3:5-6 ; Lk 16:19-31 .] do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary
character of a SIN."
And for a little reflection on blogging 2002, OCP was the subject of my first rant July 27, 2002.
Emily Stimpson in reference to the song "Shine Jesus Shine." says "(As a completely unrelated side-note, that idiotic song is one of the few things in the universe to which I can honestly say my hatred knows no bounds. Liturgists who inflict it on their parishioners are just asking for time in Purgatory.)"
I agree whole-heartily with her. I heard that song at the end of mass at a parish I was visiting a couple of weeks ago. To make things worse the people were clapping in beat to it, as was the priest as he went up the center of the isle. Songs like this should be put into a class of songs to do penance by or songs that are penance. If St. Augustine was around today he might have said "When you sing you do penance twice". When visiting a parish and I see the dreadful "published by OCP", I know I am in for a real treat. The acronym OCP must really stand for Often Causes Pain. Going through their hymn books you would think that there were not any songs written before 1980. Now I know that these hymn books are put out by Oregon Catholic Press and I just wonder if there is any connection between these insipid songs and that Oregon was the first state to legalize euthanasia. There are already too many distractions in my head, and I need all the help I can to ensure that I worship Christ at the sacrifice of the mass.
In addition Catholic light has posts on two songs (surprisingly both published by OCP).
Blessed (Cyriac) Kuriakos Elias Chavara, co-founder and first prior general of the congregation of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, was born at Kainakary in Kerala, India, February 10, 1805. He entered the seminary in 1818, and was ordained priest in 1829. He made his religious profession in 1855, in the congregation he founded. In 1861 he was named vicar general for the Syro-Malabar church; in this capacity he defended ecclesial unity threatened by schism when mar Tomas Rochos was sent from Mesopotamia to consecrate Nestorian bishops. Throughout his life he worked for the renovation of the church in Malabar. He was also co-founder in 1866 of the congregation of the Sisters of the Mother of Carmel. Above all, he was a man of prayer, zealous for the Eucharistic Lord and devoted to the Immaculate Virgin Mary. He died at Koonammavu in 1871. His body was transferred to Mannanam in 1889.
Entrance Antiphon
I will give you shepherds after my own heart, and they shall feed you on
knowledge and sound teaching.
Opening Prayer
Lord God
You raised up Blessed Kuriakos Elias Your Priest
to strengthen the unity of the Church.
Grant that through his intercession
we may be enlightened by the Holy Spirit
to read the signs of the times with wisdom
and spread the news of the Gospel
by both word and example.
We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord, accept these gifts from Your people.
May the Eucharist we offer to Your glory
in honor of Blessed Kuriakos Elias
help us on our way to salvation.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His
life as a ransom for many.
Prayer after Communion
Lord, we receive the bread of heaven
as we honor the memory of Blessed Kuriakos Elias.
May the Eucharist we now celebrate
lead us to eternal joys.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.
First Reading
Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-13
I, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in al. But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.
and His gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature f the fullness of Christ.
Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 23)
R/. The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want;
he makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters;
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death,
I fear no evil; for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
Gospel
Luke 10:1-9
After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of Him,
two by two, into every town and place where He Himself was about to come. And
He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray
therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. Go
your way; behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. carry no purse,
no bag, no sandals; and salute no one on the road. whatever house you enter,
first say, 'Peace be to this house!' And if a son of peace is there, your peace
shall rest upon him; but if not, it shall return to you. And remain in the same
house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages;
do not go from house to house. whenever you enter a town and they receive you,
eat what is set before you; heal the sick in it and say to them, 'The Kingdom
of God has come near to you.'
Do not pass go
The other day I jokingly referred to an article where I would explain why Monopoly is capitalistic propaganda. Well someone named Bob Willis has written an Article called "Monopoly for Liberals"
• Be sure to have lots of paper and a fresh pen on hand for each player, since the rules of the game will become increasingly more complex as time goes by. Players will be required to comply with more and more rules, and pay more and more taxes, as the game progresses. Any player found not in compliance with any rules, or failing to pay any taxes levied during the game, will go immediately to Jail without passing go, without collecting $200, and after paying government court costs of $250 K.
The rules are both politically accurate and funny. The only thing he forgot to add with the "Chance" and "Community Chest" cards was the race card.
So you want to be a Rock n' Roll Star
If the answer is yes than here is a chance to simulate your band at createbands.com. Add musicians from a selection of styles and you can have them play loops or control them via the keyboard. I always wanted to create a heavy metal band called "Mutually Assured Destruction" so here was my chance.
Blog Update
I have been messing around with my blog template to add a new feature. For each day any Feast, Memorial, Solemnity will be displayed at the top. Also shown will be the liturgical day and the vestment color. I did it in JavaScript for the whole month so that it will correctly display based on date. I also looked through my blogroll to see if all of the blogs I was visiting were on it. Some are new and some are ones I thought I had previously added but must have overwritten or messed up. So if yours disappeared you weren't excommunicated. I got excommunicated from Catholic Light's blogroll when they added James Akin's blog, but who can complain about being replaced by James Akin.
One thing good about reading these blogs is that it knocks the heck out of my pride. If you just watch TV, listen to the Radio, and read books on theology you can think your pretty sharp. Weblog reading has put the damper on that. There is so much knowledge and depth of information provided that I am glad that I just stick to my roll as class clown.
David Ancell Danger! Falling Brainwaves
Robert Diaz Caritate Dei
Michael Inman The
Inman Family Page
Sean Gallagher Nota
Bene
Bill Cork Ut Unum Sint
Oswald Sobrino Catholic Analysis
Robert Gotcher Classic Catholic
Jeff El Camino Real
Steve Shaw Listen Don't Speak
Michael Roesch Res Et Rationes
Dave Sons of Frater Louis
Will Mysterium Crucis
The Mighty Barrister
Pdawwg
The Cranky Professor
Cacciaguida
Elinor Dashwood (alias) Mommentary
Blogspot Template Advice
If you have a blog on blogspot and are planning on experimenting with template
changes here are some suggestions:
And let there be light ticket
John Seth was not happy when he returned to his car after making an early afternoon delivery in downtown Seattle last month and found that he'd left his lights on.
He was even less pleased when a city parking-enforcement officer handed him a $28 parking ticket. Not for being in a space illegally or for having an expired meter — it was for those headlights.
" 'You left your lights on,' " Seth recalled
the parking officer saying. 'We can cite for it, so we do.' "
"It's just insane." Seth said yesterday. "And the worst part of it was she smiled when she gave it to me and said, 'Merry Christmas.' "
...If there's any silver lining for Seth, it might be that if he had gotten the ticket today, it would be $38 instead of $28 because of the city's efforts to balance the 2003 budget.
Still, "For the life of me, I can't figure out what the public-safety issue is," Seth said. "I mean, is a small child going to walk too near to your lights and be vaporized?" [Full Story]
There is going to be hell to pay for this, just wait till her supervisors found out she said "Merry Christmas."
Maybe the Rocky and Bullwinkle show would have been a better choice
PARENTS have complained after the traditional Christmas nativity play was ditched at a Co Down primary school this year in favour of a cult adult show.
Instead of the usual stable scenes, youngsters took part in a version of the Rocky Horror show.
Eyebrows were raised as nine and ten-year-olds at St Mary's Primary in Newcastle vamped it up in the controversial cross-dressing extravaganza.
Staff said they had "no problem" with putting
on the raunchy musical.
...A spokesman for the Council for Catholic Maintained
Schools said it was important children learned to become good citizens.
[Full
Story][Via US Daily
Report]
That new math
A Democratic pundit on Fox news talking about John Edward's voting record said:
"85 percent of the time he voted with Ted Kennedy and Republicans will
use that against him, but about half the time he voted with Jesse Helms."
Bumper Banality
COLUMBIA, S.C. - A federal court judge has ruled South Carolina's anti-abortion license plates are unconstitutional.
The plates, which include the slogan "Choose Life," violate the First Amendment because it give antiabortion advocates a forum to express their beliefs, while abortion rights supports have no license plate of their own, Senior U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman ruled last week. [Full Story]
What, they don't have mottos for there own license plates. I will just have to remedy the situation, after all abortion supporters really put the word license into license plate.
Wanted: Liberal Rush Limbaugh's
Worried that their party has been outgunned in the political propaganda wars by conservative radio and television personalities, influential Democrats are scouring the nation for a liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh and the many others on the deep bench of Republican friends.
,...The efforts among influential Democrats, particularly liberals, range from a grass-roots talent search for progressive radio hosts to the creation of research organizations to provide a Democratic spin for the news media, to nascent discussions by wealthy supporters about starting a cable network with a liberal bent.
Hello, just what in the world is CBS/NBC/ABC/PBS/CNN/MSNBC/CNBC. What is the cable networks with the liberal bent they want - Pravda?
People working on these projects acknowledged they were venturing into territory where liberals have failed and failed again, most notably with the short-lived radio programs of Mario M. Cuomo and Jim Hightower, not to mention Phil Donahue's struggling liberal talk show on MSNBC.
...However, they said, the recent Republican gains have perhaps set the backdrop for the emergence of an angry liberal who could claim the same outsider status that worked so well for Mr. Limbaugh in the early 1990's.
Typical lie, it couldn't have anything to do with ideas resonating with people. How do they explain Mr. Limbaugh's audience increase during both GOP and Democratic administrations?" Mr. Donahue's show is not struggling it is dead and is on artificial respiration, the ratings flat lined after the first week.
..."If you start from the premise that the message was right, which we do, then the problem was that it wasn't getting out to the people," said one official of the Democratic Party who spoke on condition that his name not be used.
Garbage in, garbage out. Start from a faulty premise and the results are going to be skewed. The Dim erratic party message did get out and for the most part it was rejected.
..."Progressives have this problem: They sound too
erudite, it's like eggheads talking at you," Mr. Athens said. "We
believe that progressive talk radio can be every bit as successful as conservative
talk radio if people present and format a show that people like."
[Full
Whining Story]
When I looked up erudite in the thesaurus it gave James Carville and Paul Begala as antonyms. If Radio talk shows were 1 to 3 minutes long then liberal talk shows would be successful. They have always been successful in the sound bite wars but substantive solutions to real problems is a weakness. The other problem is that real people can call into these shows and challenge their opinions if they don't call screen out all who might disagree with them. Neil Boortz (who I can only listen to in moderation) once talked about an offer he made to two liberals talk show hosts to do his program for a week while he was on vacation. They would only accept the offer if they could control and screen the calls themselves.
My Predictions for 2003
These predictions are 100% guaranteed or your money back.
Go Jeb Go
(CNSNews.com) -- Florida Governor Jeb Bush has appointed to the state Supreme Court a judge who strongly believes in judicial restraint, a conservative philosophy which holds that judges should interpret the law as it was written, not as they would have written it. Circuit Judge Kenneth Bell, 46, of Pensacola, replaces retiring Justice Leander Shaw, 72, who is stepping down next week after 20 years on the state's highest court. The Miami Herald reported that earlier this year Bell had a website promoting his candidacy for the high court, on which he stated: "Unless absolutely necessary, the courts must recognize their role as the 'weakest branch of government' and pay due deference to the legislative and executive branches." Florida Republicans have accused the Supreme Court's liberal judges of stepping on the role of the Legislature in broadly interpreting the law and creating new ones to suit their political ideologies and agendas. "I don't believe in activism of the court, either from the left or the right," Bell said. His appointment Monday was the second Bush has made to the Supreme Court. [Full Story]
I also believe in judicial restraint, I think that most of the judges we currently have should be bound in restraints.
Segregationist Ships
..."The United States Navy is rich in proud traditions,
yet it too is tainted with the stain of segregation. Two Nimitz-class carriers,
the most powerful ships in the fleet, are named for signers of the March 12
manifesto.
This is the same Southern Manifesto where the signatures railed against the Supreme Courts decision on segregation.
"The USS John Stennis, recently returned from a tour protecting the peace in the Persian Gulf, is named for the former chairman of two powerful Senate committees and who served as Senate president pro tempore, making him third in the line of presidential succession. The USS Carl Vinson honors a segregationist Georgia congressman who headed the House Committee on Naval Affairs and the House Armed Services Committee.
"Should these ships of the line continue to bear names honoring men who helped foster the idea that segregation was acceptable and positive? As President George W. Bush said while rebuking Lott, 'Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals.' [Full Story]
<Johnny Carson Voice> I didn't know that.</Johnny Carson Voice>
LOTR and other musings.
I watched the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers at the theater and I am not going to present a review since my analytic abilities when it comes to movie or book reviews would be no more profound then "Thumbs way up." Normally I go to movies even less than Victor Lams does but I was not about to wait eight months for the rental. The movie was almost three hours long which is only slightly less than the time taken by all of the movie previews and other video game advertisements shown. I now know all the movies that are going to come out within the next ten years. Maybe I will start a new subscription service called MOVIETIME where you will be given both the time the previews start and the time the movie actually starts.
But seeing LOTR got me to thinking about the reasons why I had never read the
Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy until just about two years ago. In my adolescence
I was a computer geek without a computer to geek on. It wasn't till my senior
year in High School that I even played with the Altair
8080 which used switches to enter programs in octal and communicated via
a teletype. I have always greatly enjoyed the field of science, this was a special
time of awe with the space program and moon landing occurring. I had tried experimenting
on the small amplifier in a portable record player and I mixed household cleaner
ingredients in a lightbulb with the base removed. That I survived my inquisitive
childhood is a surprise. My father bought me electronic kits to put together
to try to aim my propensities into safer directions and he also introduced me
to science fiction which was the bulk of his library.
When I finally took to reading I really took to it and read constantly, and
yes what a surprise that I am another shy introverted blogger who reads a lot.
My Sci-fi of choice was "hard science" fiction such as Isaac Asimov,
Larry Niven, Hal Clement, H.G. Wells and Arthur C. Clark. The only thing I really
read outside of Sci-fi was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Sherlock Holmes"
series and Dorothy L. Sayers "Lord Peter Wimsey" stories (introduced
to my by PBS's Masterpiece Theater). I was also interested in the Roman and
Greek myth and enjoyed the Odyssey and the Iliad. When I joined the Navy I found
I had many opportunities to read, especially while standing in the chow line
and I also picked up the bad habit of reading while eating. It was very easy
to exhaust the ship's library and the books of those around me and one time
I picked up what I suspect to be one of Piers Anthony's Xanth series books.
All of the bad puns obviously didn't bother me but a walking skeleton was just
too much for my scientific preferences and I wasn't able to overcome this prejudice
at this time. Which is rather odd since my favorite genre of movies was of the
"Jason and the Argonauts" and the "Sinbad" movies type
The first fantasy series that I came to read was Stephen R. Donaldson "Thomas Covenant" series, which I enjoyed greatly and so I added dwarves, orcs, and elves to my repertoire of reading. Looking back I now realized that I enjoyed these fantasy books because of the usual tight camaraderie of the characters and also that they had strong moral convictions on what they would do and in rescuing their friends. I at the same time was growing in moral convictions (not necessarily moral actions) and as I had mentioned in a previous post I found the the very characters I loved were much more moral than I was and I paled by comparison. One series of books that I read before my conversion was R.A. Salvatore's "The Icewind Dale Trilogy" a story about a Drow Elf Drizzt Do'Urden who overcame growing up in a dark elf community to leave it and to live in the human world as a ranger in the face of massive prejudice and distrust. I reread this series and the beginning "Dark Elf" trilogy and I found them to me to be very Catholic. Nowhere else had I read someone pondering about the morality of killing orcs and whether they could be redeemed. The struggles Drizzt had with the temptation to wear a mask that would hide his Dark Elf features and all of the moral problems he worked to overcome. There is a very strong redemptive streak in these books and the struggle against evil. But as I mentioned at the top of the post I am no reviewer and might have read into these books more then was there. I have no critical abilities when it comes to prose, especially since my own writing is like grammatical speed bumps so I can't say for sure that these books are well written.
Getting back to why I had never read Tolkien's works till recently, for whatever reason I just hadn't come across them yet. Towards the end my my kids high school I had homeschooled them using the courses from Seton and they had a reading list for which books they could do book reports on. I found this a very good guide for myself since it included the LOTR. It also led me to read Graham Greene, Louis de Wohl, and Evelyn Waugh. So my literary universe has been greatly increased and I look forward to all of the other great literary works that I have yet to read. My love of science has not decreased since my conversion but has deepened. Before I was like a camera stuck in zoom mode, admiring all of the details. I lived in a universe where paintings could have randomly painted themselves. Now I can zoom out and pan around a little and not only to see the beauty of creation but also it's author.
Commenting on Commenting
Will of the blog Mysterium
Crucis which gets better by the day is currently without commenting. In
his sidebar he has posted
Enetation is the perfect commenting system for a religious
weblog. It treats everyday like the Sabbath. It primarily does this by not working.
If you would like to comment, I humbly request your patience and a return visit.
Thank you. -Will
I don't agree that this is the perfect religious weblog commenting system, we must remember in Mark 2 it says "The Commenting system was made for man, not man for the Commenting systems." So Enetations is of the Pharisitical variety since it binds heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lays them on men's shoulders. The first four letters of Haloscan would seem to make it the perfect Religious weblog commenting system, but it now seems to be of the Jehovah's Witness variety since it has closed it's doors to new sign-ups after the first 144,000 elect.
I once went through the trials of using Enetation so I know what he is saying. Recently three people have had decrees of canonization written because it was demonstrated they had heroic virtue in the form of patient by actually waiting for a Enetation comment box to come up.
This is parody, at least for a little longer
The Game Checkers is Racially Insensitive
In a bill co-sponsored by John McCain and Tom Daschle, the colors of red and
black are to be banned from the game checkers. The change is to be immediate.
Yesterday, Tom Daschle had this to say: "Checkers has long been a game
deeply rooted in American lives and history. This change is long overdue. No
longer will we see the stereotypical red representing Native Americans and black
representing African Americans. Effective immediately all game boards and chips
are to be 2 shades of gray. Anyone found with a checkers game sporting red and
black will be subject to a stiff penalty of a minimum of 7 years in jail. This
is a hate crime!"
[From
the "Listen don't Speak" blog]
This bill would be a start, but it doesn't go far enough. Checkers also enforces rude behaviors and monarchism by making people jump over others to eliminate them and using such phrases as "King me." Shouldn't we just go around the other checkers politely without eliminating them. And isn't "King Me" sexist why not "Queen Me." And the whole double checker fascism where the elite are able to move as they will and the single checker proletariat can only move forward, where is the equality here? Why does Red go first, who assigned these affirmative actions to checkers? This game has a checkered past, time to eliminate it. President Nixon saved his political career by a dog named Checkers, so there must be something profoundly wrong with this game. In our next article we will explain why Monopoly is capitalistic propaganda and the game Candyland predisposes kids to obesity.
Appointment of pro-life physicians to advisory panel
The Bush administration's appointment of pro-life physicians to a federal health advisory panel on Christmas Eve prompted an outcry both from the nation's pro-abortion political lobby and from the country's largest owner of for-profit abortion facilities.
...Hager serves as a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, director of the residency program in obstetrics and gynecology (OB-GYN) at Central Baptist Hospital, and he practices as a board certified OB-GYN at the Women's Care Center, all located in Lexington, Kentucky.
Gloria Feldt, president of abortion facilities owner Planned Parenthood, called Hager's choice "a frontal assault on reproductive rights."
Hiring someone that actually delivered babies and didn't suck out their brains or cut them up into little pieces is a frontal assault on reproductive rights?
The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), did not issue a statement after Hager's selection, but had "warned" of the possibility of his choice in the weeks leading up to the appointment.
What a pro-choice group being against someone's choice.
..."I have a passion for the health and well-being of women and their unborn/newborn offspring," Hager wrote. "The use of any medication that puts the life and health of either of these individuals at risk implores me to call for a thorough and exhaustive evaluation.
"RU 486 is such an agent," he concluded, "posing risks to women and potentially to their unborn babies."
Hager is also a member of the Physicians Resource Council (PRC), which NARAL criticized as a "radical right organization" because of the mission statement of PRC's parent organization, Focus on the Family: "To cooperate with the Holy Spirit in disseminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible, and, specifically, to accomplish that objective by helping to preserve traditional values and the institution of the family.". [Full Story]
"Banned Parenthood" and "NARAL minded" being against him is about the strongest endorsement that I can think of.
Unsafe sex at any speeds
This is in response to a comment on the NIH fact sheets are starting to include actual facts post below.
I take no cue from Pat Robertson but either do I take my cue from fact sheets from SIECUS. This organization promotes abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and masturbation. While the Uganda program became known as ABC, for "Abstain, Be Faithful, or wear a Condom"--very much in order of emphasis the Ugandans really never took to condoms.
Show me one person who has contracted HIV through abstinence or a couple both living in monogamy (and I am not talking about blood transfusions). This lie called "safe sex" will continue to not only kill people but will also kill families. Where is the great benefit to society that groups like SIECUS promised to bring. Abortion promised to end so-called unwanted kids, instead it now protects people who commit incest and rape, and encourages fornication and adultery by making it easier to kill the "consequences." If you want to read a real fact sheet read the encyclical "Humanae Vitae" by Pope Paul VI where he predicted the society we are currently living in. Obviously this is a hot button topic to me but groups like SIECUS only make a SICK US.
I was overjoyed to find that the Catholic Church had read the Bible too!
The title line is from Peter Kreeft's conversion story Hauled Aboard the Ark. The following is an excerpt from this article:
Perhaps, I thought, these good Protestant people could
worship like angels, but I could not. Then I realized that they couldn't either.
Their ears were using crutches but not their eyes. They used beautiful hymns,
for which I would gladly exchange the new, flat, unmusical, wimpy "liturgical
responses" no one sings in our masses—their audible imagery is their crutch.
I think that in Heaven, Protestants will teach Catholics to sing and Catholics
will teach Protestants to dance and sculpt.
...Then one summer, on the beach at Ocean Grove, New Jersey,
I read St. John of the Cross. I did not understand much of it, but I knew, with
undeniable certainty, that here was reality, something as massive and positive
as a mountain range. I felt as if I had just come out of a small, comfortable
cave, in which I had lived all my life, and found that there was an unsuspected
world outside of incredible dimensions. Above all, the dimensions were those
of holiness, goodness, purity of heart, obedience to the first and greatest
commandment, willing God's will, the one absolute I had discovered, at the age
of eight. I was very far from saintly, but that did not prevent me from fascinated
admiration from afar; the valley dweller appreciates the height of the mountain
more than the dweller on the foothills. I read other Catholic saints and mystics,
and discovered the same reality there, however different the style (even St.
Thérèse "The Little Flower"!) I felt sure it was the same reality I had learned
to love from my parents and teachers, only a far deeper version of it. It did
not seem alien and other. It was not another religion but the adult version
of my own.
PARIS, DEC. 24, 2002 (Zenit.org).- The latest officially recognized miracle at Lourdes involves a Frenchman who was once paralyzed by multiple sclerosis, a newspaper reported.
Le Monde dedicated an entire page to the scientifically inexplicable cure of an illness that began affecting Jean-Pierre Bély in 1972. He was classified by the French health system as a total invalid by the time he went on pilgrimage to Lourdes in October 1987, at age 51.
Those who accompanied Bély did not think he would survive the trip. At the end of the pilgrimage he received the anointing of the sick in the shrine's esplanade. When he returned home, he was already able to walk. Today, virtually all traces of the illness have disappeared.
Patrick Fontanaud, an agnostic physician who looked after Bély, said there is no scientific explanation for what occurred. It was Lourdes' 66th officially recognized miracle since the 1858 apparitions of the Blessed Virgin.
The head of the Lourdes Medical Office, Dr. Patrick Theillier,
told Le Monde that there are two other miraculous cures about to be recognized:
a 25-year-old Frenchwoman and a 60-year-old Italian woman, both cured in 1995.
[Zenit
Story] [Story
from the Lourdes website]
Star Trek Paranoids Unite
I just noticed something startling about the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops URL www.usccb.org. The last part contains Borg. Is this just coincidence or a plot by the Catholic collective to enforce a lukewarm Christianity on believers? Resistance is Futile.
NIH fact sheets are starting to include actual facts
In this particular case, she said the National Institutes of Health convened a workshop in June 2000 to discuss new evidence about condoms. The fact sheet was based on that information and expanded beyond HIV to include some of the other findings.
"The fact sheet uses scientific research from the National Institutes of Health that finds that although there is a lot of scientific evidence to show that condom use can prevent HIV, there isn't that level of evidence for a lot of other sexually transmitted diseases," Hunter said. "We're just trying to present a balanced approach with the scientific evidence that's available."
Uganda the only country to actually reduce the amount of people contracting HIV did so not by distributing condoms but through abstinence and programs focused on morality. Just looking at this from a secular point of view: condoms have a fail rate for pregnancy 10% to 36% of the time. Now if you look at the fact that women are fertile for a small amount of time and you have this high failure rate, then how about when the possibility of contracting an STD is at any time. Obviously the real failure rate for diseases must be a lot higher. Encouraging condom use as public policy not only gives a false sense of confidence but makes Russian Roulette a part of policy. In Russian Roulette you have a sixteen percent chance of firing on a loaded chamber in sexual Russian Roulette the odds are worse if one of the people have an STD.
Waxman was also displeased about a slight change to an NCI fact sheet about breast cancer's possible link to abortion. While the old fact sheet said women who had abortions did not possess a greater risk to develop breast cancer, the new report cited studies that showed conflicting views on the issue. [Full Story]
Conflicting views? 16 of 17 statistically significant studies report increased risk of breast cancer among women choosing an abortion. 7 studies report a more than twofold increased risk. These are not studies sponsored by pro-life groups but in many cases were done by groups looking for the opposite result. The only conflict is with Democrat-Feminist dogma. It is a positive change that the fact sheet is at least acknowledging the Abortion-Breast Cancer link, but it doesn't go far enough.
No Library of Congress in the Congress
Even the likes of Sen. Charles Schumer is upset that fellow traveler Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who is House minority leader, has closed the U.S. Capitol's only branch of the Library of Congress. Her reason: to grab more office space for herself.
"The abrupt closing of the congressional reading room and branch library has caught lawmakers and other patrons off guard, and even the two librarians who staff the small reading room are still getting used to the news," the New York Post reported today.
"They wanted the space for Ms. Pelosi's interns," said librarian Marcel Monfort. [Full Story]
It probably contained a copy of the Constitution and she didn't want that old thing around.
Predatory Government Officials
As states across the country struggle with budget deficits in the billions, many officials are beginning to eye sales taxes on online shopping.
In California alone, collecting such taxes could yield at least $200 million yearly. Nationally, local and state governments could raise billions.
"We can no longer ignore an entire segment of the retail marketplace," said Pat Leary, lobbyist for the California State Association of Counties and a frequent online shopper herself. [Full Story]
What complete government arrogance in the statement "We can no longer afford..." What we can no longer afford is eco-idiots who don't understand the simplest economic rules. One of the reasons people are shopping on the internet is to escape the high state sales taxes in their states. If they lowered their own taxes people would buy more in state which in turn would increase revenues. But no, the government continues to lust after any revenue resource that comes into view. They would strip mine the economy until it was devastated and then wonder what happened. In a state like California where many Internet business are selling products; if other states in-turn adopted these taxes then California would lose jobs and revenue. We need predatory government official notification laws so that if one moves into your neighborhood everybody would be warned.
Judge finds Planned Parenthood 'negligent'
Planned Parenthood was negligent in its failure to report a 13-year-old foster-care girl's abortion to Child Protective Services, a Phoenix judge ruled.
Pro-lifers tout the case as an example of the importance of parental consent laws, the Associated Press reported. A law enacted in 2000 requires girls under 18 in Arizona to get permission of a parent or guardian for an abortion unless they seek court approval.
The Phoenix case began in 1998 when the girl, whose name has been withheld by AP, had an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic accompanied by her 23-year-old foster brother, with whom she was having a sexual relationship.
Court records show that Planned Parenthood did not notify authorities until the girl returned six months later for a second abortion. [Full Story]
New Blog
Mysterium Crucis has the following statement:
Due to the most recent provisions in Canon Law, no literate person in the process of conversion to Catholicism can refuse to start an online journal and incessantly prattle on the minutae of his spiritual growth to a surprisingly receptive clique of lay intellectuals. Not one to disobey, Will launched this blog.
Old Time Lit-ur-gy
By Bob Sedevacantist
Just take those old missels off the shelf
I'll sit and pray to 'em by myself
Today's music and me don't agree
I like that old time Lit-ur-gy
Don't try to take me to pentecostal
It is all to me just such a bore
In ten minutes I'll be late for the door
I like that old time Lit-ur-gy
Still like that old time Lit-ur-gy
That kind of Mass just soothes the soul
I reminisce, before OCP chicanery
With that old time Lit-ur-gy
Won't go to hear music that has no heart
I'd rather hear some chant or Wolfgang Mozart
There's only sure way to get me to see
Start praying old time Lit-ur-gy
One with a relic, and don't ask me to chill
Say I'm traditional, say I'm over the hill
Today' Mass your not down on your knees
I like that old time Lit-ur-gy
Still like that old time Lit-ur-gy
That kind of Mass just soothes the soul
I reminisce, before OCP chicanery
With that old time Lit-ur-gy
Wal-Mart terminates pregnant Midge doll
PHILADELPHIA - She is Barbie's oldest friend, happily married and visibly pregnant with her second child -- and some parents think she's a little too real for their children.
The pregnant version of Midge, which pops out a curled-up baby when her belly is opened, has been pulled from Wal-Mart shelves across the country following complaints from customers, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday.
"It was just that customers had a concern about having a pregnant doll," Wal-Mart Stores spokeswoman Cynthia Illick said.
She said the entire Happy Family set, which included
pregnant Midge, husband Alan and son Ryan, was pulled from shelves of the world's
largest retailer earlier this month.
..."It's a bad idea. It promotes teenage pregnancy.
What would an 8-year-old or 12-year-old get out of that doll baby?" asked
Sabrina Fagan, 29, of Philadelphia.
[Full
Story]
The only thing offensive in this society is now pregnancy. I guess they should just eliminate all baby dolls to keep anyone from thinking of having a baby as a teenager. If this doll had been "Cohabitation Cathy" or "Fornicating Fran" then I might disagree, but a doll in the context of a married family is something positive.
Christmas with Carmel
It was on Christmas night that St Thérèse experienced her definitive
'conversion', enabling her to change from a weepy, self-centred girl to one
who began to go out of herself and think of others. It was just before Christmas
that John of the Cross died at midnight, lonely and in pain, at the convent
of Ubeda. For him, that night was to prove 'more lovely than the dawn' as he
promised his brothers that he would be singing Matins that day in heaven.
St. John of the Cross
The liturgical feasts and seasons meant more than
an external commemoration; they were the occasion of an interior transformation
in the spirit of the mystery being celebrated. On the day before Christmas he
used to organize with the friars a kind of paraliturgical procession to recall
how Mary and Joseph went in search of lodging for the divine Infant. At Christmas
time above all he felt his heart pulsate with love for the Child Jesus. One
Christmas, seeing a statue of the Infant lying on a cushion, he cried out, "Lord,
if love is to slay me, the hour has now come. " Another Christmas, taken
with love, he took the statue of the Infant in his arms and began to dance with
enraptured joy.
Copyright ICS
Publications. Permission is hereby granted for any non-commercial use, if
this copyright notice is included.
St. Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein)
She celebrated her first Christmas
in Carmel with especial, almost childish, joy. On the mystery of Christmas,
she had said in a lecture of 1930 at Ludwigshafen: "Let us put our hands
in those of the Divine Babe, let us say our Yes to his invitation 'Follow me',
and we will be his. The way will be clear for his divine life to become incarnate
in us. It is precisely this that is the light come through the darkness, a light
kindled in the soul the miracle of Christmas". But she had also said
that "upon the same light, shining so brilliantly in the manger, comes
the shadow of the Cross. The road leads irresistible from Bethlehem to Golgotha,
from the manger to the Cross".
My soul feels minty fresh
I just got back from confession and I have been reflecting on the awesomeness of this sacrament. I watched The Simpsons episode last night where Homer accidentally burns down the church and Mr.Burns introduces Madison Avenue type commercialization. You might wonder how I jumped from confession to The Simpsons, well my mind often takes strange turns and I thought of how Madison Avenue might promote confession.
New York School Textbooks should be filed under fiction
...An error-filled version of global geography. The equator actually passes through Florida, Texas and Arizona.
...On the shelves of school libraries is a biography for young readers of the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is said to hail from the "long tradition of activist ministers like Martin Luther King Jr."
...There is also a whitewash of Louis Farrakhan, described
as a "black American of achievement" who bears a "message no
American can ignore." The Nation of Islam leader also shows a "willingness
to forgive," the book claims.
I guess the word whitewash hasn't been politically corrected yet.
...At least three schools have bought copies of "The American Vision," a 2003 high school history textbook, published by Glencoe McGraw-Hill, that was one of the first to write about the terror attacks. In a seven-page lesson on the massacre of 3,000 innocents, students are asked:
"What are the three main reasons certain Muslims became angry with the United States?"
"Why does American foreign policy anger Islamic
fundamentalists in the Middle East?"
[Full
Story]
The other day their was a story about a college education being equivalent to a 1950's high school education. And I thought a time machine was impossible, but I guess an education time machine works. At this rate they will soon be able to turn back a modern degree to a 1930's 1st grade education. I am sertanly gwad I gwaduated from a fine pubrick skool b4 day went bad.
Suggestions for Government Logos
The Information Awareness Office has removed it's creepy logo of a pyramid with evil eye death ray. Actually I thought it was a good idea for government agencies to have logos that more reflected the way they act. I have some suggestions for some other organizations.
Department of Education - Could use a picture of Beavis and Butthead with the motto "Every Child Equally Dumb."
Internal Revenue Service - Insert your own mental picture here (mine is not fit for public consumption).
Office of Homeland Security - Could use a picture of Alfred E. Neuman with the motto "Multiple agencies conducting mutually exclusive operations in support of each other."
Social Security Administration - The Pyramid from the Information Awareness Office could be used here instead, after all Social Security is just a pyramid scheme. The motto could be "There won't be any money in twenty twenty."
Border Patrol - A picture of large sieve is all that is needed.
United Nations - Picture of a large screw with the motto "Mocking the U.S. while making them fund us."
Update: Justin Katz of Dust in the Light has his own suggestion for the INS.Cardinal Arinze Reflects on Liturgical Changes
VATICAN, Dec 20, 02 (CWNews.com) -- Cardinal Francis Arinze, the new prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, has offered his first public comments on the state of the Catholic liturgy, in an interview published by the Italian monthly 30 Giorni. The Nigerian cardinal, who was named to head the Congregation for Divine Worship on October 1, took the Second Vatican Council as his reference point, and remarked on the condition of the liturgy 40 years after the Vatican II renewal.
The 70-year-old prelate was a participant in the proceedings of Vatican II, having been named a coadjutor archbishop of Onitsha, Nigeria, at the age of 33. The Council, he said, was "a great school" for those who attended, and a turning point for the life of the Church.
However, Cardinal Arinze observed that the introduction of the vernacular language in the liturgy "was not done without difficulty." Some traditional prayers, he said, "are not easy to translate." And proper translation is an enormous task, he continued, because "we have to be faithful not only to the spirit of the Council, but especially to what was said and written." He complained that "many bishops and priests have not adequately studied the texts of the Council," and as a result changes in the liturgy have often been done improperly.
Cardinal Arinze expressed a dim view of "creativity" in the liturgy, remarking that if priests make their own changes in the ritual, "there were will as many kinds of Masses are there are priests." Everyone involved in the liturgy, he said-- including lectors and choir members as well as ministers-- should be careful not to "attract attention to themselves rather than to the mysteries they celebrate."
"The Church did not begin today, and will not end
with me," the Nigerian cardinal said. "The Church was established
by the Lord, and her tradition of sacred rites cannot be changing from one day
to the next."
[CWNews
Full Story]
I am sorry for this outburst of language but Merry Christmas and Jesus Christ who is God entered history and was born as a human child; fully God and Fully Man. The calls of happy holidays and seasons greetings has provoked me into this brutal language. If someone says anything to me about solstice, sorry they will be lying on the ground requiring a poultice. I am getting rather intolerant of tolerance especially as an cover to try to eliminate all vestiges of Christ's birth from humanity. If Christianity is tolerated anymore it would disappear if not for Jesus' promise about the gates of hell not prevailing. On TV commercial are used to advertise comedies to be played on Christmas day as the holy trinity of comedians. Movies shown under the banner of the 12 days of Christmas are movies advertised "without the good stuff cut out" (read sex and vulgarity). A couple of years ago on Christmas, Turner Classic Movies played an evil child marathon. Why is the "Wizard of Oz" now a holiday movie? The "reason for the season" it not to be kind to one another or say nice things or say Christmas is in the heart or any other sentimental crap that obscures the truth. Jesus humbled himself to be born as a human child not to provide politically correct nativity scenes, but because we are unhumbled sinners needing redemption which only God could give.
Some have said put "Christ in Christmas", well I add not only put Christ in Christmas - but also put the Mass in Christmas.
Random Thoughts
Does the Mexican Army recruit with the motto "An Army of Juan"
Is a rebuke from Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith called a Rat Zinger
Why is it called inclusive language if it is so divisive?
A prayer for a Senate Majority Leader
Give us a leader that will not just opine
Please lord how about one with a spine
Let it be someone who is very determined
Who offers no opinions about Strom Thurmond
Please not just another political bottom-feeder
This time it would be nice to have a real leader
A person not concerned with fame or fortune
And clears the slate to ban Partial Birth Abortion
An individual with good ideas and solutions
Who might have even read the Constitution
Cuts the fat and eliminates the pork
Confirms judges like Robert H. Bork
That all this would be good, it is true
But most of all Lord that he knows You
Bravo to Monsignor Edward J. Cavanaugh
SACRAMENTO (AP) - Democratic Gov. Gray Davis was banned
from playing Santa Clause on Thursday at a Sacramento Catholic home for troubled
children because he supports abortion rights.Despite a 20-year tradition of
California governors delivering Christmas gifts to the St. Patrick's Home for
Children, the school's director barred Davis from school grounds unless he would
ask forgiveness for and disavow his views on abortion.
Monsignor Edward J. Cavanaugh, director of the home since
1952, asked the governor to sign a letter declaring that he repents "of
ever having promoted the killing of innocent unborn children."
"We don't let any pro-abortion people in our grounds here," Cavanaugh
said. "He should get his life together and he should change his whole philosophy
on the unborn. He should stand up for the sanctity of human life."
Davis refused to sign the letter, and instead invited
children from the home to the state Capitol to fetch their gifts. "He's
entitled to his point of view and I'm entitled to mine. I'm unapologetically
pro-choice and I'm not changing my position," Davis said. "Having
said this, the tradition is about children, not grown-ups, I didn't want the
kids to be disappointed."
[Full
Article]
Lord save us from Catholic (in name only) Politicians.
There I go, if not for race
Woe is me, woe is me. Because of the recent hubbub (did I just say hubbub?) over the Senator from Mississippi's comment (every pun variation of his name has already been done) and all the talking heads causing a storm, I realized my sad predicament. I am white, Republican, and because of my adoption of a geographical location - now a southerner. With all of this going against me I must be a racist. I have tried hard to examine my conscience and my actions to find my implied racism, but with those three strikes against me I must be unable to detect it. When I see a sheet I don't imagine where I am going to cut the eye holes. When I walk past an African-Americans house I don't envision a burning cross as a lawn ornament. I don't long for the days before a Republican president abolished slavery. I also don't long for the days before Republicans helped pass the civil rights act. I don't walk past a drinking fountain with the temptation to add a "whites only" sign to it. I don't believe that the amount of melanin in your skin determines your character or abilities and I don't believe that there is one iota of difference in God given dignity from one person to another.
Not only was I born with original sin, apparently according to the press and that bastion (or maybe another word that starts with bast) of virtue Bill Clinton, that since I am white I must have been born with original racism. Baptism is regenerative and wipes out sin and there is a political form of baptism for those born with original racism. The politically correct sacrament of Democratism will not only wipe away any past racism but will also keep any current comments or actions from being perceived as racism. After a Democratism is performed you can make any racial epithets you want and they will be totally ignored by the media. This is like Martin Luther's dunghill analogy where you can be totally corrupt, but when covered with snow the internal corruption is hidden. Democratism will also confer on you the ability by the media to be pure as the driven snow and to "demagogue race boldly" without fear of being called a racist. Senator Robert Byrd the ex-klansman had a democratism performed and even with last years use of the "N" word he has been saved from the media calling him a racist. The ordinary minister to perform a Democratism is a New York Times or CNN reporter, in an emergency anyone may perform this rite. To perform a Democratism you first sprinkle snake oil over the forehead of the person and say the formula "I Democratise you in the name of the NAACP, ACLU, and Rainbow Coalition" (though some people say that must you do it in the name of Jessie only). Traditionally the hymn that is sung on this occasion is "Amazing Race Card."
Unfortunately unlike Baptism, Democratism does not leave an indelible mark and so you can lose your race-baiting protection. If you apostatize from the Democratic faith and become a conservative you then have fallen from race. This can be verified from the Dim erratic party apostates Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott, and Ronald Reagan.
Dissident Stew
1 part sound doctrine*
10 parts heresy
50 parts water
20 parts hubris
30 parts your own opinion
20 parts disobedience
10 parts sexual freedom license
10 parts Bishop bashing
10 parts Magisterium malice
10 parts Patriarchal polemics
10 parts "the next Pope will allow this"
15 parts "for the children"
10 parts "following my conscience"
*1 part sound doctrine can be reduced if it is still too pungent for your taste, but generally dissident stew is more effective if mixed with some sound doctrine.
Archbishop offers views presents Catholic teachings on sexuality
Newark Archbishop John J. Myers issued a pastoral letter
Wednesday that expresses his traditional Catholic positions on human sexuality,
but makes no mention of the clergy sex abuse scandal that has thrown his church
into crisis.
"his traditional Catholic position", yep no reporter bias here. Of course the title of this article "Archbishop offers views on sexuality" display that bias right off the bat.
The 13-page document, titled "And the Word became
Flesh," is Myers' most explicit statement of principles since he became
spiritual leader of the archdiocese 14 months ago.
The letter dwells on the sanctity of the human body, and how some behavior - including sex outside marriage and sex with contraception - damages the spiritual integrity of the body.
..."How often do proponents of 'choice' mention the little arms and legs ripped off in vacuum aspiration abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy?" Myers wrote. "When was the last time an abortion propagandist in the media spoke or wrote of the scalded skin of a body aborted ... in the second trimester?"
This is the true picture of 'choice.'
And then the reporter must find the local dissident to quote. I wonder how many times he went to the klan for an alternate opinion after the NAACP has issued a letter.
..."The whole thing he did missed the point of what
is needed at the moment," said Eileen Flynn, a theology professor at St.
Peter's College in Jersey City, who supports ordination of women and allowing
priests to marry. "People have lots of questions. They want answers and
information."
Enquiring minds want to know.
..Flynn said she was surprised that a pastoral letter focusing on the sacredness of the human body failed to mention the death penalty, the poor, or the Bush administration's plans to wage war against Iraq. "What about the Iraqi bodies and the bodies of American soldiers?" she said.
The letter was focusing on human sexuality not the just war theory or economics. This was a 13 page pastoral letter not the Catechism (which you don't agree with anyway).
Now back to sanity.
"This kind of giving and receiving without reserve requires
the foundation of stable permanent love," Myers wrote. "Intercourse outside
marriage and contraceptive intercourse are lies told with bodies; the two parties
do not truly give and receive openly and unconditionally but only use each other
for pleasure."
Myers goes on to condemn homosexuality, pornography, euthanasia, and in vitro
fertilization for creating a damaging impact on the integrity of the body.
[Full
Article]
I guess he did talk about the poor after all Ms. Flynn. Broken families, contraception/in vitro fertilization, pornography are all tools of the culture of death that destroys families; which is the main cause of poverty.
Looking at some of Ms. Flynn's books on theology:
Human Fertilization "in Vitro"
Reviews and evaluates the Catholic moral position on "in vitro" fertilization.
In order to reach a conclusion on this complex moral question, several related
issues are considered including medical literature, testimony of Scripture,
ethical literature, and the parameters observed by those directly involved with
the procedure. Based on these considerations, the author concludes the "in vitro"
fertilization is morally permissible.
Gee, why do I waste my time with Papal Encyclicals with her writing being available. She also has a book "Why believe?" published by Sheed & Ward. I had heard this publishing company had gone down hill, I just didn't know how far.
Atheist Gal to Theist Gal
I ran across this interesting web page of someone who started their web page as an atheist and is now back in the Catholic Church. There are some good articles on her site that she wrote and a guest book full of comments of those quite not happy with her conversion. She also has some first hand positive comments on the new L.A. Cathedral. A Theist Gal
Cool post of the day
Justin Katz of Timshel Arts posts a surprising solution to the question "could God make circles into squares and one plus one equal seventy-two?"
Having fun with antiphons
This is sung to Led Zeppelin's D'YER MAK'ER
Creation Mak'er
O O O O O O
In Advent we go O O O O O
Come let us all go O O O O O
Baby Jesus please don't go.
Ay ay ay ay ay ay
O Wisdom, O holy Word of God O O O O O
O Flower of Jesse’s stem em em em em em
Baby Jesus please don't go.
CHORUS
When I read the antiphons you wrote
it made me glad glad glad
Angels announced the good news to men
In swaddling clothes you were clad clad clad.
But I still adore you so
I can't let you go
I love you- O baby Jesus I love you.
O O O O O O
O Key of David O O O O O
O Radiant Dawn, O O O O O
O King of all the nations, O O O O O
O Emmanuel, O O O O O
Baby Jesus please don't go.
Ay ay ay ay ay ay
You gave salvation to my soul ay ay ay ay ay
You gave salvation to my soul ay ay ay ay ay
Savior please don't go.
CHORUS
O O O O O O
In Advent we go O O O O O
Come let us all go O O O O O
(Baby Jesus please don't go)
A Core-poral work of laughter
Lane Core of The Blog from the Core now has posted A Politically Correct Christmas Carol which he received from a friend of his.
I'll Take the CCC over the BBC
A BBC documentary to be screened this Christmas will
question the beliefs of billions of Christians by suggesting that Mary was not
a virgin when she conceived Jesus.
The Virgin Mary, which is to be aired on Dec 22, investigates
three explanations, other than the immaculate conception, for Mary's pregnancy.
Firstly it looks at the possibility that she slept with Joseph while she was
engaged to be married to him, secondly that she was raped by a Roman soldier
and thirdly that she fell pregnant to an unidentified man before marrying Joseph.
It concludes that Mary was most likely to have concieved Jesus with Joseph before
their marriage as Joseph stood by her; an unmarried pregnant woman at that time
in Palestine would have been cast out from the community or may even have been
stoned to death.
Alan Bookbinder, the BBC's head of religion and the executive
producer of The Virgin Mary said: "I hope the churches see that the Mary
of faith and miracles is well represented and given a lot of prominence in the
programme. The church view is given a lot of attention.
"But I hope the churches understand that for non-believers
the human Mary — the mother who saw her son get into difficulty and then
die — is someone with whom they can identify and nonbelievers will have
a lot of sympathy for her."
[Full
Secular Propaganda Crap Article]
If I ever needed proof (other than the authority of the Catholic Church) of
the perpetual virginity of Mary, this would be it. The BBC has the the charism of
imbecility, that does not mean that they will we always say something stupid;
but when it comes to faith and morals they are guaranteed by the spirit of the
world to always get it wrong. Last week I wandered onto a venomous blog attacking
Mary with ideas garnered from the dunghill of the incoherent scribblings of Dave
Hunt. I was surprised at the depth of my reaction. I felt like someone had slapped
my mother, then I realized someone had slapped my mother.
When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved
standing near, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" Then
he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" -- John 19:26-27
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed -- Luke 1:48
All I know is that "all generations" have a very strange way of calling Mary blessed. What irony that some woefully misled people have to rely on the very Church that they attack to fulfill bible prophesy. I remember in the days when we were fortunate to have the wit of Father Bryce Sibley and his posts on anti-Catholics and anti-popes that he once linked to a site called iconbusters.com. This site is both anti-Catholic and anti any Protestants that doesn't attack the Catholic Church. They have a section called hypocrites on parades which uses Flash animation to give slideshows of various bizarre rantings. This was some of the unintentionally funniest things that I have ever seen. I reveled in the irony of a site called iconbusters using graphics as a way to convey meaning. So all that I will say to the BBC and those who attack the Blessed Mother.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.
Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Giving ScrappleFace a run for the money
Lane Core of The Blog from the Core has this news item.
If any of these Liturgeist disturbances are detected, run don't walk to your Bishop. In normal circumstances the parish priest should be gone to first, but once this activity has been detected he has usually been neutralized by the hypnotic effects of the Liturgeist. Your Bishop will then appoint a priest who he has given the faculties for conducting the "Rite of Liturgical Exorcism."
Rite of Liturgical Exorcism
The Holy Catholic and Extremist Church
Catholic and Protestant Churches in Russia constitute
a greater danger to the Russian state than do satanic cults or Islamic extremism,
according to documents identified as official government sources, as reported
in the Russian newspaper Gazeta.
The Italian news daily La Stampa carried a summary of
the Gazeta document, and the scandal it is causing.
The document, which Gazeta states comes from Russia's
Ministry of Nationality, declares that the "Catholic Church of Rome"
regards Russia as a "province," and denounces efforts to convert Russian
Orthodox believers to the Catholic Faith.
The Catholic Church is first on the list of extremist
religions, and is a "source of danger" to Russia, because many of
its personnel in Russia are non-Russians, or "have studied abroad,"
according to the report.
[Full
Story]
The Three "wise guys"
A Church of England bishop has attacked "sentimental"
Christmas card portrayals of the Nativity, saying that Jesus's family were asylum
seekers and the three Wise Men were part of an assassination plot.
The Bishop of Lichfield, the Rt Rev Keith Sutton, said
the shepherds were not the lovable characters depicted in Nativity plays but
were on "the fringes of society" and that, for most people, Christmas
was a chore.
[Full
Delusion]
Did Herod the Great contract out a hit to three foreigners for plausible deniability? How did this assassination go awry? Did King herod say "Go and murder him" and they thought he said "Gold and myrrh to him"?, frankly that makes sense.
Born in Turin, Italy, in 1661, she died, after spending her whole life there, in 1717. In 1675 she entered the Discalced Carmelite Convent of St. Christina, and several times filled the offices of Prioress and Novice Mistress. She underwent continual spiritual trials, but was constant in her ardent love of God. She was outstandingly faithful to prayer and particularly devoted to St. Joseph, in whose honor a convent was founded through her good offices at Moncalieri.
Entrance Antiphon
Come, bride of Christ, and receive the crown, which the Lord has prepared
for You for ever.
Prayer
Lord, You have told us that You live for ever in the hearts of the chaste.
By the prayers of the virgin Bl. Mary of the Angels help us to live by Your
grace and become temples of Your Spirit. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever.
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord, receive our worship in memory of Bl. Mary of the Angels, the virgin.
By this perfect sacrifice make us grow in unselfish love for You and for our
brothers and sisters. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon
The wise virgin chose the better part for herself, and it shall not be
taken away from her.
Prayer after Communion
God of mercy, we rejoice that on this feast of Bl. Mary of the Angels You
give us the Bread of heaven. May It bring us pardon for our sins, health of
body, Your grace in this life, and glory in heaven. Grant this through Christ
our Lord.
First Reading
2nd Corinthians 10:17-11:2
"Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord." For it is not the man who
commends himself that is accepted, but the man whom the Lord commends. I wish
you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! I feel a divine
jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride
to her one husband.
Responsorial Psalm
R/. Let us praise the name of the Lord!
Ps. 148:1-2, 11-13a, 13c-14
Gospel
Luke 10: 38-42
Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha
received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the
Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much
serving; and she went to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister
has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered
her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one
thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken
away from her."
Dumb Men Talking or Lethal Buffoons
Sean Penn is in Iraq, Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover are in Cuba. Quick send out the National Guard and secure the borders. Let them live in the countries they are praising so much for at least a year. Let us see what would happen if they would then publicly complain against these kindly dictators, then maybe they would have the experience to do a remake of Midnight Express. If they wanted to bombast the U.S. for policies pertaining to these countries, fine let them do it here
More song parodies
Shawn McElhinney of Rerum Novarum offers a Rad Trad song parody to John Lennons "Imagine"
Pointing to Christ
Last week there was much discussion on what makes a good homily, in my opinion Fr. Jim Tucker's homily for this week is an example to emulate.
Sexuality trumps talent
See Ellyn vonHubens of Oblique House post Return of the Sexuals. Also make sure you read dylan's comment on this post.
St. Ignatious of Loyola has been having a bad heir day
The herpes vaccine trial for which St. Louis University
gets $37 million is a perfect model of experimental design. Both experimental
and control groups engage repeatedly in the dangerous behavior that results
in a serious infection.
The experimental group is treated with a vaccine known
to protect against the infection. The control group is given an ineffective
vaccine. The study determines which group will get higher rates of the incurable
infection, which not only affects the subjects but can result in brain damage
or death to their offspring.
Unfortunately, the subjects are not guinea pigs or rats,
but human beings. They are someone's daughter, someone's sister.
The study solicits only those young women who are or who intend to become sexually
promiscuous. Chaste young women and faithful wives need not apply.
In this type of experiment, it is customary to pay the
participants for their inconvenience and for agreeing to be good subjects. However,
in this case being a good subject means agreeing to repeatedly perform acts
that are considered seriously immoral by the Catholic university that sponsors
the experiment. This will surely scandalize and seem hypocritical to faithful
Catholics. [Full
Story]
I think I would go farther than just say "seem hypocritical", condoning activities that are grave sins in and of themselves puts this university in the role of pimp by providing students for sexual medical experiments and getting paid for it.
This is from the universities site:
What does it mean to have a Jesuit Education?
"A SLU education integrates thought and action, values and facts, compassion and fulfillment. Faculty members supplement the multidisciplinary core curriculum through mentoring, focusing on issues such as adjusting to university life, the tension between responsibility and freedom, and where to find support systems on campus. Together these initiatives make the SLU experience effective and comprehensive by helping SLU students create lives that are rich and fulfilling."
I read this statement three times and I am still trying to connect the topic
sentence to the paragraph that followed.
Under Student health and Counseling services right beneath Trauma, rape and
alcohol is procrastination.
If this is a health concern than I have a terminal illness, funny I keep putting
off seeing a doctor about it.
One of their organization is the "We & God Spirituality Center." Besides using grammar that is so bad that even I flinched when reading the name, I guess it was nice of them to include God but I noticed here he only gets second billing. Not much of a surprise that the prominent books for this (off) center is by Anthony de Mello, S.J. This theologians writings have been condemned by Cardinal Ratzinger of the Congregation for the doctrine of the faith.
John was born at Fontiveros in Spain about 1542. He entered the Carmelites and with the permission of his superiors began to live a stricter life. Afterwards he was persuaded by St. Teresa to begin, together with some others, the Discalced reform within the Order; this cost him much hard work and many trials. He died in Ubeda in 1591, outstanding in holiness and wisdom, to which his many spiritual writings give eloquent witness.
Entrance Antiphon
I should boast of nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; through Him
the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.
Prayer
Lord, You endowed our Father St. John of the Cross with a spirit of self-denial
and a love of the cross. By following his example may we come to the eternal
vision of Your glory. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who
lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Prayer over the Gifts
Almighty Lord, look upon the gifts we offer in memory of our Father St.
John of the Cross. May we imitate the love we proclaim as we celebrate the mystery
of the suffering and death of Christ, Who is Lord for ever and ever.
Communion Antiphon
If anyone wishes to come after me, he must renounce himself, take up his
cross, and follow me, says the Lord.
Prayer after Communion
Lord God, You have shown us the mystery of the cross in the life of our
Father St. John of the Cross. May this sacrifice make us strong, keep us faithful
to Christ, and help us to work in the Church for the salvation of all mankind.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
First Reading
But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you,
O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you
are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the
rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not
be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and
Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored,
and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.
Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and
from the west I will gather you; --Isaiah 43: 1-3a, 4-5
Responsorial Psalm
The night is as clear as the day.
Ps. 138, 3, 5-6, 7-10, 11-12
Second Reading
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not
understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing
I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then
it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. ...Likewise the
Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And
he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because
the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. --Romans
8: 14-17, 26-27
Gospel
And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming
to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that
they may be one, even as we are one. Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is
truth. As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in
truth. "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through
their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I
in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou
hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that
they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may
become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and
hast loved them even as thou hast loved me. Father, I desire that they also,
whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which
thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world. O
righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these
know that thou hast sent me. I made known to them thy name, and I will make
it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I
in them." --John 17: 11, 17-26
Random Thoughts
Are Jewish converts considered dradle Catholics?
I don't think I will be hearing Trent Lott sing "I'm dreaming of a 'white'
Christmas" anytime soon.
The Beauty And The Truth Of Christ
This article by Cardinal Ratzinger from the L'Osservatore Romano is well worth reading (and meditating on).
Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments gives it's Kneel Obstat
This Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline
of the Sacraments has recently received reports of members of the faithful in
your Diocese being refused Holy Communion unless while standing to receive,
as opposed to kneeling. the reports state that such a policy has been announced
to parishioners. There were possible indications that such a phenomenon might
be somewhat more widespread in the Diocese, but the Congregation is unable to
verify whether such is the case. This Dicastery is confident that Your Excellency
will be in a position to make a more reliable determination of the matter, and
these complaints in any event provide an occasion for the Congregation to communicate
the manner in which it habitually addresses this matter, with a request that
you make this position known to any priests who may be in need of being thus
informed.
The Congregation in fact is concerned at the number of similar complaints that it has received in recent months from various places, and considers any refusal of Holy Communion to a member of the faithful on the basis of his or her kneeling posture to be a grave violation of one of the most basic rights of the Christian faithful, namely that of being assisted by their Pastors by means of the Sacraments (Codex Iuris Canonici, canon 213). In view of the law that "sacred ministers may not deny the sacraments to those who opportunely ask for them, are properly disposed and are not prohibited by law from receiving them" (canon 843 ¶ 1), there should be no such refusal to any Catholic who presents himself for Holy Communion at Mass, except in cases presenting a danger of grave scandal to other believers arising out of the person's unrepented public sin or obstinate heresy or schism, publicly professed or declared. Even where the Congregation has approved of legislation denoting standing as the posture for Holy Communion, in accordance with the adaptations permitted to the Conferences of Bishops by the Institution Generalis Missalis Romani n. 160, paragraph 2, it has done so with the stipulation that communicants who choose to kneel are not to be denied Holy Communion on these grounds. --Jorge A. Cardinal Medina Estévez [Full Document]
Raising Candy Cane
(CNSNews.com)- A student Bible club at a Nevada high school will be able to distribute candy canes with the message "Jesus Loves You," following the intervention of a religious civil-liberties group. [Full Story]
Ironic since candy canes are already a religious symbol.
A Candy maker in Indiana wanted to make a candy that
would be a witness, so he made the Christmas Candy Cane. He incorporated several
symbols for the birth, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ.
He began with a stick of pure white, hard candy. White to symbolize the Virgin Birth and the sinless nature of Jesus, and hard to symbolize the Solid Rock, the foundation of the Church, and firmness of the promises of God.
The candy maker made the candy in the form of a "J"
to represent the precious name of Jesus, who came to earth as our Savior. It
could also represent the staff of the "Good Shepherd" with which he
reaches down into the ditches of the world to life out the fallen lambs who,
like all sheep, have gone astray.
Thinking that the candy was somewhat plain, the candy maker stained it with red stripes. He used three small stripes to show the stripes of the scourging Jesus received by which we are healed. The large red stripe was for the blood shed by Christ on the cross so that we could have the promise of eternal life.
No Condom-Nation for Uganda
We are told ad nauseam by the Condom Lobby that people, especially youngsters, cannot possibly control themselves when it comes to their sexual appetites, even in the face of AIDS infection and death. We are also told that condoms are the panacea for this dread disease. The Condom Lobby is loath to speak about sexual abstinence and marital fidelity. There is one country, however, that has mostly ignored the Condom Lobby and instituted widespread abstinence and fidelity programs and this country is so far beating AIDS. Uganda should be congratulated for fighting back against the very powerful Condom Lobby. We report today on their success. [Full Story]
What you mean that abstinence and morality actually works? Don't tell anyone here in the U.S. so that we can keep exporting birth control so that less people will be born and more people will die from sexually transmitted diseases. Don't disrupt liberal dogmas with facts. After all, won't it be heaven on earth without all of those people?
Cardinal Law resigns, here comes the clowns
I expect to be regaled in the coming days with news stories
featuring prominent dissenters taking credit for forcing out Cardinal Law and
making it seem as if everything is on the table again. I saw on CNN earlier
today a statement something like, “With the ouster of Cardinal Law, many
of those who called for his resignation say the Church will now have to deal
with matters it didn’t want to, such as ordination of women, blah, blah,
blah.” I’m sorry, but the Church has dealt with them already. It’s
the heterodox who can’t deal with the Church’s answer.
[Domenico
Bettinelli's Full Post]
O Come, Voice of the Faithful
O Come, Voice of the Faithful,
Boastful and defiant,
O come ye dissidents to Boston, Mass
Come now and scold him
Scorn the resigned Cardinal
O come, let us exploit it,
O come, let us exploit it,
O come, let us exploit it,
the situation
Sing, litigation,
All ye choirs of attorneys;
O sing, lay investiture that old heresy
Glory to the Globe-
For their many stories!
O come, let us exploit it,
O come, let us exploit it,
O come, let us exploit it,
the situation
Attacking celibacy
We give you this warning
Married or priestesses is our solution,
Begone now father
Schisms fresh appearing
O come, let us exploit it,
O come, let us exploit it,
O come, let us exploit it,
the situation
Catholic profiling - driving while Catholic
Stepping lightly in her blue cloth coat, short red hair
shining, the petite suburban Irish Catholic woman was properly dressed for court,
ready to be judged for the terrible crime of having a rosary dangling from the
mirror of her car.
"See? I've got it, and I'm not letting go,"
Catherine "Kit" Morris told me Wednesday, drawing her tiny fist out
of her pocket, the fingers gripping it tightly, knuckles whitening. "I'm
so nervous. I think I'm going to pass out. Look at it. Is this an illegal object?
Will they dare fine me $75 for a rosary?"
It was her light blue rosary with the white cross, the
one her children made for her long ago, the rosary that a Westmont police officer
deemed was illegal, before giving her a $75 ticket for obstructing the windshield.
[Full
Story]
Contraceptive Cancer?
WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Estrogens, used in hormone-replacement
therapy and contained in birth-control pills, have been added to the list of
known human carcinogens, a U.S. government report revealed Wednesday.
The report, sent to Congress every two years, lists a total of new 15 substances
categorized as "reasonably anticipated" to increase the risk of cancer.
The list totals 228 items.
This 10th edition of the report was prepared by the National
Toxicology Program, a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services
at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, one of the National
Institutes of Health. Three panels of government and non-government scientists
reached their conclusions after reviewing medical literature and data on various
substances. Much of data reviewed included animals studies that had linked these
substances to increased risks of cancer. [Full
story]
Cliché Cindy, a choice doll
Banned Parenthood, NARAL minded, and NOW proudly presents the
"Cliché Cindy" talking doll. The perfect gift to give those
families who actually have children. Indoctrinate Teach them from the
beginning those phrases you know and love.
Pull the string behind its back and hear such classics as:
Doll will drone on for hours and hours with nonsensical gibberish or your money back. Shrill voice also guaranteed to irritate all who listen. Children of any age will pick up on these phrases in no time since they require no intellectual thought. With little effort children will fast be on their way to working in the Democratic Party.
And please do visit the Banned Parenthood Store where you can get such great gifts as:
Milk
chocolate Planned Parenthood birth control pill packs
Vox
Condom Giveaways
Mifepristone,
The Abortion Pill "Grabbit" Pen Holders
Mifepristone, The Abortion Pill Sticky Note Pads
Order these items now before there are not enough people left to work our order lines. On orders before midnight we will also rush to you the "Children's Dr. Josef Mengele Lab Kit" and the "Visible Aborted Child Anatomy Kit." See if your children are able to piece together a child from the cut up pieces to make sure nothing was left behind just as the do in a real abortion clinic. Remember choose choice.
Nobels and Scuds
While Jimmy Carter was making his acceptance speech for his Nobel Appeasement
Prize they were seizing Scud missiles created in North Korea on a North Korean
ship headed for Yemen. The Same Mr. Carter who said that North Korea would stop
it's nuclear weapons program and criticized President Bush for his "Axis
of Evil" speech since North Korea was not exporting terrorism. Maybe he
didn't hug and praise their dictator enough? What about all of the other pundits
that criticized President Bush for his speech? The people that keep saying all
you had to do was "connect the dots" become rather dotty when it comes
to simpler conclusions since they are doting of ex-President Carter. Yemen is
making noises that this was a lawful shipment bound for their army, I guess
that explains why this "lawful" North Korean ship was flying under
a flag other then their own.
Welcome to my humble blogicile
Welcome to those coming from FreeRepublic.com, Touchstone's Mere
Comments blog, Lane Core's Blog
From the Core, William Luse's Apologia,
and various other excellent blogs.
Correction: Touchtone attributed all of the Banned Parenthood slogans to me, four were mine and the last two were contributions by readers of Mark Shea's blog.
Scientific Faith
"The Great Debate: Atheism vs. Christianity"
was broadcast via satellite to hundred of thousands in 1,500 churches across
the United States and Canada. The debate was by turns impassioned and low-key,
courteous and contentious.
Although those in the crowd were mostly churchgoers, they greeted Newdow with
respectful applause and listened silently as he explained why he believes Christianity
is "mythology."
Newdow, who apologized at the outset for his lack of knowledge in areas like
philosophy and theology, took an unswerving scientific approach, repeatedly
stating that the burden was on Knechtle to prove the existence of God, rather
than on Newdow to prove the nonexistence.
..."Why doesn't God appear?" he said. "If
God is good, why do we have famine? Why are there 20,000 murders per year in
the U.S.? Why is Conan O'Brien on late night TV?" he said, to chuckles
from the audience.
Actually I don't think that "The problem of Conan O'Brien" was addressed
by St. Aquinas or C.S. Lewis. Why does a good and all powerful God allow Conan
O'Brien? This is a mystery of a free market economy.
If the burden of proof is by scientific fact, what is the scientific evidence
of nothing becoming the universe? What experiment has been perfomed to prove
the possibility of this? If you have to rely on the belief that one day with
enough knowledge that scientists will be able to prove this as true, than you
rely on scientific faith.
I appreciate the fact that Mr. Newdow is trying to debate the issue. Serious courteous debate that doesn't fall into attacks is definitely something to be applauded. It is much better to be an atheist striving towards the truth than an agnostic that doesn't think there are any arguments either way.
John Paul II Tells What Makes a Catholic Blogger?
"It means striving for the highest ideals of professional
excellence, being a man or woman of prayer who seeks to give the best that they
have to offer," the Holy Father explained.
"It means having the courage to seek and report
the truth, even when the truth is inconvenient or is not considered politically
correct," he continued. "It means being sensitive to the moral, religious
and spiritual; aspects of human life, aspects which are often misunderstood
or deliberately ignored."
"It means reporting not only the misdeeds and tragedies
that take place, but also the positive and uplifting actions performed on behalf
of those in need: the poor, the sick, the handicapped, the weak, those who are
otherwise forgotten by society," he stressed.
"It means offering examples of hope and heroism
to a world that is in desperate need of both," the Pope added.
[Full
Zenit Story]
Looking over the blogs that reported on this story I didn't notice anyone connect this to blogging. I think that his address to Catholic Journalists also applies precisely to bloggers. Now most bloggers don't have any problems reporting what is not considered politically correct. I know that I don't exactly blog much that is hopeful or that offers examples of heroism. Sometimes reading through stories I think "bloggable or not bloggable" depending on the ease of diatribe, so I am going to try to be more aware of this in the future. Amy Kropp of More like Mary, Less Like Martha reprinted a post of hers on where she equated journalism with blogging, which got me to thinking about the parallels.
The Prayer of Jabez the Hut
Jabez the Hut was more dishonorable than his brother Pizza the hut; and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, "Because I bore him in pain" (birthing a Hut always causes great pain). Jabez called on the force, saying, "Oh that thou wouldst bless me and enlarge my border in the Outer Rim Territories, and that thy hand might be with me, and that thou wouldst keep me from harm so that Luke might not hurt me!" And the force ignored what he asked. --1 Chronicles 4:9 Episode IV
Baby Execution Bill
Georgia legislators will introduce a bill early next
month that refers to abortion as an ''execution'' and will require any mother
seeking an abortion to go to court to obtain a death warrant.
''A mother would have to argue why the child should die
and why her rights would take priority over the rights of the child,'' said
Rep. Bobby Franklin, R-Marietta, who sponsored the legislation.
Once a mother filed for a death warrant, a guardian would
be appointed to protect the rights of the unborn child. That guardian would
be authorized to demand a jury trial in which the rights of the unborn child
would be balanced against the rights of the mother seeking to have the ''execution''
performed.
''It's a grotesque violation of a woman's right to choose,"
said Ebony Barley of the Georgia Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League."
[Full
Story]
The language in this law reflects what is actually happening, but what are the
chances this could actually pass? They should name this the "Right to choose
execution law", that would really tweak those abortion supporters. My solution
would be a nine month waiting period for approval of an abortion. Another idea
would be to put airline security checkers at the entrance at all abortion clinics,
an ultrasound machine vice an X-RAY machine could be used. For those patient
enough to brave these security checkers, going through that line would give
them plenty of time to think (hours and hours) about it and the ultrasound would
smash the lie about their child being just a product of conception.
The Catechism of the Protestant Churches
Created by the publishers who gave you the "Create your own adventure"
book series, where plot and outcome of the story depends on the pages you selected
to go to now proudly presents the new "Create your own Protestant Catechism©®™."
If any of the following has ever happened to you then this is the series for
you:
If you answered yes to any of the above then read about the exciting features of "Create your own Protestant Catechism©®™."
Now you might ask yourself "Hey, this sounds great. But what about when novel doctrines are introduced?" Well we anticipated your question and have provided the following features.
The key to this series is our patented index. Doctrines are alphabetically listed and underneath the doctrines are listed the choices and and the page number to go to Here is a sample index page: (This sample page only includes a partial list of choices for each doctrine, the real index page include all possible nuances)
| Abortion | ||
| Children are a gift from God | Vol 1 Page 280 | |
| Children are a gift from God except in the case of rape or incest | Vol 1 Page 282 | |
| Children are a gift from God when you want them to be | Vol 1 Page 284 | |
| Baptism | ||
| Necessary and regenerative | Vol II Page 128 | |
| Necessary | Vol II Page 130 | |
| Just a sign | Vol II Page 132 | |
| Full immersion in water required | Vol II Page 133 | |
| Water sprinkled over forehead acceptable | Vol II Page 134 | |
| Saying the sinners prayer only is required | Vol II Page 135 | |
| Invocation required "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" | Vol II Page 137 | |
| Invocation required "In the name of Jesus" | Vol II Page 138 | |
| Baptism of Infants allowed | Vol II Page 139 | |
| Baptism at the age or reason | Vol II Page 140 | |
| Baptism is an indelible mark | Vol II Page 141 | |
| Baptism can be repeated as necessary | Vol II Page 142 | |
| Jesus | ||
| Fully God and fully man | Vol XVI Page 399 | |
| God, but appeared as a man | Vol XVI Page 404 | |
| Man, but selected by God at birth as Messiah | Vol XVI Page 409 | |
| Man, but adopted by God as an adult | Vol XVI Page 413 | |
| Man only, who said wise sayings | Vol XVI Page 416 | |
| As Archangel Michael | Vol XVI Page 418 | |
| Godhead | ||
| Trinity - Three persons the Father Son and Holy Spirit | Vol XXXII Page 612 | |
| Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equal | Vol XXXII Page 614 | |
| Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not equal | Vol XXXII Page 618 | |
| Three modal aspects of the Godhead | Vol XXXII Page 622 | |
| Father and Son are God, the Holy Spirit is an emanation | Vol XXXII Page 630 | |
| Jesus only is God | Vol XXXII Page 634 |
For those Catholics that don't like the inflexible "Catechism of the Catholic
Church" since it doesn't conform to their opinions, then we have good news
for you. "The Sprit of Vatican II Build your own Catechism of the Catholic
Church©®™" is anticipated for release earlier next year.
For the latest news sign up on our web site caferteriacatholicism.com
and you will be informed when our latest offering comes out.
SSFX or Sedevacantist? Then you will not be left out with our release of our
"Council of Trent Build your own Schismatichism of the Catholic Church©®™."
to be released in the third quarter of next year, sign up for previews and news
at morecatholicthanthepope.com.
On a more serious note I hope and pray for true unity of Christ's Church and
I include the following from Jesus' High Priestly Prayer from John's Gospel.
I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine; all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
New blog
Welcome aboard to new St. Blog's parishioner De
Fidei Oboedientia, a blog which describes itself as:
A blog of my grandiose and pretentious rants
about the banal events of my life as a college
student attempting to be a conservative Catholic
in Rochester, NY.
Recreation not Procreation
Last night I saw a commercial for a birth control patch called Ortho Evra. The first one I saw was of a white woman extolling the convenience of a once a week patch and displaying the positions it could be attached. They didn't demonstrate the upper arm position but just the area around the panties and buttocks. A little later an almost identical commercial but this time with an African-American women displayed. I guess if I would have stayed up long enough they would have gotten around to all the other races, after all they are an equal opportunity culture destroyer. Time Magazine has called this the coolest product of the year, I call it the cruelest. Just what we don't need, a product that makes child rejection even easier and the ability to dull our consciences to oblivion.
The following is sung to Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in Wall Pt. 2" (midi)
Another quick sex-u-al
We don't need no procreation
We just need our birth control
No catechism in the classroom
Preachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Preachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another quick sex-u-al
All in all you're just another quick sex-u-al
[Group of children join in]
We don't need no procreation
We just need our birth control
No catechism in the classroom
Preachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Preachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another quick sex-u-al
All in all you're just another quick sex-u-al
[guitar solo]
[Heavily accented British voice]
"So long, Do it again!"
"If you don't contracept, you can't have any pleasing. How can you
have any pleasing if you don't contracept?"
"You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, contracept gladly!"
The power of the blog
One of Mark Shea's readers passed along email addresses to complain about USF and how they use webspace to advertise for Planned Parenthood. I sent emails to those addresses and today received this reply:
Dear Mr. Miller,
I have received your comments regarding the Student Health Education Program website. We will take your concerns under advisement as we review the site content. In the meantime, while we make a decision regarding the information provided on the pregnancy section of the website, we have eliminated all website links and are asking our students to contact us directly with inquiries.
Margaret M. Higgins, Ph.D
Vice President for University Life
Chief Student Affairs Officer
University of San Francisco
Indeed their website has been purged, so it looks like his readership has done an e-spritual work of mercy.
Three Decades of Decadence
The incomparable Victor Lams of et
cetera has continued to create Banned Parenthood propaganda masterpieces
to dishonor their 30th anniversary. Here are my plagiarisms of his ideas.
 |
 |
Here is something I did before
Ten years after
Varenius of Anti-Socialist
Tendencies has an interesting comparison of his opinions between "then"
(ten years ago) and "now."
Woo Hoo Witchy Woman
The Chesterfield County (Va.) Board of Supervisors routinely
opens its meetings with prayers led by Christian clergymen from different denominations.
A Wiccan - denied an opportunity to lead the prayer - sued the Board on Friday,
claiming religious discrimination.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and Americans United for Separation
of Church and State are representing Cynthia Simpson in her lawsuit (Simpson
v. Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors).
In a joint statement, those groups criticized Chesterfield
County officials for refusing to add Simpson's name to a list of clergy called
upon to lead the Board in prayer. [Full
Story]
The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and Americans
United for Separation of Church and State are suing to allow someone
to lead a prayer? What a bald face lie this is. They are not concerned with
any form of prayer but realize by forcing the issue the Board of Supervisors
will just eliminate any prayer before meetings. The Americans United for the
Separation of Brains and Reason have never been for any form of pluralism but
totally for elimination of any form of religious expression.
Now I am not to ecstatic about Wiccans leading prayers, but if you believe in
freedom of religion then you have to still believe in it when it is uncomfortable
to do so. These groups will use the prejudice of this board to be able to eliminate
all outward religious expression, they should call their bluff and allow it.
There will be a lot less new age religions if we all started to act like Christians
and showed true love of neighbor. I am not talking about false ecumenism or
syncretism, let us just demonstrate our faith and convert those with other beliefs
or are just set against us. Abraham Lincoln said "the best way to destroy
an enemy is to make him a friend."
Phil Dona Who?
As MSNBC ratings plumage, I predicted
that low rating wouldn't keep them from not canceling his show. He is now the
Typhoid Mary of cable news, oblivious to the network's destruction around him.
Post 9-11 the viewing public has already had its phil of Mr. Donahue.
In related MSNBC news:
While preparing for her interview with "Hardball"
host Chris Matthews last week, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton tried to pressure
MSNBC producers to give her a list of his questions ahead of time.
"Right up until five minutes before the show her staff people were begging
for the questions," Matthews told radio host Don Imus Thursday morning.
[Full
Story]
I guess she is use to the David Letterman method
of providing both the questions and answers to her ahead of time. After all
it takes planning and practice to appear spontaneous.
PP Poster Competition
Victor Lams of et
cetera has some graphic entries for the Banned Parenthood poster
competition. These nail the truth and prove a picture is worth a thousand words.
He has promised more over the next couple of days. Mark Shea posted
the ones I sent him at HMS
on his blog and they also appeared at the Touchstone blog Mere
Comments.
and here are some more ideas.
and G.K. Chesterton said:
What is quaintly called Birth Control . . . is in fact, of course, a scheme for preventing birth in order to escape control.
Update: dylan contributed this to the comment
box and it is also on his blog
. Here is the midi
file so that you can sing along with the culture of death hymnal.
Recalling "Greatest Love of All," a song popularized
in recent years by Whitney Houston :
I believe dead children are our future,
stab their necks & suck their brains right out,
cut up the organs they possessed inside.
Promote infanticide
& make it easier.
Let the voice of Ramah
be heard throughout our once-great land.
I decided long ago
never to follow any of God's laws
Right to life? For kids, it's nil.
Convenience trumps morality!
Non-violence no; abortion yes!
The right to choose perpetually!
Because the greatest pride of all
Cuts sharper than a knife.
I've found the greatest pride of all
Destroys new life.
Harvard Hypocrisy (or is that redundant)
Josh Claybourn blogs with the title More
Discrimination Discrimination (not a typo) about Harvard discriminating
against the Christian group because of its' charter of only allowing Christians
as club officers.
I sometimes wonder if liberals are trying to violate the law of irony. Do they think that if they do something ironic enough it will cause something to happen like the Star Trek episode where Kirk and Spock use contradictory statements to cause the androids to have an electronic "nervous breakdown?" Could it be that liberals are anemic and just have an irony deficiency?
I also excogitate if Harvard homosexual advocacy groups would allow someone who thought that homosexuality was gravely disordered to become a club officer? Would a feminists group allow an misogynist as a member? Or is it that Harvard groups are allowed to discriminate as long as they don't put it in writing?
This little Bloglet went to market
There is an interesting new program for bloggers called Bloglet
that allows people to subscribe to your site and they are informed by email
once a a day for each blog they have subscribed to. Works with Blogger, Movable
Type, etc. If you don't update your blog on a daily basis this might be a good
tool for your readership.
--------
TITLE:
AUTHOR: Jeff Miller
DATE: 12/05/2002 01:18:00 PM
-----
BODY:
Litigation Mitigation
BOSTON -- A committee that oversees the Boston Archdiocese's
finances gave Cardinal Bernard Law permission Wednesday to file for bankruptcy
on behalf of the archdiocese in the wake of a string of potentially crippling
lawsuits over sexual abuse by priests.
If Law decides to pursue the bankruptcy filing, he would need the approval of
the Vatican. [Full
Story]
It follows suit since the archdiocese seems to have already filed moral bankruptcy.
High Priest of Moloch Speaks
In a Nov. 22 letter to Bill O'Reilly, host of "The
O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News Network, Bigelow wrote the following:
"In your show you said that Jesus was not pro-choice
and you were sure he would be insulted were he to see this card," referring
to Planned Parenthood's "Choice on Earth" holiday greeting card.
"Even as a minister I am careful what I presume
Jesus would do if he were alive today, but one thing I know from the Bible is
that Jesus was not against women having a choice in continuing a pregnancy,"
he continued.
"Jesus was for peace on earth, justice on earth,
compassion on earth, mercy on earth, and choice on earth," Bigelow added.
[Full
Story]
There is no justice with abortion. There is no compassion with abortion. There is no mercy with abortion. But there is choice on earth, Heaven or Hell.
We preach the theology of John Darby
A lawyer from the late nineteenth century
Dogmatically defined in the Scofield Bible
Footnotes trumped text in the Gospel
Isolating the text from Thessalonian four
Mark 13, Matthews 24, & 2 Thes just ignore
The Pope be the ho of Babylon
Some punk bust a cap in him at the Vatican
Making up a title is from our bag of trixs
So we can assign to him six six six
Catholic bashing throughout all our books
Just don't give our theology a closer look
Da prose is bad and not well done
Compares to the acting of Kirk Cameron
In fact the style of Jerry Jenkins
To be blunt is absolutely stinkin
Pre mill, post mill, we made a mill
Mo money just flowin outta the till
Sending your hearts into fibrillation
Preaching the false tribulation
Oh Undesignated Tree
The B.C. government isn't going to describe the huge
decorated tree soon to go up in the legislative rotunda as a Christmas tree,
a holiday tree, a winter tree, a seasonal tree or anything else.
It's just The Tree.
"That way, everyone can call it what they want,"
a government spokeswoman said yesterday.
In fact, she noted, The Tree hasn't had an official title for several years.
[Full
Story] [Via
Amy Welborn]
I have translated the classic Christmas song into politically correct incoherent
gibberish.
O don't know what to call you tree, O nameless tree!
How all this leaves us mindless!
O don't know what to call you tree, O nameless tree!
But calling you Christmas is a crime!
O don't know what to call you tree, O nameless tree!
But aren't we all so tolerant!
O don't know what to call you tree, O nameless tree!
I am afraid that someone might sue me!
For every year the whatchamacallit tree,
Brings to us all multicultural P.C.!
O don't know what to call you tree, O nameless tree!
Attacks on you are all so cliché!
O don't know what to call you tree, O nameless tree!
Thy product of enslaved bees shine out brightly!
Each bough doth hold its tiny energy consuming light,
That makes each petroleum product toy to sparkle bright.
O don't know what to call you tree, O nameless tree!
Thy product of enslaved bees shine out brightly!
Rash Prayer
I am trying to develop the habit of rash prayer. My theory is that if I could pray as fast as I might judge someone that I would be stepping in the right direction on the road to holiness. I might observe someone's actions or read a news story and instantly I have framed the motives for the action of the person or persons involved, sometimes I then remember to pray. I don't mean rash in the sense of ill-considered haste but in it's meaning as boldness. Usually I have what I call the "binocular effect"; if I look through the binoculars at someone else's sins they are magnified but if I look through the front of the binoculars towards my own sins they are reduced and minimized. This is exactly backwards and the Saints demonstrated the correct view over and over in again in regards to themselves and others. Sometimes I feel like such a hypocrite when I do remember to pray for others. When I think about the lumberyard in my own eyes it makes it difficult to do what all of us are called to. To pray for others you must do it based on a foundation of personal prayer and openness to grace. Lord give me the grace to put down the stone and walk away.
Does it come with a spell checker?
An Australian retail chain has pulled from its shelves
a "voodoo doll" sold to kids together with a list of "spells"
to chant while sticking pins into it. The bright green doll, featuring in a
Christmas gift catalogue of the Sportsgirl fashion chain, caused consternation
at schools and among family groups, prompting the withdrawal decision. It came
complete with 17 pins and instructions to generate ill-will toward people the
doll's owner disliked. In order to break up a romance, the owner was told to
attach pictures of the couple onto the doll, then stick a pin into its heart
while chanting: "I don't ever want to see your face again." By sticking
pins into the doll's eyes and chanting, "It's my party and I'll cry if
I want to," the user was told she could ruin a party. [Full
Story]
I guess this could be considered a pin pal. At least this horrible idea for
a Christmas gift has been removed. The instructions are almost funny if it wasn't
for the vicious undercurrent of wishing harm on others.
Making Incense out of scripture: Smelling the Bible as the First Christians Did
Paypal Encyclicals: An Evangelical discovers blegging
Shaken my Sandals: An Apologist explains how to react after an unreceptive day
This Is My Blog: An Evangelical Discovers effective uses for sarcasm and wit
By What Sorority?: An Evangelical Discovers College Tradition
Another blogger escapes blogspot
Kudos to Amy Kropp of More Like Mary, Less Like Martha for her snazzy looking blog now located on her own domain.
So far this is a bumper year
The state Supreme Court of Louisiana refused to hear a case on appeal brought by abortion supporters against the "Choose Life" license plate. The license plate is on the road in six states - Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma and Hawaii. The plate was approved in seven states, including South Carolina where it's being held up by a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood based on the same argument in Louisiana case. "I'm confident that South Carolina's tag will be freed up here pretty soon," said Russ Amerling, national publicity coordinator of ChooseLife, Inc. Proceeds from the tag, which costs $22, will be used "to facilitate and encourage adoption as a positive choice for women with unplanned pregnancies" through donations to "maternity homes, crisis pregnancy centers and certain non-profit adoption agencies." [Full story]
I have always loved Christmas music, especially the older hymns (and I am not speaking about Frosty the Snowman). Growing up in my neighborhood we would go caroling from house to house and in High School I spent four years in the Choir. This was in the time before the phrase from Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists "Wall of separation between church and state" was invoked as the secular humanist's battle cry. We could still sing Christian and Jewish songs in the public schools without anybody screaming about being offended. Good King Wencelas has been one of my favorites, most likely since I sang a solo part in my freshman year when my voice could still rival Geddy Lee's (at lease in pitch range). I did not know anything about the sainted king or even what the Feast of Steven was. My mother had converted to Catholicism in my high schools years and to please her I would go to church with her. I even started to sing in that church's vocal ensemble, which I thought pretty ironic being an atheist. We sang songs like "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Day by Day" so their was nothing I was singing that bothered me as an atheist. This church was very progressive and I learned absolutely nothing at all about the Christian faith from them. To be fair maybe I was just extremely obstinate to hearing anything, but I had no idea that the Communion Wafer I was receiving was the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. Maybe this was to the better since I would have totally mocked this idea; then again we should always be told the truth so that we can respond to it.
Under my mothers prodding I went to one session with the local priest to learn about the faith. This was the first time I heard the word Catholicism used. It made a lasting impression on me that I never forgot, though it seemed dark and strange. Unfortunately he preceded to explain away every miracle to some natural cause. I already didn't believe in miracles as an atheist so I reasoned I didn't have to become Catholic to not believe in miracles. These early experiences are the root of my animosity towards those who teach a faithless faith and don't teach those hard sayings that challenge us to sanctity. After all, Jesus gave the Apostles the difficult teaching on the Eucharist full on. He was willing to lose disciples rather than to water down the truth or to reduce the full impact of this mystery. We should be trusted with the truth and the ability to reply with Peter and say "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
Each Christmas season I always looked forward to hearing Christmas music on the radio and at that time it was played even on the top 40 stations. Over time it was played less and less if at all on a station and by the time the late 90's rolled around you could only find it on Protestant radio and sometimes on NPR (which on principle I loathed to listen to). I started listening to the Protestant radio stations which of course always had an evangelistic message mixed in. I had already started to let God in a little bit and even acknowledged that he was real. Hearing the word preached by people who obviously had a deep faith greatly impressed me. Listening to Protestant radio I also saw all the conflicting messages preached depending on who was preaching at the time. I would hear one preacher and then later on in the day I would hear that preachers ideas being denounced. By grace I was never tempted into Protestantism but always somehow had the conviction that only the Catholic Church was true. Considering my poor past experiences with the Church this is somewhat surprising. I started reading everything I could that the public library had in the religion section. I was like a dried out sponge that thirsted to be filled with the truth. I started with feel good Christianity like Dr. Robert Schuller and then finally came across Augustine, Paschal, and the Catechism. Looking back I was surprised to find that I didn't read myself into the Church, but that I had been given faith and then learned afterwards all of the intellectual reasons that confirmed that faith. It was pretty arrogant to think it was my reasoning alone and not the Holy Spirit that had brought me to that point. Of course I had already started reading the Bible and made the beginners mistake of starting from Genesis and trying to go to the end. In my ignorance of reading apart from the understanding of the Church, I reinvented some of the heresies that have always plagued Christendom. I didn't have too many problems accepting the dogmas of the Church. Once I had gotten over the "there is a God thing" it was theologically downhill to believe in the Eucharist, the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the other beautiful mysteries of his Church. I thank God for the examples of many faithful Protestants that I experienced throughout my life and their radio ministry to finally helped me get past the hump of theism into the Catholic Church.
Planned Parenthood Proselytizing
Planned Parenthood has concocted one of its most shameless
schemes ever for using our tax dollars to corrupt our children. Planned Parenthood
of North Central Ohio has proposed that two teens from each of the four high
schools in Morrow County, Ohio be paid $100 to be trained as outreach workers
and that the teens receive an additional $5 for every patient they recruit who
shows up at a new Planned Parenthood clinic which opened on April 2, 2002 in
Cardington, Ohio.
[Full
shameless scheme] [Via Oblique
House]
And Planned Parenthood called to them and began to send them out two by two,
and gave them authority over the tissue masses and products of conception. They
charged them to take nothing for their journey except propaganda and an ill formed
conscience. And they said to them when you enter a school, stay there until
there is no life left in the place. And if any school will not receive you and
they refuse to hear your enlightened modern perspective of the gospel of choice,
when you leave, shake off the fetal tissue from your clothes for a testimony
against them.
The Gospel according to Margaret Sanger.
Has PP announced a bounty on the head of each child in the womb? Wanted
dead or alive - your blood money reward is a measly five dollars since
we wouldn't want to cut too deeply into our abortion mill cash cow profits. Next
we will have PP gift certificates for those hard to shop for pregnant teens.
Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.
No habitats for some of humanity
The city and Habitat for Humanity paid $850,000 for 5.7
acres along 11th Street Drive and 12th Street West. Earlier last week, [current
owner Clarence Love Sr.] tacked terse notices, written in English, to tenants'
doors saying that they were being evicted.
Love must evict all the tenants before Habitat for Humanity will take over the
project and begin building. Their plan calls for 40 new homes to be built on
the site over the next four years.
...Those families are scrambling to find housing, but
their options are limited. There is little housing in Manatee County that is
affordable for such families, according to some social-service agencies.
Catholic Charities, an area agency with a mission to
help the Hispanic community, said it doesn't have the resources to help the
evicted tenants. [Story
via UnderRepoerted.com *Free registration required]
This is a nice gift to evict people at Christmas from affordable housing to
build affordable housing.
Mystical Mother Teresa
At that time, Mother Teresa worked in Calcutta, India,
as a religious of the Sisters of Loreto. During her prayer, Christ asked her
to go out into the streets and proclaim him among the abandoned of India, especially
girls.
"How could I?" she wrote. "I have been
and am very happy as a Loreto nun. To leave that what I love and expose myself
to new labors and suffering, which will be great, to the laughingstock of so
many, especially religious, to cling and choose deliberately the hard things
of an Indian life, to loneliness and ignominy, to uncertainty? And all because
Jesus wants it, because something is calling me to leave all and gather the
few to live His life, to do His work in India."
In her prayers, particularly her Communions, Jesus constantly asked her: "'Wilt
thou refuse? When there was a question of Thy soul I did not think of Myself
but gave Myself freely for thee on the Cross and now, what about thee? Wilt
thou refuse? I want Indian nuns, victims of my love.'" Mother Teresa explained
all this in a letter to her spiritual director and to the archbishop.
"My own Jesus, what you ask is beyond me," the then Sister Mary Teresa responded.
"I can hardly understand half of the things you want. I am unworthy. I am sinful.
I am weak. Go, Jesus, and find a more worthy soul, a more generous one."
"Are you afraid now to take one more step for Your Spouse, for Me, for souls?"
Christ said, according to the nun. "Is your generosity grown cold? Am I a second
to you? You did not die for souls. That is why you don't care what happens to
them. Your heart was never drowned in sorrow as was my Mother's. We both gave
our all for souls, and you? You are afraid that you will lose your vocation,
you will become a secular, you will be wanting in perseverance."
"No -- your vocation is to love and suffer and save souls
and by taking the step you will fulfil My Heart's desire for you. You will dress
in simple Indian clothes or rather like My Mother dressed, simple and poor.
Your present habit is holy because it is My symbol. Your sari will become holy
because it will be My symbol," Christ insisted, according to the text.
"Jesus, my own Jesus, I am only Thine," the nun answered.
"I am so stupid. I do not know what to say, but do with me whatever you wish,
as you wish, as long as you wish. I love you not for what you give, but for
what You take. Jesus, why can't I be a perfect Loreto nun, a real victim of
Your love here? Why can't I be like everybody else? Look at the hundreds of
Loreto nuns who have served You perfectly, who are now with you. Why can't I
walk the same path and come to you?"
She added: "Don't allow me to be deceived, I am so afraid. This fear makes me
see how much I love myself. I am afraid of the suffering that will come by living
life in the Indian way, dressing like them, eating with them, sleeping with
them, living with them without ever being able to do anything that I will. To
what degree my own convenience has taken possession of my soul."
Christ calmed her by describing what the future would be like: "I want Indian
nuns, Missionaries of Charity, who would be my fire of love amongst the poor,
the sick, the dying, and the little children. The poor I want you to bring to
me and the Sisters that would offer their lives as victims of My love will bring
these souls to Me. You are, I know, the most incapable person, weak and sinful,
but just because you are that, I want to use you for My glory. Will Thou refuse?"
"'Little one, give me souls," Jesus insisted, according to the nun. "Give me
the souls of the poor little street children. How it hurts, if you only knew,
to see these poor children soiled with sin. I long for the purity of their love.
If you would only answer and bring me these souls. Draw them away from the hands
of the evil one. If you only knew how many little ones fall into sin every day.
There are plenty of nuns to look after the rich and well-to-do people, but for
my very poor, there are absolutely none. For them I long, them I love. Wilt
thou refuse?" Some weeks went by. Then, on Jan. 6, 1948, Archbishop Perier called
Mother Teresa and said: "You may go ahead." [ZENIT
full article]
In a time when the media is concentrating on Mother Teresa's doubts it is always
good to remember the fruits of her wrestling with God.
Blogging Geek
I have noticed in the past some blogger complaining about blogger
eating their posts. I always edit my posts in a outside program and then paste
it into the blogger editing screen. This can give you easy editing,
spellchecking, and the ability to format your text as you want. I have
recently come across a freeware visual HTML editor that has all of these basic
features (for the PC) and only requires a free registration to activate it. So
if your entering posts directly into blogger consider using Trellian WebPAGE
Nativity Negativity
A school in Bedfordshire has banned video cameras from
its nativity play, because it's worried that the images may get into the hands
of paedophiles. [Full
story]
The three wise men have been banned from a church nativity
play because members insist they were not around at the birth of Christ. In
fact, members of the Porth Christian Centre at Elim Pentecostal Church, in the
Rhondda, south Wales, dispute several points in the traditional interpretation
of the birth of Christ. [Full
story]
As for the second story I remember reading in Frank Sheed's book To
Know Christ Jesus that he stated the same thing. Because of the passage
in Luke 2: offer a sacrifice according to what is said
in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.", which
was the required offering for those who could not afford a lamb they must not
have already received gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
If you haven't read this book from Frank Sheed, run don't walk to our nearest bookstore. I think this is the best of the life of Christ style books.
Thanksgiving = Eucharist
Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share
in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion
of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we
have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God,
the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven
and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities
or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him. He is before
all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body,
the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything
he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,
making peace by the blood of his cross. --Colossians 1:12-20
Today I am thankful that I can be thankful.
On the Easter Vigil where I came into Holy Mother Church I reflected on the
fact that I had literally spent forty years in the wilderness. I had been chasing
after false gods and idols and was totally oblivious to the miracles that God
had created around me. I would have fit in easily with the hardheaded Israelites,
ignoring every blessing and focusing on even the most trite inconvenience. I
was suffering from spiritual autism, locked into only the material world and
undiscerning of the spiritual world around me. I did not realize that I was
afflicted with this eternal life threatening illness, nor did those around me
inform me of my malady. After reading Franks Sheed's awesome book Theology
and Sanity I came to see my insanity for what it was. As an atheist the
concept of thanksgiving was alien to me, I knew I should be thankful but to
whom was I to be thankful to? It is difficult to give thanks to random eddies
of atoms coalescencing into a cell. Oh chaos I thank you for we are wonderfully
made just doesn't sound right. How can you be thankful for your flukeness, your
undesigned accidental existence. Luckily, as most atheists I did not dwell too
much on the actual meaning of these unbeliefs. Thank you God for bringing me
into the promised land of your Church.
This morning I had my true Thanksgiving feast, I went to Mass and thanked God
for everything he has done, which is literally everything and my wife and I
and millions of people around the world received Him Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity
in the Eucharist.
I also realized today that if the Book of Exodus described my first forty years
in the wilderness then my autobiography has also already been written in the
Book of Judges. I follow God and I fall down, I follow God and I fall down,
I follow God and I fall down, and lets not forget the part where I follow God
and I fall down. I think it was Father Rutler who talked about that if he had
his way, that in the Stations of the Cross after Jesus falls down; he would add
and he got up again. May I continuously also always get up again.
Following along with Bible books that describe my life, I hope that my epitaph
might follow along the lines of:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race,
I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only
to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. -- 2nd Timothy 4:7-8
In a related story of Eucharistic thanksgiving the latest issue of my diocesan
magazine the St. Augustine
Catholic has an article
about a pre-puritan Catholic Thanksgiving in Florida.
When on September 8, 1565 Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and
his 800 Spanish settlers founded the settlement of St. Augustine in La Florida,
the landing party celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving, and, afterward, Menéndez
laid out a meal to which he invited as guests the native Seloy tribe who occupied
the site. The celebrant of the Mass was St. Augustine’s first pastor, Father
Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, and the feast day in the church calendar
was that of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. What exactly the Seloy
natives thought of those strange liturgical proceedings we do not know, except
that, in his personal chronicle, Father Lopez wrote that “the Indians imitated
all they saw done.”
...The newsman told me that all of Massachusetts was “freaked
out,” and that, as he spoke, “the Selectmen of Plymouth are holding an emergency
meeting to contend with this new information that there were Spaniards in Florida
before there were Englishmen in Massachusetts.”
I replied, “Fine. And you can tell them for me that, by
the time the Pilgrims came to Plymouth, St. Augustine was up for urban renewal.”
In closing I give thanks for creation, redemption, salvation, the Incarnation,
sanctification, supplication, conversion, vicarious atonement, meaning to suffering,
the seven sacraments - especially forgiveness of sin, beauty, truth, justice,
mercy, Carmelite spirituality, and the relentless love that God has for us.
For my wife and children, mother, father, brother, aunts, uncles, grandmothers
and friends. For the Saints, Priests and Bishop of my diocese, and our Holy
Father John Paul II. For music, reading, laughter, the five senses, and job
satisfaction. For snow as a kid but not having to contend with it now. I also
give thanks for the thousands of things that I have left out.
I also give thanks to blog writers, my blog readers, my blog commenters, and those who have blogrolled me or linked to me.
Acronym acrimony
It's been a great month for the Republican Party, with victories in the House,
Senate and gubernatorial elections. But now comes a cruel blow -- delivered
by the Wall Street Journal, no less. The newspaper has banned the term "GOP,"
deeming the popular abbreviation for "Grand Old Party" too obscure.
...Word that GOP was DOA at the WSJ was met with some amusement at the RNC --
that would be the Republican National Committee. "It's better than RNC,"
said spokesman Kevin Sheridan, pointing out that the party has a Web site called
gop.com. "It's their prerogative. We're proud of our heritage. We are still
the GOP." [Full
story]
In a related story the Dim erratic Party has decided on an acronym of their own, GAP (Grand Abortion Party) the voice of choice.
Henry VII VIII wannabe
A 51-year-old Romanian is demanding a divorce because
his wife has given him four daughters but no son.
The man said after 12 years of marriage he is afraid his name will disappear.
He thinks he has a good chance to marry another woman
who could make him happy. [Full
story]
Update: Thanks to Steve Riddle of Flos
Carmeli for correcting me on my misnumbered Henry.
Villain Action Figures
Herobuilders.com offers G.I. Joe like action figures for both heroes and villains.
Osama
Bin Laden
Butcher
of Baghdad and "Crack
Head" Saddam
American
Taliban
You can also order a pink
dress for these action figures.
Others might want the Dr.
Hillcare -Hillary Clinton Doll. No Al Gore version is necessary since there
is already a life size plastic model out there currently campaigning. And if
you found a Bill Clinton action figure I wouldn't place it within a hundred
spaces of a Barbi or Stacy doll.
You can also have custom made action figures made, so Al Gore and Sen. Tom Daschle might want to pool up to get a Rush Limbaugh and a set of Fox News action figures that they can practice attacking, blaming, and leering at.
Bio Nazi - Abort the disabled
(CNSNews.com)- Disability advocates and pro-life groups
are comparing the process of genetic selection to Nazi eugenics after a scholar
from the National Institutes of Health said America would benefit from aborting
the blind and disabled.
In a speech earlier this month at the University of Rhode
Island, biomedical ethicist Dan W. Brock said his views are not discriminatory,
and he said any decision must be left to parents, without government intervention.
[Full
disgusting story]
I remember reading an article years ago called "Are biomedical ethicists
ethical?", and the answer continues to be no. Should these unethicists
with a disabled conscience be murdered for their moral handicap? He qualifies
his statement with leaving it up to the parents. How many parents were initially
upset to learn their child was going to have a disability only to find out later
the great joy and love that comes from raising a disabled child. Some of these
parents would never have learned this if they just aborted the child. Would
Beethoven's parents have kept their child if they would have known about his
numerous disabilities?
Foreign Pop Psychology
Stung by reports that North Korea has failed to abandon
its nuclear weapons program as part of a 1994 deal negotiated by his administration,
ex-President Bill Clinton revealed last week that he threatened the rogue nation
with war in order to get them to comply.
[Full
story]
When it came to foreign policy ex-President Clinton had no vision but he is
trying to repair that damage through revision. Last we heard all about how active
he was on taking care of Bin Laden and al-Qaida and now it is about him threatening
North Korea with war. Of course Clinton hardly ever mentioned Bin Laden in a
press conference or ever talked tough about North Korea. We can see the results
of his commitments, a previously growing al-Qaida and North Korea continuing
to develop nuclear weapons. He really scared North Korea into compliance by
delivering millions of dollars in aid and building a nuclear power plant. The
first line of the story "Stung by reports" is a total lie, our intelligence
already knew that North Korea was still developing nuclear weapons; he was only
stung by the media actually reporting the story.
"I don't believe North Korea wants to drop a bomb
on us," he said "I don't even think they want to sell the bomb to
somebody else. I think they're screaming for the world to say they still matter
and to pay a lot of attention to them."
This is unbelievable, pop psychology applied to a rogue nation. If only we would
have given more attention to the needs of North Korea and preventing bullies
from provoking them in their formative years. We need to develop their self
esteem so that their needs are fulfilled so that they wont cry out for attention.
What a bunch of pabulum.
Liturgical confusion
Click on
Should I Stand or Should I Kneel to listen to Nick Alexander's parody via
an MP3 stream.
[Via the blog "music you must hear"]
Canadians crack down on Hamas?
The Canadian government is considering banning the Palestinian
terrorist group that claimed responsibility for bombing a Jerusalem bus crowded
with schoolchildren and commuters yesterday, the National Post has learned.
As Israelis dealt with yet another suicide bombing, which
killed 11 victims and injured 49, a proposal by Canadian officials was making
its way to Cabinet calling for the addition of Hamas to Canada's list of designated
terrorist organizations.
If Cabinet approves the recommendation, Hamas would be
outlawed under the Criminal Code as an "entity knowingly engaged in terrorist
activity," giving police authority to arrest anyone giving support to the
group.
A Cabinet decision is expected by the end of the month.
Hamas, an Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement, has used Canada as
base for fundraising for a decade, in part by soliciting donations it claims
are for humanitarian aid.
[Full
story]
Considering banning? This is a slam dunk and should have been accomplished a long time ago.
Mayans, destroyers of the environment
Researchers have discovered what they believe is the
reason the ancient Mayans suddenly left their densely populated cities on the
Yucatan Peninsula in Latin America hundreds of years ago.
...The Mayans' activity caused ecological changes that made the areas where
they lived too arid. Before people came to those areas, the territory is thought
to have been a permanent bog. Leveraging those bogs, they created complex systems
of storage reservoirs, helping the civilization prosper for several centuries.
[Full
story]
C.S. Lewis quotes
"...[When I was an atheist] my argument against
God was that the universe seemed cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea
of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea
of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it
unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why
did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent
reaction against it? ... Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did
not exist -- in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless -- I found
I was forced to assume that one part of reality -- namely my idea of justice
-- was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the
whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no
meaning."
"An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is
useful. But an open mind about ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or
Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his
mouth at least be shut."
Homeland insecurity
The House initially approved the homeland measure on
Nov. 13. But it was forced to take it up again because the Senate version had
a different bill number and made about 10 technical changes, such as different
section numbers. The House and Senate must approve identical bills before they
can be sent to the president for his signature.
The Senate approved the legislation on Tuesday, a day before it adjourned for
the year
[Full
story]
I feel safer already, no not about the homeland security bill approval but that the Senate is adjourned for the rest of the year.
How to spend a 100,000$ and not learn anything
Not only is Harvard Law considering a ban on 'offensive
speech' but it is offering freshmen (that's "first-year students,"
to them) a new course: How to be Politically Correct.
The course purports to help the young people "manage
difficult conversations" and learn how to speak with sensitivity on touchy
issues such as race and gender.
[Full story]
I can just imagine all the other possible politically correct courses they will
offer at Harvard.
Feeling your pain 101: Learn how to tell others with a strait face that you
understand their situation while at the same time thinking about fulfilling
your hedonistic dreams.
Playing the race card: Johnny Cochran explains how to get out of any normally
impossible situation by playing the race card. Learn how to go through speeches
and voting records to find occasions when an opponent made a decision contrary
to the wishes of a person of color. Special guest-instructor Harry Belafonte
also teaches you how to deal with situations when your opponent is a person
of color. Expand your vocabulary with Uncle Tom, house slave, race traitor and
a 101 other Ad Hominem attacks.
Comparative Morality: Learn how to deal with situations where you are caught
in an action still considered wrong by some. This course comes with a text book
that references and cross references every sin committed by Republicans dead
or alive. When faced with an accusation you will deftly be able to cite the
name of a Republican who either did the same thing or somehow came close.
Winning life's lottery: Learn how anyone who is richer than you could not have possibly achieved it through determination and hard work. Easily shrug off anybody's accomplishments by saying "They just won life's lottery".
Classic Classism: This is a thorough course in political classism. Gain constituents
by attacking the rich, be able to make glib statements about fat cats even though
you have 200 million in the bank. If your opponent makes any statement about
reducing taxes just say "top one percent" over and over until they
give up. Learn that the word corporation must always be preceded with the words
greedy, despoiling, polluting, multinational
PC History: Learn all about the history of civilizations minus dead white male
Europeans.
Construing the Constitution: Envision a doctrine and see how it is actually
in in this living document. See all the ideas that are there without the original
writers even knowing about it. Perceive abortion and separation of church and
state and other modern dogmas as a right of privacy. Learn all about everything
but the fictional second amendment. Note: This course has a reduced fee since
no actual textbooks or a copy of the Constitution is required.
Uncritical thinking: Trust in your heart and everything passed onto you by the
professors. Learn the dangers of reality, facts, and anything else that doesn't
agree with your preconceptions.
Cultural Elitism: Instructions on applying your brilliant mind to help all
the little people in the world. Learn how to grab control of political processes
for their own good. The ends justify the means, so effectively make everybody
bow down to you wishes since it will be better for them in the end. Learn how
to ignore the cries of the people you are helping by telling them it takes a
village and that you are the head of the village. Senator Hillary Clinton will
also offer a one day workshop on how to reform the medical industry with a committee
of 150 lawyers.
Environmental Prophesy: Techniques of scaring the hell out of everyone with
shallow discussions on global cooling, global warming, ozone holes, car emissions,
jungle rain forest depletion, oil spills, melting ice caps, pesticides,
cancer clusters, cell phone tumors, asbestos, and franken foods. Pick the eminent
doom of your choice and start nonprofit groups (with you as the paid head) to
help save humanity the environment. Course constructed by the world famous
scientists Leonardo Dicaprio and Sting. Note: Science 101 is not a prerequisite
for this course.
Racist Grammar: Avoid all of the words that sound like racial epithets. Learn how requiring someone to correctly enunciate a word is actually a racist agenda designed to keep them down. Requiring emigrants to learn English destroys their language culture and makes them able to escape the Democratic Party.
This policeman brought to you by a grant from Exxon.
NORTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Cash-strapped police departments around the country — including in Hagerstown, Md. — are considering selling advertising space on their patrol cars, an idea that has some officers worried they will get stuck driving around with an embarrassing ad.
"I don't want my officers
driving around in a car [with a suggestive condom ad]," said Louis Napoletano,
public safety director of Long Branch, NJ "We've come a long way to be
perceived as professional, and this would set us way back."
[Full
story]
I wonder if Dunkin Donuts or Crispy Kreme will be the first sponsors? An what
would a suggestive condom ad be? Would it be "Where the rubber meets the
road" or "To serve and protect"? It would give a whole new meaning
to the word copulation. Actually I think a truer condom ad should be "Remember
Onan" --Genesis 38:9-10. Using advertising on patrol cars would be really
tacky, especially targeted ads from bail bondsmen and lawyers.
Bravo!
At their Los Altos Hills monastery, 16 cloistered nuns
sleep on sacks of straw in ``cells'' that measure 7 by 9 feet. Mega-houses are
rising in the surrounding neighborhoods, but the nuns still follow vows of poverty,
chastity and prayerful obedience to God.
Now, even as the economy falters and the world totters
into uncertain times, they have embarked on a faith-driven project: the $3 millionrebuilding
of their home.
``It's so strange that the new building is happening when the economy is down,'' said Sister Annuntiata, a former Texas middle school teacher who is one of the 16. ``It's almost like God is saying, `Trust me.' ''
...In her view, the nuns put out enough spiritual wattage
to brighten the world: ``You can pray for bin Laden,'' she said, ``or you can
pray for the little boy who can't pass his math test. The thing about the cloister
is you can help all people by your prayer and sacrifice.''
...``It's not that we're anti-social,'' said Sister Colette, ``but pretty soon
we wouldn't be a cloister anymore.''
...It will be 6,000 square feet smaller than the old monastery. But there are
new gardens to look forward to, as well as an infirmary, a parlor for family
visits and new dormitories, spacious enough to house 30 nuns in their cells.
The new foundations will be well-secured, so the nuns will no longer have to
worry that an earthquake could send them sliding over the edge of a hill.
[Full
story] [Via
Amy Welborn]
Nuns
doing tremendous work in Mississippi
Four
sisters ministering in Apopka
It is nice to be reminded about all of the faithful communities of nuns doing Gods work through prayer and/or action.
Judge Shedd
CNSNews.com)- The Senate on Tuesday confirmed the nomination
of U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Shedd to a seat on the 4th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. Shedd, a protege of the retiring Sen. Strom
Thurmond (R-S.C.), was promoted on a vote of 55-44. Some of the Democrats opposed
to Shedd's promotion said they voted yes out of respect to Thurmond, who - at
age 99 - is the nation's oldest and longest-serving senator. The Senate on Tuesday
also confirmed the confirmation of Michael McConnell s to the 10th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals. The two confirmations sent up howls of protest from Planned
Parenthood, which insists that Bush appointees are on a mission to "dismantle
30 years of reproductive freedom."
[Full
story]
Anything that makes Planned Parenthood howl makes me rejoice. This is absolutely
great news that the logjam of pro-constitution judges is starting to break.
Are You For Eighty-Sixing Someone?
(CNSNews.com)- Obstetrician W. David Hager Tuesday said
his opposition to the abortion drug RU-486 is based on safety considerations
and inadequate testing, not his position on abortion.
The Christian physician is under consideration by the
Bush administration to head the Food and Drug Administration's Reproductive
Health Drugs Advisory Committee and has been the subject of controversy among
liberals who oppose his nomination.
Even though the committee's most immediate task will
be to consider issues related to hormone replacement therapy, Hager's pending
appointment has drawn criticism from groups who claim he will try to hinder
FDA approval of certain drugs and medical devices and make abortion more difficult
to obtain. Hager is pro-life.
[Full
story]
RU-486 approval was a blatant case of political fraud and willing to sacrifice
the lives of women for political concerns. The Clinton administration had put
it on fast track approval, which was only designed for getting cancer treatment
approved faster to save lives. There is no way that approval of any kind of
abortion pill fit these requirements.
"Jumping" Jim Jeffords trying to jump back
Defacto Democratic Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., cost the
GOP control of the Senate when he jumped ship in May 2001 and voted to make
Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., majority leader.
But now, with Republicans taking over and Jeffords faced
with minority status, Vermont's man of integrity apparently wants back in.
Reports the Washington Times:
"According to a senior Senate leadership source,
the election results were barely in before Mr. Jeffords' office put out feelers
to his former party's leaders. The message? That the Vermonter would be happy
to caucus with the GOP — so long as he retained his committee chairmanship."
So far GOP reaction has been underwhelming:
"Republican leaders rightly rolled their eyes,"
the Times said.
[Full
story]
This guys party affiliation must be attached with Velcro.
Public Planned Parenthood Propaganda
A financial agreement between Planned Parenthood of Central Texas and the City of Waco has enabled the pro-abortion group to incorporate its agenda into the local public library system. The Planned Parenthood library also warns patrons that it can deny access "to anyone who has participated in protests," against the group.
...Some of the titles returned using specific keywords
included 'Mandatory Motherhood: The True Meaning of 'Right to Life;' 'How Would
You Feel If Your Dad Was Gay;' 'Daddy's Roommate;' 'The Complete Guide to Sexual
Fulfillment: Your Questions Answered;' and 'Going All the Way: Teenage Girls'
Tales of Sex, Romance, and Pregnancy.'
...For example, he said several pro-life women were denied entrance to the Audre
Rapoport Library's open house on Oct. 28 because those women had been protesting
against Planned Parenthood earlier that day.
"Generally, as a taxpaying citizen that's never
broken a law, I can go into any public [library] branch that I want to go into,"
Pisciotta said. "But [Planned Parenthood of Central Texas] would deny us
access to this."
[Full
story]
Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves;
so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. --Matthew 10:16
We need to adapt every tactic that brings the truth of the pro-life message
to every facet of society For the most part I think we react to the pro-abortion
side, but we need to bring the fight to them at every level. They have been
expert in getting their message into public schools, clinics and now into public
libraries.
Lend me your ear
TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian woman cut off her henpecked
husband's ear after he dared to query why she was late coming home, the Entekhab
newspaper reported on Saturday."My wife does judo and she gets angry very
easily," the man, who was not identified, told a court in southern Tehran.
"I'm not allowed to say anything she doesn't like
and if I disobey her, she beats me up," he said.
[Full
story via ibidem]
Motor City Mad-Governor?
(11/15/02, 7 a.m. ET) -- If some Michigan residents have
their way, Ted Nugent will be running for governor of the state in 2006.
Following the recent election of Jennifer Granholm as
Michigan governor, radio station WOOD-AM in Grand Rapids asked its listeners
who they'd like to see oppose her in four years. The survey is still going on,
but Nugent has been named in about 90 percent of the responses every day, beating
out others such as speaker of the Michigan House Rick Johnson and former Lieutenant
Governor Dick Posthumus.
The singer-guitarist issued this statement to LAUNCH,
"I've always taken my 'We The People' obligations to heart as an activist
American for quality of life upgrade. I've got three years to think about it,
but there is no doubt the status quo needs to be tipped on its bureaucratic
ass. I'm definitely the guy for that job."
In a further statement, Nugent said, "I'm flattered
that the Michigan citizenry grasps my sincerity. I have always celebrated my
'We The People' activism. Maybe it's time to take it to the next level. The
status quo system of politics sucks. Maybe it's time for an upheaval. Call me
Ted 'Upheaval' Nugent. We'll see what happens."
[Full
story]
Might be a good choice to cure the governments stranglehold
or to rid the state of Cat
Scratch Fever. I have seen him in concert a couple of times and have an
autographed poster of his and I am sure he would be a real pain in the neck
to most liberals with his hunting advocacy and in-your-face conservatism. He
is mostly pro-life except for in the case of incest and life of the mother, which is too bad since a 100 percent pro-life gonzo conservative would have been nice.
Jimmy Carter made me a Conservative
The former United States president Jimmy Carter says
the US, which has taken the lead in urging such countries as Iraq and North
Korea to destroy their weapons of mass destruction, should also disarm.
"One of the things that the United States Government
has not done is to try to comply with and enforce international efforts targeted
to prohibit the arsenals of biological weapons that we ourselves have,"
Mr Carter told CNN.
"The major powers need to set an example,"
Mr Carter said, as the US confronts Iraq over its possession of such banned
weapons.
[Full
story]
Dylan's post
on Sunday about what made him a Republican and this article reminds me of the
factors that lead me to become a Republican.
I grew up in a heavily politically charged liberalized family and environment in Oregon where I learned the gospel according to Doonesbury. As a kid I had a lemonade stand that at the top of it said "Spiro of 76" and I thought that Richard Nixon was the secular version of the antichrist. I read books on Berkeley's Peace Park, marched in antiwar demonstrations, admired hippies, and thought that the pinnacle of society was Woodstock. As a senior in High School I was an emotional mushy bleeding-heart liberal and I voted for Jimmy Carter. I couldn't have given any non-emotional reasons why I voted for him, except that he was a Democrat and a underdog.
After graduating I joined the Navy and learned first hand under Carter's tutelage
that being sincere and desiring to do good is not enough, you must also have
realistic and good ideas to be sincere about. His hand-wringing with the Iran
Hostage situation and his weakening of the military and lack of will to denounce
evil I believe lead to the Russians deciding to invade Afghanistan. Jimmy Carters
political answer was to cancel our participation in the Olympics, as if that
would really show them. Reality started to intrude on my liberalism, I started
to see that appeasing words and lack of action were extremely dangerous.
Ronald Reagan becoming president was the next most decisive step from me. I
didn't vote in that election since my indoctrination on Reagan had not yet been
broken. I couldn't believe the change in the country as a result of his leadership.
Moral in the military skyrocketed and the economy started to recover from double-digit
inflation of the seventies. This was a man who called evil evil and took decisive
action when required, I gladly voted for him when he ran again Walter Mondale.
The next step was listening to pre-Rush Limbaugh talk radio where what I heard
resonated with what I had learned. Reality had shown me that human nature was
fallen (though I wouldn't have used those words then) and that for society to
work better this had to be taken into account. Government programs handing out
funds to people did not prod them on to excellence but brought them into an
addictive reliance. People believed that government is the answer to every solution
and start to willingly wear the shackles of dependence. I don't know how to
express the competitiveness in human nature, but where there is competitiveness
there is a striving for excellence. Every system that takes advantage of this
competitiveness is usually successful but where there is a status quo and dumbing
down of standards the opposite occurs. When the Saints are held up as the standard
of holiness we strive towards that perfection, and when cultural elites are
held up as the highest level to emulate we sink to that level.
I now identify myself as Catholic first and foremost and where that intersects with modern conservative philosophy I also call myself a Republican. I am greatly thankful to conservatives for starting to open my hardheadedness to Christ. One day on the G. Gordon Liddy show I heard a caller challenging him on the existence of God. He replied explaining the five proofs as identified by Saint Thomas Aquinas. I had never heard a rational explanation for the existence of God, I had never considered that it was possible. There were still a lot of rocks in the soil for me to respond to Gods grace, but this was a tiny crack in my atheism.
Atheism humor
Go read Steven Riddle of Flos Carmeli "A Joke to Start the Day" if you haven't done so already.
The sovereign nation of No Brazil
No man is an island, but Albert LaFontaine says his strip
club is.
The Ojibwe man bought a former pizza parlor in tiny Elko
in early October, declared the land a sovereign Indian nation and said he'll
ignore any government's attempt to close it.
"There ain't no way on God's Earth that they're
going to stop me," said LaFontaine, of St. Paul. It's not the first time
LaFontaine has said that.
The 82-year-old man who in 1959 offered to sell a third of North Dakota to the Soviet Union has put forth a variety of schemes to build casinos on land that he's bought and declared sovereign. [Full story]
I'm surprised the Clinton administration didn't send an Ambassador.
Bureaucrat Bullies
A public school superintendent has sent police in squad
cars to the houses of homeschooling families to deliver his demand that they
appear for a "pre-trial hearing" to prove they are in compliance with
the law.
[Full
story]
This is what happens when we continually relinquish our rights and duties as parents to the government. When you try to exercise your responsibilities then some bureaucrat is going to decide if they will allow you to or not. Unfortunately the squad cars were probably needed more at the schools under his supervision then being used for harassing home school families.
Davey's Mommy of the blog
chirp wrote:
St. Francis de Sales, pray God to help me write shorter
sentences without fear of choppiness. Amen.
I also have the same fear but had not been able to apply words or prayers towards
it.
Arian Adrian Dominican Sisters
Another story via Amy Welborn on new age nuns. This time it is the Adrian Dominican Sisters I did manage to find one reference to Jesus on their website in their mission statement. I guess it is a blessing that these nuns also do not wear habits so as not to be confused with an obedient prayerful community of Dominicans. This is another group of nuns to pray for their return to orthodoxy.
Circle Meditation Garden
The Circle Meditation garden reminds us that we are part
of the earth, and it is a part of us. The garden teaches us about natural harmony
and the rhythms of living upon the earth. Each season in the garden is one of
beauty, from the rich, abundant meadow colors and fragrances of mid-summer,
to the spare, linear silhouettes of a Michigan winter. From the season of rebirth,
fresh with budding crocuses and damp earth, to the final blaze of autumn, the
spirit whispers in the garden. Come, sit among the splendor of the garden and
enjoy beauty-nature.
Let us reflect on the beauty of Pi 3.1415926535897932384626433832795..., where
we will reflect on circular logic and perimeter prayer. This all seems like
Pi in the Sky to me.
And if you want to determine your place in Pi mysticism then enter your birthdate
at this
site to find at what place in Pi your birthday is at.
Treescape
The Treescape is a simple space, yet one of great dignity.
The room draws you into the beauty of Weber Center's surroundings, looking directly
into the treetops and the Circle Meditation garden beyond. Meditation tools
such as the bible and singing bowl are available in the room to enhance your
reflection. If you seek inner peace and beauty, look to Treescape to help you
find solitude, silence and serenity.
I tried using Treescape 6.0 for a time but it was really
slow (progress was shown in tree rings and updated once a year) and pages were
not rendered correctly so I went back to using Internet Explorer.
The Outdoor Labyrinth
"Blessed are those who have set their heart on pilgrimage." (Psalm 85) A labyrinth
is a sacred, circular pattern symbolic of our life journey. As a tool for spiritual
centeredness, it is a pilgrimage, a journey to the divine. The Weber Center
labyrinth is a replica of the labyrinth inlaid in the floor of Chartres Cathedral
in France in the thirteenth century. The path is more than 1,000 feet long,
approximately 60 feet in diameter and constructed of enduring stone. The labyrinth
offers a quiet retreat from the hurry-up pace of daily activities. With a peaceful
meadow as a backdrop, the labyrinth is open to all, any day of the year, for
quiet presence and meditation.
Why are labyrinths so prevalent in all of these new age
communities? Is is symbolic for the twisted confusing path they follow? Is it
a type of gnosticism where you need to know the secret information to get out
of the labyrinth? Or is just based on a misprinted hymnal that contained "Mazing
Grace"?
As gifted dwellers on our planet Recognizing the sacredness of earth and the
fragility of its ecosystems, we commit ourselves to the healing of our planet
by fostering right relationships and by confronting the destruction of life
systems.
Well at least they are pro-life systems.
The women caught in Text Messaging
New Delhi (CNSNews.com)- A huge increase in the use of mobile phones in India
has prompted an unusual protest by a group claiming there is a correlation between
the use of SMS text messaging and a rise in the country's divorce rates.
A lesser-known human rights group, the National Human Rights Council, has launched
a campaign here against SMS, the short message service available on many mobile
phones.
A group of less than 50 protestors staged a demonstration in the capital on
Sunday, where they burned a mobile phone.
[Full
story]
Raves in the Nave
The Church of England gave its official blessing to alternative
forms of youth worship such as "raves in the nave" yesterday as part
of its efforts to attract young people into church.
..Another speaker recalled that his cathedral ran a rave in the nave for young
people and a service in a side chapel featuring Gregorian chant for older people.
But, he said, the older people ended up in the nave and the youngsters in the
side chapel.
The Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev James Jones, said the absence of youth from
the Church was a scandal, adding: "Without them we have no future.
[Full
story]
They must be playing Altarnative music or maybe for England it would be Post Modern rock. There are some other names they could give these events:
Grunge in the Grotto
Blues under the Baldachino
Punk in the Pews
Abbey Roads (Which seems quite appropriate for the Bishop of Liverpool)
Moshing in the Monastery
All together now, lets say "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
Juvenile Court Judge Charles Maxfield refused to grant
the order Friday. Defence lawyers had claimed their 17-year-old client's mattress
is too thin, he has been denied reading material, his cell lights glare 24 hours
a day and he is being denied vegetarian meals.
[Full
story]
This is just too ridiculous, it sounds more like a Monty Python sketch; the
prisoner is not talking, bring the comfy mattress. I have a strong suspicion
that his thin mattress is probably better than the 3" mattress I slept
on in a bunk while in the Navy. Since I mainly worked night check the lights
were also normally on during the day in the berthing area, so this story is
not invoking much sympathy for me. I also imagine that this is quite a step
up in comfort from sleeping in a car day after day and firing a sniper rifle
crouched in the trunk. The vegetarian part also seems surreal, do sniper Vegans
not eat anything that had eyes but will only shoot a human being between the
eyes? I am all for treating a prisoner with the dignity that being a creation
of God deserves but this does not mean that you coddle them. At least this judge
refused this silly request.
Stamp out piety, rescinded
A retired Montgomery County engineer may have started
a national movement.
Just recently, Frank Williamson was thwarted in his bid
to display posters depicting the national motto, "In God We Trust,"
at Montgomery County post offices. Now, not only will he see the phrase in his
local county; it will be placed in all 38,000 post offices across the country.
While he initially paid $80 to buy a few posters for his local post offices,
the self-supporting U.S. Postal Service will now foot the bill for the national
effort.
"It just shows what one lone individual can do,"
said Williamson, 74, of Montgomery.
..."It's about time," he said. "If you don't trust in God, who do you trust?"
[Full
story]
While I applaud the personal piety of this engineer I
am not quite as thrilled with the government funded piety of putting posters
in every post office. Maybe I just hate to read in an article anytime it say
that some government agency is footing the bill, when that is in actuality never
the case.
One ringy-dingy, oops busted
While many Americans agree it is bad manners if your
cell phone rings during a movie, a Broadway play or a concert, should it be
against the law, with offenders paying a $50 fine for each infraction? Politicians
in New York City think so, and have proposed a bill to outlaw such boorish behavior
– much to the chagrin of the Libertarian Party.
"Picture Miss Manners with a gun and you have some idea
why this proposal is an overreaction," says George Getz, the party's communications
director. "Civilized people can deal with minor annoyances without further empowering
the Nanny State.
[Full
story]
Conservatives Strip Bankruptcy Bill of Pro-Abortion Schumer Amendment
Defying the House GOP leadership conservative Republicans
joined Democrats in defeating the bankruptcy bill and later helped pass a new
version stripped of the pro-abortion Schumer Amendment.
...amendment by New York Democrat Chuck Schumer that barred people from declaring
bankruptcy to avoid paying exorbitant fines for protesting at abortion clinics.
[Full
story]
Bishop rescued
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Soldiers rescued a kidnapped Colombian
bishop today after a battle with the rebels who were holding him, government
officials said.
Bishop Jorge Enrique Jimenez, president of the Latin
American bishops conference, was unharmed, an army spokeswoman said. The Rev.
Desiderio Orjuela, who was kidnapped Monday along with Jimenez, also was freed.
[Full
story]
Must block that evil counseling
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) --A federal appeals court blocked
an Indiana abortion law that would require women to get face-to-face counseling
before having an abortion.
The stay Thursday by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
in Chicago keeps the state law from going into effect at least until the U.S.
Supreme Court decides whether to hear a challenge of it.
The law, passed in 1995, has never taken effect.
In September, a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit
found the law constitutional, and the court was expected on November 5 to let
the law take effect. With a day to spare, however, attorneys for the Center
for Reproductive Law and Policy requested the stay.
[Full
story]
We need truth-in-advertising laws that apply to the naming
of advocacy groups. Center for Reproductive Law
and Policy should be Center for abortion at all costs, Planned Parenthood should
be Unplanned and don't want to be a Parenthood. It is sickening that these groups
don't want women to be better informed before they seek an abortion and then
they call themselves woman advocates.
Dude, your getting a Deli
Hoping people will drop by for free Web access and stay
for a sandwich, Schlotzsky's Deli is offering no-cost wireless access at some
of its eateries.The company on Saturday will officially launch its Texas-based
Schlotzsky's Deli Cool Cloud network, which will allow people with Wi-Fi wireless
setups on their computers or handhelds to get online for free. Wi-Fi, also known
as 802.11b, is a technology that allows the creation of wireless networks with
a radius of around 300 feet. [Full
story]
I wonder if they will be offering subnet sandwiches served
with BoLOGna.
Pelosi the staunch defender of the Catholic Faith
On yesterday’s CNN show, “Inside Politics,” Nancy Pelosi said, “Yes, I’m a liberal Democrat, but I’m a conservative Catholic.” Her comment was also cited in today’s edition of USA Today.
Catholic League president William Donohue found this amusing:
“Nancy Pelosi, the new Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, has voted against school vouchers and the Faith-Based Initiative. When it comes to abortion, no one in the U.S. Congress has a more extreme record than she does. Whether the issue is parental consent or partial-birth abortion, she can always be counted on to deliver a proabortion vote. Yet she calls herself a ‘conservative Catholic.’ It would be instructive to know what she considers a liberal Catholic to be.
“It’s actually worse than this. The October 12 edition of the PBS program, ‘To the Contrary,’ showed Pelosi playing host to anti-Catholics. Frances Kissling and other staff members of the notoriously anti-Catholic organization Catholics for a Free Choice, were featured walking out of Pelosi’s office after a lobbying session.
“Pelosi’s contacts with these anti-Catholics is nothing new: in 1995 she was critical of the U.S. bishops for blasting Kissling’s outfit as anti-Catholic. At that time, the bishops objected to the inclusion of Kissling’s group at the U.N. Conference on Women that was to be held in Beijing. In reference to Kissling, William Cardinal Keeler, then head of the bishops’ conference, said ‘To use the name Catholic to promote the taking of innocent life is offensive.’ Pelosi defended Kissling saying ‘Many women are concerned about freedom of speech and association at the conference. Accreditation should not be a politicized process.’ It is not surprising, then, that Pelosi refuses to condemn the DNC for its support for Kissling’s group today.
“In short, Pelosi’s spin game is insulting.
No conservative Catholic we know okays the killing of kids 80 percent born.”
[Full
story]
Sola Democracy
LONDON (Reuters) - The Church of England on Thursday lifted its ban on divorced people remarrying in church -- a move that could allow divorcees Prince Charles and his lover Camilla Parker Bowles to walk up the aisle.
The church's governing body the General Synod voted
by 308 to 110 to end the ban, but added the condition that it should not turn
into a free-for-all for church weddings for divorcees.
[Full
story]
The false ideas of faith and scripture alone has now further degraded into the even more false idea of morality by vote. This was inevitable since reading the Bible apart from the Church always results in a translation by a democracy of one. When Jesus asked the Apostles "Who do you say I am", they all got it wrong except Peter who was guided by the Holy Spirit and not personal opinion. Instead of as in some Bibles where the words of Jesus are printed in red they must have considered his words to be a red herring, or maybe in their version his words were printed in invisible ink. Maybe the secular world will rejoice in the fact that the Church of England has finally got over that "Jesus" thing and moved into the modern world. The words used in this article "lifted its ban", totally misrepresents the truth of the permanence of marriage. Thank you Lord for guiding your Church in truth forever teaching the indissolubility of the Sacrament of Marriage and may you remove the hardness of heart of the present generation.
And he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife
and marries another, commits adultery against her;
and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."
Refining the truth of the Islamic Golden Age
The hatred of Western Civilization, and the corresponding
urge to glorify anything outside it, especially if it can be depicted as a victim
of the West, is a well-known phenomenon of the contemporary liberal mind. One
of the forms it has taken in recent years is the attempt to artificially inflate
the historic achievements of other civilizations beyond what the facts support.
The noble savage myth is a commonplace; what is more complex is the myth that
has been bandied about concerning the supposed "golden age" of Islamic
civilization during what we know as the Middle Ages.
....In the exact sciences the contribution of Al-Khwarzimi, mathematician and
astronomer, was considerable. Like Euclid, he wrote mathematical books that
collected and arranged the discoveries of earlier mathematicians. His "Book
of Integration and Equation" is a compilation of rules for solving linear
and quadratic equations, as well as problems of geometry and proportion. Its
translation into Latin in the 12thcentury provided the link between the great
Hindu mathematicians and European scholars. A corruption of the book’s
title resulted in the word algebra; a corruption of the author’s own name
resulted in the term algorithm.
The problem with turning this list of intellectual achievements
into a convincing "Islamic" golden age is that whatever flourished,
did so not by reason of Islam but in spite of Islam. Moslems overran societies
(Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Byzantine, Syrian, Jewish) that possessed intellectual
sophistication in their own right and failed to completely destroy their cultures.
To give it the credit for what the remnants of these cultures achieved is like
crediting the Red Army for the survival of Chopin in Warsaw in 1970! Islam per
se never encouraged science, in the sense of disinterested enquiry, because
the only knowledgeit accepts is religious knowledge.
[Full
story]
Misconceptions on contraception
Read Karl Schudt of Summa Contra Mundum post on contraception and the natural law which ends with the Chestertonian statement "The teaching on contraception hasn't been rejected as much as it has never been taught."
Beginning on Thursday, Nov. 14, the festival will provide
University of Arizona students and faculty with the opportunity to attend an
educational workshop co-hosted by Porsche Lynn, a professional dominatrix and
former porn star. The workshop -- entitled "The Sacred Prostitute"
-- will explore "spiritual sexuality in therapeutic practice." The
workshop is taking place in the university's Steward Observatory Auditorium.
[Full
story]
I have a feeling that "The Sacred Prostitute" won't be about the life
story and conversion of Mary Magdalene.
The next generation of Berkeley peaceniks gathered on
the steps of City Hall Tuesday to demonstrate their opposition to a pending
war in Iraq- after school, of course. Armed with protest signs, microphones,
and Harry Potter lunch-boxes, elementary and pre-school children demanded city
leaders contact President Bush and halt his hawkish “war for oil.”
...Celia, age 6, who could not spell her hyphenated last
name, told the crowd President Bush “wants to make war because he wants oil.”
[Full story]
At least these kids are as least as intelligent and know as much as the run-of-the-mill Berkeley protesters do.
Margolis readily admitted that she was trying to buy influence with Senate President Jim King, a Jacksonville Republican, saying that raising money for King might help her land a prized committee chairmanship or win budget projects for her Senate district.
''It helps put me in a better position as far as committee
priorities and leadership priorities,'' Margolis said. ``I'll do whatever has
to be done to take care of my district.''
[Full story]
Just another day in Floridian politics.
The Smurfication of weblogs
I remembered previously being annoyed when the Smurfs were all the rage and
that the word Smurf was used in the show as a noun or a verb or other parts
of the English language that I can't identify. Example are: have a smurfing good
day, Smurfilicious, Smurfy, etc. The word blog has also been used in this way,
blogosphere, blogger, blogless, blogging, and countless other examples. Now
I am equally guilty of using blog as substitutes or prefixes for words. Is this
cutting edge cultural analysis? In one word - no.
On a side note there is a Smurf web
page translator, I tried it on the Drudge
Report and it came up with these strange juxtapositions.
Iraq war 'could kill 500,000'... Smurfy, isn't it?
and
Smurf Dies From Flesh Eating Bacteria...
Saintly Etymology
Sean Gallagher offers an excellent post at Nota Bene on the origins of the words chapel and a capella.
Google Fight
At googlefight.com you enter in
two key words and it gives the results of the number of hits for each. Here are some that I tried:
God (7 020 000 results) versus Devil (6 360 000 results)
United States (5 860 000 results) versus Iraq (4 780 000 results)
Catholic (6 140 000 results) versus Atheist ( 14 700 results)
Grace (7 030 000 results) versus Sin (21 300 000 results)
I demand a recount here, must be because of Palm Beach voters.
Also must not have taken Romans 5:20 into account.
Truth (10 200 000 results) versus Lie (5 510 000 results)
Pope (2 020 000 results) versus Antichrist ( 72 500 results)
Bush (4 190 000 results) versus Clinton (3 560 000 results)
Republican (3 060 000 results) versus Democrat (1 550 000 results)
Bible (14 100 000 results) versus Playboy ( 623 000 results)
Augustine (1 520 000 results) versus Martin Luther (1 520 000 results)
Googlefight picked Augustine as the winner in this tie.
Politically Correct Nursery Rhymes
A father has claimed a school has taken political correctness
too far after his daughter came home singing "Baa, baa, white sheep".
Gary Stone, 41, from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire said
four-year-old Michelle said she had been taught it instead of the more well-known
"Baa, Baa, black sheep."
[Full article]
Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and was filed with a sexual harassment suit;
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the government lawyers and all the government sense
Had OSHA come in and put up a fence
I know a senior citizen who swallowed a fly on the endangered species list.
I don't know why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps PETA will cry.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candle-stick.
-Actually I couldn't find a way to fix this sexual stereotypical rhyme that
subverts girls since it infers that males are more athletic.
A fisking we will go, a fisking we will go. Hi-ho
the dairy-oh a fisking we will go.
This article by Bill Moyers got my dander up a little bit. I admit that fisking Bill Moyers is a little bit like shooting fish in a barrel, but I couldn't resist.
Way back in the 1950's when I first tasted politics
and journalism, Republicans briefly controlled the White House and Congress.
With the exception of Joseph McCarthy and his vicious ilk, they were a reasonable
lot, presided over by that giant war hero, Dwight Eisenhower, who was conservative
by temperament and moderate in the use of power.
McCarthy was only one man, but the Democrats have fielded
person after person making accusations of Republicans wanting to starve children,
take away seniors Social Security, force families into the street, burning black
churches, racism at every opportunity. How many judicial nominees have been
blacklisted and smeared and not even have their nomination come to a vote? Reverse
McCarthyism has come into play, you are now condemned if you are not a communist
(in ideology).
That brand of Republican is gone. And for the first
time in the memory of anyone alive, the entire federal government — the
Congress, the Executive, the Judiciary — is united behind a right-wing
agenda for which George W. Bush believes he now has a mandate.
Is this the same right-wing Judiciary which approved of
digital child pornography, sided with removal of Under God from the pledge,
abortion clinic protection zones, ignored state law and allowed Lautenberg to
run in New Jersey?
That mandate includes the power of the state to force
pregnant women to give up control over their own lives.
And that mandate would also prevent doctors from sticking
forceps in the a babies head and then vacuuming out their brains. Do women really
have more control in their lives when they can erase a responsibility?
It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich.
Top 50% of Wage Earners Pay 96.09% of Income Taxes. I wonder what would happen if Mr. Moyers went to a store to buy an item and they charged him three times the normal price based on his ability to pay? Can you imagine what would happen if ATM fees were based on how much money you had in the bank? I could almost wish on people with this mindset that they could leave in a country that perfectly followed their ideas, but I really don't wish famine and starvation on anyone.
It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate
the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable.
Since when are you for holding someone accountable? I
don't seem to remember your strong support of accountability during the Clinton
years. Or is it only the so-called "evil corporations intent on destroying
the environment at all costs" that you want to hold accountable. I also
don't seem to remember you getting livid when on the last day of the Clinton
Presidency, Clinton removed a rule concerning regulators. This effectively allowed
people serving the government in regulatory agencies to be able to immediately
start working at the very same companies they were regulating.
And it includes secrecy on a scale you cannot imagine.
Above all, it means judges with a political agenda appointed for life. If you
liked the Supreme Court that put George W. Bush in the White House, you will
swoon over what's coming.
Secrecy? You mean like an ex-President who wouldn't release
his health record, thousands of e-mails disappearing, law firm records mysteriously
showing up in a waiting room. Selected not elected, yes maybe if you keep chanting
that mantra over and over maybe somebody other than party hacks will believe
it. The Florida supreme court decision was so horrendous that even the Supreme
Court recognized the travesty.
And if you like God in government, get ready for the
Rapture. These folks don't even mind you referring to the GOP as the party of
God. Why else would the new House Majority Leader say that the Almighty is using
him to promote 'a Biblical worldview' in American politics?
Oh no! A biblical world view, like not killing, lying,
stealing, committing adultery, charity toward you neighbor that is not forced.
Is this what scares you Mr. Moyers? The Democrats are the party of abortion and euthanasia,
it defines itself by who it kills. The GOP might not be the party of God but
the current Democratic Party is the party of Moloch.
So it is a heady time in Washington — a heady time
for piety, profits, and military power, all joined at the hip by ideology and
money.
So what is the argument against piety, profits, and military
power? What is wrong with reverence for God? What is so horrible about a profit?
Not everyone can suck from the teats of the government via PBS. Did you think
about Veterans Day when you wrote this venomous article? Did you thank those
people that died to keep the very freedoms you enjoy?
Don't forget the money. It came pouring into this election,
to both parties, from corporate America and others who expect the payback. Republicans
outraised democrats by $184 million dollars. And came up with the big prize
— monopoly control of the American government, and the power of the state
to turn their ideology into the law of the land. Quite a bargain at any price.
Oh yeah, make the political money smear. The Republicans
only win because of the amount of money given to them. If you could just buy
an election then Ross Perot, Donald Trump, and Steve Forbes would have all been
President. Bill Simon could have paid his way into the Governor's Mansion in
California. Republicans have consistently raised more money than the Democrats,
why have they seldom been in control?
The British, Bibles, and shower caps
Business executives are giving the Bible the brush-off in hotel rooms, according
to a survey.
The Bible, placed at bedsides by the Gideon organisation, topped the list of the least useful items found in hotel rooms.
Next most-useless items were shower caps, sweets on the pillow and trouser presses, the survey from website travel company Expedia finds.
Internet connections topped the list of things business
travellers would prefer to see in their rooms, followed by phone and laptop
chargers and work stations.
[Full story][Via
Holy Weblog]
Just wondering
Do radical traditionalists practice Catholischism?
After singing Gregorian Chant would you quench your thirst with a pentatonic?
*The last was inspired by Patrick Madrid's post on All
we are saying is give pizza chants
Hope
The passings of the world are spurious
Tribulations should not worry us
Through His grace we'll be victorious
Jesus' love for us is glorious
I promise not to inflict my poetry on you much in the future or possibly never
again.
Calling all Veterans, free meal
Every Golden
Corral restaurant will offer a free dine-in dinner buffet to all veterans
and active duty military personnel as our way of showing gratitude to all the
men and women who serve and are willing to sacrifice their lives to protect
ours.
This offer is also extended to members of the U.S. Reserves and the National
Guard. All that is required to receive the free dine-in buffet is that all honored
military guests state their military status when coming through the ordering
line the night of the event.
According to Pro-Life Infonet (www.prolifeinfo.org) as cited by Crisis magazine's Deal Hudson :
Fully eight of the top ten Senate races in the country
were won by pro-life candidates, and other pro-life incumbents managed to keep
their seats as well.
Two-thirds of the newly elected House officials are also pro-life.
17 of the 22 candidates sponsored by EMILY's List - a veritable who's who of
pro-abortion politicians - were defeated.
Exit polls conducted by such sources such as Fox News confirmed that many voters
had abortion on their minds when they went to the polls - and the overwhelming
majority of those voters were pro-life. In Missouri, 17 percent of voters said
abortion was their number one concern, second only to the economy (21 percent),
in voting for a senator. Of those 17 percent, 80 percent voted for pro-life
candidate Jim Talent over incumbent pro-choice Senator Jean Carnahan.
The legislative director of National Right to Life said: "It would certainly be fair to say Sen. Carnahan was defeated on the pro-life issue."
Fourteen percent of Minnesota voters said abortion was
their top concern, the third- highest single issue named. Nine percent of the
voters in Georgia felt the same way. Of these voters, the vast majority voted
for pro-life candidates - candidates that went on to big wins.
Hawaii's previous governor was pushing a bill that would make them the second
state to legalize assisted suicide. Instead, voters chose his challenger, Laura
Lingle, who has promised to veto any such bill in the future.
Voters in Nevada also said a decisive "no" to homosexual marriages,
another win for the culture of life.
[Full
story]
Not so funny girl
The Ice Axe offers an insightful commentary on Barbra Streisand's latest message about the Democratic loss.
More failed business ideas
Martha Stewart shivs
Eva Gabor singing "Stand by your man"
A Eminem and Miss Manners collaboration
James Traficant's Hair Club for Men
OJ's Detective Agency
Bin Laden's Mountain Resort
William Shatner's School of Acting
Staple gun locks
Bottled water balloons
Toilet paper available in different grits
Yul Brenner Chia Pets
Nike endorsing the shoe bomber
As welcome as the prayers offered up by Archbishop Paul
Josef Cordes at the Church of the Nativity was the £250,000 that he brought
from the Vatican charity Cor Unum, to improve life for the Palestinian Christian
minority and persuade them to stay.
[Full story]
Once I heard it I was wholly relieved. It was music. It was art. It was beautiful. And as with any good drug, I wanted more.
I am very lucky to have a job that includes testing tech
gadgets. Once I got over the elation of hearing my little girl's heartbeat for
the first time, I checked out my doctor's fetal doppler and said, "Where
can I get one of those?"
Article
contains reviews of various Fetal Dopplers for home use
Talk about close shaves
TROY, N.Y. -- Electric razors that had been rigged with explosives blew up in the faces of two men, wounding both, authorities say.
Federal and local investigators urged shoppers to be careful when buying electric razors, and to call authorities if they see a razor left in a public place. [Full story]
Even more good news for Republicans
WASHINGTON (AP) - California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a liberal
lawmaker with 15 years in Congress, moved to the brink of victory Friday in
the battle for House Democratic party leader, driving her most formidable rival
from the race and pocketing his endorsement.
[Full story]
Nancy Pelosi will bring out-of-touch San Francisco and Berkeley sensibilities
to the minority leadership in Congress. I don't think the GOP could have found
a better leader for the DNC.
Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity Virgin (Carmelite Memorial)
Elizabeth Catez of the Trinity was born in 1880 in the
diocese of Bourges. In 1901 she entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery of
Dijon. There she made her profession of vows in 1903 and from there she was
called "to light, to love and to life" by the Divine Spouse in 1906.
A faithful adorer in spirit and in truth, her life was a "praise of glory"
of the Most Blessed Trinity present in her soul and loved amidst interior darkness
and excruciating illness. In the mystery of divine inhabitation she found her
"heaven on earth," her special charism and her mission for the church.
Entrance Antiphon: Let virgins praise the name
of the Lord, for his name alone is supreme, its majesty outshines both earth
and heaven.
Opening Prayer: O God of bountiful mercy, you
revealed to Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity the mystery of your secret presence
in the heart of those who love you and you chose her to adore you in spirit
and in truth. Through her intercession may we also abide in the love of Christ,
that we may merit to be transformed into temples of your life-giving Spirit
to the praise of your glory. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your
Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and
ever.
Prayer over the Gifts: Lord, we bring you gifts and prayers. We praise
your glory on this feast of the virgin Elizabeth whose witness to Christ was
pleasing to you. Be pleased also with the eucharist we now offer. Grant this
through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon: Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father. We shall
come to him and make our home with him.
Prayer after Communion: Lord, may the mysteries we receive on this feast
of the virgin Elizabeth keep us alert and ready to welcome your Son at his return,
that he may welcome us to the feast of eternal life. Grant this through Christ
our Lord.
I'll have Nun of that or I need this like a Holistic in the head
Looks like the Sisters of Divine
Providence are another group of nunconformists which uses as a site motto
a quote from the Dalai Lama, supports New Ways Ministries, and has Earth Day
Masses. Their diversity includes everything but support for pro-life causes.
Maybe they should have their name changed to Sisters of the vine prove-their-dense.
They offer the following classes:
Hatha Yoga
Learn basic Hatha Yoga postures and breathing techniques
to increase strength, energy, and flexibility. Each class will end with relaxation
time. Wear loose, comfortable clothing and bring a towel or mat.
I just can't bear Yoga. "I don't think the Bishop's gonna
like this, Yogi. Hey Mr. Bishop Sir I just wanna pic-ka-nit basket."
Personal Growth Group
This experiential growth group provides the participant
an opportunity to gain insight for change, healing, and enlightenment. The Human
Energy System (Chakras) will be the basis for the group work. Come to know the
sacred places within yourself and experience taking this knowledge into the world.
How convenient go to pilgrimages of sacred places without ever leaving your
body. I wonder if Chakras is the younger sister of Chaka Khan?
T’ai Chi Chih
T’AI Chi Chih, known as Joy through Movement, is
a moving meditation. It is a series of 19 movements and one pose which are joyous
and easy to learn. These movements are slow, gentle, and can be done by anyone,
regardless of age or physical condition. T’AI Chi chih promotes a holistic,
healthy style of life by circulating and balancing the energy (Chi) in and around
us.
It must be good, the spiritual powerhouse PBS did a thirteen part series on
it. This was invented by the oriental master Justin Stone formerly of the New
York Stock Exchange. Some of these movements are called: Pulling Taffy,
Anchor Taffy, Wrist Circles Taffy, and Perpetual Motion Taffy; I'll stick with
Eating Taffy. Another movement is called "Light at the Top of the Head,
Light at the Temples" which proves their disciples are light-headed.
Sound Healing through Toning
Science and ancient spiritual traditions both suggest
that the basis of matter is vibration and both view creation at a quantum level,
as a quiver with energetic impulses that coalesce in infinite varieties of valences.
The body, too, is part of this vibrating universe and resonates with the body’s
energy centers – one basis of health. This can be optimized through intentional
vibratory activity. In this workshop we’ll explore Toning as a powerful
and elegant way to cultivate the body’s vital energy or (Qi) and enjoy
in the process, a greater sense of balance, wholeness, and well being.
All together now, with the Beach Boys let's sing "'I'm pickin' up good
vibrations (Oom bop bop good vibrations)"
Take Back Your Kids: A Parenting Group
Instructor: Sister Elena Almendarez, CDP, a religious
sister for 19 years, holds a masters degree in spirituality from Duquesne University.
She is currently a spiritual director and membership recruiter for the Sisters
of Divine Providence.
Are your kids wandering away from new age religions? Do your kids think the
only forms of energy are nuclear or coal-fired? Have they fallen into the trap
of orthodoxy and entered the Catholic Church? Do they believe in the concept
of truth or moral absolutes? Do they mock crystals and Shirley Maclaine? If
so then this is the course for them.
Reiki: What is It?
What do you know about Reiki? What concerns and questions
do you have and hear in regards to Reiki? Come for an informational evening
to learn about this ancient healing practice and to have questions addressed.
First the Beach Boys and now Steely Dan.
Reiki don't lose that number
You don't wanna call nobody else
Send it off in a letter to yourself
Reiki don't lose that number
It's the only one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home
[Newspaper
Article][Via Amy Welborn]
Blessed Francis Palau y Quer (Priest - Carmelite Optional Memorial)
Born in Aytona, Lerida, on December 29, 1811, Blessed
Francis Palau y Quer entered the Carmelite Order in 1832 and was ordained priest
in 1836. Civil turmoil forced him to live in exile and outside his community.
On his return to Spain in 1851, he founded his "School of Virtue"
-- which was a model of catechetical teaching -- at Barcelona. The school was
suppressed and he was unjustly exiled to Ibiza (1854-1860) where he lived at
El Vedra in solitude and experienced mystically the vicissitudes of the Church.
While in the Balearic Islands he founded the Congregations of Carmelite Brothers
and Carmelite Sisters (1860-1861). He preached popular missions and spread love
of Our Lady wherever he went. He died at Tarragona on March 20, 1872, and was
beatified by Pope John Paul II on April 24, 1980.
Entrance Antiphon: How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of one who brings
good news, who heralds peace, brings happiness, proclaims salvation.
Opening Prayer: O God, through your Spirit you filled
Blessed Francis your Priest with singular gifts of prayer and apostolic charity.
Through his intercession grant that Christ's beloved Church, refulgent with
the beauty of the Virgin Mother Mary, may be an ever more effective universal
sacrament of salvation. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit one God, for ever and ever.
Prayer over the Gifts: Almighty God, look upon the gifts we bring on this feast
in honour of Blessed Francis. May we who celebrate the mystery of the death
of the Lord imitate the love we celebrate. Grant this through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon: It makes me happy to suffer for you, as I am suffering now, and in my own body to do what I can to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church.
Prayer after Communion: Lord God, Blessed Francis loved you and gave himself completely in the service of your Church. May the eucharist awaken in us that same love. Grant this through Christ our Lord
(CNSNews.com) - President Bush is spending the day in
the White House, after giving his staff firm instructions to avoid gloating
about Republican victories on Election Day. Press reports say Bush is so determined
to avoid even the appearance of gloating, that he will not make any public appearances
Wednesday. Instead, he is making congratulatory calls to victorious Republican
candidates. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush is aiming
for a "touch of graciousness," and therefore he will not have any
public statements on Wednesday, either. Fleischer added that President Bush
"of course looks forward to talking about all the issues with the American
people and will do so," but not on Wednesday. [Full
article]
Well I am not in the White House so: Nah Nah Nah Naaaaah Naaaaah.
INDIANAPOLIS (CNS) -- Treatment of dying patients, legal
complications for family members and government policies were the focus of an
Indianapolis conference on end-of-life issues. Experts from a range of fields
spoke about legal, ethical and medical issues faced at the end of life at the
daylong conference held at Holy Rosary Parish in Indianapolis Oct. 19. Msgr.
Stuart Swetland, director of the Newman Foundation at the University of Illinois
and medical ethics consultant to Provena-Covenant Medical Center in Urbana,
Ill., laid a foundation by explaining Catholic teachings on end- of-life issues.
"The idea of stewardship is that everything that we have is a gift from
God," he said. "Our life is a precious, precious gift. And every life
on this planet is a precious gift from a loving Father." That is why euthanasia,
in which others actively end the life of someone who is suffering, is contrary
to church teaching, he explained. Human lives, like people's possessions, come
from God and are merely entrusted to them temporarily, he said. "We have
the duty to lead our lives in accordance with God's plan," he said. [Via
De Virtutibus]
And then there is the ultimate end-of-life issue - Sanctifying
Grace.
Bride of Chunky
Click For Cans™ is an easy way for you to help your favorite NFL™ team in Tackling Hunger™ with Campbell’s® Chunky soup! Just click on your team’s helmet and we’ll donate one can of a Campbell’s® soup up to a total donation of 5 million cans.
This is for real (as you can tell by the ™ spaced every other word), so visit this site daily to have Campbell donate a can of soup, consider it an e-corporal work of mercy. I clicked on a Bill's helmet and Scott Norwood donated the can but it went wide right.
Demoting Daschel
... The biggest immediate concern under the new Republican Senate power structure
is the absence of a balance of power, Daschle said.
He didn't seem all too concerned with balance when he bribed Jeffords over to his side and then blocked the nomination of every judge and kept legislation from going forward..
...“I’ve been in this job for a long time, but this is the worst night I have had.”
Funny, after I stayed up and found out He lost control
I slept like a baby.
...“They were all optimistic that they were going to win. What happened
was a surprise. I didn’t see it coming,” he said.
In hindsight, Daschle said, he wouldn’t change the
party’s strategy. [Full
article]
I have to agree with him there, their current strategy is fine with me.
The Council of Trent Lott
With the GOP gaining control of the Senate, Senator Trent Lott will now become Majority Leader. I haven't been impressed with his lackluster leadership abilities in the past, but this is a vast improvement over the obstructionist Sen. Tom Daschle. I hope and pray that the Partial Birth Abortion Ban will now quickly move forward to be voted on. The Congress has already passed a version but the Senate was never allowed to vote on it. It will definitely be progress to get at least this horrific procedure removed, which would be a milestone in the pro-life cause. The Total Cloning Ban should also now move forward.
I was also happily surprised that Oregon which had previously passed assisted
suicide legislation by referendum voted
overwhelmingly against the universal health care measure. I posted
previously why I thought that this legislation was a bad idea.
For the first time Florida has reelected a Republican Governor, even thought
Jeb Bush was the prime opposition target. Unfortunately I am still being represented
by the pro-death pro-corruption Corrine Brown. Here in Florida the pig pro-life
cause was successful with a constitutional amendment protecting pregnant pigs,
though I voted against adding this to the Florida Constitution. Florida voters
also approved an amendment limiting class sizes, which I think is stupid since
I there isn't any evidence of a connection between learning and small class
sizes. An out of control public school class with only 34 students is still
a problem. The problem is with political correctness, low expectations, and
discipline; not student-teacher ratios. Also elected was Charles Bronson (R)
for Commissioner of Agriculture so any crop killers out there had better not
mess with him unless they have a death wish.
It is fitting that "Jumping" Jim Jeffords who jumped from the Republicans
to gain chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under
the Democrats will now be left totally out in the cold in Senate politics.
I remember earlier yesterday feeling some doom and gloom about the chances of a pro-life victory with the Republicans taking control of the Senate. Saint Teresa of Avila's words came to me that "God alone is sufficient" and in the long run victories and defeats will always end up in his hands. I also remembered what Mother Teresa had said, that "We are not called to be successful, we are called to be faithful."
Bl. Josepha Naval Girbes, Virgin (From the Carmelite Calendar for Nov 6)
Josepha Naval Girbes was born at Algemesi in the Archdiocese of Valencia, Spain, on December 11, 1820. As a very young woman she consecrated herself to the Lord by a perpetual vow of chastity. Josepha's life was simple. She stood out for her ardent love, and she made progress along the way of prayer and evangelical perfection while dedicating herself generously to apostolic works in her parish community. In her own home she opened a school where she taught needlework, prayer, and the evangelical virtues. She formed many young girls and women and shared with them her wisdom and spiritual understanding. She was a member of the Third Order Secular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. Teresa of Jesus and had a special love for the Virgin Mother of God. Her holy death took place on February 24, 1893. She is buried in her parish church of St. James in her native city.
Opening Prayer
O God,
through the new leaven of the Gospel,
You call men and women and empower them
to serve You faithfully in secular life.
Grant that they may fervently imitate
the example of Blessed Josepha,
and, through her intercession,
work tirelessly as true Christians to build up Your kingdom
by fulfilling their duties in the world.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord,
we see the wonder of Your love
in the life of the virgin Josepha
and her witness to Christ.
Accept our gifts of praise
and make our offering pleasing to you.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon
The bridegroom is here; let us go out to meet Christ the Lord.
Prayer after Communion
Lord God,
may this Eucharist renew our courage and strength.
May we remain close to You like Bl. Josepha
by accepting in our lives
a share in the suffering of Jesus Christ,
Who lives and reigns with You for ever and ever.
First Reading
Corinthians 1: 26-31
For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly
standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose
what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the
world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world,
even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human
being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ
Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption;
therefore, as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord."
Responsorial Psalm
R/. Keep my soul in peace before You, O Lord.
Psalm 130
Gospel
Matthew 11:25-30
At that time Jesus declared, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and
revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will. All things
have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the
Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son
chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle
and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy,
and my burden is light."
God is so cool
Dylan brought to my attention that the former Donna Rice involved in the Gary
Hart sexual scandal is now Donna Hughes president of a group called Enough
is Enough which is an advocate to protect children and families from Internet
pornography.
There are no easy answers, no quick solutions. But God
is the great Restorer. In my case, I learned that although God loves us, he
doesn't grant us immunity from the consequences of our choices. However, when
we mess up, if we ask his forgiveness he'll redeem those choices, using our
mistakes as a "door of hope" for other people.
[Interview Christianity
Today]
[Protectkids.com]
And the winner is...
Last week I won a pair of tacky toenail clippers for a blog title renaming contest and now I have been declared the winner in Pete Vere's Schism contest for my suggestion "Screams of Conscious". There were a lot of excellent suggestions for titles and I am interested to see what Pete might do with this title. At least this time I won Pete's e-book Schism and since I am a long time horror aficionado I look forward to reading it.
Some quotes
"The noblest of all forms of government is self-government;
but it is also the most difficult."
--Theodore Roosevelt
"I strongly suspect that if we saw all the difference
even the tiniest of our prayers make, and all the people those little prayers
were destined to affect, and all the consequences of those prayers down through
the centuries, we would be so paralyzed with awe at the power of prayer that
we would be unable to get up off our knees for the rest of our lives."
--Peter Kreeft
Blue Blog Screen of Death
Picture the following scenario: Microsoft has created a weblog tool that is designed to run inside the firewall at a company. It's browser-accessible from any 4.0 or higher web browser and doesn't require Windows on the client. It leverages their strengths by integrating with Office, and there's no per-user client access fee. Then imagine if this weblogging tool were deployed to millions of users, all before anyone in the weblog community took notice.
That scenario is real.
[Full
article]
I guess Microsoft looked at blogger and a saw software
that crashed continuously, lost archives, and gave meaningless error numbers
and said "Hey we can do that". In fact I am surprised that they didn't
see blogger as some kind of copyright infringement on their crash-prone software.
Young at Hart
Tuesday, November 05, 2002 - WASHINGTON - Gary Hart, the former Colorado senator whose presidential campaign imploded in a sex scandal 15 years ago, is seriously considering a new bid for the White House.
A sex scandal derailed Gary Hart’s 1988 bid for the U.S. presidency. Saying the nation needs leadership and politics is starving for ideas, Hart, 65, said he has begun taking seriously the urging of friends that he seek the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. [Full story]
Gary Hart is probably thinking that he had to stop his presidential bid because of a sex scandal and then Bill Clinton served two terms as President and now demo-dinosaurs such as Mondale and Lautenberg careers have been resuscitated, why shouldn't he be in the running again?
Church Bull-etin
Trojan Horseshoes fisks a "for the children"
type church bulletin. [Via
Instapundit]
Coming out of Mass today I was delighted to see that someone had put a "Vote Pro-Life" card on my cars windshield. It was created by the National Right to Life PAC and was well made with a list of pro-life candidates on it. Kevin Miller offers an excellent post on pro-life voting.
Conscientious objector or I object to your conscience
We chatted about a number of things before the topic of politics came up. She gave high approval ratings to certain politicians who hold to political ideologies contrary to Catholic morals. I didn't want to start an argument, but I couldn't let this one go by. So I simply asked her:
"Kathy, are you aware that the politicians you mentioned staunchly support anti-Catholic causes such as partial-birth abortion, worldwide condom distribution and stem-cell experimentation?" I noticed Kathy began to squirm a bit in her seat.
"Father, I don't judge any political leader on a single issue like abortion," she said. "I make my decision after weighing his position on a broad range of issues."
"What issue," I replied, "could be more
important than a person's life?" Her forced smile vanished. With a rather
terse tone of voice, she retorted: "Like most Catholics, on these matters,
I follow my conscience. Whomever I decide to support politically is, for me,
a matter for my own conscience."
[National Catholic
Register - Read the full article]
A while ago I heard someone on the radio say "Conscience is always student
and never professor." Society now has this totally backwards, your ill
formed conscience is now king and you can sound really morally superior by saying
"I have to follow my conscience." Worse is when they appeal to the
words attributed to the Venerable John Henry Newman "He who acts against his
conscience loses his soul", talk about taking something out of context. Read
the following for a letter he wrote on conscience.
Cardinal
John Henry Newman. Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.
Psalm 31:15-16, 20
My times are in thy hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors!
Let thy face shine on thy servant; save me in thy steadfast love! In the covert
of thy presence thou hidest them from the plots of men; thou holdest them safe
under thy shelter from the strife of tongues.
Holy Mother of God,
hear the prayers of the Church
for all mothers,
especially those wearied by life
and overcome by the suffering
they bear for their children.
Hail Mary...
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
intercede for them
from your place in heaven,
that the mercy of your divine Son
might lighten their burden
and give them strength.
Hail Mary...
Glory to the Father....
Our Lady of Sorrows
We end as we began nine days ago: with Mary, weeping silently beside the cross.
Weeping for the innocent child so violently taken. Weeping for the nation which
has let him die. Weeping for her child and for ourselves, we place them both
in her arms.
Envoy Encore
Envoy's blog Encore
is an excellent apologetics blog even with the first post being Patrick Madrid
slamming Catholic blogs.
"Some of what's out there on the Catholic blogs I've visited in recent months is pretty good. Some of it is great. But a sizeable amount of what I've seen so far is, frankly, pretentious spewage."
Actually I think "pretentious spewage" is a great name for a blog, especially mine. Is Pete Vere out to conquer Catholic blogdom? First Catholic Light now Encore, will his blogkrieg roll over Poland next?
Fritz on the economy or economy on the Fritz?
I heard part of a speech by Walter Fritz Mondale the other day where he talked
about the current economy. I really miss the days of Carter/Mondale where we
had 21 percent inflation and real high jobless rates. I think he would be a
real valuable voice on economic ideas along as you do exactly the opposite of
anything he recommends. Mondale once allegedly replied to Dan Rostenkowksi "Look
at 'em, we're going to tax their *** off."
Rich Galen had an article on the Mondale Myth where he listed the following.
* Let's review Mondale's career:
- APPOINTED to be the Attorney General of Minnesota. Won re- elections as an
incumbent.
- APPOINTED to the U.S. Senate after Hubert Humphrey became Vice President.
Won re-elections as an incumbent.
- SELECTED as Jimmy Carter's Vice Presidential running mate in 1976.
- Served one term in what was arguably NOT one of the greatest administrations
in the history of the Republic.
Honor thy term papers
DURHAM, N.C. — Like most other college students, Eric Rogers knows that
submitting a term paper taken off the Internet is outright plagiarism, cause
for suspension or a failing grade.
What about using a paragraph?
"Just a paragraph?" he said. Beneath a Duke cap worn backward, he pondered. "A big paragraph or a small paragraph?"
"Taking a paragraph and changing words, I've done that before; it wasn't a big deal," he decided finally. "As long as I can manipulate it to be my words, change a few, it's not cheating."
...Given research that shows less cheating at colleges with strong honor codes than at those without them, some campuses are adopting codes for the first time
..."It's a psychological effect: if people expect
you to be honorable, you are more likely to respond with honorable behavior,"
said Nannerl O. Keohane, the president of Duke. "We have to build a culture
where people are genuinely offended by cheating."
[Full story]
What a concept in modern society, expecting people to be honorable and they most will likely be. I thought prevailing thought was that behavior can't be changed and that they are going to do it anyway. If they treated term paper cheating like sex then they would be handing out pre-written papers. Old Oligarch had an excellent post on this topic before.
Philippians 2:6-11
Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing
to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born
in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly
exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at
the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the
earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father.
Holy Mother of God,
hear the prayers of the Church
for all mothers,
especially those wearied by life
and overcome by the suffering
they bear for their children.
Hail Mary...
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
intercede for them
from your place in heaven,
that the mercy of your divine Son
might lighten their burden
and give them strength.
Hail Mary...
Glory to the Father....
Sunday is a time to take stock. We look all around us at Church and see them:
all the people whose kids never seem to scream and who look like they haven't
a problem in the world! But what if we really knew them? We would see the ‘secret
sufferings' that mirror our own. That's the meaning of Sunday, after all. It
is the gathering of those who have looked at the their own brokenness through
the lens of the cross, and live! Sunday is the perfect day to pray for all God's
broken children and especially those who are tempted to break the lives of others.
Grave error
Dylan
offers an excellent analysis of the "emetic hypocrisy" of the Kansas
Supreme Court decision on a Unborn Monument.
[Full
story] [Oblique
House take]
This decision is a monument to stupidity. An attorney for the cemetery said
"It's not for advertising or the espousal of political or theological messages
or anything else." I think the Kansas Supreme Court could have taken this advice
themselves instead of inflicting this tortured reasoning on us.
Dog posing runway hazard, shot
A schnauzer who escaped from a travel kennel was shot as it ran across the runway at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport Tuesday night.
The dog got out of its kennel, ran on the ramp and then out onto the runway about 5:20 p.m., said Ted Bushelman, director of communications for the airport. [Full story]
They need some dog identification training there, they must have mistaken a schnauzer for a terrier-ist.
"What should be just as shocking (as alleged clergy
sexual abuse against minors) is the documented failure of abortion providers,
upon learning that a minor female has been impregnated by an adult male, to
report this crime to authorities," Dillon wrote in a letter to county Presiding
Officer Judy Jacobs, D-Woodbury.
[Full
story]
What is this DA thinking, doesn't he know that abortionists are outside the law. Abortuaries are for the most part exempt from medical and safety inspections. Right-to-Know laws have tried to be written to force them to give the same informed consent as other medical procedures. Now they want ethical abortionists to turn in statutory rape cases?
Psalm 31:2-3, 3-4, 5-6
Incline thy ear to me, rescue me speedily! Be thou a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me! Yea, thou art my rock and my fortress; for thy
name's sake lead me and guide me, take me out of the net which is hidden for
me, for thou art my refuge. Into thy hand I commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed
me, O LORD, faithful God. Thou hatest those who pay regard to vain idols; but
I trust in the LORD.
Holy Mother of God,
hear the prayers of the Church
for all mothers,
especially those wearied by life
and overcome by the suffering
they bear for their children.
Hail Mary...
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
intercede for them
from your place in heaven,
that the mercy of your divine Son
might lighten their burden
and give them strength.
Hail Mary...
Glory to the Father....
The Holy Cross
Each time I pray, I am called to join my prayer with Christ's perfect prayer
upon the cross. It is easy from the vantage of the cross to see the world clearly.
To see how easy it is to join the suffering of the innocent to the suffering
of him who is without sin. We should work for an end to all the forms of violence
which threaten life. That is a wonderful good. But it is even more important
to stand with the Virgin Mother and to beg her son to come to our aid.
I, Jeff Miller, with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the symbol of faith: namely,
I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is visible and invisible. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
With firm faith I believe as well everything contained in God's word, written or handed down in tradition and proposed by the church--whether in solemn judgment or in the ordinary and universal magisterium--as divinely revealed and called for faith.
I also firmly accept and hold each and every thing that is proposed by that same church definitively with regard to teaching concerning faith or morals.
What is more, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate when they exercise the authentic magisterium even if they proclaim those teachings in an act that is not definitive.
Just wondering
If you have written a lot about pro-life are you considered prolific?
If you are going to write out cuss works shouldn't you use cursive?.
When Saul had removed from the land all of the spiritists, did Israel become medium rare?
A pro-life Novena for the upcoming election (Day 6)
Colossians 3:12-17
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness,
meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against
another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must
forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in
perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed
you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and sing psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever
you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God the Father through him.
Holy Mother of God,
hear the prayers of the Church
for all mothers,
especially those wearied by life
and overcome by the suffering
they bear for their children.
Hail Mary...
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
intercede for them
from your place in heaven,
that the mercy of your divine Son
might lighten their burden
and give them strength.
Hail Mary...
Glory to the Father....
Prayer for Life Begins in the Home
I know of another family which used to pray for unborn children every Friday
night. They chose Friday because that's when Christ, innocent and without sin,
was sent to the cross. There's no prayer more powerful than that said over little
folded hands asking God to "take care of all the babies who you've made."
Don't become a horror film victim
Read Domenico Bettinelli's post on Halloween tips for safety.
Meat-and-Potato Catholics
The Quenta Nârwenion blog has a very funny article from First Things Magazine.
Mysteries of Light
I am especially appreciative today of the gift that the Holy Father has given us in the Mysteries of Light for the Rosary. I really enjoy the sacramental focus that can be meditated on. The Baptism in Jordan presents the sacraments of initiation: Baptism and Confirmation. Cana where Jesus first public miracle in connection with the sacrament of marriage. The institution of the Eucharist presents a sacramental grand slam of the Priesthood and the Eucharist which opens the door to the sacraments of confession and anointing of the sick. Thank you John Paul II.
Those whacky Wiccans
Frustrated by an unsuccessful campaign to achieve religious recognition from
the Boy Scouts of America, a Seattle-based Wicca church has launched its own
youth program, which is based on tolerance for different beliefs, including
differences in sexual orientation.
SpiralScouts founder Pete "Pathfinder" Davis believes that many of the things the Boy Scouts are doing are "socially inappropriate." He said he created the SpiralScouts to "fill the void left by prejudicial treatment of other established children's programs."
Davis, who serves as the Archpriest of the Wiccan Aquarian
Tabernacle Church, said his main argument with the BSA is that the group has
refused to recognize Wicca as an acceptable form of worship, but at the same
time, the BSA incorporates the symbols of myriad Christian denominations into
its Religious Emblems program.
[Full
story]
I wonder if they will offer demerit badges in hex casting and broom piloting?
Will they have different levels like tender-warlock up to mage scouts?
Ann Coulter's latest
After all the speculation about the sniper terrorizing Maryland and Virginia, at last we have some cold hard facts. He is a Muslim. He converted to Islam 17 years ago. He changed his name to John Muhammad. He belonged to Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam. He cheered the terrorist attack of Sept. 11. He registered his getaway vehicle with the DMV on the anniversary of Sept. 11 – writing down the time of registration as 8:52 a.m.
Naturally, therefore, the mainstream media have decided the crucial, salient fact about sniper John Muhammad is that he is a Gulf War veteran. Thus, the New York Times described the snipers as: "John Allen Muhammad, 41, a Gulf War veteran, and John Lee Malvo, 17, a Jamaican."
They are now hot on the trail of whether Osama bin Laden
ever served with the U.S. military in the Gulf War.
[Full
Column]
After listening to the media's coverage, I have been worried that since I served in the Navy during the Gulf War (pushing a desk at NAS Pax River, MD), I will start to develop anti-US tendencies and go on a killing spree.
No Fuss Halloween Costumes
Zorak
posted a funny list of "Halloween Costumes Requiring Minimal Pre-Halloween
Preparation" yesterday. These are my suggestions of what to dress as:
Former Fetus - No preparation required at all.
Iraqi Soldier - Surrender to anyone who passes by you.
A pro-life Democrat - People have forgotten what they look like, so you could wear anything.
A popup ad - Just jump in front of people and annoy them until they knock you down.
Government worker - Walk around and be generally unhelpful.
A liberal - Pass out other peoples candies to children.
As easy as stealing candy from a 10-year old
LORAIN, Ohio -- An admitted candy thief has been ordered to pass out Halloween treats Thursday, NewsChannel5 reported.
Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Edward Zaleski sentenced Edward Rivera, 19, to the deed after Rivera pleaded guilty to knocking down a 10-year-old boy last Halloween and stealing his candy. Charges of assault and robbery were dropped. The candy thief will also have to wear a sign that says, "I'm sorry. I will not steal from children." [Full story]
Night of the Living Democrat
Tired of the old electoral fraud of having dead people vote in an election, they have gone for the twist of having live people vote for dead candidates. Senator Torricelli was only politically dead, in fact they have placed a "do not resuscitate" sign on his career. Now we have two political has-beens running for office who in their past political careers had criticized their opponents for age. Frank Lautenberg's and Walter Mondale's ideology have been patched together from bits of rotting progressive ideas and now they have been resurrected in a Dr. Frankenstein like fashion. Be warned, they are now roaming around loose in the country scaring villagers about social security and the economy. Ironically they are against the "death tax" and want to repeal it. Be also on the lookout for Dr. Frankenstein's diabolical assistant Al Egore in a bearded or unbearded form. Fellow villagers, I plead with you, pick up your pitch forks, torches, and other farm implements and chase these denizens of the demo-underworld back into their lairs.
Hebrews 5:7-9
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud
cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard
for his godly fear. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what
he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation
to all who obey him,
Holy Mother of God,
hear the prayers of the Church
for all mothers,
especially those wearied by life
and overcome by the suffering
they bear for their children.
Hail Mary...
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
intercede for them
from your place in heaven,
that the mercy of your divine Son
might lighten their burden
and give them strength.
Hail Mary...
Glory to the Father....
Pray for Families
I know of a family which prays each night. Since the kids were little they are
gathered from their games and their grumbling to the couch in the living room.
There they pray for those whom they love and those they have a hard time loving.
They pray for the unborn and for little babies. They pray for the sick and the
dying. They pray for the Church and for their priest. Many a night it was the
knowledge of those prayers that gave me hope and peace and a good night's sleep.
Shame, Shame, Shame
In a bizarre plea to the GOP to forfeit the race for
Paul Wellstone's Senate seat, a Wellstone family friend told the memorial service
for the late liberal Tuesday night that both local and national Republicans
owed it to Wellstone to abandon their support for his GOP opponent, Norm Coleman,
as a tribute to the dead senator's memory.
"Can we not set aside for just one week all of the
partisan bickering, all of the political strategy and all of the nastiness,"
Rick Kahn told the crowd gathered at the University of Minnesota's Williams
Arena. "So that we may come together as a people in deepest mourning to
celebrate and truly honor his memory." [Full
story] [Clinton
and Mondale]
Is this the same political party that castigated the GOP for selling a picture
of the President in Air Force One on 9-11? This is a new low and I thought I
was pretty cynical where the current Democratic party is concerned, but I wouldn't
have expected this of them. The picture of Bill Clinton reminds me of him at
Ron Brown's funeral. He was laughing it up and when he noticed that the cameras
had turned on him he instantly wiped his eye and shed a tear.
A pro-life Novena for the upcoming election (Day 4)
Luke 2:33-35
And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon
blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for
the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against
(and a sword will pierce through your own soul also),
Holy Mother of God,
hear the prayers of the Church
for all mothers,
especially those wearied by life
and overcome by the suffering
they bear for their children.
Hail Mary...
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
intercede for them
from your place in heaven,
that the mercy of your divine Son
might lighten their burden
and give them strength.
Hail Mary...
Glory to the Father....
Pray for All Children
The eyes of a child are an infinite well of life, hope and goodness. If you
doubt the value of life, look into the eyes of a child. If you are worn by life's
worries, look into the eyes of a child. If you want to see tomorrow, look into
the eyes of a child. And what you will see is the divine spark which brought
beauty out of chaos, the infinite beauty, which is the presence of the Creator
in his creation.
Yea for the ACLJ
The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals has rescinded a threat to discipline
a nurse under its employ who refused to dispense the "morning after"
pill.
As reported by WorldNetDaily, Cynthia Day, a nurse at a clinic in New Orleans, said last week she had repeatedly told her supervisors that she can't dispense the pill because she believes life is sacred and begins at fertilization, and that doing so would violate her deeply held religious beliefs. She indicated her employer had threatened to fire her because of her refusal to dispense the pregnancy-ending medication.
The American Center for Law and Justice, a public- interest law firm that represents Day, announced yesterday that her employer has agreed to stop asking the woman to dispense the drug and has rescinded proposed disciplinary action. [Full story]
Some failed endorsements and business start-ups
Mother Teresa and Oil of Olay
Hannibal Lecter Happy Meal
Bill Clinton Blue Dress Laundry and Cigar Emporium
Michael Jackson Day Care
al-Qaida Airlines
Dick Gephardt Tanning Salon
Al Gore Mannequins
Condoleezza Rice-a- Roni
George Foreman Book of Child Names
Ted Kennedy Life Vests
George W. Bush Hooked on Phonics
Johnny Walker Lindh book "Afghanistan on Five dollars a day"
Don King Hair Salon
Matt Talbot Ale
Saddam Hussein 's Better Homes & Bunkers
Padre Pio's real estate tips book "bilocation, bilocation, bilocation"
O'Reilly' Max Factor cosmetics
A pro-life Novena for the upcoming election (Day 3)
John 19:25-27
So the soldiers did this. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother,
and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Mag'dalene. When
Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said
to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" Then he said to the disciple,
"Behold, your mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her to
his own home.
Holy Mother of God,
hear the prayers of the Church
for all mothers,
especially those wearied by life
and overcome by the suffering
they bear for their children.
Hail Mary...
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
intercede for them
from your place in heaven,
that the mercy of your divine Son
might lighten their burden
and give them strength.
Hail Mary...
Glory to the Father....
Pray for Fathers at the Birth of their Child
"At first I was petrified," Jon told me. "Petrified that I would
faint or get in the way or not know what to do to help Sarah. But then I prayed
to Mary. I know, praying to Mary is something you'd think a mother would be
doing. But somehow, I think Mary understood Saint Joseph more than anyone else.
She probably saw the fear in his eyes and sensed the restlessness of his heart.
She probably spent a lot of time praying for him as well. And when I prayed
to Mary for my child about to be born, I knew she understood and heard me and
prayed for me to her son. At first I was petrified, and then I put everything
into God's hands."
Hole-ier than thou
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - A woman, fired from her job at a Costco store for refusing to remove her eyebrow ring, has sued the discount retailer for $2 million, saying the company violated her religious beliefs.
Kimberly M. Cloutier of West Springfield, Mass., said she belongs to the Church of Body Modification, and that her piercings, which include several earrings in each ear, are worn as a sign of her faith. [Full story] [Via Holy Weblog]
I wonder who their minister is? Could it be Pierce Brosnan?
Wellfounded hope?
Domestic partners Michael Meehan and Thomas Dysarz worried
over how the Roman Catholic church would receive their quadruplets, given the
doctrine that homosexual acts are sinful and surrogate motherhood is prohibited.
But yesterday, the Rev. Paul Prabell blessed the men as he would any other parents and baptized their 3-month-old quadruplets at Lexington's Cathedral of Christ the King.
"This is what Christ would do," said Meehan,
the quadruplets' biological father, after the ceremony. "He blessed people
who were cast out of the church. (The babies) are God's children. That's how
the church should view it." [Full
story]
Can. 868 §1 For an infant to be baptized lawfully it is required:
1° that the parents, or at least one of them, or the person who lawfully holds their place, give their consent;
2° that there be a wellfounded hope that the child will be brought up in the catholic religion. If such hope is truly lacking, the baptism is, in accordance with the provisions of particular law, to be deferred and the parents advised of the reason for this.
Geek Tip Update
I updated the sample code below to help eliminate problems.
A pro-life Novena for the upcoming election (Day 2)
Matthew 1:18-23
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had
been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with
child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling
to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered this,
behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph,
son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived
in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name
Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place
to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, a virgin shall
conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which
means, God with us).
Holy Mother of God,
hear the prayers of the Church
for all mothers,
especially those wearied by life
and overcome by the suffering
they bear for their children.
Hail Mary...
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
intercede for them
from your place in heaven,
that the mercy of your divine Son
might lighten their burden
and give them strength.
Hail Mary...
Glory to the Father....
The Birth of the Virgin Mary - Pray for Mothers who will Give Birth Today
"At first I as scared," Sarah told me. "I was scared, excited
and filled with the most incredible expectation. It was like those words we
hear at Mass: we wait in joyful hope. I thought of all those women who feel
the first kick, the stirrings of life deep within them. I prayed for them, that
they would love their child, cherish their little baby and know that in being
a mother they are involved in something so much bigger than themselves. They
have been chosen by God to be custodians of the mystery of life. At first I
was scared, and then I just cried ... with joy."
Blog E-mail Geek Tip
The Old
Oligarch warned:
From what I can tell, there's a weblog-combing robot working
its way through the blogosphere, collecting publicly-available e-mail addresses,
and then sending spam and / or suspicious attachments to other bloggers. I've
gotten two e-mails from people about this during my week- long absence.
To prevent this from happening to publicly available e-mail addresses such
as in weblogs do the following.
Replace your current mailto: line with the following.:
<script language="Javascript">
document.write("<a href='mailto:" + "som" + "eone@som"
+ "ething.com'><b>E-Mail Me</b></a><br>");
</script> Democrats Continue to Spurn Catholics
The Democratic National Committee's refusal to remove a link on their website to a viciously anti-Catholic organization - the badly misnamed Catholics For a Free Choice - despite demands from the head of the National Council of Catholic Bishops that they do so reflects the trend of Democrat Catholic-bashing now becoming increasingly obvious.
The latest example of this trend was the refusal of Democrat Florida gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride to respond to a questionnaire from the state's official Catholic newspaper and two statewide Catholic]organizations. [Full story]
A pro-life Novena for the upcoming election (Day 1)
Luke 7:11-15
Soon afterward he went to a city called Na'in, and his disciples and a great
crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man
who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was
a widow; and a large crowd from the city was with her. And when the Lord saw
her, he had compassion on her and said to her, "Do not weep." And
he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young
man, I say to you, arise." And the dead man sat up, and began to speak.
And he gave him to his mother.
Holy Mother of God,
hear the prayers of the Church
for all mothers,
especially those wearied by life
and overcome by the suffering
they bear for their children.
Hail Mary...
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
intercede for them
from your place in heaven,
that the mercy of your divine Son
might lighten their burden
and give them strength.
Hail Mary...
Glory to the Father....
"As we contemplate this Mother, whose heart ‘a sword has pierced'
(cf. Lk 2:35), our thoughts go to all the suffering women in the world, suffering
either physically or morally. In this suffering a woman's sensitivity plays
a role, even though she often succeeds in resisting suffering better than a
man. It is difficult to enumerate these sufferings; it is difficult to call
them all by name. We may recall her maternal care for her children, especially
when they fall sick or fall into bad ways; the death of those most dear to her;
the loneliness of mothers forgotten by their grown-up children; the loneliness
of widows; the sufferings of women who struggle alone to make a living; and
women who have been wronged or exploited. Then there are the sufferings of consciences
as a result of sin, which has wounded the woman's human or maternal dignity:
the wounds of consciences which do not heal easily. With these sufferings too
we must place ourselves at the foot of the Cross." -- Pope John Paul II
(Mulieris Dignitatem, 21)
Labor Day - Pray for the Suffering Women of the World
Labor day usually brings to mind images of factory workers, farmers or heavy
equipment operators. Yet we also use labor to describe the first work which
brought each one of us to birth: those first hours of maternal sacrifice which
brought us into the world. It's too easy to forget that and all the other sacrifices
which the vocation of motherhood entails. Pray for the mothers "in labor"
today. Those who give birth. Those who work two jobs to support a child. Those
who "go without" so their child's needs are met. Those whose patient
endurance is a sign of God's love upon the cross.
Personally opposed to so-called Catholic politicians
SANTA FE, New Mexico, Oct 23, 02 (CWNews.com) - The Archdiocese of Santa Fe on Tuesday defended its decision to distribute a flier highlighting the views of gubernatorial candidates on abortion at all its parishes over the weekend.
The fliers, published by Right to Life of New Mexico, highlighted Republican John Sanchez's pro- life views in contrast to Democrat Bill Richardson's pro-abortion views. Father Bennett Voorhies, chancellor of the archdiocese, said he apologized if the fliers were construed as an endorsement of a candidate.
The flier detailed Richardson's 1984-1997 record as congressman from New Mexico and said: "Richardson's record shows a lack of respect for human life. As governor, he would not serve the people of New Mexico on the life issues any better than he did as a congressman."
Richardson has said he is a Catholic and is personally opposed to abortion, but doesn't believe the government should interfere in a woman's decision to have an abortion.
I am sick and tired of hearing the "personally opposed" crap, I wish they would come up with a new lie. Bravo to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe for their flyer. Unfortunately opposition to abortion almost always eliminates all but one candidate and is an implied endorsement. Where are the separation of church and state activists when it comes to the government interfering with free speech rights in churches? Steven Riddle brought it to my attention that in Mississippi in a couple of races you actually have a choice between two 100% pro-life candidates. Massachusetts is extremely pro-abort, even the Republicans are promoting the culture of death. I think tomorrow would be a good day to start a pro-life novena for the Nov 5 election.
Sniper with a taste for irony?
Sources said Muhammad's car - purchased at Sure Shot Auto Sales in Trenton [Full story]
First is was reported that John Muhammad got his drivers license on 9/11, now this. I checked the Yellow Pages for Trenton, NJ and there definitely is a auto dealership with that name.
1. A polytheist prisoner must be killed. No amnesty may be granted to him,
nor can he be ransomed.
2. All infidel polytheists and the People of the Book (i.e., Jews and Christians)
are to be killed. They may not be granted amnesty, nor can they be ransomed.
3. Amnesty and ransom are the only two ways to deal with (surviving) prisoners.
4. Amnesty and ransom are possible only after the killing of a large number
of prisoners.
5 .The Imam, or someone acting on his behalf, can choose between killing, amnesty,
ransom or enslaving the prisoner. [Full
story]
Waiting on Ed McMahon to bring me my prize
Berhardt Varenius announced a blog
renaming contest the other day.
I've been thinking lately that the name "Varenius"
for the blog is not a very revealing one. It may be time to give the blog a
new name that better reflects the actual contents here. Here's the list of alternatives
thus far:
All Anti-Socialist, All the Time
In Praise of Norwegian Blogger
Burke, Burke, and More Burke
Varenius' Vacation Notices
and it appear I have won!
The results for the Rename the Blog Contest are in, and
the winner is... Anti-Socialist Tendencies, suggested by Atheist to a Theist!
Congratulations Jeff! Your prize is... uhh... hmmm... let me see... [rummages
through junk on desk] Oh yes! A toenail clipper with a picture of the Virgin
of Guadalupe on it! Direct from a tacky little shop in Mexico City, and forged
in the finest steel mills of Korea. Enjoy it in good health, you lucky dog you!
And now, I officially rename this blog... Anti-Socialist Tendencies!
I am eagerly awaiting my tacky toenail clippers and I won't give them up without a fight, so airport security checkers beware.
Ironic Spam
Fed up with garbage in your inbox?
Tired of hitting the delete key when reading your e-mail?
I was spammed by a company selling spam deletion software.
Being OBSTATnate
Just a question about punctuation and post titles, why is it that some of nihil obstat's post titles have punctuation at the end of it and some do not? I couldn't deduce any rule by looking at the various titles. The unnamed one also hasn't updated the blog archive links. I suspect nihil obstat hasn't pounced on my blog since the very beginning because the innominate one would spend way too much time detailing grammatical errors. I use commas, semicolons, and dashes with reckless abandon and it would probably render the unknown one comma-tose from semi-colon cancer for a prolonged period. Will the grammar-sniper ever come out of hiding?
Blogspot Blues
Amazing, blogger has been down most of the day and Gregory Popcak has yet to boast. Normally by this time he would be trying to incur server envy and my-own-domain classism. Contrary to what Mr. Popcak jokingly says there are some Catholic blogs to go to other than Heart, Mind & Strength when blogspot is down. So when blogspot is down relax, click and enjoy:
Musings of a Catholic Seminarian
In Light of the Law: A Canon Lawyer's Blog
Metanoia Thoughts of a prospective Catholic
These "Chevrolet Presents: Come Together and Worship" stage shows, debuting Nov. 1 in Atlanta, already are sparking outrage and praise. [Full story]
Pro-Abortion Democrat is repetitive
Someone from stopgranhom.com left a comment about their site in a post below. I had checked out this site the other day and was greatly impressed by their totally Catholic response of fasting and praying for the conversion of Jennifer Granholm. What does she think she is doing being a pro-abortion Catholic and running for Governor, isn't that the requirement for being a theologian. Here in Florida there is not one pro-life Democrat running for state or federal office here. I know that there are pro-life Democrats, I think one was allegedly spotted at Area 51. In my district we have a choice between Corrine Brown and Jennifer Carroll. Corrine Brown, a pro-abort, and is in my opinion the most corrupt person in Congress currently serving, which is not an easy task. I am glad that a Republican running for District 1 with the odd name of Jeff Miller is 100 percent pro-life
Mark
Shea links to the National Catholic
Register whose front page contains two stories on the Mandatum and academias
response to it. The loyalty oath required contains a major problem for theologians,
namely orthodoxy and obedience. What were they thinking? I have edited the oath
to be more in keeping with most theologians teaching today.
The Oath of Infidelity
I, (name of dissenter), on assuming the office of false shepherd at [Catholic in name only college], promise that I shall always preserve communion with my understanding of the Catholic Church whether in the words I speak or in the way I seem to act.
With great feeling and infidelity I shall carry out the responsibilities by which I feel intellectually bound in relation to both the universal faithful and to the particular faith community in which I am called to exercise my service according to the requirements of my cognitive discernment.
In carrying out my charge, I shall preserve whatever part of Deposit of the Faith meets my needs, hand it on filtered through my biases and make it seem pedestrian. As a result, I shall shun whatsoever teachings are contrary to my ill-formed conscience.
I shall follow and foster the common discipline of the magisterium of the faithful and shall look after the observance of all politically correct doctrines, especially those which are contained within the New York Times.
With Christian disobedience I shall disassociate myself with what is expressed by the so-called holy shepherds as inauthentic doctors and teachers of a patriarchal faith, or anything established by the male dominated structures in Rome.
May my concept of God help me in this way.
If for research purposes only you are looking for either "The Profession
of Faith" or "The Oath of Fidelity to be taken when undertaking an
Office in the name of the Church", just go to womenpriest.org
the first stop for magisterial documents and loyalty oaths.
A survey of 1,854 priests nationwide found that nearly four in 10 priests under the age of 41 described themselves as conservative, while 30 percent of all priests described themselves as liberal and 37 percent as moderate.
The younger clerics expressed more allegiance to the
clerical hierarchy, less dissent against traditional church teachings and more
certainty about the sinfulness of homosexuality, abortion, artificial birth
control and other moral issues than their elders, the poll found. [Full
Article]
Not too bad of an article except for the statement about "liberal reforms
of the Second Vatican Council".
Tell it to the Church
Lane Core Jr. of the The Blog from the Core has posted an email I sent him on his post "More on Authority and the Interpretation of Scripture".
__ Saddam Hussein
__ Saddam Hussein
__ I would prefer to be dismembered
Thank you for exercising your democratic right to vote
on this day. Praise Allah!
[from:give
war a chance]
Saddam Hussein picked for his recent referendum as a theme song Whitney Houston's
"I Will Always Love You". For some reason I can't imagine that this song accurately
depicts his regime. Here are some alternatives.
Vote for me or:
Every Breath You Take - might be your last
You might be climbing a - Stairway to Heaven
You will be six feet - Down under
More accurate theme songs:
Maniac
Sympathy For The Devil
Beat it
Are You Gonna Go My Way
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Fell On Black Days
Should I Stay or Should I Go
Saddam's alternative theme songs:
Born To Be Wild
I Will Survive
Stayin' Alive
Saddam's torturers picks:
Killing me softly
Do That To Me One More Time
Whip it
Man In the Box
William Jarding, 45, was convicted Friday after one hour and fifteen minutes of deliberations - exactly the time of the tape the jurors heard.
"When they go to lunch, hi, ho!" Jarding is heard singing on a tape made by FBI wiretappers Nov. 4, 1998, while monitoring the home phone of corrupt Chicago gang crimes officer Joseph Miedzianowski.
"Hi, ho! There the ammo go," Miedzianowski sings back. [Full article]
The Four Stooges
Victor Lams goes post-al on the latest defence by four priests of the pro-death Governor candidate Granholm.
My Akin Heart
James Akin's blog last posted on 28, Aug 2002 with an article on the overuse of modifiers. I guess he was also worrying about overusing nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. since he hasn't posted since.
I feel a Cold Streak coming on
The naked man jumped the boards at Calgary's Pengrowth Saddledome late in the third period on Thursday, only to slip on the ice and hit his head, briefly knocking himself out cold. [Full story][Found via ..ibidem...]
Next stop, move in with the Keebler elves
A WOMAN who called a 300-year-old oak tree home for more than a decade has moved into temporary housing, but her husband is staying put for now.
Thelma Caballero lived for 12 years with Besh Serdahely in the shelter they built with scrap lumber and corrugated plastic amid the roots and branches of a coastal oak in San Bruno Mountain County Park, about 18kms south of San Francisco.
San Mateo County officials - who knew about the couple but didn't realise they were on county land until recently - issued an eviction notice in August. [Full story]
You know you are a loser when you get evicted from a tree.
Facing up to evil
Perhaps the massive bomb blast on the Indonesian island
of Bali will cause some second thoughts -- or perhaps first thoughts -- by those
who blamed the United States for having provoked the September 11th attacks
by its actions and policies in the Middle East. Very few of those killed in
Bali were Americans. What had all the Australians, Swedes, etc., done in the
Middle East to provoke such terrorism against innocent tourists?
Recently Pakistani Christians were killed in a terrorist attack in Pakistan. What did Pakistani Christians have the power to do, even in Pakistan, much less in the Middle East?
In this era of non-judgmental mush, too many Americans have become incapable of facing the brutal reality of unprovoked hatred, based on envy, resentment and ultimately on a vicious urge to lash out against others for the pain of one's own insignificance. That has been a common thread in things as disparate as ghetto riots, two world wars, and now Islamic terrorism. [Thomas Sowell's Full column]
NARAL minded
I guess nothing is beneath the National Abortion and
Reproductive Rights Action League. Not even using baby faces to sell abortion.
One of their latest TV ads — part of their "Choice for America"
campaign — features several little kids playing Red Rover.
[Full story][Found
via Oblique House]
Red Rover, Red Rover
I didn't kill you so your life is not over
Blog change of address
error503 -- La vita nuova is now Tenebrae : A Broken Music.
More positive news
A recent Michigan Court of Appeals ruling has pro-choice groups fearing that the decision could undermine the case for legal abortions in the United States.
The court reversed the manslaughter conviction of a pregnant woman who was accused of murder for stabbing and killing her boyfriend after he attacked her in a way that posed no mortal danger to her - but that could have ended her pregnancy, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
Jaclyn Kurr testified that after Antonia Pena punched her in the stomach, she felt obligated to protect her 16 to 17 week old fetus from danger. She was convicted in lower court of manslaughter and sentenced to 5 - 20 years in prison.
However, the Michigan Court of Appeals has reversed her conviction and ordered a new trial.
In a ruling that's sure to prompt hissy fits from the pro-choice crowd, the court said, "A pregnant woman may use deadly force to protect her fetus even when she does not fear for her own life." [Full story]
North Korea joins the nuclear family
It is amazing that Dan Rather and his media kindred have all of a sudden developed
keen analytical abilities and our asking the question "if Iraq, why not
North Korea"? I don't seem to recall the "If Serbia, why not Sudan
and Rwanda", even though an excess of 2 million were killed in civil wars
there. Without too much thinking I can think of some of the differences between
Iraq and North Korea.
Iraq has within the last 12 years:
1. Violated the terms of surrender they had signed.
2. Ignored every UN resolution.
3. Paid to the families of Suicide Bombers a reward for their efforts.
4. Allowed al-Qaeda to train in their country and to provide financial and covert
government backing.
5. Invaded another country and attempted to expand their conquest.
6. Fired Scud missiles into other countries.
7. Gassed their own population.
I am not trying to justify war on Iraq but just to demonstrate the obvious differences.
Their keen analytical abilities seem to have totally missed the accord, called the "Agreed Framework," that was supposed to have frozen the accelerating North Korean nuclear weapons program brokered by Jimmy Carter and approved by the Clinton administration. If I was the owner of a large company and was having trouble with my union workers, I would call Jimmy Carter to help negotiate a deal. This way I could promise to pay higher salaries and provide more benefits and on the workers part they would work harder and pretend that I was going to actually keep my promises. After all, what would be the difference between that example and the US building a Nuclear Power Plant in North Korea and providing other financial assistance in trade for them to continue on just as they were? If I was going write a book on Mr. Carter and his diplomatic efforts I would title it "Gullible Travels".
Pig Latin Fridays
The All but dissertation blog has been offering Latin Fridays, so for those who long for the days of the traditional Pig Latin Mass I have diligently worked to translate the Pater Noster. I have compared this to the version in the Ulgatevay that St. Eromejay translated.
Ouray Atherfay
Ouray atherfay howay artay inay eavenhay
allowedhay ebay hytay amenay
Hytay Ingdomkay omecay, hytay illway ebay oneday,
onay earthay asay itay isay inay eavenhay.
Ivegay usay histay ayday ouray ailyday readbay.
Orgivefay usay ouray respassestay,
asay eway orgivefay hosetay howay respasstay againstay usay.
Anday eadlay usay otnay intoay emptationtay,
utbay eliverday usay romfay evilay. Amenay.
The Lords Prayer in 1221 languages and dialects
VATICAN, Oct 16, 02 (CWNews.com) -- Despite the strenuous lobbying efforts of American bishops, the Vatican has reached a final decision not to approve the sex-abuse policy adopted by the US bishop at their June meeting in Dallas.
The Vatican response to the American bishops' policy-- which has been heavily anticipated and hotly debated-- will be announced on Friday morning, at a press conference hosted by Bishop Wilton Gregory, the president of the US bishops' conference.
Although the Vatican response will praise the American bishops for their commitment to end the sex-abuse scandal, that response will not include the "recognitio" that is necessary to make the "Dallas policy" authoritative. [Via Domenico Bettineli, Jr]
The problem with the Dallas policy was how in the world do you legislate prudence? You can't, so you must make some extremely restrictive guidelines that doesn't require any common sense application tailored to a situation. Because of the imprudence of some Bishops, all Bishops were going to forced into some cookie-cutter method of justice. St. John Neumann please pray for our Bishops that they will be guided in coming up with a truly prudent policy.
Planned Pig Parenthood
Florida: Animal Cruelty Amendment: Limiting Cruel and Inhumane Confinement
of Pigs During Pregnancy
Inhumane treatment of animals is a concern of Florida
citizens; to prevent cruelty to animals and as recommended by The Humane Society
of the United States, no person shall confine a pig during pregnancy in a cage,
crate or other enclosure, or tether a pregnant pig, on a farm so that the pig
is prevented from turning around freely, except for veterinary purposes and
during the prebirthing period; provides definitions, penalties, and an effective
date. [Details]
Most people don't realize the history of the first founder of Planned Pig Parenthood
(PPP), Margaret Swiner. She believed in eugenics in the superiority of the "Large
White" pig, in fact you have probably heard her racist pig commercials
"The other white meat". If you go to some of the poorer barnyards
that are populated by the Chinese Meishian, Duroc, Tamworth and other non-white
breeds you will more than likely find a PPP clinic there. This is no coincidence,
she purposely targeted these races of pigs. In the earlier years she started
what was called the "British Saddleback Project" where she convinced
Pigbysterian ministers to preach to their congregations about contraception
and a-boar-tion. She spread rumors that inferior breeds were spreading swine
flu and other diseases. We need to go whole hog and oppose pig genocide and
PPP, write your congressman and this time you can encourage pork.
Rosary Beady Eyes
First he adds a station to the Stations of the Cross, proclaimes 464 Saints
& 1297 Blessed, and now he is adding another set of mysteries to the rosary;
who died and made him Pope? I think that the powerful bead and religious items
merchandisers have lobbied him so as to be able to increase sales of longer
rosaries, statues, holy cards, and other items. He has gone to predominately
Orthodox countries not to heal the schism but to expand religious article businesses
into those areas. The Orthodox and Easter Catholics use a knotted string for
their prayers, where is the markup in that? He has been receiving kickbacks
and placing them into his secret "Swiss Guard" account.
This conspiracy theory doesn't seem to be half as whacked as some of the criticisms
I have read over the last couple of days since the first initial news. Soon
I guess Oliver Stone will be making a movie called JPII where he disputes the
lone ungrassy Vatican knoll gunman theory. Over at Amy
Welborn's blog because of the number of comments the comment counter is
now using exponents. I don't quite understand all the criticism, I personally
like the idea of mysteries on the public life of Jesus, but if you don't like
them don't pray them. There have been many versions of the rosary throughout
the centuries as Disputations
has shown, including Franciscan and Carmelite varieties. The critics probably
glide right past the Fatima prayer added to the rosary and complain about the
St. Michael the Archangel prayer being removed from the Mass even thought it
was added only about seventy years before Vatican II. They must think there
are two dogmas - one where revelation was closed at the death of the last Apostle
and another that church tradition was closed at the end of the Council of Trent.
It reminds me of the saying that "The best Bible version is - the one that
you will read" and the best set of mysteries are the ones that you will
truly pray.
I have written a set of mysteries that even those of the constant critical gaze
set would like.
The Lidless Eye Mysteries
(With scriptural meditations)
Just say woe
"Woe to you, Chora'zin! woe to you, Beth-sa'ida! for if the mighty works
done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago
in sackcloth and ashes."
"woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed"
"But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation."
"Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger."
"Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep"
"Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the
false prophets.
Us against them
"For he that is not against us is for us."
"He who is not with Me is against Me,"
Condemnation
"I will condemn you out of your own mouth, you wicked servant! You knew
that I was a severe man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what
I did not sow?"
"But he who has doubts is condemned, if he eats, because he does not act
from faith; for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin."
"And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen,
out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned
their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away;
you shall not make my Father's house a house of trade."
You hypocrites
"Why put me to the test, you hypocrites."
"hypocrites; there men will weep and gnash their teeth."
"Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, `This people
honors me with their lips, but their heart is fa