Bring Out Your Dead!

“Good Lord, Agonia, will you take a look at this!”  One wonders if anything will shock over in Blighty any more.  Or, have they finally exhausted decency.

The blog...and the comments…show, to me anyway, the insidious nature of the creepy materialism that has gotten into our minds and souls, like the cold and damp of a British winter infects the very bones. It is an ache.

Wars and crises over the years (broadcast in real time and live on TV) have hardened us to those horrors we were once blissfully unaware of, and in that ignorance thought ourselves incapable of descending to.  Too late we learned, shuddered and were sickened.  Now?  Time has removed all sense of horror at the millions lost last century; the hundreds of millions shot, bombed, burned, starved and neglected to death.  Some, many, even doubt it happened.

And so this begins to occur, slowly first, and spread, a plague of materialism, a coarsening of intellect, a hardening of heart, a selfish willingness to think anything, to consider any option for comfort and ease in the name of self.  In the names of one extreme sort of materialism or other they participate willingly in worse horrors and propose little domestic horrors-a- day to cure a headache, improve a soft drink or cookie, to warm a swimming pool.

The “wonderful” promises of advances in medicine and science if we just ignore our common humanity allow us to forget that in many ways those advances come at the expense of life, and what was thought, once, our special place in the order of the world, and the dignity that place gave us…creatures of matter and spirit joined.    This latest is thought so little of other than a means of recycling something which would be left to rot.  Imagine how many profitable acres could be reclaimed for malls and sub-divisions from cemeteries?  Imagine Arlington as a Hyatt resort, a Four Seasons, a Ritz-Carlton?  Why not?  What is the corpse of s soldier but dead flesh and good fuel.  Did he not serve his country in life?  Why not serve as well dead?

Now as this article accompanying the blog post tells us we can and should entertain thoughts about good and practical things to do with our leftovers and if we can think of doing it, why, then we should do it. I do hope, at least, that they will make sure to save the hair, the fillings, the eyeglasses and the dentures before they fire up the furnace.

Oh, yes, and the fat, too, wonderful as an engine lube, don’t you know.

“Darling, since you put Grandpa’s Own in the car, we’ve lost that nasty ping and knocking and gotten another 10mpg. out if it.” “Yes we have, Agonia.  Best move I ever made, my pet.”

As you’ll see from the comments to the good priest’s blog post, at least one of his interlocutors finds little if anything wrong with the idea.  Good St. Johnathan Swift, Pray for us!

A Chance to Win Something

OK, everybody? Listen up.  Over in the land of windmills and tulips they are steadily taking leave of their senses.  You can smoke dope out in the open.  You can buy yourself a whipping or a skipping or whatever you have the money for, now.  As a matter of fact, about the only places that aren’t red light districts are the ones still under water, and  you might, for the right kind of money work a deal there.  And, most disturbingly, you can hire someone to “off” your own sweet self for just about any reason you can think of.  This ain’t Oregon where they do it right so no mistakes are made with panels and reviews, and stuff, you know.  Although out in Oregon I understand that they’re trying harder than Avis to out kill the Dutch.

Anyway, I read this morning that some old dame in “Tulipia” was recently relieved of life because, as the article will tell you:  “she was suffering from being alive.” WHAT???  Who doesn’t from time to time?  Well, actually, she was “suffering” from failing eyesight, specifically macular degeneration.  You want to know something?  The last person I knew with that condition died a natural death at the age of 99 after having lived a full and active life all those years.  You will read that the lady so kindly treated to a dirt nap in what has to be one of the most lucrative places in the world for an undertaker, herself was an intelligent and cultured person, and interested in what was going on around her.  Oh, well.

I wonder if she called for bids.  I wonder if the yellow pages in the Dutch phone books, where Dopers and Escorts have got to be a big item, have a section now for Easy Exit Assistance, or some such.

Of course the stupids in the Netherlands (so aptly named, eh?) are guilty of the sin of murder. But, that’s not a Capital (or Deadly) Sin. There are seven of those, children.

I will give a Holy Picture of Jesus on the Cross to every one who can identify and explain which of the Seven Deadly Sins have been committed by:  The People of the Netherlands who have adopted this policy, the “ethics” dummies who figured out it was just fine thank you to off yourself, and get our happy help to do it, and, finally the doctors and nurses who actually juiced the old broad,and are only too compassionately interested in doing the same for anyone else  “suffering from living”, sick kids and , well, just about anyone who wants to, for any reason they want to give, or none at all.

There’s a reason for this particular prize.  You see, aside from my rather hard edged and crudely insolent, sarcastic and cynical presentation of this really tragic and disgraceful little story I am horrified by it, frankly.  You will read that several thousands of people were murdered in Holland last year, and the people over there thought it was good that that happened.  They are actually thinking of more ways to do it…as they are in Oregon and several other places over here.  I think about that and I see the monster Satan rising from some hole to devour them, and I want to weep.  I really do.  I am afraid for us…and you should be too.

I think the answer to my question is all seven of them: Pride, Anger, Envy, Lust, Avarice, Gluttony and Sloth.  But you may not agree.  In which case work away. But quickly.  You do not know the hour.  Unless you live in the so chillingly named NETHERLANDS.

I think I need to pray, now.  Will you join me?

UPDATE:

I didn’t know that one of the members of the Dutch Royal family was seriously injured in a skiing accident in the Alps a couple of weeks ago; buried in an avalanche.  It seems that he is in a deep coma; possibly never to recover.  If that happens, he will spend the rest of his life in a PVS..a Permanent Vegetative State; like a cabbage, maybe, or a potato, or a tulip.  In the Netherlands these days it  not the common practice to allow anything but cabbages, potatoes and tulips to remain that way.  Pussycats, puppy dogs and people are allowed to die.

Unless your family has the money to put you somewhere else; a place where the people don’t suffer so much from moral macular degeneration and life.  In this case the Prince is in England, where the blight has not yet reached.

Nah, That Can’t Never Happen Here —. You Think?

Abstract

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

This is an abstract from something called The Journal of Medical Ethics.  I have long ago reached the conclusion  that the proper and legal definition of an ethicist of any stripe is : “A person who, for a nice fat fee, will tell you that whatever you wish to do, no matter how bizarre, repugnant, illegal, immoral or fattening, you may do. “

“That?  Sure, you can do it.  That’ll be $250.00.  Pay my girl Nausea on the way out.  No checks without two forms of picture ID, please.  Next!”

There’s an article here.  You can read a bit more about the story…if you have the stomach for it.  But, all you really need to know is contained in the abstract from JME.  These guys love acronyms, and I want to please them.  At my age, I figure I’ll be next to be okayed for the trip to the Release center.  Oh, wait, I already have that “right”.

It would take a more sober, reasoned and smart person than me to look at that abstract and take it apart bit by bit; exposing it for the outrageously smug, insipid and stupid thing that it is.  I simply want to blow it up, and punch out the authors, the editors and anyone vaguely connected with the thing.  I can probably get a bunch of ethicists to tell me that it’s the epitome of ethics to do so.

But, I won’t do that.  For one thing I haven’t got the plane fare to Australia.  I’m wondering, now though, if its ethical to ask for donations.  Hmmm.

_________________________________________________________________________________

While I was sitting here trying to get the best of my gag reflex a couple of things occurred to my mind.  I imagined a couple of scenes from the near future:

The first is a quiet little corner in Portland, OR, the place first in love with death here in the Untied States.  It’s about 6:00pm on a lovely day in May.  The sound of a garage door closing is heard and then the door opens into a bright, neat, modern kitchen.  A young woman stands  at the central work station obviously preparing something for the evening meal.  She smiles as a tall slim fellow walks through the door and gives her a hug and a kiss.

YW:  Sorry, Brutus, my hands are so yucky.  I’ve been working all afternoon on this.  I thought we’d have something special.  I hope you’ll like it.

YM:  That’s just fine Gladiola.  I’ll fix us a drink.  Where’s Benjie?

YW:  Oh, he’s probably asleep on the rug inside.  He had a busy day outside today running around chasing butterflies.

YM:  I love that little fella.  So, what’s for supper?

YW:  Well you know we had to decide today…

YM:  Oh, yes.  So did you?  I would have been happy to stay home, but BIFFING Steel has this big job they were interested in having us handle and Smothersworth wanted me to look it over.  I was out there all day.  Sorry I’m a little late.  Anyway, it looks like we’ll take it, and you know what that means.”

YW:  Oh, now we can go to Fiji for my sister’s wedding t0 Allred.  It’s her 7th and it means so much, and I can wear that lovely thing I have been so wanting to ever since..”

YM:  Honey, isn’t that sauce…?

YW:  (Looking over at the stove.)  Oh, no, everything’s fine.  I’ll just need you to get the lumps out later.  Anyway, I really didn’t need you today.  I spoke with Polonia across the street.  She said I could do it myself, everyone does these days.  So I did.  It was so easy and kind of fun.

YM:  Oh, here’s the dog!  Hey Benjie, you lucky guy.  I wish I had your life chasing butterflies all day long.  C’mere you little dickens.

YW:  Anyway, afterward, I cleaned it and prepared it for tonight’s supper.  I used Polonia’s mother’s recipe since you liked it so much when we had it over there for the 4th of July last year.

YM: Great!  I’ll make us a drink, now and get outta this straight jacket.  Hey, what are you gonna call your version of the dish?

YW:  Well we were going to name it Bobbie before we decided it would really be funner in Fiji, so I’m calling it Bobbicued Kid.

YM:  (Laughing and petting the dog)  That’s great.  I love your sense of humor.  I hope we have plenty of leftovers.

_________________________________________________________________________________

And, here is the second scene:

“Good morning, East Bluegill Public Works Department.”

“Hello.  Is this where I arrange for a trash pickup.”

“Yes, Ma’am.  What is it?”

“I have a dead kid in my refrigerator.  I did it this morning, and I want it out.  I’ve got some shopping to do this afternoon and need the room.  I checked and I can’t bury it out side where we put Sniggles last year.”

“No, your right.  Besides raccoons might dig it up and leave a mess.”

“I don’t want that for sure.  When can you come?”

“Just wrap it good in some plastic and leave it by the curb before 6:30 tomorrow morning.  Or, if you want, you can bring it to the dump before 5 this afternoon.  Anyway.  Whatever’s easier for you.”

“I think I just leave it at the curb.  Thank you.”

“No problem.”

_________________________________________________________________________________

You may want to write to the JME, I don’t know.  I though of doing so and asking if they had any good recipes.

Enough Monkeys….etc…

Even the late Mr. Hitchens and Slate are capable of producing something worth the effort it takes to read it (though I could do without seeing what else appears on the page).  As I read on, I couldn’t help drawing the obvious lines between North Korea and National Socialist Germany.  What really began to alarm me though as I concluded the piece was one word, Iran.  I became aware that I could not escape the frightening similarities between those two mental diseases, the one in the East and it’s earlier sibling in Europe and the Religion of Peace.  And this merely from reading an article written by a dead atheist and appearing in a progressive publication.  Will wonders never cease…?  I pray this is one that comes to an early end.  Funny, I was about to write “early and natural end”.  Then, I thought, no such a thing isn’t natural.  Despite all of the evidence, the mounting evidence, to the contrary, it was NOT the way we were meant to be.

Perhaps it’s simply sleeplessness that make my mind build these connections; a kind of waking nightmare.

Rest in peace.

Lies and Damned Lies

Sometimes, you know, you just want to spit in someone’s eye, or bust ‘em in the nose.

I know.  I know.  That kind of thing is not nice.  But, lately, every time the temp around here gets above fifty I hear the chattering idiots on the 6 and 11, and Bob or Missy, the grinning boobs of weather dudes and dudesses, predicting the melting of building and people, glaciers, ice caps and the beginning of Endless Summer all over the world as this place becomes another 900 degree Venus sometime next Tuesday…IF SOMETHING ISN’T DONE IMMEDIATELY!!!  These things begin to remind me of being a patient and hearing from the doctor’s mouth, “Well, Mr. Crumple, the numbers here don’t look good, don’t look good at all.  Your afganistan levels are too high and there way too many morroci in your blood.  Can you come in next Tuesday?  I want to run some further tests.”

If your heart wasn’t thumping erratically before, it certainly would be then, and for a while after.

Is it really necessary to pile it on the way they do?  It seems that the media is simply a machine that exists to give folks a little more to worry about in the never ending list of worries we have until we break.  It begins to make the famine and plague years  seem like “Happy Days”, the threat of barbarian invasions and massacre of whole cities merely another evening with “Ozzie and Harriet”.

I suppose it would be alright if someone would turn off the darn machine, say that the test was over and allow us to go home to wait for the undertaker.  It would be, as they say, a “mercy”.

Now, I find out that the data which led to the reports, which led to the predictions of the imminent death of us all prematurely from overheating was assembled from spurious sources by people who had no more idea of what they were doing in many cases than I have of how to do a jig saw puzzle or darn a sock.  And, I further find out that the data has been assembled from the scholarly equivalent of gossip and rumor, hints and guesses and the assemblers…the lab assistants to the chrome domed Ph.D.’s who are regulars before Congresses, Parliaments, Committees, Sub-Committees and Blue Ribbon Panels all over the bleeping planet; whose eyebrows are raised in alarm and voices cry alarum, like klaxons warning of death from the sky…are with their bosses little better than liars.

That’s a heck of a sentence to build.  But, it ain’t any worse than what’s being done even as I write by this snake in the grass IPCC and the guys and gals who are making a good living off it.

I think they ought to be occupied by the great unwashed down on Wall Street.  But that happens and all that would come of it would be a few hours of Eyeworthless Reports all over the place, and then more hearings, harangues and helpless mumblings and mutterings.  Well at least the cooks and caterers, the champagne and fancy food dudes will continue to make a buck off them.  At least we won’t have to see them next to all the iron workers and auto workers and other honest guys in the unemployment lines.  At least the hotel and convention hall folks will still have some place to go from Monday to Friday, and the First class seats will be filled on all the flights to Switzerland, South Africa, Tokyo and other places where Accords are signed.  And, lord knows the world has a crying need for accords.

The whole thing stinks, like a dead dog left in the sun for a few days, and it’s about as good looking, too.

It’s a Ding Dong World #7659

I just read a short bit on a web site called Bio-Edge about this news article and the report it refers to from Old Blighty, where it seems down is up and verse visa.  The fellow mentioned that over there 98% of ladies who get their wombs hoovered do so to avoid the mental distress of  giving birth and raising a kid.  They are very kind in Blighty.

“I simply can’t bear the thought of having this around all that time and missing the Queen’s birthday, or Ascot and all those lovely hats.”

“Not a problem, Lady Snuffem.  We’ll have this out of you in plenty of time for tea.”

The writer asks if the report means that now 98% of British abortions are illegal.  Good question.  Who’s lying to whom?  And, what about the odd duck who does commit suicide, or feel bad for years about having had an abortion.  Would she have felt as bad had the child been born and lived, and was living now?  Is the stress of child rearing a good enough reason to have them all killed…or 98% of them anyway of all of them who are headed for the recycling center?  Shhh!  There are questions which politeness requires us not to ask.

Good Lord, it just occurred to me that may be the reason why the British have all of those fogs and mists and moors to wail upon.  The whole place is neurasthenic.

It is encouraging to note that the doctors who have done the study seem to think that there is some stress accompanying the decision to end a pregnancy before a pregnancy ends.  That may be, if the 98% number tells the truth.  Of course it must tell the truth.  Don’t we all know numbers don’t lie, because , well, who really wants to be pregnant?

“Oh, Dr. Slippenfall, Montague says we just cannot visit Majorca this summer if I am still preggers.  There is such tension at home.”

“Now, now, Adelaide, I know Montague.  His practice requires a rest every once in a while, and you do have that lovely little bulldog Chelsea.”

“Well, if you say so.  There are all of those new things I bought which would just devastate me to leave behind.”

And, so, they will probably conclude and recommend that more should be done about this problem of unwanted pregnancy.  The solution, since ending them seems to be about a guilt free as getting rid of the trash, will probably be to recommend more abortion.

That’s what I think will happen, anyway.  Given the trend toward the death option over there from both ends of the average life span, I figure the place will be empty in about 50 years.

86 ‘Em

“At long last…”, the question comes boiling up in my head begging to be shouted from the top of the tallest building, the highest mountain, screamed across the world.  “At long last, Dr. Peter Singer, have you no decency?”  I want to ask the same question of the heads of department, the administrators and trustees of the “institution” that pays the man a salary. Institution is the proper word since it must be a place for madmen, run by madmen, educating madmen as they lend their name, their honor and their prestige to a singer of such mad songs as his and honor him as a respected member of their “tribe”.  To my mind their doing so lends weight to his utterances and heaps dishonor on them all, and on all who don’t stand and point at them and cry, “SHAME!”

It is Singer’s particular gift to us to have lifted from the bloody mud the sword bearing the dripping banner of the armies of those whose first thought was and is death for the weak, death for the “useless”, death for the diseased and deformed as they define the words. It is the banner of a hundred genocidal madmen, of a thousand smug eugenicists now become Singer’s banner to carry.  Over the top?  Well, perhaps.  Singer does sing sweetly.

After all, he is a professor at one of our most prestigious universities; many degreed, much honored and respected.  At one point he argued that we ought to be able to murder any new born child since newborns were not persons according to his definition; human beings with moral agency.   And he kept teaching.  Why not?  He is tenured, which is almost as secure a position as being a Democrat in Massachusetts.  That kids can be “offed” by Mom and Dad is very consistent with his philosophical outlook, after all.  I think it’s called Utilitarianism, as in, “We don’t need another coffee maker.”  His public writings and public utterances indicate that he thinks moral agency a thing that does not develop until we reach the age of two, give or take.  In the case of disabled or diseased specimens, one may never become a “person” in the sense that Singer employs the word; and so, there is no harm done, no foul incurred in simply killing one of them at any time.

You’re probably wondering, as your stomach churns, how can all of this be true.  Well, if I were to hot link you to all of the eye-blasting stuff he’s written or said on the subject over the years this thing would be flagged as spam and never get into your computer.  Google him.  But, here’s an article written by someone else who connects to another article which gets even more specific about Dr. Singer’s agenda which is, in a few words, about the same as anyone else whose primary interest is “improving the breed” whether that is chickens, salmon, horses, computers or us.  If it works, looks good or tastes good and is relatively glitch or disease free, lets make more of ‘em.  If not?  86 ‘em.

But children are the ones Singer seems to favor most.  And, that makes sense.  Only whackos today consider children worth protecting.  It strikes me as the absolute truth, because Singer works in a big deal Ivy League University filled with very smart guys and girls and no one says, “This guy ought to be muzzled.”  Questions of academic freedom aside I wonder how far he’d get if he went around saying stuff like we need to re-institute slavery since people with black skin are not really persons.  Would he get an invite to the UN to address them like a certain laughing stock president?  How many of his colleagues would defend his right to teach about that?

I just wish the guy would stop.  Maybe, if he did, he could spend his time thinking about recipes for spring lamb, or veal, or suckling pig with new potatoes and early peas, and sipping beaujolais nouveau.  The guy’s probably a vegetarian, though; and a PETA member.

Good Saint Mary Shelley Pray For Us!

Occasionally, when I need to irritate my intestines, I will read the odd article in something called The Huffington Post.  This is a thing which appears only on the internet and is available at no cost in that form.  Aside from good whiskey, nothing which will eventually sicken a person should require paying for it, I think.

It is a journal with a decidedly “progressive” outlook on issues.  Loosely defined one is progressive when one believes that as long as the government is paying for it, things are just fine, unless “it” includes such things as national defense or the protection of the nation’s borders.

On a personal level, one is “progressive” when one believes that  one may not kill trees, baby seals or whales, endanger “species” or increase the amount of carbon in the air by smoking or driving any kind of vehicle but a small and expensive European one.  One may, on the other hand kill the weak, the terminally ill or those not yet born, provided one has a good enough reason for choosing to do so.  Arriving at that decision is achieved by the proper application of ethical principles.

Currently,the state of ethical thinking regarding killing humans who have not been born is decidedly in favor of doing so for any reason one may have, or none at all; which for many is an entirely good reason.  One may call it “Because”.  There is a certain level of flux regarding the ethics of killing the weak, infirm and terminally ill inclining toward the economics of the matter and leaning away from, shall we say, an ethics of compassion.  Thinking along these lines ethicists argue, essentially, that less sick people draining our pockets and our energies means more money and time to enjoy ourselves, or go about making the world a better place for healthy people.

Progressive people are not religious people, they will tell you, but they sometimes confess something very much like a belief in God, or some kind of guiding principle to which they have reference when in doubt about something; which is very rare. For many there is no thought of living after life ends.  This is all there is and thus there is, among progressives, an intense desire to make it the best place possible, to make a heaven of earth if you will.  That’s, in a word, progress.

Further, a truly “progressive” person is endowed with superior intelligence such that they may tell you when you are wrong in your beliefs and positions, intolerant of others and should either be quiet or be shut up, somewhere, for your own good and the good of the rest of us.

They do not believe in morals.  They have replaced morals and morality and moral behavior with ethics.  Ethics are better than morals because…well because ethics are fair for everyone and morals are simply not.

Ethical behavior is situational, designed, in the end, for the happiness of individuals, the improvement of everyone’s lot and the comfort of societies.  Moral behavior is based on some un-voted for law handed down by some God, somewhere.  It isn’t tolerant, human or rational.  Ethics are, if anything, rational, progressively rational.  By that I mean that popularly, ethics or “ethical practices” are employed in so ordering one’s life and society as to achieve the greatest comfort of body and soul with the least possible effort of will or difficulty of emotion; they are ordered to the eradication of guilt and any sense of wrong, the unnecessary baggage of morality; they are designed to bring about the :best of all possible worlds”, a heaven on earth, if you will.  One need only know that something is ethically permissible, and, no matter what that may be, one may happily engage in it.

Happiness is defined in part as a freedom from guilt, and ethics, or “ethical behavior” is the vehicle which allows a progressive thinking person to drive away from guilt of any sort because, well, the end in ethics does justify the means.  Read on.

Ethical and progressive thinkers, and progressive people in general maintain the superiority of ethics over morals because they insist that ethics contra morals require thought and decision making tools which separate man from the lower animals, if one may be allowed to think that way for purely speculative purposes, since it is progressive to believe that all life is equally precious.  Morals require only obedience, and, perhaps, fear of the consequences which is, again, a less than rational reaction to life if one is a complete and well ordered person.

Progressive people believe that the highest degree of ethical behavior consists in allowing others to make rational choices about their own lives, or the government to make those choices for them based on fairness and a rational understanding of what is the greatest good, as in the current shaking out of matters involved with the allocation of resources for health care.  Which, rather long windedly, leads me to the point of all of this:

Recently, the  HuffPo contained an article written by someone called an ethicist.  This article was about the ethical imperative to ration health care; crudely put, to pull the tube, cut the cord and save a few bucks when Uncle Yaya can’t breath on his own.  The author, an ethicist, writes about a case making its way through the New jersey courts regarding a man named Betancourt  who entered a PVS, that’s Permanent Vegetative State, after surgery.  Doctors wanted to end his treatment and let him die, so they thought, and his family did not.  While they were dickering, he died.  Nevertheless, they still dicker.  Lawyers need to eat, too.

Such cases are a futility, and a waste of resources the author notes; resources which would be put to better use developing cures for diseases, treating patients with better chances for recovery, building a better mousetrap etc. etc. etc.

The nice author is very practical in making the case for the ethical elimination of cost and its application to more useful purposes by writing, and practical solutions to problems seem to be the watchword; practical, utilitarian solutions.  With startling frankness he concludes:

“Let us make no mistake about what this would mean: It would mean declaring that the lives of PVS patients are worth less than those of others. Rather than shying away from this outcome, progressive bioethicists should have the courage to acknowledge and to embrace this proposition. Of course, I do not believe that we should take life-and-death matters lightly. I relish my life as much as the next person. In an ideal world, Ruben Betancourt never would have become ill in the first place. The good news is that, in our lifetimes, we may be able to vastly expand human life expectancies. And someday in the future, although possibly too late for anybody reading this column, we may be able to breed acephalic “shell” bodies into which to transplant human brains, or we may reprogram the ends of telomeres, or we may master some other transhumanist technology that permanently forestalls natural death and allows for eternal life right here on earth. Alas, immortality remains a distant prospect. In the interim, we have no choice but to allocate scarce healthcare dollars in such a way that some lives will be preserved at the expense of others.“  (Emphases added)

I do especially like the gentleman’s next to last sentence lamenting the distant prospect of eternal life for us all, but by that sad fact justifying the ethical nature of keeping alive the worthy and killing the unworthy.  There is ethical and progressive utilitarian compassion at work; do not waste anything, even compassion, save it for those who will benefit by it.  Compare that with, oh, say, the total lack of compassion in Nazi death camps or Soviet gulags; which were very unethical, and irrationally un-beneficial to say the least.

There is this wonderful thing about progressive thinking.  It is so cheerfully optimistic, so ordered to the end of the rainbow.  Despite the unappealing nature of choosing who will live and who won’t, we console ourselves with the knowledge that we are embarked on a wonderful project, achieving eternal life right here on earth.  Choice, what a beautiful word it is.

We may confidently expect that some bright day life will never end if we are progressives.  There will be a series of “little sleeps” when our brains are lifted with care from our useless bodies and placed with precision in the, what was it?, the acephalic “shell” body, which is no doubt developed from some cloned embryo in a lab especially engineered to our specifications, good hair, bright teeth, the right skin tone, firm muscles.  Then, after a day’s rest we go out to continue living forever inside an endless succession of specially made brainless shells which I  think should be named a “Betancourt” in honor of the fellow whose unfortunate premature end pointed us all on the right path.

That’s heaven.

What Can You Say After You Say You’re Sorry?

How about goodbye?

The Limeys owned up to being killers the other day, apologizing for Bloody Sunday back in Belfast in 1972 when their boys murdered a few filthy Catholics for standing up and saying they had no right to be in Ireland in the first place.  Only took them 38 years, but what’s that?

It’s been more than 900 years since they started using the Irish for target practice, or starving them when they weren’t up to shooting, burning, hanging and deporting them, and filling the country up with crooks and criminals who were only too happy to shoot, loot, burn and beat Irishmen, women and children at any available opportunity.

Now, I figure well begun is not yet done.  So how about we hear an apology for The Famine?  How about a little, “Oops, our bad,” for the murders of priests and slaughter of Catholics by the Prods during the Penal law days?  How about owning up that they owe the country something for all the land, cattle, wood and people stolen away during those 900 years of benevolent mayhem committed in the name of “lebensraum”.

How about they go all the way back to the beginning, to the only British Pope, Adrian IV, who gave the place away to Henry II, the same guy who had Thomas a Becket martyred, so that he could keep it safe for Catholicism.  That’s like some chief  mullah over in Iran writing to Ahmadinijad telling him it’s just fine to take over Kuwait and make it a nation of Muslims.

You don’t believe me?  Read the first paragraph of the Papal letter saying, “Go ahead.  It’s all yours. Take it whenever you have a few moments to spare.”

Did you know some clown of a Brutish general (that’s no typo) was caught saying that during the Troubles  about 600 British soldiers were killed on duty in Ireland.  (Notice I don’t use the term Northern Ireland.)  There was a way that all of those lives could have been saved.  They could have been kept where they belonged, marching up and down before Bucky Palace in silly hats and tight red pants guarding some old bag’s collection of bonnets and purses and long white gloves.  So 600 hundred guys who shouldn’t have been there to begin with were killed.  They should have apologized for that, too, and for the 3600 other people who were killed.

I read that the great “We’re Sorry” was spoken the day before “Bloomsday”.  Bloomsday is a day that commemorates Leopold Bloom’s wanderings about Dublin.  Leo is the Ulysses in Joyce’s novel which is called by some the greatest novel written in English.  That’s funny, you know for dozens of reasons.

But here’s a few reasons that make me laugh.  Joyce was Irish.  He couldn’t stand the place and ran away to live in France and die there.  An Irishman doesn’t write this great novel in his native language, Irish, because it wasn’t much of a language any more.  Who’s gonna buy and read a book like his if he writes it in Irish, he might have figured, a few hundred or so pig farmers down in the bog?  I don’t even know if he knew enough Irish to do it for all of his legendary intelligence and wit.

Joyce was supposed to have been fluent in eight or nine languages.  But he doesn’t write in Irish because the English had pretty near destroyed it by the time he comes along.  And Ulysses gets itself banned in Boston, that hangout for Anglophiles who once tried to ban anyone Irish.  That’s funny, too.

Here’s a saying in Irish for you all to think about while your sipping some tea and saying how gracious and humble the Brutish have finally become, “Tir gan teanga, tir gan anim.”  It means, “A land without a tongue is a land without a soul.”  Now, that’s funny to me.

I know a little bit of Irish, not enough to write a book, but a little bit.  Here’s what I say in Irish about the Brutish apology, “Pog mo thoin!”

They should apologize for Ian Paisley.

More Child Abuse

What I write today may upset some of you who will read it; not because of the subject matter.  Most everyone who reads this, if they persevere, will be very familiar with that.  No, I think you will be upset with the conclusions I reach about the things I mention, the connections I make between them and all of us, myself included.  So, my apologies to you beforehand for stepping into your space and upsetting you with what you may not think is child abuse on a very large scale.  I do think so, and think you should, too.  That’s why I wrote it.

A couple of days ago, moved by some things happening at a junior high school (oops, Middle School) just down the block from me I wrote a little something about what I thought was a big problem; the abuse of children that everyone sort of thinks is no abuse at all.  By that I mean that there are no knickers twisted among the great number of us over such things as (a) pornography on the internet readily available to children as young as ten, (b) the medical experimentation that has lead to such modern frankensteinian practices as donor dads and designer kids and (c) master classes in the kama-sutran arts for eleven and twelve year old children.  If you are interested simply read the piece before this one.

It seems to me that there is little or no concern to call these things what they are, the abuse of children.    Of course, they are a lot of other things, too, most of them downright evil.  But, one does not like to call things which most people enjoy or make use of evil, especially if it turns a handsome profit, or is, as the saying goes, a “victimless” crime.  While I am at it I might as well add abortion on demand to the list, particularly abortions performed on young children without parental knowledge or consent.  If ever the specious concept of victimless crime could be applied to an act it is well done here.

If you remain un-persuaded that I haven’t made the connection in your mind between my list above and  child abuse there is probably little I can do that will turn on the light for you.  Still, I have the horse, the lance is in my hand and there is a windmill on that hill.

There is ample and growing evidence that women suffer from a form of PTSD called “Post-Abortion Syndrome”.  Further evidence points to the large number of coerced abortions performed on women who would not have had the procedure if they had been free to decide for themselves.  Both of these conditions are more common among teen-aged girls who find themselves pregnant.  The sad fact is that in each such case two children suffer abuse; the young mother to be and the soon not to be child she carries.

We are horrified from time to time to read stories such as appeared in the papers a few days ago about a man who bled to death on the street while passers by ignored his dying self.  Neighbors commented that such a cold and callous thing is un-acceptable and borders on the criminal.  Of course we all should remember the Kitty Genovese case long ago in New York City.

Such a thing could never happen in a hospital, now, could it?  But it does. If you follow the link pay attention to the statement of the mother whose child was left to die, and what she says about coercion.  By the way, don’t let the fact that the story comes from England lull you into thinking it can’t happen here.  It has!  It happens everywhere.  Google will happily and quickly supply you with more than twenty thousand links to stories about this particular form of child abuse

Here is another story; this one from Italy.  It is interesting to note that it was a priest who was going to pray for the child who discovered it alive two days after the abortion!  He was not a victim of “diffused responsibility syndrome”.  That’s what they call it now.  It used to be called callousness, disinterest and downright cruelty.  Before this one would be correct to think that only a Nazi beast would let someone die of hunger and thirst, naked and alone, slowly, over days.

And, remember, this is not abuse.  This is simply a choice and it is a right.  I suppose that all of the medical professionals will plead that they were merely following orders to let the child die since, after all, it was its mother’s choice to do so.  Alas, it’s a kind of willful blindness, a morally bankrupt failure to involve oneself in another’s pain, to pretend that what is there isn’t.

I don’t find that attitude too much different from the attitude most of us take to what happens on the Internet, in our mad-scientist laboratories and, lamentably, in our schools.  If we do not participate we approve.  If we do not approve we pretend it isn’t our part to do or say anything is wrong.  After all these people are not or relatives, these children are not our children.  They are not our friends or neighbors.  There is too much on our plates to concern ourselves with mere opinion, and the list of palliative excuses goes on.  Where are the parents, the authorities, one asks?  And, if the government approves and the parents of the child…?

In my previous effort on this subject I provided links to articles which dealt with facts and figures.  They exist.  The consequences of sexual experimentation to the young who are exposed to such things as I described in my other posting are well known.  They lead to a sort of murder of the spirit regarding the proper place of sex in one’s life and a failure to be able to form lasting loving relationships; this leading, eventually I suppose, to the death of the family.

More immediately, though, the rate of STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) infections is skyrocketing among sexually active young people who are being told that it is normal and healthy to engage in any form of such activity one wishes.  Normal and healthy.

As if that were not enough recent reports point to an increased risk among young people of developing cancers of the mouth because of some of the things they are learning are normal and healthy things to do.

What are we, all of us, doing to ourselves?  More importantly, more malignantly, what are we doing to our children by allowing, encouraging and promoting their promiscuity?

I can only call it what it is, a murder in which we all participate by our varying degrees of disinterested silence or outright approval and participation.

If we leave any after us, they will call it a great pity.