Just Say No!

OK, ABC and Disney, Hollywood, Pepsi,the  Democratic Party, MSNBC, CNN, Fox, the other two nets, every newspaper in the country, and anyone who advertises in them or on TV, medical insurance, auto insurance, insurance insurance. It all stinks like fish gurry.  That’s what we’re being fed, and we think it’s filet mignon.

Are we really that stupid?  Have we really been such lousy pushovers?  Is it really the truth; that these guys have figured out that all we are is a bunch of stomachs, sexual organs and fat butts?  Seems like it.

No you say?  Prove it.

Don’t give them any of your time, and don’t spend any of your money on them.

Did I leave out anything?  Oh, yeah, the cable and satellite companies that carry alla that garbage into your home. Stop it all.  Cut it all out, the noise, the flash, the bling, the fly, the whatever the hell they come with next to make us forget that this is all a big swindle.

That’s gonna leave many of us with a lot of loose change and an awful lot of time on our hands. Try reading a book.  Try reading a good book.  Take a walk.  Actually have a conversation about something other than baseball or your nails and hair.  Put the money in a shoe box or a bank and forget about it.

Hey!  Here’s an idea.  Why not spend the time saying a prayer for the state of the world, these Untied States and our own poor selves.  And, another idea just occurred to my mind.  Why not use some of that new found money to help some folks; like folks with time on their hands because they have no work to do.  Or, folks with time on their hands because they never had any work to do, or because they can’t work…or hungry folks…or sick folks.  You know?

And, if or when the suits in the big buildings wake up and find everyone’s left the room,  and they come outside and say, “Hey!  OK, we screwed up.  Sorry.  Come on back.”  And their hands are out in supplication, and they’re smiling pleadingly, why not everyone say, “Nah, find another sucker.”  And, try finding an honest job while you’re at it.

‘Cause you know what all of this is, don’t you?  It’s “Bread and Circuses”, where the Big Deals figure out how to keep the lid on, keep the schmucks (that’s you Mr. and Mrs. America) happy so they never figure out how lousy life is; they never figure out that they are owned, bought and paid for in the greatest swindle since the original Bread and Circus deal back there in Rome.  Did you see the movie Matrix?  You’re in it.  I’m in it.

We’re all in it.

Wake up.

Walk away.

Just sayin’.

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!

One Down, Nine to Go

The author of this article in Crisis magazine is no bush blogger with a foam flecked mouth, unwashed hair, glaring eyes and rumpled clothes wandering about in his own wilderness like me. He has creds.  What’s more, he’s right on this.  I don’t care if you are a Catholic or a cranberry worshiper (are there any?)  If you believe in the Bill of Rights, you ought to be concerned about what is happening to them.

Some rats have gotten into the cheese, here, and they are eating it all up.  The rest of us, thinking the pantry is safe, have not even gone to look when we hear the suspicious scratchings and snufflings; the little squeaks and hisses from the Sebeliuses and that ilk immensely concerned that No Child Will be Left to Live in the name of compassion or fashion.  OK, sorry.   I sometimes allow myself the luxury of a brick through the window.  Whatever.

Poison is abroad in the land, and  its name is Obama Care; a gas, a kind of paralyzing nerve gas.  Hope in him it seems is a false one.  But anyone with a brain knew that from the beginning.  What surprises me is that we still have millions of blissfully ignorant people walking around prattling about how great this will be.  Great for whom, is what I wonder.

This is the beginning, I think.  And it begins quietly, subtly, stealthily disguised as something good.  Always such things begin as something for the Greater Good, always the Hope Filled result of our compassion for others and desire our own comfort and ease, the light at the end of the tunnel, progress, the dawn of a new day.  This is, after all, a democracy.  We do, after all, have leaders, not rulers.  And we can after all change them.  What else is the Constitution for?  What is the government for if not to obey the will of the people?

“They came for the Communists” is the way the quote begins.

It has started, drip, drip, drip.  Well, some would argue it actually started a long time ago.  I am amused really by the design.  Not a real repeal of an unalienable right, this; not at all.  Just a small bite, rat sized,out of teeny clause in one of them, the one least paid attention to, “…or respecting the free exercise thereof…”.  Hope creeps away on little rat feet.

Here is a nice poem to think about after you have read the article and watched the little video it contains:
Hangman
by Maurice Ogden

1.
Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.

The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.

And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.

And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead –
Till one cried: “Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?”

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
“He who serves me best,” said he,
“Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree.”

And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another’s grief
At the Hangman’s hand was our relief

And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow’s sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman’s cloak.

2.
The next day’s sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.

And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.

And we cried, “Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?”
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
“Oh, not for him was the gallows raised.”

He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
“Did you think I’d gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That’s a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new.”

Then one cried “Murder!” and one cried “Shame!”
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man’s place. “Do you hold,” said he,
“with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?”

And he laid his hand on that one’s arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman’s cloak.

That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman’s scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;

Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.

3.
The third he took — we had all heard tell –
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
“What,” said the Hangman “have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?”

And we cried out, “Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?”
The Hangman smiled: “It’s a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam.”

The fourth man’s dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
“And what concern,” he gave us back.
“Have you for the doomed — the doomed and Black?”

The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
“Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?”
“It’s a trick,” he said. “that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow.”

And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.

The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.

4.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name –
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, “There is no one left at all

For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree.”
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman’s tree and the Hangman’s rope.

He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.

And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap –
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.

“You tricked me. Hangman!,” I shouted then,
“That your scaffold was built for other men…
And I no henchman of yours,” I cried,
“You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!”

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
“Lied to you? Tricked you?” he said. “Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true –
The scaffold was raised for none but you.

For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward’s hope?” said he,
“And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?”

“Dead,” I whispered. And amiably
“Murdered,” the Hangman corrected me:
“First the foreigner, then the Jew…
I did no more than you let me do.”

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried “Stop!” for me in the empty square.

An Humble Suggestion

Acting on reliable information that a group of atheists have petitioned the SOG (Seat of Government) to create a position within the Chaplains Corps of the Armed Forces of these Untied Sates for an Atheist Chaplain I first went to my dictionary, then Wikipedia for some guidance as to what, exactly, an Atheist Chaplain would be.  I found none.  But, there must be some mold into which such a thing may be poured, and that being done, there must be something it, well he or she, could do once so conformed to type.  If precedent is followed, it means there will be created, at least in the Armed Services, regular Chaplain led Atheist, umm worship?, services on a day regularly set aside for such things.  Muslims already have Friday.  Jews have Saturday.  Christians, I hope, still have Sunday, but nothing’s guaranteed.  I’m not sure but I think Wiccans and Pagans and New Agers have whatever day looks good.

Perhaps Atheists will take Monday, for Moon-day.

Anyway, in the spirit of welcome from the already worshiping multitudes I have been thinking this morning of offering atheists a framework for a regular , umm, well sort of worship service, and struggling all the while with coming up with a name to call it.  It can’t be anything like Mass because of course that word means meal and what is eaten is the Bread of Life which brings salvation and Everlasting Life; two things in which no self-respecting non-believing atheist could possibly believe.   How odd that sounds now that I read it, but how true.  Any atheist worth his/her salt believes, actually, in nothing.  Creation?  No!  From what, how, why, they would ask.  And, don’t dare mention the word Who.  Good?  Evil?  Heaven?  Hell? Truth?  Beauty? Love?  Hate?  Virtue?  Vice?  At the best, a smart atheist would probably finesse each question by saying, “It all depends.”  This was, essentially, the answer Sartre gave to everything; I meant to write existentially, of course.  “It all depends”, and “Lemme get back to you”, atheists and siding salesmen, separated at birth?

Anyway this morning the thought occurred to my mind as I said to offer them something to do during the time set aside for them to gather as a group of non-believers and witness to the absence among them.  Well, that’s an odd sounding construction, too; on a par with that bit about non-believing believers above.  The possibilities are positively Hellerish, as a professor friend has already noticed.

Perhaps it’s better put in this way: witness to the non-presence of…  No, that doesn’t work any better, and Festivus is taken.  Anyway, I’m sure they’ll come up with something to call it.  Atheists, I have heard, are smart folks; which says a thing or two about mere human intelligence left on its own.

Having put aside the problem of a title for what atheists will do on their day, I’d like to offer them my thoughts on exactly what they may do.  Since I am a Catholic the form of, err, worship for want of another word, I’m suggesting is based on the one I am most familiar with, the Holy Mass in the Latin Rite.  I don’t wish to suggest they actually use Latin which may upset the traditionalist Atheists out there…  Funny, the concept of a traditional atheist yearning for a return to a Latin atheist , umm worship, service had me laughing out loud just now.  But, atheists are big fans of what is pleasantly called Sacred Music if you must know the truth, most of which is sung in Latin.  Attend a concert of such music and half the wet eyes in the audience, I guarantee you, will be atheist eyes.

Anyway, feel free to tweak the following if you think of something which will help these folks get their act up and going.  Make any suggestion that comes to mind as you read by which they may be helped to meet and give thanks for and praise to…to…err, each other?…for…for…well, umm…stuff…and, and…each other?…to, umm…well, whatever… for the greater good of…ahhhh…you know?

We start with a song.  We’ll not call it a hymn, and you know why; too many negative associations.  So, let’s call it The First Song.  I’m thinking something along the lines of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel would be great here for it’s denial of responsibility and simultaneous celebration of random and chaotic successions of events, perfect atheist non-theology.  It establishes a theme based on the “It all depends.” fall back position, a sort of “Quien sabe?” kind of thing, a kind of devil may care insouciance that epitomizes the best atheist response to existence.

After this warm up, this loosening up, there ought to be something similar to an opening prayer, which is just plain silly for a group of atheists.  No one prays to themselves.  But, I think we could do something along those very lines.  Here the Chaplain would say: “Let’s stand tall and think how nice we just sounded, and how nice it is to be here in this, umm, big room right now.”  Then he or she could read something from Garrison Keillor’s Poem for the Day thing on NPR.

Getting right into it, two or three people then would come up to the front of the , umm, congregation in the , uhh, big room and read selections from….  Well from anything, really, anything that would help them, or make everyone feel good about, oh, stuff; a New York Times editorial, a Maureen Dowd op-ed on Catholicism, anything from a Dan Brown, Ayn Rand, Ann Rice or Jacqueline Susann novel, Time, America, Commonweal or the National Catholic Reporter.  Whatever.

When they sit down, the Chaplain gives a little talk about anything he thinks is nice to talk to a bunch of folks about.  I don’t think this should be called a sermon.  Lecture is a better word; the kind of thing any college professor, many of who are atheists, do all the time.  In fact any college professor would be happy to stop by and give a lecture to such a group, I’m sure, and consider it a civic duty so to do; especially if they were social scientists.

After the lecture is done, the Chaplain then invites everyone to stand while he leads them in the Statement of Non-belief.  I am working on one, soon to be posted on this blog as a, err, worship aid.  I thought of a very simple, “NOPE!”, but discarded that idea as not being properly liturgical.

After the recital of the S o N B there will come a period when all gather around a common table to share in a communal feast of Dry Sack, water crackers and two year old  aged cheddar; a brief refreshment and opportunity to experience the closeness of people who don’t have anything in common with one another except their non-belief.  One or two people, not a choir since that would over power the conversation, could sing something like “Bring in the Clouds” softly in the background.  Either that or a similar song would be wonderful for the ambiance, so necessary in gatherings of this type.

As this winds down, the Chaplain draws everything to a close with a simple, “Well, I guess that’s about it.  Don’t forget to think about yourself this week.”  All respond, “Yeah.  You bet.”

On major, I can’t call them feasts or holy day, how about “Big Deals”, “Special Days”, or something like that, the form of dismissal could be along these lines:

CHAPLAIN:  “Go forth and be the best you can be; whatever best means to you at this time and place, however you conceive being to be for yourself alone, careful not to impose on however anyone else, if they exist, is in being with you.”

ATHEISTS: ” You bet!  You really bet!”

The last song?  “My Way” of course.

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.

Pogo’s Equation Proved Once Again, With Reference to Scripture

A fellow named Mark Shea has a blog called Catholic and Enjoying It.  The title sums up something I’ve known for a long time about being a Catholic.  It’s a lot of fun!  It’s a lot of work, too, sometimes, and sometimes it could get you killed.  But most of all it’s a lot of fun.

The secret is locked up in what I’ve come to call Pogo’s Equation, the solution to which is given us every year on Easter morning.  I guess that’s what’s behind Pope Benedict’s new deal about evangelization and re-taking the ground lost in Europe and other places.  As the song asks, “How can you keep from singing?”

Mark Shea also writes the occasional article for the National Catholic Register, and probably a dozen other things.  I like reading what he writes because even when he’s  stalking the bad guys he’s doing it with good spirit and a jolly smile.  Well, on his blog this morning he merely gives one a copy of a You Tube video by a Fr. Robert Barron who is, I think, a professor at Mundelein Seminary.  The video is worth watching.  I get the feeling that Father Barron does what he does with the same kind of spirit as does Mark Shea.  It’s about that “Singing” thing.  Father Barron is talking about why he’s doing what he’s doing and how he does it.  We could learn something about doing the same thing; explaining the equation, sort of.

At the National Catholic Register Shea has an article called It’s a Good Thing We Won World War II.  The article is worth the few minutes it’ll take you to read it, especially the quote from the journal (magazine?) Psychology Today, for letting us know what is happening while we sleep (to allude to a book about another time and place), and why we need to go around making our point; with a song in our hearts.

The comments, too, are very interesting.  Some folks don’t seem to get the point, or listen to the music.  They’re still working on the left side of that equation

Do yourself a favor, read and then understand why we ought to be praying, fervently, for help; because we are certainly incapable of getting ourselves out of this mess we have placed ourselves in without it.  Of course, if you are a HC (Happy Catholic) you’ve already been praying, and singing and smiling.  You know the answer.

I now expect the usual comments from the usual sources that what is wrong is either the fault of the vicious people in the Vatican, the Tea Partiers or the Democrats, or the Market, or the unions, or a thousand other things, including bad genes and un-planned parenthood.  To which I reply, “Go read Pogo if you really want to know.”

Better yet, read, if you must, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; and everything that goes before it and comes after it in that Book.

The Awful Office Speech

I have been given an advance copy of the speech the president will give tonight in his first address to the nation from the Oval Office.  Here it is:

“Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen.  I appear here tonight because, well, because a lot of stuff is happening that most folks find awful, but that I find hopeful, and I thought I’d just let you know a few of these things that folks are doing about the awful stuff that is really hopeful.

First of all I want to assure everyone in the country that I have seen and understand the problem down in the Caribbean.  I have walked on the beaches, and looked at the birds.  I have looked out over the water and listened to the oily waves flop on the oil soaked sand.  In all of this I have found a reason for hope.  I am on top of this and feel a full measure of hope in the outcome.  As the last great democrat to hold this office before me once said in another time of national crisis, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and my ugly wife Eleanor.”

Well, she’s no longer here, so there’s one problem solved.

As for the rest of the problems facing us, I have done what is expected of me, of every president in this situation, and appointed a body of experts to come up with a broad range of solutions.  I have directed that they conduct an exhaustive study of the situation and report to me what they have found out and what they propose to do about it.  In that way, you will be able to blame them, since they are the experts, and I can slide out from under (no pun intended) this whole mess.

So there’s something to be hopeful about, even if it’s only me being hopeful.

Don’t worry, though, because I have come up with a pretty good solution my own self, and ordered the Coast Guard to implement it right away.  As I speak, we are nationalizing Bounty paper towels.  Tomorrow their total production will be directed toward the manufacture of paper towels devoted solely to being used to soak up all the oil spilled along the Gulf Coast.  I have conducted my own tests in the matter, directing the White House chef to spill barbecue sauce all over the table in the East room and timing the staff on the clean up process.

They took an average of thirty seconds to clean each table.  The ones I spilled Olive Oil on required a second application of Windex after the initial clean up, so I have nationalized the entire production of that product, too, and directed the Air Force to stand by with a fleet of KC-135 tankers to spray the really gunky beaches with Windex after the 101st Airborne has been dropped into the “Mop-Up” Zones with the Bounty towels.

The whole thing will be carried live on Oprah, who as you know is from Chicago.

Last but not least, you all know how much Michelle, my lovely wife, is pushing a national weight loss program.  Well, I asked her to help out, here, and she has come up with a reaally great idea to lower the nation’s consumption of gasoline and other petroleum products.  From today, it will be a national policy for every citizen to lose twenty pounds.  That way, there will be less weight for each vehicle to carry around and less fuel to be expended in doing it.

After the tables were all cleaned off Michelle had the girls sit down and figure out how many barrels of oil less a new slimmer, trimmer USA would need to drive us back and forth.  They figured that the total savings would match to the ounce the amount now pouring out of that well down at the bottom of the Gulf.

So, you see, there really isn’t anything to get excited over.  We all lose twenty pounds, except me since I haven’t got that much to lose anyway, and we wipe out the problem without even getting our feet wet.  That us being the solution to our own problem.  That’s the Obama way!

I like getting together like this, and telling you things that will keep up your hopes and spirits.

Later.  Bye.

Oh, I think I’m supposed to say, and God bless the United States.  Umm, Ok.”

The Senator, Hip Deep

(With deep apologies to Lewis Carroll)

Hip deep in snow on the capital steps
The senator, red faced, huffed and said,

“This world of ours is getting warmer by the minute;
The evidence is irrefutable.
Though every day or so there’s a storm or
Blizzard it’s indisputable.
We’ll see the mercury rise any minute now,
And that’s why my proposal makes sense
Based on the plainly visible evidence,”

He paused and looked about him.  Though
The Walrus paid him no attention, the Polar
Bear, nonchalant, inched a little closer.

“This morning I have introduced a bill
To provide everyone a string bikini.
All of us young or old, fat or skinny
Will get at least two.  That way we’ll
Survive the coming heat wave due
I understand,” he looked at his wrist,
“This afternoon at three precisely.
So say the folks at Climate Watch
Whom no one anymore takes lightly.”

The last words, these, the senator uttered.

As bear jaws clamped on his head
And bear teeth sank into his neck
The snow turned a pleasant shade of red.

The Walrus, warm in his fur as a toaster,
Snorted gulping down another oyster.

Underpants Bomb

So, if this guy Abbadabbadoomullet from Nigeria sets off the bomb in his shorts about 250 people…and him…don’t get to have a Merry Christmas.  But, it fizzles.  There’s a thousand jokes in that pair of shorts.

Now, there is.  But, what if…???  Well, it rains body parts all over Detroit.  They get a red Christmas instead of a white one.

I read a story that a nice couple were on that flight on their way home from Ethiopia with two kids they’d just adopted, and their natural daughter is coming back with them, too.

“So sorry, kids, but I gotta catch a plane to martyrdom and my 77…or however many..virgins.  It’s all about God, you know, and getting straight with my personal, umm, savior.  Yum.  Yum.”  In the story I read, the Mom says they held hands for a few minutes there when things looked like it was for real, and prayed, and stuff.  They even sang a hymn while awaiting being blown out of the sky.  “We were ready, ” Mom said, “but I thought how sad it was for the children.”  What else could you expect.  Christian martyrs pray.  Muslim martyrs commit murder.

Our Dummy-in-Chief seizes the moment after the news hits the fan to say he’s ordered everyone to look alert.  This is the guy who thinks that these crumb-bums are merely criminals and should be tried in federal court and allowed all of the protections the Constitution gives crooks.  “Don’t worry about a thing, Muckdope.  The Imam knows the American president’s heart.  You’ll get a nice cell near the court house, a quick trial and we’ll get you back in a year or two, when they figure you’re just a misguided youth.  Back here in Yemen, we know different.”

Yemen’s  what some folks are calling the “new Afghanistan”, and not because opium is a cash crop in Yemen.  The two guys who head up the group who sent the Underpants Bomber on his mission graduated from Guantanamo.  After their graduation, thanks to some sharp lawyers and dimwit federal judges, they went home to Yemen and took up their profession which is killing people.

You remember Guantanamo?  That’s where we put the most vicious bunch of …( well what I think they are I am too polite to say.)  But until the Prophet of Hope got into office we used to know them as terrorists and enemy combatants.  Now, they’re defendants.  And, guess what, you’re paying for their defense.  Anyway, we had them all where we wanted them in Guantanamo.  Until January 20, 2009, that is.

Now, we are about to give them the very best that money can buy in the American legal system; the few we haven’t already determined are safe to return home, like the two camel jockeys who sent Abbadabbadoomullet on his ride to glory.

Who cares if we lose a plane and a few hundred taxpayers here and there? We got three hundred some odd million here, don’t we?  Who’s gonna miss ‘em?

The other thing President Chicken Neck says is that he wants an “overhaul” of security measures, and that he wants everyone to know we’re gonna “strike back”, whatever that means.  It’s all part of sounding presidential, I guess.  I’m impressed.  Ain’t you?

Someone mentioned in one of the articles I read about the Underpants Bomb that about the best defense against this thing is one or both of dogs or x-ray cameras.  You know, dogs sniffing your, umm, naughty bits, and cameras taking pictures through your clothes.

Oboober wants us to tighten up.

Fat chance!  The ACLU is all over this about both of them things being “invasions” of privacy.  The ACLU was all over Guantanamo being an invasion of the poor terrorist’s civil rights and due process and stuff like that.  This is the same ACLU that is all over anyone who talks about “profiling”, which is an obscene term your children should never hear you say..

Well, their cake may just be taken away from them before they can eat it.  They win about dogs and cameras, enough planes go down in flames and, sooner or later everyone in this country has a prayer rug, a beard and hates pornography and the ACLU (which loves pornography).

I have a solution for our current quandary, aside from surrendering that is, which it seems like we are about to do.  Anyone wanting to fly from anywhere to anywhere shows up nekkid and gets dressed after their luggage is searched.  Plus we give ‘em the underwear.  That way, their privacy ain’t violated by canine perverts or sneaky x-ray cameras.  Oh, and anyone from a Muslim country gets a free colonoscopy; just in case.

That should make everyone happy.

Curse The Future

(for FXA)

Curse the future
From the height
Above the storm.
There will be one
And that one surely grim.
Don’t die.

Curse the lurking danger
Anxious for the fire
Blazing higher, ever
Pure fed on cruel desire.
Don’t die.

Curse the quiet night
Before the rising end
And curse yourself
If you do not turn
To begin again.
Don’t die.

Wish no longer that the many moments will be one
As if wishing ever could halt their flood.
Nor try a simple cut
Across the current
As if to seize however brief
A flickering of time
Clear against the covering cloud
Or slip into an eddy near the shore.
A drunkard’s dream that’s all that is;
No more.
Don’t die.

Learn the way of clean lined fish who
Slip between the currents sliding by
Returning upstream to occupy
What had been left behind.
They see water as eagles see sky.
See time that way.
Don’t die.

The Bradan Feasa surely knew the way
And could be apprehended many had said
When Deimne waited clever by the water’s edge
With panther’s patience and eagle’s eye.
Hero of another time, yet young
The heart of rhyme pattern for our song.
He lives, Deimne, known, knowing all.
The Fair One who did not fall.
Don’t die.