Speaking With a Forked Tongue

In the old Westerns the Injuns would, with expressions of anger, disgust and sadness at the obvious stupidity of the whites and their continuous double dealing, say, “He speaks with a forked tongue.” Now, while making no comparisons between sitting presidents and squatting demons the term “a forked tongue”, and its close cousin “speaking from both sides of his mouth, does conjure  unwelcome notions and sad memories, paint an ugly pictures of avoidable tragedies. What must one do to be rid of such unwholesome thoughts?

You are probably wondering why the little musing above.  From among the very many stories which one may choose I offer this one.

This latest example speaks of  one who sneaks away in the middle of the night to fly across the globe and creep before the sun rises into the besieged city, sign something that pledges to leave and to stay at the same time, promises…like someone we once one heard promise?…this war is over and then fly home to fanfares and trumpets, proclaiming…like someone we have heard before?…the equivalent of peace in our time.

Oh, the cynic will say, “All of them do that.”  Let them say it.  They are probably right.  The squatting demon says it, too.  And, he knows, that as long as enough fools listen and “Hope” where hope is vain, and trust where trust is poison, he will have so much fun.

Who Will See Your Tears?

We just finished reading a book, an epistolary novel, and a very good one at that, too.  At the end “R”, the character to whom all the letters are addressed over a forty year period, appears briefly only to leap from a quarry wall and dashe his brains out on the rocks below.  A Polish priest rushes over to him as he lies bloody and not quite yet dead, and blesses him.

Since this all happens in a concentration camp somewhere in Germany, the guards, cheated of their prey, and enraged at the priest club that poor man to death, while “R” sees and sheds a tear.  The tear, “seen by Another” in the words of the author saves him.  It is a happy ending.  Of course the book is by a Catholic author, so what else would one expect.  Catholicism…Christianity…is all about happy endings.

“R” had spent his life in a prodigality of sin, coming to realize in the darkness of the concentration camp that there was no reason to continue living.  Choosing death in this life was his final gesture of waste and uselessness.  Of course, what better place to do so than in a concentration camp, a place whose sole purpose is to use up and discard as useless the lives we have been given, the State not only allowing it, but positively encouraging it, assisting it and participating in it?

But once State organized and controlled death appears, no one is safe from it.  That is the lesson which should have been learned.  Alas,  look at Holland.

But, you need not go that far away.  Look at Oregon.  There Death has come to live, taken up residence, cast his dark shadow over the state.  And no one cares that Death is growing fat on Oregonians who like “R” have grown tired with life; even in what I am reliably informed is a beautiful place to live.  No concentration camp, Oregon.  There the state has many able surrogates and quieter more subtle ways to assist Death’s dark purpose.  He has learned to smile, to walk softly, to creep ever more secretly.  But, it will not be long before State and Death dance openly in Oregon.  For now, quiet, Death works.

I was interested to read this from the report:  ” The most commonly expressed concerns of those dying from physician-assisted suicide were unchanged from previous reports: less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable, losing autonomy, and loss of dignity.”

The term used often to describe those whose conditions, whatever they were, made them “less able, autonomous and dignified’ was “Lebens Unwertes Leben”;  lives unworthy of life.  The decision is theirs, now, in Oregon.  And the lovers of death do nothing, it seems to try to persuade them otherwise.  That will change, too..  If you look at the numbers, it has already begun to do so.  There are no brutish guards with rifle butts to club those who would help, yet.  That may be simply because there are none who will come to the side of the despairing dying ones and bless them on their way.

Death can be so lonely.

Who will see your tears?

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.

A Letter to a Friend

Someone recently communicated with me urging on me their understanding of this pas de deux between Holy Mother Church and Uncle Sugar’s current mob in DC over whether or not it would be right and just, proper and helpful toward salvation for the latter organization to insist that the former one knuckle under and forget all this drama about rights of conscience and freedom of religion, and concentrate simply of ponying up the money simple folks need for recently defined simple medical procedures, medications and/or apparatuses.  He took the road more traveled.  Below I try to tell him why I will not.

Have I made it simple enough for him?

Dear “N”,

It is simple, actually.  Pay attention, here.

Let us say that you  have a little business, and the business has three employees.  Let us say further that the government has recently passed a law that anyone who is an employer (you) has to buy health insurance for their employee(s).  That would be the fellow working for you, Billy Bucketbellie.  Still further, let us say that the law requiring you to buy that insurance also states that cosmetic plastic surgery (Nips and Tucks, botox in the butt, nose jobs, etc., even such things as multiple piercings and outlandish tattoos in strange places) are legitimate treatments for legitimate medical problems for the purposes of this new law (We will call the whole thing Reconstructive Health, which term was born as the twin of the Supreme Court decision granting to everyone everywhere their Reconstructive Rights), such that if someone has a skinny butt or a droopy neck and they don’t want it, they have every right to get it taken care of.  And let us say that such Reconstructive Health procedures will be provided absolutely cost free  under the new government ordered and employer paid for health plans that you, thee employer now must get for your employee(s).  There will be no charge to anyone at any time if they want to avail themselves of Reconstructive Health treatments or devices (push up bras are covered…even for men) including no co-pay at the providers office.

It is odd this, is it not?  I mean heart disease, cancer, diabetes and bee sting allergies will all require at least co-payments, but  Reconstructive Health  is provided absolutely cost free.  But, the  Reconstructive Health industry, by the way, is known to have a very strong lobby, and Congress, all of Washington DC is filled with a lot of pierced and tattooed people and people who know them.  Anyway, I continue.

Let us say that you and your family are  True Believers , and what you are true believers of is the  Church of the Original Form .  You believe that the body you were born into the world with is the one God wanted you to have; that since God is all knowing and all good, in His Divine Wisdom he gave you the one body in all eternity that most perfectly fits His image in you and for you, and is a reflection of His Mighty Power and Love to all the world.  Let us say that.  Finally let us say that one of the most sacred doctrines and dogmas of the COF and its believers is that because of this belief in the originality and uniqueness of one’s body it is a grievous sin and an offense against one’s deeply held beliefs actually to alter it in any way through surgical or other means, unless in the course of treatment for a disease or a serious accident.  Furthermore, it is also a serious sin to participate knowingly in someone else’s willing resort to any  Reconstructive Health Procedure.  Your conscience tells you that you cannot participate in this government mandated insurance program as it it presently constructed.  To do so would involve you directly in grave sin.

While you would feel sorry that your employee Mr. Bucketbellie had an operation to remove his wattle, and you would pray for his soul, you cannot in however small a way, join him in that decision, and you consider it a violation of your Constitutional right freely to practice your religion without the interference of government now to be required to provide the insurance which will allow him so to do.

No one anywhere is saying that the Bucketbellie’s of the nation may not pierce, cut,and color themselves as they wish.  They are simply saying that the government should not force them to provide insurance for those poor fools to do so.

I’ll make it more simple, if I can.  Perhaps you don’t smoke, you never smoked and you don’t like to breath second hand smoke. Let us put you back in that business again, and suppose that you have hired Bob Rawthroat, a chain smoker who goes through six packs a day (God help him).  Now comes the government with another plan to save the tobacco growers of the country from ruin and poverty.  You must contribute half the cost of Bob’s half carton of coffin nails each day.

Wanna do that?  I don’t.  While I have no employees yet, I do own a small business and I will not participate in any plan that requires me to pay for something I consider it would be a violation of my conscience so to do.  The bargain I had with this Republic guarantees me the right to do that.  It has broken faith with me, and that is not only wrong, it’s downright despicably wrong, and the people responsible for it are as a former teacher of mine was wont to say, cruds and worms, cruddy worms, for so doing.  I do not like them and applaud the decision of anyone not to obey the law.  It is a treacherous thing to do to a citizen, and makes me wonder if a government can commit the crime of treason against its own citizens.

Yours In Patriotic Duty,

Peter

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.

A Woman Said

What follows was part of a discussion on a well known “social media site”.  I copied it because I thought it said a lot about a great divide in our country, the one between two kinds of people, two generations, two different world views, two different cultures.  It was occasioned by the appearance of a cartoon showing the President of these Untied States wearing the clerical robes of a pope.  It was s satirical cartoon designed for strong reactions, and it got them.  People objected to the artist’s robing Obama as the Catholic Pontiff, commented on his support for abortion and his refusal to recognize the conscience rights of Catholics.  Someone, a young woman, wrote:

I find it disturbing, but I’m mostly offended by the commentary it represents. I don’t like Obama, but I don’t find him to be any more “tyrannical” or arrogant than any other President we’ve had. Calling him a Communist really just illuminates one’s complete misunderstanding of communism, and the equation of abortion with the Holocaust as well as the implication that requiring insurance to cover birth control is equal to abortion, just pisses me off.

And someone replied that while the Holocaust had destroyed a mere 6 million, the death toll from abortion was much higher than that.  They wanted to know why such a thing as that comparison “pissed her off”.  The lady said:

Because those Jews weren’t unborn fetuses whose existence required the cooperation of women whose bodies they’d be inhabiting, stressing, straining and whose lives they’d be massively impacting irreparably as a result…. I think people have a right to liberty and pursuit of happiness. I don’t think carrying unwanted pregnancies to term is part of either of those things.

This occasioned a criticism of the lady’s position on abortion and contraception as rights guaranteed by the Constitution and legitimate medical procedures necessary for good reproductive health.  She took issue:

Yeah… I disagree. People have a right to want to get off with a partner without getting pregnant as a result, and they also have a right to end pregnancies. You see – there’s a part of anyone’s moral compass that may say “well, in the event of rape – or in the event of medical complications – or in the event of abuse – or in the event of an accident…” well guess what – I don’t think the government should be sitting in a woman’s doctor’s office with her… and I don’t consider myself or anyone else an appropriate judge of when it’s “okay” and it’s not to abort an unwanted fetus – so in the interest of liberty, I’m going to excuse myself and the government acting on my behalf, and anyone else I have the power to excuse, of the right to decide when that woman may exercise her physical autonomy. She is a free being – if she chooses to allow a fetus to grow inside her, if she chooses to remove it – that’s entirely none of anybody else’s business. The moral consequences are hers alone, whatever they may be….  I think people have a right to liberty and pursuit of happiness. I don’t think carrying unwanted pregnancies to term is part of either of those things.

As for the requirement that private employer’s insurance policies cover contraception – I could go on at length about the necessity of hormonal birth control for many women (such as myself) for entirely NON-birth control related reasons (if I don’t take it, I get terrible cysts due to my endometriosis – cysts that may very well prevent me from getting pregnant in the future when I choose to) – but also that I don’t think an employer, whether or not it’s the Catholic church, should be making the medical decisions of its employees. Removing one area of coverage allows others to be chipped away at – and employers and insurance companies may find it in their interest to lower premiums by not covering many routine and/or necessary procedures they chose not to agree with for whatever reason.

Someone took issue with her position:

You need not go on at length about the necessity of hormonal treatments for many women. I am relying only on my memory, and anecdotes from a woman (my first mother-in-law, may she rest in peace) who worked for one of the doctors who developed such medications here, but I seem to recall that he and his colleagues were concerned to develop medications for those conditions…and to regulate the menstrual cycles of their patients who were having trouble conceiving. I got the distinct impression that this one doctor, at least, was dismayed at what has been made of his work, since. That is merely an impression, though.

That said, it would be heartless of me to seek to bar someone who needed an effective treatment from getting it, and I would think the same of anyone else who held that view, that they were heartless. However, I would give odds that the number of therapeutic uses to which those medications are put is far outweighed by the number of women who use them for what is thought by most of the world to be their only use. You and I do not agree that people have a” right to get off with a partner without getting pregnant as a result”, especially if the exercise of that “right” requires me…or any other person, or organization….whose religion and deeply held belief consider such a thing morally reprehensible. More than that, I am not alone in thinking that requiring persons who so believe to pay for the means to do so in however small a part is equally reprehensible. In such a case, my constitutional right to the free practice of my religion trumped the other” right” you champion so eloquently…until January 20.

Let me make myself clear, here. There is no right that I know to health care of any kind either enumerated in the constitution or to be found in the shadows of those rights enumerated…except for abortion from 1973, a procedure which I and many others consider homicide, now made legal and claimed as a right, and simply because it is performed by doctors in clinics and hospitals also recognized as a “therapeutic” procedure…an Orwellian mangling of language if ever there was one.

Finally, I’ll risk being possibly incorrect on your position about Obamacare, but I think I will be safe in concluding that whatever it is, your position and mine on the so called “mandate” and its subsequent amendment meet with your approval. If I am wrong you may chalk it up to my leaping to that conclusion from your assertion of a right to mutual getting off without the risk/threat of pregnancy.  Even though the exercise of that right requires the use of some forms of contraception for a perversion of their original purpose.

Time and space do not permit an exploration of why I would reject as immoral such things. Time and space do not allow, either, for a discussion which I think needs being had in this country about responsibilities and duties rather than rights; concepts which would seem to me to rule out such things as mutual getting off without the risk of pregnancy. Suffice to say the arguments would be framed within natural law principles, which I suppose you know well and reject. And, now, I retire.

And that is the way it rests.  Silence reigns, and no one is satisfied with anyone else.

Conscience? You Don’t Need No Stinking Conscience!

The recent decision by the current government of the once (and future?) Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, to restrict the rights of believers marks the end of the long beginning of a new form of National Socialism here, complete with the same scabrous obscenities that characterized  the last century’s woeful descent into depravity and death; organized cruelty, compelled thought and Orwellian distortions of language.  The most recent example of the latter being found in the term “freedom of conscience” which now means exactly its opposite.  I do think we have crossed the threshold into hell here in these Untied States, and I see over everything the growing shadow of the face and form of evil; a dark ugliness.

Bad luck to those responsible for it.  Bad luck to them all, the ones who worked to make it happen, the ones who welcome it, the ones who wish for more of it, the lords of power and lovers of death..

It is the brightest of mornings outside my window.  The air is still after cold and ill winds all night long.

I am home now and reading.  The things I read tell me that nothing very much has changed.  My Facebook friends still post their status reports on their comings and goings, and updates on room makeovers, music favorites, films they will see, wines they will drink, children’s plays they will watch.  The newspapers all over the world report on the doings of nations and their great ones, especially the great ones and the near great ones here in these Untied States.  The MSM pundits speculate on who will win in the next primary and the next game, often the two being inseparable in my mind.  And, the Sunday Supplements are filled with photos and stories of new things for your skin, your body your house and your mind; newer than last week, not yet as new as next week.

No one notices thing have changed, here.  But, they have.

I’ll tell you the truth.  This bad decision has changed the way we live.  The givernment (what an interesting typo?) of the people, etc. has broken faith with us; the contract between us tossed out the window.  In their desire to give the bum’s rush to western civilization and welcome in the new age of death they have included…indeed it’s necessary to accomplish the goal…they’ve begun to destroy the Bill of Rights, the first floor erected on the foundation of the Constitution.  What else could be the purpose for it than that.

Father George Rutler is no one’s fool.  Here he calls a spade a spade.

I like his observation on the specious promise of the Sebellius HHS to “consider” the objections of the leaders of many Christian and other denominations to the provisions of this Obamacare bill which would force them to violate their beliefs and become complicit in immoral activities: “But “peace for our time” only lasts until Poland is invaded.”

He makes the right connection between the murderous Nazi regime and the one which squats in Washington, DC.   May God have mercy on their souls.

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.