What? Me blog?

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Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all convictions, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.



Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all around it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Labels: Ethan

Labels: environs, grumpy, snow, work

Labels: fun with food

Labels: grumpy, IU, sports

AGI World News

(AGI) - Madrid, 21 Feb - Brazilian priests have spoken directly to Pope Benedict XVI to ask him for a revision of the canonical law obliging celibacy for those carrying out priestly functions. The decision appeared in the final document of the 12th National Meeting of Priests, which ended on Tuesday in the Itaici monastery in the Indaiatuba municipality (in the state of Sao Paulo). The request will be sent to the Holy Congregation for the Clergy under the direction
of Claudio Hummes, former archbishop of Sao Paulo and previously one of the potential candidates for the role of pope in the conclave in which the German Cardial Joseph Ratzinger was elected.

It was the Brazilian priest himself, a close friend of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who said immediately after taking on his new role, that celibacy by priests "is not a dogma" and that the decline in the vocation could induce the Church to "reflect on the matter". In the document sent to Rome two types of priesthood are requested: one requiring a vow of celibacy, for those who make the vow as part of their religious orders and congregations, and one in which celibacy is no longer mandatory.

The request is also made for priests to be able to ordain spouses considered worthy of the priesthood, and that that those who left the latter to raise a family can be brought back into it. As reported by the Spanish daily El Pais, quoting a bishop who did not want his identity revealed, married laymen have long been ordained in Brazil. "Rome is aware of the fact, but does not want it to be made public."

Brazilian priests have also asked for the appointing of priests to be made more democratic, and for those who have divorced to have a right to the sacraments as well.

Cool! I've always wanted to be a priest - well for last couple of years or so anyway. Very cool. Father Don, and my wife can be Sister Mary Angela!

No...wait - that doesn't sound right...

Maybe we could ordain our kids. Then she could be Mother Mary Angela!

Bless me Fadda; Bless me Mudda!
Here I am your, Little Brudda!
I've been hopin' for a reason
To get married to a Sister I find pleasin...

Labels: Oy

Labels: ma$$hole, politics

Labels: fun with food

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Scant weeks ago, I was contemplating the coming agony of living under the rule of the Reptilian Overlordess. What could be worse than four years of Hillary Clinton?

I think I've found the answer. Thanks to Mark Shea - I think.

Just when you think it couldn't get any weirder - we get the new Messiah!?

"A quantum leap in American consciousness" -- Deepak Chopra

Seriously?

"He is not operating on the same plane as ordinary politicians. . . . the agent of transformation in an age of revolution, as a figure uniquely qualified to open the door to the 21st century." -- Gary Hart

Hyperbole much?

"Barack Obama is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings . . . He's our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence." -- Eve Konstantine

Do they teach that in physics?

"This is bigger than Kennedy. . . . This is the New Testament."

"I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often. No, seriously. It's a dramatic event." -- Chris Matthews

The New Testament. I believe he's finally lost his mind. The second quote reminds me of a Lucinda Williams song. It's just wrong.

"[Obama is ] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom . . . [He is] the man for this time." -- Toni Morrison

I'm waiting for him to split a baby between two welfare queens.

"Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. . . . He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh . . . Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves."-- Ezra Klein

Excuse me, I need to go wash my mind out with soap.

"Obama has the capacity to summon heroic forces from the spiritual depths of ordinary citizens and to unleash therefrom a symphonic chorus of unique creative acts whose common purpose is to tame the soul and alleviate the great challenges facing mankind." -- Gerald Campbell

All I really wanted was a tax cut and the dismantling of a government agency or two, thanks.

"We're here to evolve to a higher plane . . . he is an evolved leader . . . [he] has an ear for eloquence and a Tongue dipped in the Unvarnished Truth." -- Oprah Winfrey

Just - I have no words.

“I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored. That’s not routine. There’s something else going on. I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered. . . . I know that that was God’s plan." -- Bill Rush

Well, so much for the separation of church and state.

I think I'll be voting third party in the general election again. I've pretty much decided that Democratics and Republican are Harry and Lloyd in the collective. Good Lord.

I have decided to declare for the Democratics in the Indiana primary* though, so I can vote for the Lizard Queen over the Son of God. I didn't think there would ever be anything that could make me vote for that woman.

I was wrong.

*Or not...I might be fudging the truth for rhetorical purposes.

Labels: politics

Labels: Critters

If you've made any sense at all of why Congress and the President are promoting illegal immigration and present international trends, you surely see what's in store if we continue to drift along with the two parties. We'll have an Americanadamex nation organized on economic principles--a large peasant class to compete with China, a tech/middle management class, and the managers. Welcome to the age of international corporatism, "Rollerball," not "Brave New World" or "1984." Bernard Gross called it "Friendly Fascism." No, it's no great conspiracy; it's nothing more than allowing power to drift as it wishes. It seems everyone wants the US to dissolve into corporatism. The UN desires it. The Euros, having done it themselves, desire it. Multinational corporations desire it. And our own government, increasingly modeled upon corporate principles, apparently desires it as well.

- DuMaurier-Smith

This is what your Democrat and Republican overlords want for you. Is it what you want for yourselves? For your children? For your grandchildren?

Someone said that the surest sign of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Why do you keep pulling the lever? Some say that voting, any vote for any candidate, merely validates the system that enslaves you. I don't agree, yet. There has to be mechanism for change and the ballot, used intelligently, is the only peaceful method as long as change is still possible - and it is.

The time may, probably will, come when bullets must replace ballots. Before you get too excited about that statement, remember that the people who founded this nation did so at the point of a gun. Today, our government would label them domestic terrorists and eliminate them proactively.

In the meantime, vote. But at least try a different lever.

Do you really think the corporatists care which candidate you vote for in 2008 if your only option is between McCain or Hillybama? There are other options. Look at the Libertarians or the Constitution Party and consider voting for them.

Let me perfectly clear. You will not cast a vote for a winner by doing so. You will hasten the demise of the Republican Party, which is virtually indistinguishable from its Democratic counterpart ideologically anyway. The only saving grace of the GOP has been the vocal contingent of classic liberals and libertarians, and they are currently being kicked to the curb - if you doubt it, read the op-ed by the Anchoress that DuMaurier-Smith is responding to.

Labels: politics

Sorry for the long absence. I've been dealing with some personal problems that as a side effect produced a decided lack of enthusiasm for updating blogs.

Now that some of the issues are finally being resolved, I hope to do a better job of keeping up.

Labels: blather, interlude

With a bonus shot of Mrs. Hoosiertoo.

Very rare. May have to be removed if she sees it.

Low res - taken w/phone camera.

Labels: Ward

Labels: Ward

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Labels: politics

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It has become painfully obvious that Ron Paul cannot be the Republican nominee. In his latest e-mail update he acknowledges that unhappy fact and all but throws in the towel:

Let me tell you my thoughts. With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties -- just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.

While I am disappointed that once again I will have no horse in the 2008 election, I can't say I'm surprised. I suppose I should be happy that once again a liberal - and by "liberal" I mean in the sense that our founders would have understood the term, not as it's been highjacked by the so-called "progressives" - has once again engaged the national conversation, but I'm really not. All the talk added up to more of the same.

I suppose some may look upon my obsession with constitutional government and fiscal sanity as quixotic. Hell, Jules Crittenden thinks I ought to hold my nose and support the Repugnican nominee.

Well, screw that.

I am, once again, either sitting this one out or going third party. Ron Paul will not run a third party candidacy; too bad - but it makes sense. It's what he maintained form the start, and he is after all trying to keep his congressional seat as a Republican - I intend, and so should you, to send a contribution his way for that purpose. In the meantime, although I am removing the links to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign, I will not cease to agitate for limited government and fiscal sanity.

Says Dr. Paul: The neocons, the warmongers, the socialists, the advocates of inflation will be hearing much from you and me.

Long Live the Revolution!

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The search now begins for a worthy 3rd party candidate to support. It may well be Nobody in '08.

Labels: politics, Ron Paul

Labels: Ethan, Ward

Labels: environs

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It amazes me how I will be following a line of thought and - just like that! - I find articles and commentary in the same vein. It may just be that I'm more zoned in. Or maybe there really is zeitgeist. Who knows? Hat tip to Catholics for Ron Paul. Anyway, John Zmirak has this to say:

In an American context, given our constitutional heritage and the large
body of legal decisions solidifying its interpretation, on nearly any issue,
Christians of any denomination should reject the assistance of the State. Our
efforts to capture it, the courts have made it clear, will always fail. Any
attempt to infuse the activity of the government with the moral content of a
revealed religion will be rejected, in the end. Indeed, the more our own
institutions cooperate with the government, the more they will be compromised;
hospitals which take federal funds will be subject to secular ethics on issues
like contraception, end-of-life, and even abortion. Religious colleges accepting
federal grants will eventually be federalized, and so on.

It seems clear that the public sphere in America is irretrievably secular. So the only logical response of Christians must be to try to shrink it. Instead of attempting to
baptize a Leviathan which turned on us long ago, we’d do much better to cage and
starve the beast. We should favor low taxes—period, regardless of the “good” use
to which politicians promise to put it. We should oppose nearly every government
program intended to achieve any aim whatsoever. We can make exceptions here and
there: We can favor the protection of innocent lives, which would cover things
like fixing traffic lights and throwing abortionists into prison. But that is
pretty much that. Christian public policy should focus not on capturing
the power of the State but shrinking it, to the bare minimum required to enforce
individual rights, narrowly defined. Likewise, the share of our wealth seized by
the state must be radically slashed, to allow for private initiatives and
charities that will not be amoral, soulless, bureaucratic and counterproductive
(like the secular welfare state). Instead of asking for handouts to our schools
in the forms of vouchers, we should seek the privatization of public
schools—which by their very nature, in today’s post-Christian America, are
engines of secularism. And so on for nearly every institution of the centralized
State, which has hijacked the rightful activities of civil society and the
churches, and which every year steals so much of our wealth to squander on
itself that we can barely afford to reproduce ourselves. (So the State helpfully
offers to replace us with immigrants, but that’s another article.)

The social gospel needs to be rethought.

Labels: politics, religion

Labels: environs

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I'd like for someone to point to the verse in the New Testament where Jesus makes that claim, or where he declares that His kingdom is of this world.

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Warning! I'm not teaching here - I'm questioning.

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I'm a Christian. I...

...believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

...believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,the only son of God, eternally begotten of the Father. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he born of the Virgin Mary,became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

...believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.

...believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

...acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

...look for the resurrection of the dead,and the life of the world to come.

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I am a Catholic because I believe in the Real Prescence. I get infallibility. I get purgatory and all the other things that make Prots scratch their heads and go, "Huh?" Even indulgences - although I still ain't real comfortable with that one.

I'm not big on apparitions, Marian devotion, rosaries or a bunch of other popular stuff, and things like scapulars, medals, blessings of motorcycles* and throats, and asking saints to find car keys** I find frankly off-putting. I get the uncomfortable feeling that too many Christians think the faith is like "white" magic or something. Get the "spell" right and - Bingo! - long lost trinkets magically appear.

Let's face it - there's a lot about my Church I don't get. FWIW, I've attended innumerable mainline Prot, Fundie and other assorted Christian assemblies and have decided that silliness is nondenominational.

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One thing I surely don't get is the Church's social gospel. Oh, I know all about helping widows and orphans and what not, and I get loving my neighbor as myself - even though I must hate myself, based on my feelings*** for some neighbors.

What I don't understand is the Church's insistence on attempting to push it's social agenda through programs administered by a secular - even hostile - government. If the Kingdom of God is supposed to look like a left-wing Utopia - minus abortion - then I confess to missing the point.

More to come...****



*A nondenominational phenomenon. I've seen bikes blessed by everyone from a priest to a hirsute biker/pastor, presumably from the Church of Hog Heaven. Cue "Riders in the Sky" by Roxette

**I'd suppose that Saint Anthony has better things to worry about. I try not to bug saints. They're busy. I'd rather have them interceding for my sorry butt than worrying about where I put my Honda keys.

***Good thing Love is an act of will and not a feeling.

****Sorry!

Labels: blather, religion

# posted by hoosiertoo @ 7:56 PM 0 Comments

Labels: Ouch

Labels: environs

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One of the problems Christians have when confronted by atheists – assuming that the Christian is well-versed in his or her faith - is the instinctual appeal to the Bible in response. Appeals to scripture are fine in discussions between believers because even if they may disagree on interpretation they both agree that scripture is authoritative. Not so the non-Christian.

Atheists are rare; true atheists are rarer. Most of what passes for atheism in the US is merely snarky anti-Christian mutterings of perpetual adolescents rebelling against authority. Most of this type of atheist are, if irreligious, prone to a host of weird beliefs that make Christianity appear utterly reasonable in comparison.

Then there are those atheists who appeal to reason as the basis of their unbelief. Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are three of this latter sort. They have each written best-selling books and promote the cause of unbelief wherever the opportunity presents itself – evangelical atheists, if you will. It is this “unholy trinity” that Vox Day addresses in his book, “The Irrational Atheist.”

I've always said Vox is the thinking man's Anne Coulter - a rapier wit with a taste for blood and a talent for wordplay. Only not as attractive. TIA is laugh-out-loud funny in spots – the footnotes are a hoot – but the book is a deadly serious takedown of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens dissecting their own arguments and using them against them. It does so without recourse to Scripture and Day succeeds brilliantly; the “unholy trinity” have a lot to answer for, and they should answer. I suspect they won’t.

Readers of Vox Day’s blog are going to be familiar with most of the arguments. I found the “God as game designer” analogy to be dubious, if diverting, but overall this is a good read and highly recommended for atheists and Christians alike - Christians, for ammunition to use in defending the faith and atheists, because it is good to reconsider what you think you know from time to time. Be prepared to reconsider what you thought you knew about the Inquisition, the Crusades, Adolf Hitler and a host of other subjects. If you are hoping for a definitive argument for God’s existence, you won’t find it here. What you will find is definitive proof of the existence of irrational atheists.

Labels: books, religion

Labels: environs

Labels: Andrew, grandkids

Labels: environs