What he knew and others chose to ignore. Déjà vu or simply a continuum? (let’s revisit this shall we?)

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic,
an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
Winston Churchill

(Winston Churchil /Casablanca, 1943)

Following the 2014 Winter Olympics hosted in Sochi, Russia–
the world was basking in the afterglow of global peace and harmony.
This collective sense of worldly kumbaya was found in the simple idea of
the competition of winter athletics.
Yet that sense of good cheer was quickly crushed when that year’s
Olympic hosts, that being Russia, boldly decided to invade neighboring
Ukraine. A sovereign nation.
And now once again, the world sits waiting and watching as a hungry ravenous bear
raises a massive deadly paw, poised to strike.
So given our times…be it 2014 or 2021, I offer this previous
post—not much seems to have changed in 7 years…

On March 21, 2014, with the sweeping act of a single pen, Valdimir Putin signed away Crimea, transforming a portion of Ukraine back to what was Soviet Russia. Changing the world map.

In 1938 Adolph Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia, with a similar sweeping act of a pen, known as the Munich Pact.
Changing the face of Europe forever.

This week, Lithuania’s president Dalia Grybauskaite, who is attending a European Council meeting of the heads of state discussing the EU’s response to the situation in Ukraine, told a BBC reporter that we, the world, are sitting on the edge of a new Cold War.

In 1946, Winston Churchill, addressing Westminster College in Missouri, introduced the world to the phrase “iron curtain” just as the Cold War was rearing its ugly head.

(Churchill surveys the ruins of chamber of The House of Commons after
a German assault of the Blitzkrieg.)

(The smiles of Uncle Joe deceive, while a wise Winston is all too keen to true motives.)

(1943 Churchill addresses a joint session of Congress urging the American allies to remain steadfast, staying the course, in their “duty to mankind”)

Within the blink of an eye and the sweeping act of a pen,
the world changed this week.
The world map shifted as a piece of the free world was unimaginably
sucked back in time.
If we, the world, choose to simply remain as mere spectators,
change will continue–history teaches us such.

Winston Churchill was the lone voice of foreboding warning alerting
the World to the true motives of first, Adolph Hitler,
then those of Joseph Stalin.
Each time, the free world chose to ignore his words.
Words which were alarming, scary, troubling.
Who wanted to think of such?
Why should anyone worry,
it’s not like this was happening in the backyard of the US or
that the island nation of Great Britain would be affected.
That was all over there, not here—
these being our thoughts as we lulled ourselves into looking the other way.
Maybe it’s all just bravado and bluff.
We just want to live our lives.
We don’t want to dwell on bad things. . .

But then the bad things happened. . .

Each time, Churchill was correct.
And each time, the world was too slow to react.

I wonder what Churchill would say after this week’s blatant act of
“what’s yours is now mine” by Valdimir Putin?
I somehow think there’s an “I told you so” out there somewhere.

May we be mindful of our continuing duty.

(and on we go…once again…over and over and over…)

the last of the lions

“What you are is God’s gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.”
Hans Urs von Balthasar

(Senator Bob (Doyle, 95, salutes the casket of his friend, colleague, opponent and
fellow WWII vertern, George, H.W. Bush)

(this is a portion of a post I offered back in 2018 with the passing of
President George Herbert Walker Bush— Bush 41…
Bush was the dear friend, colleague and fellow veteran of Senator Bod Dole
—one of the last of the greatest generation who pledged their life
and service to our great nation—Senator Robert Dole passed away
yesterday…)

If there is one image that has touched my heart the most, over the past couple of days
other than the image of former President George H.W. Bush’s service dog Sully resting
at the foot of his casket, it is this image…
this one picture…

The poignant and heart touching image of Senator and fellow WWII Vet
Bob Dole of Kansas being helped to his feet, in order to salute his longtime friend.

Senator Dole, of Kansas, is 95 years young yet is frail and is in failing health
but he was determined to be brought to the US Capitol building in order to pay his
respects to his fellow veteran and friend.

To most men of ‘that generation’ respect has always meant standing, and in this
case saluting, as both men fought, and were each wounded,
during what they simply referred to as “The War.”

Bob Dole was in the infantry fighting in Italy when he was hit by German
machine gun fire in the back and arm.

According to Wikipedia:
Dole was badly wounded by German machine gun fire,
being hit in his upper back and right arm.
As Lee Sandlin describes, when fellow soldiers saw the extent of his injuries,
all they thought they could do was to “give him the largest dose of morphine they dared
and write an ‘M’ for ‘morphine’ on his forehead in his own blood,
so that nobody else who found him would give him a second, fatal dose.”

Dole was transported to the United States, where his recovery was slow,
interrupted by blood clots and a life-threatening infection.
After large doses of penicillin had not succeeded,
he overcame the infection with the administration of streptomycin,
which at the time was still an experimental drug.
He remained despondent,
“not ready to accept the fact that my life would be changed forever.”
He was encouraged to see Hampar Kelikian, an orthopedist in Chicago who
had been working with veterans returning from war.
Although during their first meeting Kelikian told Dole that he would
never be able to recover fully, the encounter changed Dole’s outlook on life,
who years later wrote of Kelikian, a survivor of the Armenian Genocide,
“Kelikian inspired me to focus on what I had left and what I could do with it,
rather than complaining what had been lost.”
Dr. K, as Dole later came to affectionately call him, operated on him seven times,
free of charge, and had, in Dole’s words,
“an impact on my life second only to my family.”

I am always gratified when I read of or hear of the stories about the impacts
that one human being can have upon another…
impacts, that more often than not, are unbeknownst to the one who is doing the impacting.

I call it the gift of the unknowing.

These unknown gifts actually consist of simple things such as time,
assistance or a listening ear or even what might be perceived as an
insignificant opportunity…
These gifts, which more often than not are unbeknownst to the giver…
become paramount and even life-changing to the recipient.

Bob Dole had his gift giver.
And we Americans are better for it.

And if the truth was told, I think most all of us have had a gift giver, if not several,
during the course of our lives.

Senator Robert J. Dole (1923-2021)
Mr. Dole, a son of the Kansas prairie who was left for
dead on a World War II battlefield,
became one of the longest-serving Republican leaders.
(NYT)

seeds of disconnect

Our efforts to disconnect ourselves from our own suffering
end up disconnecting our suffering from God’s suffering for us.
The way out of our loss and hurt is in and through.
Henri Nouwen

(seeds emerge from the head of a sunflower / Julie Cook / 2021)

So an odd thing happened last week here in my little corner of bogland…
I had written two posts tipping a hat towards the Texas abortion law.

So before we press on…here is a little personal disclosure.

I am adopted—in turn, I am not a fan of abortion.
Plain and simple.

For you see, I was a afforded life and not a death sentence.
I may not have been “planned on” nor wanted…
however I was offered a chance
with someone else who did want me.

Therefore I believe in life and not death.

So you can fuss and cuss with me all day long, I’m not budging.
Life begins at conception…the current prolife laws are stating
that life begins at the detection of a heartbeat…hence the title
of many of these laws—the heartbeat bill—if there’s a heartbeat,
there is in turn life..
If you abort that heartbeat, you are killing a life.

Pretty straight forward.

Oh yeah, I’m also a Christian…I believe God is the Creator of all life.

So there you go…now let’s get on with this tale.

So it was from my second post–the one regarding abortion,
Texas, liberties and ideologies— a post mind you,
that was really just an excerpt from a book
by professor, theologian and author, Peter Kreeft—
How To Destroy Western Civilization And Other Ideas From The Cultural Abyss
when the trouble began.

The title of my post was “The elephant named “sex” sitting in the living room”
Kreeft was writing about religious liberty being attacked in the
name of sexual liberty and since I totally concurred,
I opted to simply copy two pages of his book as my post.

So 47 comments were generated from that post.

Some of those were obviously my responses to those offering their 2 cents.
Some cents are good cents…some cents made no sense.

So there was this gal who is known as House of Hearts who commented
and commented—with much disdain I might add—
Here we go—

House of Hearts:
“What’s happened in Tx is a travesty, the Supreme Court has
failed in its responsibility.
It’s time to add additional judges to SCOTUS and stop the filibuster.
Placing a bounty ($10,000) on your neighbors heads is fascist and unconstitutional.
Women are not the only one’s who will suffer.

My response:
I respect your thoughts–I wonder however,
if SCOTUS had rendered a decision that was more inline with your
thoughts on this issue, I doubt you would be demanding to
“pack the bench” —and as for filibusters, they are indeed a bit
of an oddity within our legislative branch.

And so here it comes…

HoH:
It’s time to take action against the ruthless far right.
Are you one the “no mandates, my body my choice”
but when it’s someone else’s body it is also your choice?
Indeed we must stand up against the corruption of
Trumpism that has infiltrated the highest court of the land.

Me:
I’ve had both vaccines—plus Covid despite doing everything I was told—
I’m not going to demand that someone else get the shot if they don’t feel
it’s best for their life’s circumstance—
I am not an anti vaccine person as I and my child had every vaccine
one is to get —however that being said,
no one knows what the long term effects might be of these shots
as the issue of fertility for younger girls who get
the shot is an a huge question .
I think Trump did very good things for the economy and did put US interests first.
I think Biden is a very weak man and totally handled the
pulling out of Afghanistan terribly wrong—
his poor planning cost the lives of 13 servicemen and women
and he simply left 90 billion dollars of taxpayer
funded military equipment behind for all
US enemies to have at their disposal…
there are correct exists and wrong exits—
he opted for the wrong one—
And as a person who was adopted as well as a
Christian who knows that I am the created and not the Creator ,
abortion is not something I can ever support—
I do equate it to murder of the unborn.
I respect your opinions and that you disagree —
I hope you will respect mine.

HoH:
I don’t correspond with Trumpers.

Wait, when did I say I was a Trumper???
And what does Trump have to do with my post???

Me:
That is unfortunate as you may miss an opportunity to share ideas

HoH:
I can tell you are completely brainwashed and a hopeless case.

Me:
I think when I accepted Christ around the age of 10,
it’s been a roller coaster, but I’ve never been the same—
brainwashed, no— servant of Christ yes—
it does not mean I agree with everything about Trump in the least bit—
but I believe in Our Nation’s republic and our constitution—
a democratic freedom— that has come at a great cost to many
who have defended it for over 200 years— I call that patriotism

HoH:
Trump is not now nor ever has been a patriot.
He has nearly destroyed our country ,
has no respect for the Constitution nor does his constituents.
He is a criminal , he is using misguided people like you.
I have nothing more to say to you.

Me:
Again, I appreciate your opinion— at 62, college educated,
31 year veteran educator and life lived with the school of hard knocks—
I wouldn’t call that misguided, more like wizened knowledge

HoH:
Masters degree in nursing. Common sense and quick to detect
the brainwashed

Me:
Also I never said I was a Trumper but that he did a marvelous
with the economy and I like that he put US interests first

HoH:
He’s a fascist,a bully, a misogynist ,
a fool who think he can “grab ‘em by the …..”.
I don’t get how a “Christian” can stand the sight of him.

Me:
Can’t say I agree with the false name calling

HoH:
Haha! You are a Trumper. Come on now, spill it.

Spill what I’m thinking…??!!

Me:
I wonder how Trump got into my post regarding sex and abortion

HoH:
Before I tell you what’s going on with you and that you are not the
solution but the problem I’ll end this discussion now.

Me:
Thank you for being a nurse

HoH:
Speaking for medical personnel we are fed up with religious nuts,
deniers of science, listening to Fox and filling hospitals to overflowing.
Even compassion has its limits when heart attack victims are being
sent away for lack of ICU beds.

Me:
I can only imagine —
hence my having been vaccinated back in March

Then blessedly came the voice of reason from Citizen Tom
The calvary so to speak:

@House of Heart

The debate over abortion is neither simple nor straightforward. Is about a woman’s control over her body? No. Whatever an unborn child may be, that child’s body is its own, not it’s mother’s. The issue is whether an unborn child has rights and is entitled to the protection of the state.

Instead of addressing those issues,
you have engaged in hysterical name calling.
You shamed yourself with such behavior.

HoH:
Citizen Tom, watch your mouth.
You have shamed yourself.
If you think it’s ok for the state of Tx to put a bounty on a woman’s
head you should join the Taliban. The sorry thing is
The GOP’s concern for the unborn ends at its birth.
They are the first to withhold social programs for the needy,
medical care for mom and baby. Shame on you.
Your body your choice, woman’s body your choice.
You’ve sickened me.

Whoa, really??? “watch your mouth”, “you sicken me”
what kind of person tosses civil discourse out the window and immediately
jumps to the mud?????

Me:
Shame on you for your anger and disdain…
As well as for your tightly closed heart

Citizen Tom:
@House of Heart

More name calling. Instead of debating, you are trying to justify your irrational rage with lies. No one put a bounty on “a woman’s head” as you put it. Look at who can be sued and why.

It is calling abortion wrong you resent. You are in a rage that anyone would call abortion murder. So, you make up stuff to justify yourself.

HoH:
This blog is in spam now.

Huh…seem’s my little blog just fell in a rubbish pile, who knew?
Her words of “action” actually got me tickled.
I thought I heard the stomping of a defiant angry little foot..

Citizen Tom:
@House of Heart

You remind me a child who takes her ball and runs home because
her playmates won’t let her win.

Then our wise friend Oneta added:
You are sooo right.
The un-Godly always want to be sanctioned by the Godly.
Somehow that eases the conscience. Everybody is doing it.
God wouldn’t send Mother Teresa to hell so let’s force Mother Teresa
to validate us. Fine example: The issue of have a third restroom
for transgenders.
No.
That might cause them some offence.
Great post, Julie.

And then Oneta brought it home…

I see House of Heart responded to you six times after she said
she doesn’t correspond with Trumpers.
Funny!!
This is your blog; doesn’t she know it is a sign of being a good hostess
for you to respond to all comments.
People who accuse those of us who believe in adoption instead of
abortion should check some stats.
See who takes care of the living babies who are not wanted.
I know you are deeply troubled by her sending you to spam.

Now that you’ve weeded through a rambling conversation between several folks
all before one of them decided to take all their marbles home,
storming off in the midsts of a temper tantrum…
I wonder when did this younger generation, these lovely millennials and
the younger generations of whatever letter or moniker we’re currently on,
missed out of what it means to be able to have civil discourse with another
human being?

How and when did they miss out on the art of agreeing to disagree??

When did name calling become the go-to when faced with issues that produce
frustration or challenge?
Instead of working through the challenges, doing our homework and
due diligence when it comes to issues of debate, we’ve simply allowed
ourselves to become debased in our use of knowledge–we have
regressed to more animalistic reactionary antics then to
using our brains.

Plus, we have moved into a post Christian society.
God has been relegated to the annals of overinflated human hubris

History seems to suggest that humans have always looked for someone
to blame for the current ills du jour.
For much of history, those who were blamed were the Chosen of God, the Jews.
Now we throw in their Western Civilization kin, the members of Christendom.
The children of The Book…

The godless blame the Godly—and even worse, some who claim Godliness,
have turned on their own.

Today’s sacrificial lambs now abound in the realm of an ideological world war.
Socialism, wokeness, self inflation, atheism, cancel culture…
each vie for prominence while the Christians and the Jews,
those pillars of Western Civilization, are deemed expendable.

I don’t think I’m ready to quit the fight to right this
tipping ship.

Keep speaking up oh righteous ones of the One True God…

“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars.
On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring
and tossing of the sea.
People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world,
for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with
power and great glory.
When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads,
because your redemption is drawing near.”
Luke 31:25-28
.

we are better than this

“Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy
from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after
they have got possession.”
George Washington

“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.”
George Washington

(A Tattered American Flag Flies is a photograph by Dennis Drenner
which was uploaded on January 24th, 2018.)

“Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but
a brave resistance, or the most abject submission;
this is all we can expect –
We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die:
Our own Country’s Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous
and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail,
we shall become infamous to the whole world.
Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause,
and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is,
to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions –
The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us,
and we shall have their blessings, and praises,
if happily we are the instruments of saving them from
the Tyranny meditated against them. Let us therefore
animate and encourage each other, and shew the whole world,
that a Freeman contending for Liberty on his own ground
is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.”
George Washington

“As Mankind becomes more liberal,
they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves
as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections
of civil government.
I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations
of justice and liberality.”
George Washington

living in the midst of Chaos

“Either we are adrift in chaos or we are individuals, created,
loved, upheld and placed purposefully, exactly where we are.
Can you believe that?
Can you trust God for that?”
Elisabeth Elliot

(image from Parsons.com—chaos engineering)

According to Merriam Webster the word chaos
is a noun meaning a state of utter confusion.

And so I think we can go ahead and safely add a 51st star to our nation’s flag—
not the likes of a D.C. or Puerto Rico but rather because of our living in
the state of Chaos…
For chaos is seemingly alive and well…

Now as to where exactly this 51st state should be located might be
up for a bit of debate but I think it pretty much exists from sea to shining sea—
so therefore it’s really just one big massive state holding all 50 of the rest of us
‘states’ as bit of a hostage.

So rather than making it a state…let’s just make it a new continent….
bringing our 7 to a nice even 8.
Because it’s not simply the US that is living in and with chaos,
but pretty much most of the globe.

In case you need some clarification…a bit of reminding of what it is that
I’m talking about…let’s take a quick stroll down memory lane…

We started with a lab leak that ensued into a global pandemic
in what seemed like the course of a single day…

We locked down, masked up, shuttered our lives and livelihoods
all the while battling one another over the correct course
of treatment.

To vaccine or not to vaccine, that is the question.

We hoarded toilet paper.

We bought up all sorts of food items to freeze while waiting for the
apocalypse.

And now we fight over a thing called a vaccine passport—
Consider it a modern day matter of the haves and have nots—
think class warfare…
think paranoia, persecution, exclusion, and delineation in the most
sinister and divisive of manners.

Moving on…

Next we had an election.

I use the term ‘election’ very loosely and there’s not enough time
in the day to chat about all of that so just know…there was a
quote unquote election.

This little election situation has left us with a person in charge
who is publicly struggling under the weight of dementia while calling himself
the President of the United States.

My uncle has dementia and oddly claims to be the governor of South Carolina
despite having been born and raised in Georgia and having lived in
both Virginia and Florida.
Go figure.

This dementia / presidential thing is a bad thing but again,
there is not enough time to chat about such.
Just know that a president with dementia means the inmates are running
the asylum and things are not going well at all in that little department.

Think the Border.
Think immigrants.
Think Covid.
Think Afghanistan.
Think Socialism.
Think lawlessness.
Think trillions of your tax dollars itching to go piss in the wind
for the lack of a better example.
Think Big Brother.
Think defunding police.
Think CRT
Think the approving of transgenderism for little girls and boys as young as 4.
Think Judaeo / Christian persecution
Think the rewriting or total erasing of history
Think desecration.
Think division.
Think a nation run amuck.

Throw in mother nature with her earthquakes, hurricanes,
fires, tornados along with the mantra of climate change…
and well we’ve got a huge mess on our hands.

Don’t think you’re affected?

Well, if you are breathing, then you too are living in the midst of chaos.

It’s all just downright unsettling.
It’s frightening.
It’s depressing.
It’s a feeling of helplessness.
And it is so utterly surreal that it hurts the brain.

But just when I was screaming in my head, TAKE ME NOW LORD…
I stopped in order to play a little bogland catch-up—-
In doing so, I saw where our good friend IB posted an interesting tale…

Bitter Pills and Pharmakeia

https://insanitybytes2.wordpress.com/2021/08/16/bitter-pills-and-pharmakeia/

Now where I found her post interesting for a myriad of reasons…it was
something else in her post that actually brought me to a beautiful sense of hope.

It’s really easy to quickly fall into the pit of despair these days.
IB lamented much the same.

All you have to do is to pop back up a couple of paragraphs of this post
and read about life under a president with dementia.
Read about Mother Nature.
Read about the decline of Western Civilization….
but I digress…

IB wrote toward the end of her post,
“I am sad and concerned about many things, the earthquake in Haiti,
the manmade humanitarian disaster unfolding in Afghanistan,
and the tyranny building here in the US.
And the Lord is like, Nope!
What matters first and foremost is your unmet emotional needs,
your well being, our relationship. God is a great multitasker,
He has the whole world in His hands, and still the time to give
me His undivided attention.
My being “shocked and sad” about what is going on in the world doesn’t
really help anyone anyway.”

And that’s what hit me deeply about her post—no matter what storm is raging,
God, who is always omnipresent, is in the midst of it all…
with me remaining at the center of his concern and love—
just as you are…deeply held in the center of His concern and love

The Master multitasker, who has the world constantly in His sight, keeps
each of us in His tender embrace. He will not fail us.
Our earthly leadership will come and go…human beings will continue
to fail one another…but our God will never waiver.

And it is that single thought that is what allows me to get up each morning as we
all prepare to face what this sorrowful world has in store for us—
Remember…in the end He wins and therefore, we win!

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples,
“Let us go over to the other side.”
Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat.
There were also other boats with him.
A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat,
so that it was nearly swamped.
Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion.
The disciples woke him and said to him,
“Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves,
“Quiet! Be still!”
Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples,
“Why are you so afraid?
Do you still have no faith?”

They were terrified and asked each other,
“Who is this?
Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Mark 4:35-41

a sorrowful truth

“We’re not interested in the truth.”
Ken Burns

(Julie Cook / 2021)

Doesn’t seem to matter whether I purposely keep the television off…off
from any sort of current events and news…it still seems to seep out of
those dark and odious cracks.

Two different stories caught my eye via an electronic news feed.

The first tale is distressing, disturbing and actually quite stomach turning—
as in I felt as if I was reading some surreal Frankenstein tale…

The reality, however, was that this tale is actually rooted in the research
facility of a major leading University.

Here are a few of the highlights in which to whet your curious whistle.

With tales of harvesting body parts…body parts from freshly aborted,
near term babies.

I felt sick to my stomach as well as broken hearted.

Sick to my stomach that aborted babies are teated like a “pull down menu”
of body parts.
Broken hearted that we humans have relegated our most vulnerable to
being literally harvested for research.

There is a cold callousness to such a business.

As well as emptiness which has lead to a true loss of humanity.

Harvesting is for fruits and vegetables, not body parts from
near term aborted babies.

Yep. Aborted. Near term. Babies.

And how odd Dr. Fauci’s name pops up in this stomach churning tale.

The link to the full tale is at the end….following

A few paragraphs I’ve chosen to highlight.

Millions in federal money flowing to tissue bank that collects fetal ‘heart, gonads, legs, brain’: report
University of Pittsburgh said it ‘complies with rigorous regulatory and ethical oversight’
By Sam Dorman

In a PureFlix interview last year, former university employee Lori Kelly
discussed a federally funded project with researchers seeking to collect
bladders and kidneys from babies as late as 24 weeks into pregnancy.
Kelly said that as project manager, she worked to develop
“a pull-down menu of baby body parts for researchers to choose
from to submit to the tissue bank, so that we could send the
body parts to them.”

Tuesday’s revelation adds mounting scrutiny to a program that has
already received attention for fetal experiments.

Earlier this year, Pennsylvania’s state legislature held a hearing
in which members discussed an experiment involving grafting
fetal scalps, containing “full-thickness human skin,”
onto rodents.

That particular project utilized tissue from the university’s
human tissue bank. It was also supported by grants from the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),
which is led by top coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci.
While it’s unclear exactly how much federal money was spent on that project,
it was funded through two large grants —
one $1,498,642 and one $430,270.

The documents uncovered by Judicial Watch also show Pitt discussing
its effort to minimize warm ischemic time, or the amount of time an
organ maintains its body temperature after blood flow has been severed.
It’s unclear how these procedures take place, but Daleiden
has raised concerns about the university’s stated use of labor
induction abortions.

“If the fetus’ heartbeat and blood circulation continue in a labor
induction abortion for harvesting organs,
it means the fetus is being delivered while still alive and the cause
of death is the removal of the organs,” reads a press release from his
Center for Medical Progress.
Typically, abortion procedures rely
on digoxin to kill a fetus. However,
both that and dismemberment tactics can ruin viable tissue intended
for donations.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pittsburgh-fetal-tissue-project

The next tale dealt with a story regarding filmmaker historian Ken Burns.

If you’ve ever watched a PBS special, no doubt you’ve seen and heard
Ken Burns with his melodious voice extol the paths of our collective US history.

And now it appears as if Ken Burns is taking FB mogul Mark Zuckerberg to task.

Ken Burns is no conservative Republican…he is a historian… an individual who looks back to just how we came to where we are today.
A historian who is keen to the truth of past…be it good or bad or both…
because he understands that history is indeed both, good and bad… as we today must learn from both that good and bad.

Yet, as Ken Burns is learning, there are many who no longer wish to learn but rather those who wish to forget…all the while preferring to rewrite what was…

“Filmmaker Ken Burns calls Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg ‘an enemy of the state’
who belongs in jail
‘He doesn’t give a sh-t about us, the United States,’ Burns said”
story by Brian Flood

https://www.foxnews.com/media/ken-burns-facebook-mark-zuckerberg

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship
in spirit and truth.”
John 4:24

The art of how to or how not…

The God of all mercy teaches us that our vocation is to learn to love
and also to be able to love after the image and in imitation
of the Most Holy Trinity.
Christ, therefore, is situated at the heart of marital and family life,
in other words, at the heart of the gestures and the attitudes of
the husband toward his wife, and vice versa,
of the father and the mother of the family toward their children—
which you seek to put into practice in trust and in truth.
Robert Cardinal Sarah
From his book Couples, Awaken Your Love!

(the Mayor struggling with the art of the fondue / Julie Cook / 2021)

In yesterday’s post, I noted that I had not kept up with the news during our
small family’s recent little getaway.
A smart and delightful choice I might add.

And thus, upon our return home, I foolishly thought that I needed to play
a bit of catch-up.

So of course there was the story about the plane full of smug, arrogant
and really stupid Democrats who thought they were running away from Texas,
setting their sights on being liberated in Washington D.C.

But what it really was…was a plane full of super-spreaders of Covid.
So why do we vote for such people…??
I digress.

And then there was and is the continuing migrant story…
but where do we start with that one???
Covid, welfare, gangs, sex trafficking, drugs…
Simply not enough time.

Then there was the typical story of hostility in The House between
Dems and Republicans.
A bipartisan panel to look into that House infiltration fiasco…
HA..bipartisan…that’s a good one!
But what’s new???

And of course there was the story about Dr. Fauci proclaiming that we
all need to mask up again…vaccine or not.
But maybe it’s more about the haves and the have nots.

Yet Dr. Fauci now wants us to mask our toddlers…
wee ones who will be heading to pre-school and or daycare.
So hear me now as I channel my best Charlton Heston voice…
NOT ON MY WATCH–NOT MY GRANDCHILDREN!
And no, NO SHOTS for toddlers.
We simply don’t know enough.
Perhaps that shall be one of my many mountains to perish upon.

And once again, there was the continuing story about CRT.
That idiotic ideology which I referenced yesterday.
How to teach about not being a racist…
Lets set people apart, teach them about shame, teach them about resentment,
teach them about angst and anger—those are some really powerful
kumbiya thoughts…right????
Eyes rolling.

And now there’s this latest story about the White House promoting the
Abolitionist Teaching Network whose desire is to “disrupt whiteness”…

What in the heck is that all about???

So let me backup to where we really need to be with this whole
education thing.

If you want to go backwards, which it seems the woke folks are bent on…
let’s go back to what actually worked back in the beginning…

God.
Prayer.
The Ten Commandments.
Faith.
Family.

That pretty much covers all of this lunacy in a nutshell!
Go back to those particular key components and all this fiasco will
finally be righted.

Righted only if those 5 things fall back into their original place…
then and only then will we ever have some sense of normalcy and peace….
otherwise it’s Katie bar the door—
all Hell is about to break loose and I mean hell with a big H…
as in literally.

Love, by its essence, involves a leap into the unknown, a death to oneself,
because genuine love is a love that loves to the end.
And to love to the end means to die for those whom you love.
Robert Cardinal Sarah
From his book Couples, Awaken Your Love!

when change is needed

When we are no longer able to change a situation –
we are challenged to change ourselves.
Viktor E. Frankl

For the last couple of days my posts have centered on, firstly,
the notion of tradition.
That thought then lead to the notion of change.
And not that I believe tradition needs to change…
quite the contrary.

But then the news hit close to home Monday when a friend’s husband, who happens
to be a police officer and was responding to an all-call for officers in the county
to respond to an immediate need to render aid to the Georgia State Patrol who were
actively involved with a high speed chase and shots being fired.

My friend, her husband the officer and their teenage son’s lives
have now changed forever.

The following link is to an Atlanta news station offering a video of one of
the suspects firing at other officers responding to the call following the shooting
of my friend’s husband.

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/video-suspect-seen-firing-multiple-rounds-directly-at-officers

These types of incidents are happening all over our country.
A police officer stops a car for a minor traffic offense and
suddenly the stop escalates into utter violence.

The driver and passengers pull out firearms and decide, rather than deal with
what would have been a routine traffic stop, they opt to shoot and run.

Why is that?

Law enforcement all over our country seem to have bullseyes on their backs.

But again, why is that?

Of course we are hearing the masses cry out that the police are targeting minorities.
That the police are profiling.
That the police are brutal.
And I’d agree that not all officers are good.
But the majority are good.
They are doing a job that is taken seriously.

And we, you and I, are the better for it.

So what would have precipitated all this negative thinking?
What has precipitated all the violence directed toward law enforcement
who are out simply doing their job?
What of this defund the police movement?

While all of this madness was swirling in my head, I happened upon the latest thinking by Newt Gingrich…but what does Newt know…he’s just some old white guy…

Consider these indicators that our civilization is beginning to fall apart.

Several days of looting and rioting in Minnesota have occurred even as a trial of a former policeman is underway proving the rule of law works.

A policeman is killed during a car stop in New Mexico, and our elites ignore the murder. In fact, Mayor Mike Elliott of Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis said in the middle of the rioting: “I don’t believe that officers need to necessarily have weapons, you know, every time they—they’re—they’re making traffic stop or engaged in situations that don’t necessarily call for weapons.”

There is a war on police underway with 264 killed in 2020, a jump of 96 percent over the previous year. In New York City, hostile forces use Molotov cocktails to set police cars on fire. Murder rates are skyrocketing around the country with 2020 the biggest one-year jump in homicides in American history – 36.7 percent.

Faced with aggressive criminal behavior and violence against innocent people – including young children being killed – Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib calls for “no more policing, incarceration and militarization.” Ironically, Rep. Tlaib represents Detroit. According to the City of Detroit’s 2020 Crime Report, there were 327 homicides in 2020, up from 275 the previous year – a 19 percent increase. There were 1,173 non-fatal shootings in 2020. This is up from 767 the previous year, which is a 53 percent increase.

In Seattle, Portland, and Milwaukee, no-go zones similar to those in France have been created which are effectively localized secessions from the United States.

Portland continues to be attacked nightly by anarchists. Despite pious statements by public officials, no effective action is underway to restore law and order.

In San Francisco, the declaration by the communist district attorney that theft under $900 will not be prosecuted has led to so much shoplifting that Walgreens is closing all 10 of its drugstores in the city.

The threat to American civilization goes far beyond violence in the streets.

Woke CEOs who refuse to condemn genocide and police state tyranny in China are quick to attack Georgia – even though President Joe Biden was just plain wrong (perhaps lying) about the state’s new election law. Moving the All-Star Game from Georgia to Colorado hurts Black small businesses (there are eight times as many employees of Black-owned businesses in Georgia than in Colorado). Furthermore, Colorado’s current voting laws are stricter than Georgia’s new ones. For the woke, it is virtue signaling – not fact – which matters.

The television establishment systematically lied to defeat President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. CNN’s Charlie Chester recently asserted: “I came to CNN to be a part of that. Look what we did, we [CNN] got Trump out. I am 100 percent going to say it, and I 100 percent believe that if it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have got voted out…I came to CNN because I wanted to be a part of that.”

Of course, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, and ABC would dispute any CNN claim that it alone defeated Trump. The two papers won Pulitzer Prizes for lying about Trump.

Traditional media hostility and dishonesty are overshadowed by the internet giants, who are increasingly acting like Russian oligarchs. They are trying to erase a leader who was supported by more than 75 million Americans with a ruthlessness worthy of Soviet tyranny and the Chinese Communist Party.

Crony capitalism is becoming bolder as big government and big business reinforce each other at the country’s expense.

Overt racism through race-based reparations, school quotas, and anti-white and anti-male curricula are a return to government-fueled discrimination and segregation.

Finally, when the state of California is considering requiring students to chant every day to an Aztec god who was the center of a human sacrifice cult, there are sound reasons to believe American Civilization is in crisis.

If we are going to remain America, we must oppose the forces trying to destroy us.

The Crisis of American Civilization

revisiting a 6 year old post (Turning Point)

What most of all hinders heavenly consolation is that you are too slow in
turning yourself to prayer.
Thomas a Kempis

(detail of a pinecone / Julie Cook / 2014)

** I made a terrible mistake last evening…I watched the news.
It was Fox, who since the election, I’ve just kind of cut ties with,
just as I’ve cut ties with all major news outlets…
I am more than disheartened with the “conservative” news program’s seemingly
feeble attempts to stand up against the growing national oppression of our freedom
of speech and thought…
yet sadly, they fall woefully short…and still….I watched.

I was quickly reminded as to why I now avoid all news.
It is sickening.
It was a startling reminder that we are living George Orwell’s 1984.
We are living Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Maybe we are even living in the midst of the Book of Revelation…

And if that’s the case, things really are scary, but thankfully in that
most frightening of thoughts, there remains hope for those of
us with weary souls because we know Our Redeemer will reign supreme
and this nightmare will end.

We are living in the midst of a massive Spiritual battle..
a battle of light vs darkness.

A place where Americans view one another as their own worst enemy.
Free speech and thought as not free or even allowed.
We have forgotten our past, our history, our ideals…
We have become our own worst enemy.
And it all began when we turned our back on God.

So as I watched, I felt sick to my stomach.

And since we are living life in the Twilight Zone…
I decided to cast my thoughts backwards…tumbling back in time.
I went back 6 years ago…6 years ago to a time that was pre-Trump.
It was life during Obama’s reign.
And oddly what I wrote those 6 years ago did not speak of calm, peace and a kumbiya existence–
but rather it was a shadow of things to come…it’s just that we had no idea of knowing
how bad it would all become…

Here is that 6 year old post….

As a tale-end Baby Boomer and child of the Cold War, the Soviet Union, the USSR,
The Federation of the Russian Republic or simply Mother Russia,
has always been an uncomfortable shadow over my shoulder,
just as it has for most everyone my age and older.
The enigma known as Russia, who most graciously hosted the world last February
for the Winter Olympics only to turn around and shock us all a few months
following with the “invasion” of Ukraine, has remained a conundrum for the free world
since the Russian Revolution of 1917 which gave way to birth of Communism.

When I was in high school, which seems to be many lifetimes ago,
I had the good fortune of taking a Russian History course—with the most memorable
experience being of my introduction to the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
I had the good fortune of reading several of his books…
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Gulag Archipelago and Cancer Ward.

Now all these many years later I find myself drawn back to the writings
and words of Solzhenitsyn,
of which I find more prophetic than I had ever imagined.

For those of you unfamiliar with Solzhenitsyn, in a nutshell,
he was a Russian soldier (WWII), Gulag prisoner (for nearly 10 years),
writer and novelist, historian, Soviet dissident,
Nobel Prize recipient and finally, again, Russian citizen.

As a life long member of the Russian Orthodox Church,
Solzhenitsyn was guided by a deeply spiritual moral compass.
He was a very loud and vocal opponent of Totalitarianism,
of which expedited his forced exile from the Soviet Union,
yet he could also be equally critical of the West and its obsession with Capitalism,
Consumerism and Materialism. All of which reminds me of the chastisement the West
often received from Pope John Paul II,
as well as Mother Teresa—as perhaps those who have suffered more grievously under
the Socialist and ultra Nationalistic Regime of the Nazis and then that of
the Communist Soviets, have perhaps a clearer perspective of our
often blind view of what we consider to be “the good life”

I am poignantly reminded of Solzhenitsyn, his words and wisdom as well wise counsel
and rebukes of those who have witnessed first hand the sinister wiles
and atrocities of Evil, particularly during this time of year as it seems
the world always appears to crescendo to a heightened sense of madness–just
as the holidays come into focus. I don’t know why that is except that
as the world seems to not only witness an abundance of joy and goodwill,
there seems to be an equal measure of evil and chaos.
Perhaps it is because Christians are drawn to the birth of the Savior and Jews
begin the celebration of the miracle of light and the rededication to the Second Temple–
a time of a tremendous pull of people toward God—as it seems Evil
must have its share of the pie by unleashing its part of unimaginable
pain and suffering in order to create some sort of sadistic counter balance.

Perhaps our senses are on hyper drive this time of year as we keenly
feel the highs of Joy and Wonder along with the bottomless pit of despair
and suffering as they each roll in to one. These thoughts reverberate
in my mind just as Sydney, Australia was held hostage Monday
by a radical Islamist madman leaving 3 individuals, including the gunman, dead.
Then on Tuesday, Pakistan witnessed an unimaginable attack on a school
leaving 132 children and 9 adult staff members dead all at the hands of the Taliban.

We currently have a menacing cyber attack taking place at Sony as North Korea
is suspected to be retaliating to the release of a tongue and cheek movie
which sadly mocks an attempted assassination of an, albeit, unhinged world leader.
Sometimes I think we, those of us in the West with our often sophomoric
entertainment industry, have lost our sense of what is considered off limits or
morally wrong when it comes to the exploitation of movie making and entertainment–
but I suppose a moral compass would be needed in the first place in order to be
reminded of such. . .

We have just marked the tragic anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre
as we continue reading headline after headline of local, national and global tragedies.
Just as the world tries to come together in some sort of unity marking two
very sacred holy times of the year as well as the secular merry making
of Santa, Papa Noel and Kris Kringle’s arrival.

In reading Solzhenitsyn’s book Warning to the West,
which is actually a brief composite and compendium of the texts to three
separate addresses made in the US in the late 1970’s,
it is startlingly frightening noting the parallels of then verses now.
I am keenly reminded of the relevance of Solzhenitsyn’s words which were uttered
almost 40 years ago as they could very well be spoken on the world stage today
regarding today’s global state. I will leave you with a few pieces of his
excerpted texts in order to ponder and ruminate the relevance and warnings
which echo across our prosaic landscape as we wrestle to make sense of the
tragic events which continue to unfold before our very eyes this holiday season. . .

“Is it possible or impossible to transmit the experience of those who have
suffered to those who have yet to suffer?
Can one part of humanity learn from the bitter experience of another or can it not?
Is it possible or impossible to warn someone of danger?
How many witnesses have been sent to the West in the last sixty years?
How may waves of immigrants? How many millions of persons? They are all here.
You meet them every day. You know who they are: if not by their spiritual disorientation,
their grief, their melancholy, then you can distinguish them by their
accents or their external appearance. Coming from different countries,
without consulting with one another, they have brought out exactly the same experience;
They tell you exactly the same thing: they warn you of what is now taking
place and of what has taken place in the past.
But the proud skyscrapers stand on, jut into the sky, and say:
It will never happen here. This will never come to us.
It is not possible here.”

“In addition to the grave political situation in the world today,
we are also witnessing the emergence of a crisis of unknown nature, one completely new,
and entirely non-political.
We are approaching a major turning point in world history, the the history of civilization.
It has already been noted by specialists in various areas.
I could compare it only with the turning from the Middle Ages to the modern era,
a shift in our civilization. It is a juncture at which settled concepts
suddenly become hazy, lose their precise contours, at which our familiar and commonly
used words lose their meaning, become empty shells, and methods which have been reliable
for many centuries no longer work. It’s the sort of turning point where the
hierarchy of values which we have generated, and which we use to determine
what is important to us and what causes our hearts to beat is starting
to rock and may collapse.
These two crises, the political crisis of today’s world and the oncoming spiritual crisis,
are occurring at the same time. It is our generation that will have to confront them.
The leadership of your country,
which is entering the third century of existence as a nation will perhaps
have to bear a burden greater than ever before in American history.
Your leaders will need profound intuition, spiritual foresight,
high qualities of mind and soul.
May God granted that in those times you will have at the helm personalities
as great as those who rested your country . . .”
(excepts taken from a speech delivered in New York July 9, 1975,
at a luncheon given by the AFL-CIO)

You still don’t get it??

“Thus Heaven I’ve forfeited,
I know it full well…
My soul, once true to God, is chosen for Hell.”
Karl Marx, The Pale Maiden

I received this latest email from The Catholic Company yesterday regarding an interesting
new read about Karl Marx…Can a Catholic Be a Socialist?

My disclaimer is that I have not read the book, but I did find the promo most interesting,
as well as distressingly telling.
Or perhaps that is actually more foreboding than anything else.

Plus I can readily answer that question…NO!!! No, a Catholic, nay any Christian, cannot be
both a practicing believer as well as a Socialist…plain and simple.

A Christian cannot serve two masters and Marx and his love of isms consists of a myriad of
evil-minded masters.

Marx seems to be all the rage these days as everyone seems to be flirting with all
things “ism”—
Be it Communism, Socialism, or even fascism.

Ism is as ism does…

So this is not necessarily a plug for a new book…because I’ve not read the book…
but it is a plug against all things Marxist…

Marxism is and will always be anti-Christian.
It is in actuality anti-human being
It is totally anti independent thinker.

Plain and simple–it is anti-everything you hold dear.

If you think otherwise, you are lying to yourself.

Marx is not pro-life.
He is not pro-democracy.
He is not pro independent business.
He is not pro independent voter.

Everyone should be aware of the immense
evil produced by Karl Marx when he wrote his
devilish Communist Manifesto two centuries ago.

No other theory in all of history has led
to the death of so many innocent people.

Claiming the lives of over a hundred million people
in the 20th century alone, it comes as no surprise that
the dark origin of Communism lies in Hell itself.

And yet—some people are defending Marx today.

They believe that his system of government
has never been implemented correctly.
They say he was a benevolent hero who dreamed
of equality, peace, and happiness.

The truth is far more sinister.

The alcoholic, violent, drug-addicted Karl Marx
was absolutely fascinated with the devil and
penned some downright devilish things.

Well before he was writing
about the hell of communism,
he was writing about Hell.

Marx’s terrible philosophy is making a
comeback not only on college campuses
and talk shows, but even among Catholics
who are well-meaning—and confused.

And communism isn’t the only concern.

Some people think that socialism could
be the answer to greed and other ills.

They argue that it’s the best way to obey
Christ’s command to help the poor.

“Let’s give socialism a fresh chance,” they say.
“A democratic socialism this time, friendly to
religion and ordered to the common good as
the Church says the economy should be.”

They forget that socialism
is not friendly to religion.

In Can a Catholic Be a Socialist?
Trent Horn and Catherine R. Pakaluk
refute the belief in “Catholic Socialism.”

Drawing on Catholic social teaching,
Scripture, history, and basic economic
reality, they show us why Catholicism (as I will add all of Christianity)
and socialism are utterly incompatible.

It’s a fascinating read.

http://enews.catholiccompany.com/q/Hu0WrJ_aRW-f-l3bmuQtNBRPkAHN45S-gR6maxHFnhKHSVBQuFunO3dz8