Tuesday, September 06, 2016

Tridentine Masses coming this week to metro Detroit and east Michigan


Tridentine Masses This Coming Week


    Sunday


    Monday


    Tuesday


    Wednesday


    Thursday

    • Thu. 09/08 7:30 AM: High or Low Mass (varies) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary - 2nd class)
    • Thu. 09/08 8:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM) at St. Joseph's Church, Ray Township [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary - 2nd class)
    • Thu. 09/08 7:00 PM: Low Mass (usually) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary - 2nd class)

    Friday

    • Fri. 09/09 7:30 AM: High or Low Mass (varies) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria - 4th class, or St. Gorgonius - 4th class, [USA[ St. Peter Claver - 3rd class)
    • Fri. 09/09 8:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM) at a href="http://www.sspxmichigan.com/#!schedule/c24jx">St. Joseph's Church, Ray Township [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (Feria - 4th class, or St. Gorgonius - 4th class, [USA[ St. Peter Claver - 3rd class)
    • Fri. 09/09 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat, Detroit (Feria - 4th class, or St. Gorgonius - 4th class, [USA[ St. Peter Claver - 3rd class)
    • Fri. 09/09 7:00 PM: Low Mass (usually) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (Feria - 4th class, or St. Gorgonius - 4th class, [USA[ St. Peter Claver - 3rd class)
    • Fri. 09/09 7:00 PM: High Mass (periodically) at St. Joseph's Church, Detroit (Feria - 4th class, or St. Gorgonius - 4th class, [USA[ St. Peter Claver - 3rd class)

    Saturday

    • Sat. 09/10 7:30 AM: High or Low Mass (varies) at Assumption Grotto, Detroit (St. Pius X - 3rd class, or Immaculate Heart of Mary - 3rd class)
    • Sat. 09/10 8:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 1/2 hour before Mass: call beforehand) at St. Ann's Church, Livonia [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (St. Pius X - 3rd class, or Immaculate Heart of Mary - 3rd class)
    • Sat. 09/10 8:00 AM: Low Mass (Confessions 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM) at St. Joseph's Church, Ray Township [NB: See note at bottom of this post about SSPX sites.]* (St. Pius X - 3rd class, or Immaculate Heart of Mary - 3rd class)
    • Sat. 09/10 8:30 AM: Low Mass at Miles Christi, South Lyon, MI (St. Pius X - 3rd class, or Immaculate Heart of Mary - 3rd class)
    • Sat. 09/10 6:00 PM Tridentine Mass at SS. Cyril & Methodius Slovak Catholic Church, Sterling Heights (St. Pius X - 3rd class, or Immaculate Heart of Mary - 3rd class)

    Sunday

    * NB: The SSPX chapels among those Mass sites listed above are posted here because the Holy Father has announced that "those who during the Holy Year of Mercy approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins." These chapels are not listed among the approved parishes and worship sites on archdiocesan websites. Also please note that St. Joseph's SSPX Chapel in Richmond has moved to Ray Township, at 57575 Romeo Plank Rd., Ray Twp., MI 48096.

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Hillary's Hammer ...


Amateur Brain Surgeon, "Hillary's Hammer" (Mick Jagger gathers no Moss, September 5, 2016). Referencing this bit of news, ABS offers the following delightful little ditty, a parody of Peter, Paul and Mary's once beloved ballad, "If I Had a Hammer":
Hill had a hammer,
She hammered in the morning,
She hammered in the evening,
Avoided taking the stand;
She hammered out evidence,
She hammered out guilt,
She hammered out the lawlessness between,
Her cash for access with Dictators and Sheiks
All over all land.

If I had a bell,
I'd put it on that cow,
It'd ring it in the evening
, All over this land,
It'd ring out danger,
I'td ring out a warning,
It'd ring out love between,
Conspirators and collectivists,
All over all land.

If I had a song
I'd sing it in the morning
I'd sing it in the evening
all over this land
I'd sing out danger
I'd sing out a warning
I'd sing out a conspiracy between Commies
and the libs all over all land

Well, Hill’s got a hammer
Hill's got a bell
and she had access to sell
all over all lands;
It's the hammer of no jail
It's the bell of more cash;
It's a song about access deals between State
and dictators

in forlorn foreign lands
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Saturday, September 03, 2016

Thomas Jefferson vs the Muslim Pirates


Back in the Spring of 2007, Christopher Hitchens published an interesting reflection entitled "Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates" in CJ - 'From the Magazine', which I believe stands for a magazine called "Conservative Judaism" (though check to be sure). More recently, Tom Henegham, an "international intelligence expert," posted a related piece entitled "History Lesson: Thomas Jefferson vs the Muslim World," which apparently came from an article entitled "History of the USA and Muslims" (NESARA - Republic Now, an 'awareness' blog, Marcy 10, 2016). I'm not sure of the ultimate source. But Snopes reports the contents are 'true' so those, at least, are apparently not controversial.

Here's the story:
When Jefferson saw there was no negotiating with Muslims, he formed what is the now the Marines (sea going soldiers). These Marines were attached to U. S. Merchant vessels. When the Muslims attacked U.S. merchant vessels, they were repulsed by armed soldiers, but there is more.

The Marines followed the Muslims back to their villages and killed every man, woman, and child in the village [This claim has no documentation, so it's accuracy may be questioned.] It didn't take long for the Muslims to leave U.S. Merchant vessels alone. English and French merchant vessels started running up our flag when entering the Mediterranean to secure safe travel.

Why the Marine Hymn Contains the Verse "… to the shores of Tripoli." This is very interesting and a must read piece of our history. It points out where we may be heading. Most Americans are unaware of the fact that over two hundred years ago, the United States had declared war on Islam and Thomas Jefferson led the charge!

At the height of the 18th century, Muslim pirates (the "Barbary Pirates") were the terror of the Mediterranean and a large area of the North Atlantic. They attacked every ship in sight and held the crews for exorbitant ransoms. Those taken hostage were subjected to barbaric treatment and wrote heart-breaking letters home, begging their government and family members to pay whatever their Mohammedan captors demanded.

These extortionists of the high seas represented the North African Islamic nations of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers - collectively referred to as the Barbary Coast - and presented a dangerous and unprovoked threat to the new American Republic ..

Before the Revolutionary War, U.S. merchant ships had been under the protection of Great Britain. When the U.S. declared its independence and entered into war, the ships of the United States were protected by France. However, once the war was won, America had to protect its own fleets.

Thus, the birth of the U.S. Navy. Beginning in 1784, 17 years before he would become president, Thomas Jefferson became America's Minister to France. That same year, the U.S. Congress sought to appease its Muslim adversaries by following in the footsteps of European nations who paid bribes to the Barbary States rather than engaging them in war.

In July of 1785, Algerian pirates captured American ships, and the Dye of Algiers demanded an unheard-of ransom of $60,000. It was a plain and simple case of extortion, and Thomas Jefferson was vehemently opposed to any further payments. Instead, he proposed to Congress the formation of a coalition of allied nations who together could force the Islamic states into peace. A disinterested Congress decided to pay the ransom.

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoli's ambassador to Great Britain to ask by what right his nation attacked American ships and enslaved American citizens, and why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.

The two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran that all nations who would not acknowledge their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

Despite this stunning admission of premeditated violence on non-Muslim nations, as well as the objections of many notable American leaders, including George Washington, who warned that caving in was both wrong and would only further embolden the enemy, for the following fifteen years the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to over 20 percent of the United States government annual revenues in 1800.

Jefferson was disgusted. Shortly after his being sworn in as the third President of the United States in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli sent him a note demanding the immediate payment of $225,000 plus $25,000 a year for every year forthcoming. That changed everything.

Jefferson let the Pasha know, in no uncertain terms, what he could do with his demand. The Pasha responded by cutting down the flagpole at the American consulate and declared war on the United States. Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers immediately followed suit. Jefferson, until now, had been against America raising a naval force for anything beyond coastal defense, but, having watched his nation be cowed by Islamic thuggery for long enough, decided that it was finally time to meet force with force.

He dispatched a squadron of frigates to the Mediterranean and taught the Muslim nations of the Barbary Coast a lesson he hoped they would never forget. Congress authorized Jefferson to empower U.S. ships to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli and to "cause to be done all other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war would justify".


When Algiers and Tunis, who were both accustomed to American cowardice and acquiescence, saw the newly independent United States had both the will and the right to strike back, they quickly abandoned their allegiance to Tripoli. The war with Tripoli lasted for four more years and raged up again in 1815. The bravery of the U.S. Marine Corps in these wars led to the line"...to the shores of Tripoli" in the Marine Hymn, and they would forever be known as "leathernecks" for the leather collars of their uniforms, designed to prevent their heads from being cut off by the Muslim scimitars when boarding enemy ships.

Islam, and what its Barbary followers justified doing in the name of their prophet and their god, disturbed Jefferson quite deeply. America had a tradition of religious tolerance. In fact Jefferson, himself, had co-authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, but fundamentalist Islam was like no other religion the world had ever seen. A religion based on supremacy, whose holy book not only condoned but mandated violence against unbelievers, was unacceptable to him. His greatest fear was that someday this brand of Islam would return and pose an even greater threat to the United States....
[Hat tip to J. Shepherd]
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The beautiful, amusing, profound banalities of Franky-the-Grouch Schaeffer


Franky Schaeffer has made a career of trying to get over himself and not succeeding. In Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to give love, create beauty and find peace(2014), he has written just the kind of book to seal his place in the hearts of those whom Alasdair MacIntyre calls the "readership of the New York Times," or at least to that part of it which shares the biases of those who write "that parish newsletter of affluent and self-congratulatory liberal enlightenment." Franky is clearly one of that readership's darling ex-fundamentalists.

On the one hand, he confirms their anti-religious biases by repeatedly savaging his fundamentalist parents as "deluded," mocking their belief in biblical miracles, and paying them backhanded complements like these:
[My parents] believed that to be kind is to be in tune with the way things are, or to be in tune with the way things would have been if there had been no fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. My evangelical parents were not stupid, so either they really didn't believe Eden existed, or some part of their otherwise intelligent brains snapped when they adopted the one-size-fits-all born-again version of American fundamentalist Christianity.
On the other hand, he confirms his liberal readership's moral superiority (and salves his own conscience) by showing a kinder, gentler side to his revulsion at their fundamentalism by looking for positive reasons to appreciate the practical effects of their 'indoctrination' of him in the biblical 'myths' of his childhood:
Ironically, although mom and dad may have been deluded by their fundamentalist certainties, I am mostly at peace in my home ... because I was indoctrinated in knee-jerk guilt. I realize now that my parents were often right for the wrong reasons. For instance, I feel guilt when I shout at Lucy and Jack. And when it comes to the "big sins" I would not have burned in hell for sleeping with the many women I've looked at longingly, but adultery would have ruined my marriage and the home where I play with my grandchildren.
Hence, although he mocks his parents' view of adultery as "derived from a tribal myth about God proclaiming the law from a mountaintop," he can still posture as exhibiting filial piety and gratitude for "sometimes liking the result of my parents' delusions" (emphasis mine).

What a stand-up fellow! His parents may have had ridiculously wrong reasons for the virtues they inculcated in him as a young lad, but they were right and praiseworthy insofar as their sentiments about those virtues conformed to those celebrated by his liberal readership. God help us. To see Franky as exhibiting the virtue of filial piety here would be like admiring the 'courage' of the terrorists who piloted their passenger jets into the Twin Towers on 9/11.

The mainstream reviews, of course, are predictably rapturous, cloying, fashionably liberal, and religiously obtuse: their darling ex-fundamentalist has seen the light, and his book is "extraordinary," "profound," "tender," "sensitive," "beautiful," "brilliant," "thought-provoking," "redemptive," "honest," filled with "great insight and unselfconscious humor" and "amazing grace."

Yet there is little if anything approaching real filial piety in this self-absorbed exercise in narcissistic therapy, even if there is much to admire artistically in this as in many of Franky's works (I, for one, superlatively enjoyed his autobiographical novel, Portofino, and would recommend it to almost anyone). Whatever artistic beauty and humor may be found in the present work, however, there is more than enough resentment, mockery and cynicism to make up for it.

What we see here is the Franky reflected in the image of his portrait on the cover of his book: an artist holding paint brushes and possessing many skills, yes; but a sad and bitter little old man who thinks he's being intellectually profound and beautiful (and witty) when he's really only wallowing self-indulgently in his own cynicism and depression. A "Christian atheist" or an "atheist Christian" is not a profundity. It is an absurdity. And that is a fact, no matter how much Franky may posture as intending to "give love, create beauty, and find peace."

One can only pray and hope that Franky's progeny will live to survive his legacy with more spiritual integrity, forgiveness, and joy than he has exhibited in his treatment of his parents. I feel genuinely sorry for him.
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Calling leaders 'moderate' only abets the enemy's desire to sanitize evil and marginalize faithful Catholics

William Doino, Jr., "The Myth of the Moderate Catholic" (First Things, August 29, 2016:
If there is one word Christians should be wary of, in the political and religious spheres, it is “moderate.” Though it denotes a prudent, middle-of-the-road approach to contested issues, “moderation” is often ascribed to people who hold very immoderate views.

The mainstream media, for example, frequently describe politicians who endorse every aspect of the culture of death and ongoing sexual revolution as “moderates.” It’s not difficult to understand why: Doing so helps sanitize the enormous evil of abortion and promote a do-as-you-please morality—exactly what the media desire.

In the religious sphere, “moderate” is frequently applied—albeit inconsistently and for different reasons—to Catholic bishops who speak out for social justice, but who are also strongly pro-life and pro–traditional marriage. Again, the reasons are obvious: Championing the supposed “moderate” side of Catholicism will, as the media see it, delegitimize “conservatism” within the Church, and thus weaken the Church’s repressive and outdated moral teachings.
Together with Joseph's comment beneath the posted article:
Christian moderates of all stripes have forgotten Christ's own words.

For example, "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household."

Surely, Jesus desires that the whole world would be at peace and that all could share in God's glory, but he also understood that truth is radical. Truth is divisive and exclusionary by its nature. When he said that "nobody comes to the Father except through me," he meant it. The way, the truth, and the life is just one path - the only path.

When "moderates" attempt to soften what they perceive as the rough edges of Christianity, they are only eroding the truth to conform to human standards. Any heart changed by Christ knows that it works precisely the other way around.

What's worse is that this watering down of the message minimizes the sacrifice of the cross. One wonders if we aren't soon headed for a final evolution of Christianity that does away with all that icky "sin" stuff altogether.
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Britney Spears "finds grace in the hook-up" while Jamie Lynn Spears thinks "love should take it slow"

Commenting on Spencer Kornhaber's article, "Britney Spears Finds Grace in the Hook-Up" (Atlantic, August 26, 2016), our underground correspondent, Guy Noir - Private Eye writes, in a cracker-jack display of journalistic finesse:
The Atlantic, the magazine for the 'good writing' crowd, yes, *The Atlantic* is publishing music reviews giving props to mall teen baby making pop. So goes the culture when two parent families are seen as a quaint commodity. I guess it's now 'all good' now matter how hormonally hyped if the message is 'chill' bohemian (Chris Brown, please leave the room), the producers trendy, and the production ingredients urban shiny. But the sophisticate's confession of faith in sex = salvation, tongue-in-cheekiness as it may be, paints poor Britney as a soon-to-be pop version of Snooki-crossed-with-Miranda Priestly. Oh wait, Madonna already has that part. Anyway...

And in a strangely-timed instance of You'd Never Know It's The Same Family, the Other Spears comes off [HERE] like an artful True Love Waits songstress. This is actually nice. Go figure.
Bravo.
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Friday, September 02, 2016

The problem with having an 'emeritus' pope? Cardinal Brandmüller and Bishop Sciacca: he won't keep quiet


Sandro Magister, "Double Friendly Fire Against the 'Pope Emeritus'" (www.chiesa, August 29, 2016):
ROME, August 29, 2016 – In his retreat on the Vatican hill, Joseph Ratzinger just won’t keep quiet. Neither in the written nor in the spoken word.

In the anticipation of the early autumn release of his book-length interview with Peter Seewald, a new monumental biography will arrive in bookstores tomorrow, written by his friend the theologian Elio Guerriero, introduced with a preface by Pope Francis and ending with an interview of the ex-pope conducted by the author, previewed on August 25 by the newspaper "la Repubblica": Ratzinger confessa: "Troppo stanco, così ho lasciato il ministero petrino"

In the interview, Ratzinger once again explains that the only reason for his resignation of the papacy was his loss of energy. Thereby contradicting his successor Francis, who in an interview last July 3 with “La Nación” asserted that the abdication of Benedict XVI “had nothing to do with anything personal.”

But there is one point, among others, one which the two latest successors of Peter agree. Both of them give credence to the figure of the “pope emeritus,” a figure that however has no precedent, whether historical, theological, or juridical.

Francis writes in this regard, in the preface to the book previewed on August 24 by the newspaper “Avvenire”:

“For the Church, the presence of a pope emeritus in addition to the one in office is an innovation. [. . .] It expresses in a particularly evident manner the continuity of the Petrine ministry, without interruption, like the links of a selfsame chain joined together by love.”

Not only that. It is known that the prefect of the pontifical household, Georg Gänswein - who as Ratzinger’s personal secretary before, during, and after his pontificate is certainly the person closest to him - has pressed much further in setting forth this contemporaneous presence of the two popes, according to him almost “an expanded ministry,” “in common,” with “a collegial and synodal dimension’: Not One Pope But Two, One “Active” and One “Contemplative” (17.6.2016)

But it is not known to what extent Ratzinger may share the reckless ideas asserted in public by his secretary. What is ever more certain, however, is that some of the most competent and authoritative figures of the circle closest to the ex-pope are absolutely opposed to them.

One of these is Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, an illustrious Church historian, who last July spoke out in tough critical terms not only against the figure of the “pope emeritus,” but also against the goodness of Ratzinger’s abdication itself: Brandmüller: “The Resignation of the Pope Is Possible, But May It Never Happen Again” (18.7.2016)

Another is Bishop Giuseppe Sciacca, a luminary of canon law and secretary of the supreme tribunal of the apostolic signatura, who in an interview with Andrea Tornielli for “Vatican Insider” on August 25 ripped to pieces the juridical and theological sustainability of the title “pope emeritus” being applied to one who has abdicated the papacy: Sciacca: "Non può esistere un papato condiviso"
Read more >>

[Hat tip to JM]
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Christ of the Andes: a post Olympian reflection on Rio's South American icon


Jim Davis, "Rio's Christ statue: Washington Post adds a delightful angle to the Olympics" (GetReligion, August 10, 2016). This is a very stimulating and uplifting post: worth reading. The statue was built to combat secularism in the 1920s, when Brazil was solidly Catholic. Even in 1970 92% identified as Catholic. Which gives special meaning to the need for renewed evangelization today, as St. John Paul II saw in his day (each generation is faced with the need to appropriate its faith for itself):
The Olympics in Rio have already thrilled millions with the gold medal performances of champs like Michael Phelps and the Final Five gymnastic team. But the Washington Post takes the occasion to look even higher: at the statue of Christ who stretches his arms out over the city.

This delightful newsfeature, by the Post's veteran religion writer Michelle Boorstein, captures several sides of what she calls "the most recognizable Christian image in Latin America": the history, the sheer size, and the many meanings behind it.

Yes, meanings, plural. As Boorstein says, "Christ the Redeemer" stands high in that class of national symbols standing for many things to many people. And yes, religious and spiritual elements are on her list.

Her story smoothly blends background, color, humor and informed sources....
Read more >>

[Hat tip to JM]
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Sports + Catholicsm: Pope Francis vs Vince Lombardi

Seriously interesting, especially about Lombardi: "Sports + Catholicsm: Pope Francis vs Vince Lombardi" (Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque, August 5, 2016):


Legendary Hall of Fame and Universal Football Coach, Vince Lombardi:

Lombardi biographer David Maraniss wrote:
Each day on his way to work for the Green Bay Packers, Lombardi would stop at St. Willebrord and “offer a prayer in case of unexpected death: My God, if I am to die today, or suddenly at any time, I wish to receive this Communion as my viaticum ...’”
Any given Sunday, and on every other day of the week, I will take Vince Lombardi's Catholicism over the Catholicism of Pope Francis.
[Disclaimer: Rules ##7-9]
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What enables Obama to play the race card so effectively: white guilt and therapeutic alienation


"Catching Up" (Old Life, August 30, 2016) observes that conservative Christians frequently believe that they have opened a new chapter on race relations. Mark Galli, for instance, suggests that conservative Christians have been "slow to hear what the black church has been telling us," and now finally begun to see how "racism is embedded in many aspects of our society, from business to law enforcement to education to church life."

The author of "Catching Up," however, notes that he used to "hear a lot about how evangelicals were always about 10 to 15 years behind the times"; and so he wonders when conservative Christians like Galli "will get around to reading John McWhorter whose book, Winning the Race, came out ten years ago." Back then, McWhorter wrote:
It’s not that there is “something wrong with black people,” but rather, that there is something wrong with what black people learned from a new breed of white people in the 1960s. . . . The nut of the issue is that [people who see racism everywhere] want neither justice nor healing. What people like this are seeking is, sadly, not what they claim to be seeking. They seek one thing: indignation for its own sake. . . .

Two new conditions were necessary for alienation among blacks to so often drift from its moorings in the concrete and become the abstract, hazy “race thing” that whites just “don’t get.”

One condition was that blacks had to be prepared to embrace therapeutic alienation, and ironically, this could only have been when conditions were improved for blacks. When racism was omnipresent and overt, it would have been psychological suicide for blacks to go around exaggerating what was an all-too-real problem.

Second, whites had to be prepared to listen to the complaints and assume (or pretend) that they were valid. This only began during the counter cultural revolution, within which a new openness to blacks and an awareness of racism were key elements. . . . Many whites were now, for the first time, ready to nod sagely at almost anything a black person said. And in that new America, for many blacks, fetishizing the evils of the White Man beyond what reality justified was a seductive crutch for a spiritual deficit that we would be surprised that they did not have. It was the only way to feel whole. Even blacks less injured were still injured enough to let the loudest shouters pass, as bards of their less damaging, but still aggravating, pains. (4, 5, 7)
[Hat tip to JM]
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Trump's constituency: the good, the bad, and the surprising

Matt K. Lewis, "12 Takeaways From Trump's Arizona Rally" (The Daily Caller, September 1, 2016), passes along observations made by an attendee at Trump's rally in Phoenix, AZ, on August 31st. These offer some positives, some negatives in terms of shifting value-commitments of the "anyone-but-Hillary" demographic, as well as some surprises:
1. Group is majority white, but had hundred[s] of African American and Hispanic attendees.
2. Group is 60%+ male. Surprisingly young.
3. Group knew the National Anthem. Saw many tear up. I rarely see this. I doubt [at a] Democrat[ic] rally everyone knows the National Anthem. Not a criticism, just a fact.
4. GOP establishment can hope upon hope that Trump and his rogue supporters go away, but the GOP is making a big miscalculation if they do. These people are truly forgotten. They are mad. How can any party dismiss 35% of of voter who just feel screwed? They don’t want to hear about tax credits, or vouchers, etc. They don’t even understand those words. Their lives aren’t improving (some their own doing), but they want plain talk. Reality: if GOP had passed and a wall was being built right now, there would be no Donald Trump. They just hear empty words.
A. Example, Trump said we need to give out 1 million school vouchers. Didn’t even register with this group. Not sure they know what a voucher is or their lack of education the term meant nothing to them.
5. Those I talked to, know Trump is Trump (aka, jerk), but they think every one else is a jerk off. Big difference.
6. The word “Constitution,” sounds nice but it is a Washington double-speak for many. Hence folks like Mike Lee and Ted Cruz mean little to these people.
7. Surprisingly pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, Rudy is a big hit with this group — most popular surrogate with this group.
A. Note: the next biggest cheers came for the gay sheriff, Paul Babeu. Paul had to step suspend his campaign in 2014 because of his illegal, gay Hispanic lover. No judgment on my end but the moral issues like same-sex marriage and abortion mean little to this group. It’s about jobs, crime and not be a Patsy in the world.
8. Sessions was as exciting as watching grass grow … and they treated his comments as such. When he told them to unite behind John McCain, they booed.
9. A gentleman passed out during Session’s speech. 100+ people yelling we “need a medic, we need a medic” for 5+ minutes. Session looked over and just kept talking. People were like “WTF?” Someone said, “maybe there is a doctor here?” Which the woman next to me replied, “This isn’t a Jeb Bush rally.”
10. I was amazed how calm Trump is at the podium. No self-doubt or nerves.
11. Again, Rudy really hates Hillary and is running like he is running against her.
12. The campaign bring[s] out these families whose children or loved ones have been killed by illegals. Not just Hispanic, but Russians (balance). This is not a good thing and brings out the worst of the audience.
[Hat tip to Sir. A.S.]
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Thursday, September 01, 2016

Huzzah! Shattered glass!

One brick through the pane glass window of established scientific wisdom ...

Dwight Garner, "Tom Wolfe’s ‘The Kingdom of Speech’ Takes Aim at Darwin and Chomsky" (New York Times, August 30, 2016)
... and another brick though the stained glass window of much of the ruling class of the Catholic Church ...

Edited by Daniel M. Clough, Genesis According to the Saints (Loretto Publications, 2016).
Brilliant!

[Hat tip to JM]
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Cannot... Make... This stuff... Up...!

"Take a Break: A Remnant Photo Caption Contest" (Remnant, August 31, 2016).


[Hat tip to JM]
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Pope Francis creates a new 'super dicastery' for "Promoting Integral Human Development"

Edward Pentin, "Pope Francis Creates New Dicastery for 'Promoting Integral Human Development'" (National Catholic Register, August 31, 2016).

A reader comments: "Despite all of the integral problems plaguing Holy Mother Church right now, Francis has decided that the most pressing of them is the need to "Promot[e] Integral Human Development" by way of creating a new Vatican organ to address it. Long story short, that Orwellian double-speak means creating a Ministry for Fugees (refugees)."

Doubtless, these are dire times.

[Hat tip to K.J.]
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"Bergoglio Too Has His Nonnegotiable Principles"

Sandro Magistro, "Bergoglio Too Has His Nonnegotiable Principles" (www.chiesa, August 23, 2016): "They are the four postulates with which he continually inspires his governance of the Church, the first of which says that “time is greater than space.” The trouble is that they do not hold up. An erudite Benedictine monk explains why." Read more >>

[Hat tip to JM]
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