O Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our...
Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need; We humbly beseech thee to behold, visit, and relieve thy sick servant [N.] for whom our prayers are desired. Look upon him/her with the eyes of thy mercy; comfort h/h with a sense of thy goodness; preserve h/h from the temptations of the enemy; and give h/h patience under h/h affliction. In thy good time, restore h/h to health, and enable h/h to lead the residue of h/h life in thy fear, and to thy glory; and grant that finally h/s may dwell with thee in life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Book Of Common Prayer
Sunday, September 16, 2012
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said:...
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said:...
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert….Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away”.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – ‘Ozymandias’
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert….Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away”.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – ‘Ozymandias’
When I left high school, I had all my plans to go...
When I left high school, I had all my plans to go...
When I left high school, I had all my plans to go to college, but I had no money. And I decided then, the best thing for me to do is not worry about getting money to go to college — I will educate myself. I walked down the street, I walked into a library, I would go to the library three days a week for ten years and I would educate myself. It’s all FREE, that’s the great thing about libraries! Most of you can afford to go to college, but if you wanna educate yourself completely, go to the library and educate yourself. When I was 28 years old, I graduated from Library.Ray Bradbury on libraries and educating yourself.
Sultan Knish: A Bloodless Victory
Sultan Knish: A Bloodless Victory: We came to help the Somalis only to die at their hands and not satisfied with that, we admitted record numbers of them to the United States, where they have tried to carry out their own local versions of Black Hawk Down, including the attempted bombing of the Portland Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. We came to help the Afghanis and Iraqis and the Libyans and they kill us here and there and we learn nothing from the experience.
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes
There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.
Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.
They buried the boy by the river,
A blanket over his face--
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race--
They made a samadh in his honor,
A mark for his resting-place.
For they swore by the Holy Water,
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state;
With fifty file of Burman
To open him Heaven's gate.
The men of the First Shikaris
Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
The village of Pabengmay--
A jingal covered the clearing,
Calthrops hampered the way.
Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
With Jemadar Hira Lal.
The men of the First Shikaris
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar's flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.
Long was the morn of slaughter,
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back to their grave again,
Each man bearing a basket
Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village--
The village of Pabengmay,
And the "drip-drip-drip" from the baskets
Reddened the grass by the way.
They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man's chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.
Subadar Prag Tewarri
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below,
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.
Thus the samadh was perfect,
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris--
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.
Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a kullah's head
Must be paid for with heads five score.
There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
--- Rudyard Kipling
The ironic thing is that Subadar Prag Tewarri's approach saves lives in the long run. Ours, anyways. I don't care about the other guys.
There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.
Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.
They buried the boy by the river,
A blanket over his face--
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race--
They made a samadh in his honor,
A mark for his resting-place.
For they swore by the Holy Water,
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state;
With fifty file of Burman
To open him Heaven's gate.
The men of the First Shikaris
Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
The village of Pabengmay--
A jingal covered the clearing,
Calthrops hampered the way.
Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
With Jemadar Hira Lal.
The men of the First Shikaris
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar's flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.
Long was the morn of slaughter,
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back to their grave again,
Each man bearing a basket
Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village--
The village of Pabengmay,
And the "drip-drip-drip" from the baskets
Reddened the grass by the way.
They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man's chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.
Subadar Prag Tewarri
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below,
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.
Thus the samadh was perfect,
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris--
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.
Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a kullah's head
Must be paid for with heads five score.
There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
--- Rudyard Kipling
The ironic thing is that Subadar Prag Tewarri's approach saves lives in the long run. Ours, anyways. I don't care about the other guys.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
The 10 Very Best Zen Stories
The 10 Very Best Zen Stories
Many teachings from Zen-Buddhism are told in short and delightful zen stories. They are usually designed to develop the mind and to free it from distortions and so to connect with our spirit.
Some of them are really inspiring and enlightening. It is helpful to the mind to think about them and feel the deeper meaning. Even if it is not possible to grasp them fully, the beauty and simplicity of the message usually gets through to us one way or the other.
The following 10 Zen stories are a selection of the ones I found most inspiring and really worth to ponder about. Some may be instantly understood, some others need to be thought through and recognized in oneself.
They are about the following topics: life in the present moment, different perspectives, attachment, resistance, judgment, delusion, beliefs and thought as mental concepts but not truth and unconditional love. Please feel free to post your interpretation or other stories into the comments.
After reading the first, follow it’s advice to read all the others. :)
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
In the evening the younger monk came to the elder monk and said, “Sir, as monks, we cannot touch a woman ?”
The elder monk answered “yes, brother”.
Then the younger monk asks again, “but then Sir, how is that you lifted that woman on the roadside ?”
The elder monk smiled at him and told him ” I left her on the other side of the road, but you are still carrying her.”
“Doesn’t this bother you when someone finds a piece of truth, O Evil One?” his attendant asked. “No,” Mara replied. “Right after this, they usually make a belief out of it.”
The teacher ponders for a moment looks up and down the river and yells back, “My son, you are on the other side”.
A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.
This made her parents very angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.
In great anger the parents went to the master. “Is that so?” was all he would say.
When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of the child since it was his responsibility. “Is that so?” Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.
A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.
The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back again.
Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: “Is that so?”
“Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.
“Maybe,” replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.
“Maybe,” answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.
Some of them are really inspiring and enlightening. It is helpful to the mind to think about them and feel the deeper meaning. Even if it is not possible to grasp them fully, the beauty and simplicity of the message usually gets through to us one way or the other.
The following 10 Zen stories are a selection of the ones I found most inspiring and really worth to ponder about. Some may be instantly understood, some others need to be thought through and recognized in oneself.
They are about the following topics: life in the present moment, different perspectives, attachment, resistance, judgment, delusion, beliefs and thought as mental concepts but not truth and unconditional love. Please feel free to post your interpretation or other stories into the comments.
After reading the first, follow it’s advice to read all the others. :)
1. A Cup of Tea
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
2. The Burden
Two monks were returning to the monastery in the evening. It had rained and there were puddles of water on the road sides. At one place a beautiful young woman was standing unable to walk accross because of a puddle of water. The elder of the two monks went up to a her lifted her and left her on the other side of the road, and continued his way to the monastery.In the evening the younger monk came to the elder monk and said, “Sir, as monks, we cannot touch a woman ?”
The elder monk answered “yes, brother”.
Then the younger monk asks again, “but then Sir, how is that you lifted that woman on the roadside ?”
The elder monk smiled at him and told him ” I left her on the other side of the road, but you are still carrying her.”
3. Finding a Piece of the Truth
One day Mara, the Evil One, was travelling through the villages of India with his attendants. he saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up on wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara’s attendant asked what that was and Mara replied, “A piece of truth.”“Doesn’t this bother you when someone finds a piece of truth, O Evil One?” his attendant asked. “No,” Mara replied. “Right after this, they usually make a belief out of it.”
4. The Other Side
One day a young Buddhist on his journey home came to the banks of a wide river. Staring hopelessly at the great obstacle in front of him, he pondered for hours on just how to cross such a wide barrier. Just as he was about to give up his pursuit to continue his journey he saw a great teacher on the other side of the river. The young Buddhist yells over to the teacher, “Oh wise one, can you tell me how to get to the other side of this river”?The teacher ponders for a moment looks up and down the river and yells back, “My son, you are on the other side”.
5. Is That So?
The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life.A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.
This made her parents very angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.
In great anger the parents went to the master. “Is that so?” was all he would say.
When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of the child since it was his responsibility. “Is that so?” Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.
A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.
The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back again.
Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: “Is that so?”
6. Maybe
Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.“Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.
“Maybe,” replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.
“Maybe,” answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.
The 10 Very Best Zen Stories For Travelers | Matador Network
The 10 Very Best Zen Stories For Travelers | Matador Network: A lord asked Takuan, a Zen teacher, to suggest how he might pass the time. He felt his days very long attending his office and sitting stiffly to receive the homage of others.
Takuan wrote eight Chinese characters and gave them to the man:
Not twice this day
Inch time foot gem.
This day will not come again.
Each minute is worth a priceless gem.
No matter how uncomfortable the bus ride, how horrendous the airline food, or how saggy the bed, remember: this moment will not come again.
Takuan wrote eight Chinese characters and gave them to the man:
Not twice this day
Inch time foot gem.
This day will not come again.
Each minute is worth a priceless gem.
No matter how uncomfortable the bus ride, how horrendous the airline food, or how saggy the bed, remember: this moment will not come again.
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on Hallelujah Anyway
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on Hallelujah Anyway: This morning, over Indiana, I watched Orion the Hunter rise. Orion has been rising for thousands of years over mankind... Rising in a sky so vast and endless it cannot be thought about in pragmatic terms... So man ignores it. Proof of the Creator is over our heads! Oh, wait... I saw a study recently that says something can indeed come from nothing. Silly me! What was I thinking about? Poor little monkeys.
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on Hallelujah Anyway
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on Hallelujah Anyway: Although I have to say for me it was a two-step process. I have always found it easy to believe in God. When I was in the middle of what was supposed to be a fatal siege of ovarian cancer and had a couple of white-light experiences plus a powerful dream followed by my cancer disappearing--after that I came to the second, far more difficult step: persuading myself that God believed in me.
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on Hallelujah Anyway
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on Hallelujah Anyway
To take Abraham and Ike out of the context of the long view and make it stand alone as a refutation of blood sacrifice is to torture it out of its plain meaning, and to in turn sacrifice a hard truth for the purpose of a desirable context.
Paul said that Abraham received Isaac as back from the dead. That speaks more plainly to the purpose and intent. God stayed a human hand that was willing to simply acknowledge that He who gave life where there was no possibility of life, (Sarah's barren womb) had the simple right to assume His ownership of that life, and require it again. In Abraham's duller understanding of obedience to a Greater, he would not have thought twice about the sacrifice and the story would be a lesson of brutish obedience; but Abe already had many years to think about where life came from. He fully understood that Isaac was not his own doing, and that was a new concept. THAT was the beginning of the Covenant. The Promise and the Gift from above, as echoed in the Nativity.
If Abraham, being the first of all who believe, was the first to value the Gift that was in the blood more than the blood itself, then it goes back to the visitation. God came to earth in human form to reveal what Abraham could have never guessed on His own. I can posit that Abraham fully believed that if God truly "required" again the life He had given, then it was no problem for Abraham to consider that God was not breaking His promise of an heir and a son, but would indeed raise up Isaac from the dead, if necessary.
To take Abraham and Ike out of the context of the long view and make it stand alone as a refutation of blood sacrifice is to torture it out of its plain meaning, and to in turn sacrifice a hard truth for the purpose of a desirable context.
Paul said that Abraham received Isaac as back from the dead. That speaks more plainly to the purpose and intent. God stayed a human hand that was willing to simply acknowledge that He who gave life where there was no possibility of life, (Sarah's barren womb) had the simple right to assume His ownership of that life, and require it again. In Abraham's duller understanding of obedience to a Greater, he would not have thought twice about the sacrifice and the story would be a lesson of brutish obedience; but Abe already had many years to think about where life came from. He fully understood that Isaac was not his own doing, and that was a new concept. THAT was the beginning of the Covenant. The Promise and the Gift from above, as echoed in the Nativity.
If Abraham, being the first of all who believe, was the first to value the Gift that was in the blood more than the blood itself, then it goes back to the visitation. God came to earth in human form to reveal what Abraham could have never guessed on His own. I can posit that Abraham fully believed that if God truly "required" again the life He had given, then it was no problem for Abraham to consider that God was not breaking His promise of an heir and a son, but would indeed raise up Isaac from the dead, if necessary.
Friday, September 07, 2012
Thursday, September 06, 2012
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Broken:Beautiful | Jena Nardella
Broken:Beautiful | Jena Nardella
Below is the benediction I was honored to give tonight at the close of the opening night of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
As a young woman of faith and a leader, I am humbled to follow the First Lady, whom we all admire. So, thank you for inviting me here. As we close this day, let us quiet our hearts in prayer.
God, I stand before You and ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing unto You.
I pray for our President, Barack Obama. May he know Your presence, oh God, as he continues to serve as a leader of this nation, as a husband to Michelle, and as father to his daughters. Help him to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with you.
I pray as well for Governor Mitt Romney. May he know Your presence, oh God, as he continues to serve as a leader, as a husband to Ann, and as a father to his sons and their families. Help him to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with you.
I pray for our country in the next nine weeks leading up to this election – for those of us meeting here and for our fellow citizens who met last week. May we make our children proud of how we conduct ourselves. We know our human tendencies toward finger-pointing and frivolousness. Our better selves want this race to be honest and edifying rather than fabricated and self-serving.
Give us, oh Lord, humility to listen to our sisters and brothers across the political spectrum, because your kingdom is not divided into Red States and Blue States. Equip us with moral imagination to have real discourse. Knit us, oh God, as one country even as we wrestle over the complexity of how we ought to live and govern. Give us gratitude for our right to dissent and disagree. For we know that we are bound up in one another and have been given the tremendous opportunity to extend humanity and grace when others voice their deeply held convictions even when they differ from our own.
And give us wisdom, God, to discover honest solutions for we know it will take all of us to care for the widow and the orphan, the sick and the lonely, the downtrodden and the unemployed, the prisoner and the homeless, the stranger and the enemy, the thirsty and the powerless. In rural Africa, I am witness to thousands of HIV positive mothers, fathers and children who are alive today because Democrats and Republicans put justice and mercy above partisanship. Help us keep that perspective even as we debate one another.
God, I thank you for the saving grace of Jesus and for the saints who have humbly gone before us. I thank you for the words of St. Francis of Assisi whose prayer I carry with me both in my home in East Nashville and in my work across rural Africa.
As we enter this election season, I pray St. Francis’ words for us all.
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
Below is the benediction I was honored to give tonight at the close of the opening night of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
As a young woman of faith and a leader, I am humbled to follow the First Lady, whom we all admire. So, thank you for inviting me here. As we close this day, let us quiet our hearts in prayer.
God, I stand before You and ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing unto You.
I pray for our President, Barack Obama. May he know Your presence, oh God, as he continues to serve as a leader of this nation, as a husband to Michelle, and as father to his daughters. Help him to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with you.
I pray as well for Governor Mitt Romney. May he know Your presence, oh God, as he continues to serve as a leader, as a husband to Ann, and as a father to his sons and their families. Help him to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with you.
I pray for our country in the next nine weeks leading up to this election – for those of us meeting here and for our fellow citizens who met last week. May we make our children proud of how we conduct ourselves. We know our human tendencies toward finger-pointing and frivolousness. Our better selves want this race to be honest and edifying rather than fabricated and self-serving.
Give us, oh Lord, humility to listen to our sisters and brothers across the political spectrum, because your kingdom is not divided into Red States and Blue States. Equip us with moral imagination to have real discourse. Knit us, oh God, as one country even as we wrestle over the complexity of how we ought to live and govern. Give us gratitude for our right to dissent and disagree. For we know that we are bound up in one another and have been given the tremendous opportunity to extend humanity and grace when others voice their deeply held convictions even when they differ from our own.
And give us wisdom, God, to discover honest solutions for we know it will take all of us to care for the widow and the orphan, the sick and the lonely, the downtrodden and the unemployed, the prisoner and the homeless, the stranger and the enemy, the thirsty and the powerless. In rural Africa, I am witness to thousands of HIV positive mothers, fathers and children who are alive today because Democrats and Republicans put justice and mercy above partisanship. Help us keep that perspective even as we debate one another.
God, I thank you for the saving grace of Jesus and for the saints who have humbly gone before us. I thank you for the words of St. Francis of Assisi whose prayer I carry with me both in my home in East Nashville and in my work across rural Africa.
As we enter this election season, I pray St. Francis’ words for us all.
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
Religion Leaders At Democratic National Convention 2012 Range From High-Profile To Obscure
Religion Leaders At Democratic National Convention 2012 Range From High-Profile To Obscure: Tuesday benediction: Jena Lee Nardella, executive director, Blood: Water Mission
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Saturday, September 01, 2012
Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello
Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello:
Blackened Ham Steak & Sweet Potato Salad
Lb Sweet Potato, Peeled, Cut into 1/2 Cubes
1 Cup Fresh Pineapple, Diced (I used canned chunks)
2 TBS Chopped Fresh Parsley
Cup Mayonnaise
2 TBS Plain Yogurt (I scooped the unmixed top off of peach Greek yogurt)
2 TBS Sugar
1 TSP Fresh Lime Juice
TSP Vanilla Extract
Salt & White Pepper to Taste
1 Center Cut Ham Steak (16-20 oz)
BLACKENING SPICE:
2 TSP Brown Sugar
1 TSP Paprika
TSP Cayenne
1 TSP Garlic Powder
1 TSP Black Pepper
1 TSP Dried Thyme
Preheat grill to high. Boil sweet potatoes in a pot of salted water until tender, 5-7 minutes. Drain, then rinse under cold water until cool. Combine with pineapple and parsley. Whisk mayonnaise, yogurt, sugar, lime juice, and vanilla together in a dish. Season with salt & white pepper; toss with the potato mixture to coat.
Combine blackening spices in a small bowl, then rub the mixture on both sides of the ham steak. Grill until the edges of the steak begin to curl; flip the steak and grill for 1-2 minutes longer. Serve with sweet potato salad.
Blackened Ham Steak & Sweet Potato Salad
Lb Sweet Potato, Peeled, Cut into 1/2 Cubes
1 Cup Fresh Pineapple, Diced (I used canned chunks)
2 TBS Chopped Fresh Parsley
Cup Mayonnaise
2 TBS Plain Yogurt (I scooped the unmixed top off of peach Greek yogurt)
2 TBS Sugar
1 TSP Fresh Lime Juice
TSP Vanilla Extract
Salt & White Pepper to Taste
1 Center Cut Ham Steak (16-20 oz)
BLACKENING SPICE:
2 TSP Brown Sugar
1 TSP Paprika
TSP Cayenne
1 TSP Garlic Powder
1 TSP Black Pepper
1 TSP Dried Thyme
Preheat grill to high. Boil sweet potatoes in a pot of salted water until tender, 5-7 minutes. Drain, then rinse under cold water until cool. Combine with pineapple and parsley. Whisk mayonnaise, yogurt, sugar, lime juice, and vanilla together in a dish. Season with salt & white pepper; toss with the potato mixture to coat.
Combine blackening spices in a small bowl, then rub the mixture on both sides of the ham steak. Grill until the edges of the steak begin to curl; flip the steak and grill for 1-2 minutes longer. Serve with sweet potato salad.
Newgeography.com | Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places
Newgeography.com | Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places
Much is said about class warfare in contemporary America, and there’s justifiable anger at the impoverishment of much of the middle and working classes. The Pew Research Center recently dubbed the 2000s a “lost decade” for middle-income earners — some 85% of Americans in that category feel it’s now more difficult to maintain their standard of living than at the beginning of the millennium, according to a Pew survey.
Blaming a disliked minority — rich business folks — has morphed into a predictable strategy for President Obama’s Democrats, stripped of incumbent success. But all the talk of “one percent” versus “the ninety nine percent” misses new splits developing within both the upper and middle classes.
There is no true solidarity among the rich since no one is yet threatening their status. The “one percent” are splitting their bets. In 2008 President Obama received more Wall Street money than any candidate in history, and he still relies on Wall Street bundlers for his sustenance. For all his class rhetoric, miscreant Wall Streeters, particularly big ones, have evaded big sanctions and the ignominy of jail time.
Obama enjoys great support from the financial interests that benefit from government debt and expansive public largesse. Well-connected people like Obama’s financial tsar on the GM bailout, Steven Rattner, who is also known as a vigorous defender of “too big to fail.”
The “patrician left” — a term that might have amused Marx — extends as well to Silicon Valley, where venture capitalists and techies have opened their wallets wider than ever before for the president. Microsoft and Google are two of Obama’s top three organizational sources of campaign contributions. Valley financiers are not always as selfless as they or their admirers imagine: Many have sought to feed at the Energy Department’s bounteous “green” energy trough and all face regulatory reviews by federal agencies.
The Republicans have turned increasingly to those patricians who depend on the more tangible economy. If you make your living from digging coal or exploring for oil wells, even if you don’t like him, Romney is you man. This saddles the GOP with the burden of being linked to one of America’s most hated interests: oil and gas companies. Almost as detested is the biggest source of Romney cash, large Wall Street banks. (In contrast, Democratic-leaning industries, such as Internet-related companies, enjoy relatively high public support.)
With the patriarchate divided, the real action in the emerging class war is taking place further down the economic food chain. This inconvenient reality is largely ignored by the left, which finds the idea of anyone this side of Bain Capital supporting Romney as little more than “false consciousness.”
Obama’s core middle-class support, and that of his party, comes from what might be best described as “the clerisy,” a 21st century version of France’s pre-revolution First Estate. This includes an ever-expanding class of minders — lawyers, teachers, university professors, the media and, most particularly, the relatively well paid legions of public sector workers — who inhabit Washington, academia, large non-profits and government centers across the country.
This largely well-heeled “middle class” still adores the president, and party theoreticians see it as the Democratic Party’s new base. Gallup surveys reveal Obama does best among “professionals” such as teachers, lawyers and educators. After retirees, educators and lawyers are the two biggest sources of campaign contributions for Obama by occupation. Obama’s largest source of funds among individual organizations is the University of California, Harvard is fifth and its wannabe cousin Stanford ranks ninth.
Like teachers, much of academia and the legal bar like expanding government since the tax spigot flows in the right direction: that is, into their mouths. Like the old clerical classes, who relied on tithes and the collection bowl, many in today’s clerisy lives somewhat high on the hog; nearly one in five federal workers earn over $100,000.
Essentially, the clerisy has become a new, mass privileged class who live a safer, more secure life compared to those trapped in the harsher, less cosseted private economy. As California Polytechnic economist Michael Marlow points out, public sector workers enjoy greater job stability, and salary and benefits as much as 21% higher than of private sector employees doing similar work.
On this year’s Labor Day, this is the new face of unionism. The percentage of private-sector workers in unions has dropped from 24% in 1973 to barely 7% today and in 2010, for the first time, the public sector accounted for an absolute majority of union members. “Labor” increasingly means not guys with overalls and lunch pails, but people whose paychecks are signed by taxpayers.
The GOP, for its part, now relies on another part of the middle class, what I would call the yeomanry. In many ways they represent the contemporary version of Jeffersonian farmers or the beneficiaries of President Lincoln’s Homestead Act. They are primarily small property owners who lack the girth and connections of the clerisy but resist joining the government-dependent poor. Particularly critical are small business owners, who Gallup identifies as “the least approving” of Obama among all the major occupation groups. Barely one in three likes the present administration.
The yeomanry diverge from the clerisy in other ways. They tend to live in the suburbs, a geography much detested by many leaders of the clerisy and, likely, the president himself. Yeomen families tend to be concentrated in those parts of the country that have more children and are more apt to seek solutions to social problems through private efforts. Philanthropy, church work and voluntarism — what you might call, appropriately enough, the Utah approach, after the state that leads in philanthropy.
The nature of their work also differentiates the clerisy from the yeomanry. The clerisy labors largely in offices and has no contact with actual production. Many yeomen, particularly in business services, depend on industry for their livelihoods either directly or indirectly. The clerisy’s stultifying, and often job-toxic regulations and “green” agenda may be one reason why people engaged in farming, fishing, forestry, transportation, manufacturing and construction overwhelmingly disapprove of the president’s policies, according to Gallup.
Obama supporters sometimes trace the loss of largely white working-class support — even to the somewhat less than simpatico patrician Romney — to “false consciousness.” A recent Daily Kos article, charmingly entitled “The Masses are Asses,” chose to wave the old bloody shirt of racism, arguing that whites “are the single largest, and most protected racial group in this country’s history.”
Ultimately this division — clerisy and their clients versus yeomanry — will decide the election. The patricians and the unions will finance this battle on both sides, spreading a predictable thread of half-truths and outright lies. The Democrats enjoy a tactical advantage. All President Obama needs is to gain a rough split among the vast group making around or above the national median income. He can count on overwhelming backing by the largely government dependent poor as well as most ethnic minorities, even the most entrepreneurial and successful.
Romney’s imperative will be to rouse the yeomanry by suggesting the clerisy, both by their sheer costliness and increasingly intrusive agenda, are crippling their family’s prospects for a better life. In these times of weak economic growth and growing income disparity, the Republicans delude themselves by claiming to ignore class warfare. They need to learn how instead to make it politically profitable for themselves.
Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and contributing editor to the City Journal in New York. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.
This piece originally appeared in Forbes.
Mitt Romney image from Bigstock.
The Unseen Class War That Could Decide The Presidential Election
by Joel Kotkin 08/29/2012
Blaming a disliked minority — rich business folks — has morphed into a predictable strategy for President Obama’s Democrats, stripped of incumbent success. But all the talk of “one percent” versus “the ninety nine percent” misses new splits developing within both the upper and middle classes.
There is no true solidarity among the rich since no one is yet threatening their status. The “one percent” are splitting their bets. In 2008 President Obama received more Wall Street money than any candidate in history, and he still relies on Wall Street bundlers for his sustenance. For all his class rhetoric, miscreant Wall Streeters, particularly big ones, have evaded big sanctions and the ignominy of jail time.
Obama enjoys great support from the financial interests that benefit from government debt and expansive public largesse. Well-connected people like Obama’s financial tsar on the GM bailout, Steven Rattner, who is also known as a vigorous defender of “too big to fail.”
The “patrician left” — a term that might have amused Marx — extends as well to Silicon Valley, where venture capitalists and techies have opened their wallets wider than ever before for the president. Microsoft and Google are two of Obama’s top three organizational sources of campaign contributions. Valley financiers are not always as selfless as they or their admirers imagine: Many have sought to feed at the Energy Department’s bounteous “green” energy trough and all face regulatory reviews by federal agencies.
The Republicans have turned increasingly to those patricians who depend on the more tangible economy. If you make your living from digging coal or exploring for oil wells, even if you don’t like him, Romney is you man. This saddles the GOP with the burden of being linked to one of America’s most hated interests: oil and gas companies. Almost as detested is the biggest source of Romney cash, large Wall Street banks. (In contrast, Democratic-leaning industries, such as Internet-related companies, enjoy relatively high public support.)
With the patriarchate divided, the real action in the emerging class war is taking place further down the economic food chain. This inconvenient reality is largely ignored by the left, which finds the idea of anyone this side of Bain Capital supporting Romney as little more than “false consciousness.”
Obama’s core middle-class support, and that of his party, comes from what might be best described as “the clerisy,” a 21st century version of France’s pre-revolution First Estate. This includes an ever-expanding class of minders — lawyers, teachers, university professors, the media and, most particularly, the relatively well paid legions of public sector workers — who inhabit Washington, academia, large non-profits and government centers across the country.
This largely well-heeled “middle class” still adores the president, and party theoreticians see it as the Democratic Party’s new base. Gallup surveys reveal Obama does best among “professionals” such as teachers, lawyers and educators. After retirees, educators and lawyers are the two biggest sources of campaign contributions for Obama by occupation. Obama’s largest source of funds among individual organizations is the University of California, Harvard is fifth and its wannabe cousin Stanford ranks ninth.
Like teachers, much of academia and the legal bar like expanding government since the tax spigot flows in the right direction: that is, into their mouths. Like the old clerical classes, who relied on tithes and the collection bowl, many in today’s clerisy lives somewhat high on the hog; nearly one in five federal workers earn over $100,000.
Essentially, the clerisy has become a new, mass privileged class who live a safer, more secure life compared to those trapped in the harsher, less cosseted private economy. As California Polytechnic economist Michael Marlow points out, public sector workers enjoy greater job stability, and salary and benefits as much as 21% higher than of private sector employees doing similar work.
On this year’s Labor Day, this is the new face of unionism. The percentage of private-sector workers in unions has dropped from 24% in 1973 to barely 7% today and in 2010, for the first time, the public sector accounted for an absolute majority of union members. “Labor” increasingly means not guys with overalls and lunch pails, but people whose paychecks are signed by taxpayers.
The GOP, for its part, now relies on another part of the middle class, what I would call the yeomanry. In many ways they represent the contemporary version of Jeffersonian farmers or the beneficiaries of President Lincoln’s Homestead Act. They are primarily small property owners who lack the girth and connections of the clerisy but resist joining the government-dependent poor. Particularly critical are small business owners, who Gallup identifies as “the least approving” of Obama among all the major occupation groups. Barely one in three likes the present administration.
The yeomanry diverge from the clerisy in other ways. They tend to live in the suburbs, a geography much detested by many leaders of the clerisy and, likely, the president himself. Yeomen families tend to be concentrated in those parts of the country that have more children and are more apt to seek solutions to social problems through private efforts. Philanthropy, church work and voluntarism — what you might call, appropriately enough, the Utah approach, after the state that leads in philanthropy.
The nature of their work also differentiates the clerisy from the yeomanry. The clerisy labors largely in offices and has no contact with actual production. Many yeomen, particularly in business services, depend on industry for their livelihoods either directly or indirectly. The clerisy’s stultifying, and often job-toxic regulations and “green” agenda may be one reason why people engaged in farming, fishing, forestry, transportation, manufacturing and construction overwhelmingly disapprove of the president’s policies, according to Gallup.
Obama supporters sometimes trace the loss of largely white working-class support — even to the somewhat less than simpatico patrician Romney — to “false consciousness.” A recent Daily Kos article, charmingly entitled “The Masses are Asses,” chose to wave the old bloody shirt of racism, arguing that whites “are the single largest, and most protected racial group in this country’s history.”
Ultimately this division — clerisy and their clients versus yeomanry — will decide the election. The patricians and the unions will finance this battle on both sides, spreading a predictable thread of half-truths and outright lies. The Democrats enjoy a tactical advantage. All President Obama needs is to gain a rough split among the vast group making around or above the national median income. He can count on overwhelming backing by the largely government dependent poor as well as most ethnic minorities, even the most entrepreneurial and successful.
Romney’s imperative will be to rouse the yeomanry by suggesting the clerisy, both by their sheer costliness and increasingly intrusive agenda, are crippling their family’s prospects for a better life. In these times of weak economic growth and growing income disparity, the Republicans delude themselves by claiming to ignore class warfare. They need to learn how instead to make it politically profitable for themselves.
Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and contributing editor to the City Journal in New York. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.
This piece originally appeared in Forbes.
Mitt Romney image from Bigstock.
What to Say. What to Do: Silent Cal Gives Mitt a Clue @ AMERICAN DIGEST
What to Say. What to Do: Silent Cal Gives Mitt a Clue @ AMERICAN DIGEST
"This country needs every ounce of its energy to restore itself. The costs of government are all assessed upon the people.
“This means that the farmer is doomed to provide a certain amount of money out of the sale of his produce, no matter how low the price, to pay his taxes. The manufacturer, the professional man, the clerk, must do the same from their income. The wage earner-often at a higher rate when compared to his earnings-makes his contribution, perhaps not directly but indirectly, in the advanced cost of everything he buys.
“The expenses of government reach everybody.
“Taxes take from everyone a part of his earnings and force everyone to work for a certain part of his time for the government.
“When we come to realize that the yearly expenses of the governments of this country-the stupendous sum of about $7.5 billion -- $700 million needed by the national government. And the remainder by local governments.
“Such a sum is difficult to comprehend. It represents all the pay of 5 million wage earners making $5 a day, working for 300 days in the year. If the government should add $100 million of expense, it should represent four days more work of these wage earners. These are some of the reasons why I want to cut down public expense.
“I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves.
“I want them to have the rewards of their own industry-this is the chief meaning of freedom.
“Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty.
“These results are not fanciful, they are not imaginary, they are grimlt actual, and real, reaching into every household in the land. They take from each home annually an average of over $300.00, and taxes must be paid. They are not a voluntary contribution to be met out of surplus earnings. They are a stern necessity. They come first.
“It is only out of what is left, after they are paid, that the necessities of food, clothing, and shelter can be provided and the comforts of home secured, or the yearnings of the soul for a broader and more abundant life gratified.
“When the government affects a new economy, it grants everybody a life pension with which to raise the standards of existence. It increases the value of everybody's property, raises the scale of everybody's wages.
“One of the greatest favors that can be bestowed on the American people is economy in government."
"This country needs every ounce of its energy to restore itself. The costs of government are all assessed upon the people.
“This means that the farmer is doomed to provide a certain amount of money out of the sale of his produce, no matter how low the price, to pay his taxes. The manufacturer, the professional man, the clerk, must do the same from their income. The wage earner-often at a higher rate when compared to his earnings-makes his contribution, perhaps not directly but indirectly, in the advanced cost of everything he buys.
“The expenses of government reach everybody.
“Taxes take from everyone a part of his earnings and force everyone to work for a certain part of his time for the government.
“When we come to realize that the yearly expenses of the governments of this country-the stupendous sum of about $7.5 billion -- $700 million needed by the national government. And the remainder by local governments.
“Such a sum is difficult to comprehend. It represents all the pay of 5 million wage earners making $5 a day, working for 300 days in the year. If the government should add $100 million of expense, it should represent four days more work of these wage earners. These are some of the reasons why I want to cut down public expense.
“I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves.
“I want them to have the rewards of their own industry-this is the chief meaning of freedom.
“Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty.
“These results are not fanciful, they are not imaginary, they are grimlt actual, and real, reaching into every household in the land. They take from each home annually an average of over $300.00, and taxes must be paid. They are not a voluntary contribution to be met out of surplus earnings. They are a stern necessity. They come first.
“It is only out of what is left, after they are paid, that the necessities of food, clothing, and shelter can be provided and the comforts of home secured, or the yearnings of the soul for a broader and more abundant life gratified.
“When the government affects a new economy, it grants everybody a life pension with which to raise the standards of existence. It increases the value of everybody's property, raises the scale of everybody's wages.
“One of the greatest favors that can be bestowed on the American people is economy in government."
Monday, August 27, 2012
Grouchy Old Cripple: Monday Pun 8-27-2012
Grouchy Old Cripple: Monday Pun 8-27-2012: I have a new party trick. I swallow two pieces of string and an hour
later they come out of my ass tied together.
I shit you knot.
humor knotty problem
later they come out of my ass tied together.
I shit you knot.
humor knotty problem
Grouchy Old Cripple: Monday Pun 8-27-2012
Grouchy Old Cripple: Monday Pun 8-27-2012: I have a new party trick. I swallow two pieces of string and an hour
later they come out of my ass tied together.
I shit you knot.
humor knotty problem
later they come out of my ass tied together.
I shit you knot.
humor knotty problem
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
How tall is 1 million dollars in 100 dollar bills
How tall is 1 million dollars in 100 dollar bills: How tall is 1 million dollars in 100 dollar bills?
A US dollar bill is reportedly .0043 inches thick. Assuming the same for a 100 dollar bill, a stack of 100 dollar bills totalling one million dollars would be 43 inches tall.
It takes 10,000 such bills to equal a million dollars. 10,000 X .0043 = 43 inches.
Interestingly, using these measurements, a billion dollars would be just over 3583 feet tall, and a trillion dollars would be just over 678.66 miles tall!
A US dollar bill is reportedly .0043 inches thick. Assuming the same for a 100 dollar bill, a stack of 100 dollar bills totalling one million dollars would be 43 inches tall.
It takes 10,000 such bills to equal a million dollars. 10,000 X .0043 = 43 inches.
Interestingly, using these measurements, a billion dollars would be just over 3583 feet tall, and a trillion dollars would be just over 678.66 miles tall!
Monday, August 13, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
FW: TV's Funny Men - jdr1228@gmail.com - Gmail
FW: TV's Funny Men - jdr1228@gmail.com - Gmail
The liberals are asking us to give Obama time.
We agree...and think 25 to life would be
appropriate.
--Jay Leno
America needs Obama-care like Nancy
Pelosi needs a Halloween mask.
--Jay Leno
Q: Have you heard about McDonald's'
new Obama Value Meal?
A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you
has to pay for it.
--Conan O'Brien
Q: What does Barack Obama call
lunch with a convicted felon?
A: A fund raiser.
--Jay Leno
Q: What's the difference between
Obama's cabinet and a penitentiary?
A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers,
and threats to society. The other is for housing
prisoners.
--David Letterman
Q: If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were
on a boat in the middle of the ocean and it
started to sink, who would be saved?
A: America !
--Jimmy Fallon
Q: What's the difference between
Obama and his dog, Bo?
A: Bo has papers.
--Jimmy Kimmel
Q: What was the most positive result
of the "Cash for Clunkers" program?
A: It took 95% of the Obama bumper
stickers off the road.
--David Letterman
The liberals are asking us to give Obama time.
We agree...and think 25 to life would be
appropriate.
--Jay Leno
America needs Obama-care like Nancy
Pelosi needs a Halloween mask.
--Jay Leno
Q: Have you heard about McDonald's'
new Obama Value Meal?
A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you
has to pay for it.
--Conan O'Brien
Q: What does Barack Obama call
lunch with a convicted felon?
A: A fund raiser.
--Jay Leno
Q: What's the difference between
Obama's cabinet and a penitentiary?
A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers,
and threats to society. The other is for housing
prisoners.
--David Letterman
Q: If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were
on a boat in the middle of the ocean and it
started to sink, who would be saved?
A: America !
--Jimmy Fallon
Q: What's the difference between
Obama and his dog, Bo?
A: Bo has papers.
--Jimmy Kimmel
Q: What was the most positive result
of the "Cash for Clunkers" program?
A: It took 95% of the Obama bumper
stickers off the road.
--David Letterman
Saturday, August 04, 2012
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: It is but the shadow of death:
the shadow of a serpent will not sting, nor the shadow of a sword kill.
It is a valley, deep indeed, and dark, and miry;
but valleys are often fruitful,
and so is death itself fruitful of comforts to God’s people.
It is a walk through it:
they shall not be lost in this valley,
but get safe to the mountain on the other side.
Matthew Henry (1662-1714),
the shadow of a serpent will not sting, nor the shadow of a sword kill.
It is a valley, deep indeed, and dark, and miry;
but valleys are often fruitful,
and so is death itself fruitful of comforts to God’s people.
It is a walk through it:
they shall not be lost in this valley,
but get safe to the mountain on the other side.
Matthew Henry (1662-1714),
Friday, August 03, 2012
Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello
Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello: Q: How many blondes does it take to change a diaper?
A: Ask Hugh Hefner
HUMOR
A: Ask Hugh Hefner
HUMOR
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.Wendell Berry
"Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind...." @ AMERICAN DIGEST
"Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind...." @ AMERICAN DIGEST
1 Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.
4 And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean...
9 In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation....
12 Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
13 The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
-- Isaiah 17
1 Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.
4 And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean...
9 In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation....
12 Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
13 The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
-- Isaiah 17
Saturday, July 07, 2012
Of course life is unfair, but what did you expect?... - Adamstanley
Of course life is unfair, but what did you expect?... - Adamstanley: Of course life is unfair, but what did you expect? From the start the game is rigged. It’s all backwards. When you are old, you have to live in a world you created when you were nothing more than a kid. Whatever stupid shit you did when you were 20, you have to live with for the rest of your life. It should be the other way round.
Friday, July 06, 2012
Eagle Ford shale sees oil production soar
Eagle Ford shale sees oil production soar: Eagle Ford shale sees oil production soar
The new report cites that several oil and gas majors have moved in on the shale play, investing millions of dollars in an attempt to reap valuable fossil fuel rewards.
Eagle Ford production showed a three-fold increase in overall production in 2011 over 2010 levels, thanks to an increase in crude oil prices over natural gas prices. Texas has seen the Eagle Ford shale churn out four times as much liquids in 2011 as compared to 2010, with production growing from 10.8MMboe to 57.5MMboe, and the profitability associated with the crude oil prices is supporting this trend.
Production booms in the Eagle Ford play have rewarded companies such as Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Petrohawk Energy Corporation, EOG Resources Inc, Burlington Resources Inc, and Rosetta Resources Inc with high volumes of natural gas and high-quality liquids. According to the Railroad Commission of Texas, Briscoe Ranch field reported the highest gross production of around 26.2MMboe from the Eagle Ford shale during 2011.
The Eagle Ford shale in Texas has therefore witnessed a significant rise in drilling and exploration activities in 2011–2012, with many oil and gas companies continuously exploring the play in hopes of increasing their production base. A total of 4,286 drilling permits were issued in the play throughout 2011, while the first four months of 2012 have seen 1,620 drilling permits distributed already, and GlobalData anticipates that the Eagle Ford shale play will continue to see increased drilling activity during the coming years.
Tempted by such huge rewards, Chesapeake Energy Corporation was issued a record number of around 724 drilling permits in the Eagle Ford shale (Texas) during 2011, and allocated around $2,250m–$2,400m of planned capital expenditure for drilling and exploration activities in the Eagle Ford play throughout this year. This level of investment in the shale promises more activity in the future, as major companies fight it out to win a piece of the Eagle Ford shale’s wealth
Total gross production from the Eagle Ford shale increased from 0.02MMboe in 2006 to 105MMboe in 2011 at a CAGR of 4.4%, and is expected to reach 207.3MMboe in 2012, and stabilize at 1,386.3MMboe in 2020.
07/05/2012
World Oil News Center
Eagle Ford shale sees oil production soar
LONDON - The Eagle Ford shale play in Texas is benefiting from increasing production, as crude oil growth overtakes natural gas production, pushing up the shale’s profitability, claims a new report by GlobalData.The new report cites that several oil and gas majors have moved in on the shale play, investing millions of dollars in an attempt to reap valuable fossil fuel rewards.
Eagle Ford production showed a three-fold increase in overall production in 2011 over 2010 levels, thanks to an increase in crude oil prices over natural gas prices. Texas has seen the Eagle Ford shale churn out four times as much liquids in 2011 as compared to 2010, with production growing from 10.8MMboe to 57.5MMboe, and the profitability associated with the crude oil prices is supporting this trend.
Production booms in the Eagle Ford play have rewarded companies such as Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Petrohawk Energy Corporation, EOG Resources Inc, Burlington Resources Inc, and Rosetta Resources Inc with high volumes of natural gas and high-quality liquids. According to the Railroad Commission of Texas, Briscoe Ranch field reported the highest gross production of around 26.2MMboe from the Eagle Ford shale during 2011.
The Eagle Ford shale in Texas has therefore witnessed a significant rise in drilling and exploration activities in 2011–2012, with many oil and gas companies continuously exploring the play in hopes of increasing their production base. A total of 4,286 drilling permits were issued in the play throughout 2011, while the first four months of 2012 have seen 1,620 drilling permits distributed already, and GlobalData anticipates that the Eagle Ford shale play will continue to see increased drilling activity during the coming years.
Tempted by such huge rewards, Chesapeake Energy Corporation was issued a record number of around 724 drilling permits in the Eagle Ford shale (Texas) during 2011, and allocated around $2,250m–$2,400m of planned capital expenditure for drilling and exploration activities in the Eagle Ford play throughout this year. This level of investment in the shale promises more activity in the future, as major companies fight it out to win a piece of the Eagle Ford shale’s wealth
Total gross production from the Eagle Ford shale increased from 0.02MMboe in 2006 to 105MMboe in 2011 at a CAGR of 4.4%, and is expected to reach 207.3MMboe in 2012, and stabilize at 1,386.3MMboe in 2020.
07/05/2012
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
America our Birthday
A short list. In no particular order.
We told our children that any child could grow up to be President. And then we made it come true.
We had car shows, boat shows, beauty shows and dog shows.
We ran robots on the surface of Mars by remote control.
Our women came from all over the world in all shapes and sizes hues and scents.
We actually believed that all men are created equal and tried to make it come true.
Everybody liked our movies and loved our television shows.
We tried to educate everybody, whether they wanted it or not. Sometimes we succeeded.
We did Levis.
We held the torch high and hundreds of millions came. No matter what the cost.
We saved Europe twice and liberated it once.
We believed so deeply and so abidingly in free speech that we protected and honored and, in some cases, even elected traitors.
We let you be as freaky as you wanted to be.
We paid you not to plant crops and not to work.
We died in the hundreds of thousands to end slavery here. And when that was done continued for a century and a half around the world.
We invented Jazz.
We wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysberg address.
We went to the moon to see how far we could hit a golf ball.
We lifted a telescope into orbit that could see to the edge of the universe.
When people snuck into the country against our laws, we made parking lots and food stands off to the side of the road so they wouldn't get hurt, and we let them use our hospitals for free, and we made their children citizens.
We didn't care what God you worshipped as long as we could worship ours.
We let the People arm themselves at will. Just to make sure.
We gave everybody the vote.
We built Disneyworld. Just for fun.
We had a revolution so successful it was still going strong two and a quarter centuries later.
We had so many heroes, even at the end, that we felt free to hate them and burn them in effigy.
We electrified the guitar.
We invented a music so compelling that it rocked the world.
We had some middling novelists.
We had some interesting painters.
We had some pretty good poets.
We had better songwriters.
We ran our farms so well we fed the globe.
We made the automobile and the airplane.
We let you get rich. Really, really rich. And we didn't care who you were or what you were or where you came from or who your parents were. We just cared about what you made or what you did.
We had poor people who, even at their most wretched, were richer than any other poor people on the face of the planet.
We were the most nobel nation the world had ever known.
We had so much freedom that many of us voted to just throw it all away.
Even towards the end, as we dissolved into the petty bickering and idle entertainments that come with having far too much leisure and money, many among us were still striving to make it higher, finer, brighter, better and more beautiful.
Even towards the end, the best of us declined to give up and pressed on.
We told our children that any child could grow up to be President. And then we made it come true.
We had car shows, boat shows, beauty shows and dog shows.
We ran robots on the surface of Mars by remote control.
Our women came from all over the world in all shapes and sizes hues and scents.
We actually believed that all men are created equal and tried to make it come true.
Everybody liked our movies and loved our television shows.
We tried to educate everybody, whether they wanted it or not. Sometimes we succeeded.
We did Levis.
We held the torch high and hundreds of millions came. No matter what the cost.
We saved Europe twice and liberated it once.
We believed so deeply and so abidingly in free speech that we protected and honored and, in some cases, even elected traitors.
We let you be as freaky as you wanted to be.
We paid you not to plant crops and not to work.
We died in the hundreds of thousands to end slavery here. And when that was done continued for a century and a half around the world.
We invented Jazz.
We wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysberg address.
We went to the moon to see how far we could hit a golf ball.
We lifted a telescope into orbit that could see to the edge of the universe.
When people snuck into the country against our laws, we made parking lots and food stands off to the side of the road so they wouldn't get hurt, and we let them use our hospitals for free, and we made their children citizens.
We didn't care what God you worshipped as long as we could worship ours.
We let the People arm themselves at will. Just to make sure.
We gave everybody the vote.
We built Disneyworld. Just for fun.
We had a revolution so successful it was still going strong two and a quarter centuries later.
We had so many heroes, even at the end, that we felt free to hate them and burn them in effigy.
We electrified the guitar.
We invented a music so compelling that it rocked the world.
We had some middling novelists.
We had some interesting painters.
We had some pretty good poets.
We had better songwriters.
We ran our farms so well we fed the globe.
We made the automobile and the airplane.
We let you get rich. Really, really rich. And we didn't care who you were or what you were or where you came from or who your parents were. We just cared about what you made or what you did.
We had poor people who, even at their most wretched, were richer than any other poor people on the face of the planet.
We were the most nobel nation the world had ever known.
We had so much freedom that many of us voted to just throw it all away.
Even towards the end, as we dissolved into the petty bickering and idle entertainments that come with having far too much leisure and money, many among us were still striving to make it higher, finer, brighter, better and more beautiful.
Even towards the end, the best of us declined to give up and pressed on.
Carl Sandburg: The People Yes (excerpt)
Carl Sandburg: The People Yes (excerpt): Excerpt From The People Yes
Excerpt From The People Yes
Carl Sandburg
Excerpt From The People Yes
Carl Sandburg
The people yes
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can't laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas.
The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic,
is a vast huddle with many units saying:
"I earn my living.
I make enough to get by
and it takes all my time.
If I had more time
I could do more for myself
and maybe for others.
I could read and study
and talk things over
and find out about things.
It takes time.
I wish I had the time."
The people is a tragic and comic two-face: hero and hoodlum:
phantom and gorilla twisting to moan with a gargoyle mouth:
"They buy me and sell me...it's a game...sometime I'll
break loose..."
Once having marched
Over the margins of animal necessity,
Over the grim line of sheer subsistence
Then man came
To the deeper rituals of his bones,
To the lights lighter than any bones,
To the time for thinking things over,
To the dance, the song, the story,
Or the hours given over to dreaming,
Once having so marched.
Between the finite limitations of the five senses
and the endless yearnings of man for the beyond
the people hold to the humdrum bidding of work and food
while reaching out when it comes their way
for lights beyond the prison of the five senses,
for keepsakes lasting beyond any hunger or death.
This reaching is alive.
The panderers and liars have violated and smutted it.
Yet this reaching is alive yet
for lights and keepsakes.
The people know the salt of the sea
and the strength of the winds
lashing the corners of the earth.
The people take the earth
as a tomb of rest and a cradle of hope.
Who else speaks for the Family of Man?
They are in tune and step
with constellations of universal law.
The people is a polychrome,
a spectrum and a prism
held in a moving monolith,
a console organ of changing themes,
a clavilux of color poems
wherein the sea offers fog
and the fog moves off in rain
and the labrador sunset shortens
to a nocturne of clear stars
serene over the shot spray
of northern lights.
The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can't be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can't hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
"Where to? what next?"
Sunday, July 01, 2012
Was Columbus secretly a Jew? - CNN.com
Was Columbus secretly a Jew? - CNN.com
Editor's note: Charles Garcia is the CEO of Garcia Trujillo, a business focused on the Hispanic market, and the author of "Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows." A native of Panama, he now lives in Florida. Follow him on Twitter: @charlespgarcia. Lea este artÃculo en español/Read this article in Spanish.
(CNN) -- Today marks the 508th anniversary of the death of Christopher Columbus.Everybody knows the story of Columbus, right? He was an Italian explorer from Genoa who set sail in 1492 to enrich the Spanish monarchs with gold and spices from the orient. Not quite.
For too long, scholars have ignored Columbus' grand passion: the quest to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims.
Charles Garcia
During Columbus' lifetime, Jews became the target of fanatical religious persecution. On March 31, 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella proclaimed that all Jews were to be expelled from Spain. The edict especially targeted the 800,000 Jews who had never converted, and gave them four months to pack up and get out.
The Jews who were forced to renounce Judaism and embrace Catholicism were known as "Conversos," or converts. There were also those who feigned conversion, practicing Catholicism outwardly while covertly practicing Judaism, the so-called "Marranos," or swine.
Tens of thousands of Marranos were tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. They were pressured to offer names of friends and family members, who were ultimately paraded in front of crowds, tied to stakes and burned alive. Their land and personal possessions were then divvied up by the church and crown.
Recently, a number of Spanish scholars, such as Jose Erugo, Celso Garcia de la Riega, Otero Sanchez and Nicholas Dias Perez, have concluded that Columbus was a Marrano, whose survival depended upon the suppression of all evidence of his Jewish background in face of the brutal, systematic ethnic cleansing.
Columbus, who was known in Spain as Cristóbal Colón and didn't speak Italian, signed his last will and testament on May 19, 1506, and made five curious -- and revealing -- provisions.
Two of his wishes -- tithe one-tenth of his income to the poor and provide an anonymous dowry for poor girls -- are part of Jewish customs. He also decreed to give money to a Jew who lived at the entrance of the Lisbon Jewish Quarter.
On those documents, Columbus used a triangular signature of dots and letters that resembled inscriptions found on gravestones of Jewish cemeteries in Spain. He ordered his heirs to use the signature in perpetuity.
According to British historian Cecil Roth's "The History of the Marranos," the anagram was a cryptic substitute for the Kaddish, a prayer recited in the synagogue by mourners after the death of a close relative. Thus, Columbus' subterfuge allowed his sons to say Kaddish for their crypto-Jewish father when he died. Finally, Columbus left money to support the crusade he hoped his successors would take up to liberate the Holy Land.
Estelle Irizarry, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University, has analyzed the language and syntax of hundreds of handwritten letters, diaries and documents of Columbus and concluded that the explorer's primary written and spoken language was Castilian Spanish. Irizarry explains that 15th-century Castilian Spanish was the "Yiddish" of Spanish Jewry, known as "Ladino." At the top left-hand corner of all but one of the 13 letters written by Columbus to his son Diego contained the handwritten Hebrew letters bet-hei, meaning b'ezrat Hashem (with God's help). Observant Jews have for centuries customarily added this blessing to their letters. No letters to outsiders bear this mark, and the one letter to Diego in which this was omitted was one meant for King Ferdinand.
In Simon Weisenthal's book, "Sails of Hope," he argues that Columbus' voyage was motivated by a desire to find a safe haven for the Jews in light of their expulsion from Spain. Likewise, Carol Delaney, a cultural anthropologist at Stanford University, concludes that Columbus was a deeply religious man whose purpose was to sail to Asia to obtain gold in order to finance a crusade to take back Jerusalem and rebuild the Jews' holy Temple.
In Columbus' day, Jews widely believed that Jerusalem had to be liberated and the Temple rebuilt for the Messiah to come.
Scholars point to the date on which Columbus set sail as further evidence of his true motives. He was originally going to sail on August 2, 1492, a day that happened to coincide with the Jewish holiday of Tisha B'Av, marking the destruction of the First and Second Holy Temples of Jerusalem. Columbus postponed this original sail date by one day to avoid embarking on the holiday, which would have been considered by Jews to be an unlucky day to set sail. (Coincidentally or significantly, the day he set forth was the very day that Jews were, by law, given the choice of converting, leaving Spain, or being killed.)
Columbus' voyage was not, as is commonly believed, funded by the deep pockets of Queen Isabella, but rather by two Jewish Conversos and another prominent Jew. Louis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez advanced an interest free loan of 17,000 ducats from their own pockets to help pay for the voyage, as did Don Isaac Abrabanel, rabbi and Jewish statesman.
Indeed, the first two letters Columbus sent back from his journey were not to Ferdinand and Isabella, but to Santangel and Sanchez, thanking them for their support and telling them what he had found.
The evidence seem to bear out a far more complicated picture of the man for whom our nation now celebrates a national holiday and has named its capital.
As we witness bloodshed the world over in the name of religious freedom, it is valuable to take another look at the man who sailed the seas in search of such freedoms -- landing in a place that would eventually come to hold such an ideal at its very core.
Friday, June 29, 2012
GraphOilogy: The IMF and Hubbert
GraphOilogy: The IMF and Hubbert: The IMF just published a working paper with an eye-catching title The Future of Oil: Geology versus Technology.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Poems Worth A Damn
Poems Worth A Damn: Limits
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone
Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
for all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.
If there is a limit to all things and a measure
And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,
Who will tell us to whom in this house
We without knowing it have said farewell?
Limits
Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset, There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone
Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
for all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.
If there is a limit to all things and a measure
And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,
Who will tell us to whom in this house
We without knowing it have said farewell?
Poems Worth A Damn
Poems Worth A Damn: Limits
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone
Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
for all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.
If there is a limit to all things and a measure
And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,
Who will tell us to whom in this house
We without knowing it have said farewell?
Limits
Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset, There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone
Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
for all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.
If there is a limit to all things and a measure
And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,
Who will tell us to whom in this house
We without knowing it have said farewell?
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Work.
Work.
Work.
Don’t over-spiritualize. You can serve the Lord in a thousand different jobs. We need missionaries and we need pastors. But we also need entrepreneurs who create jobs so people can make money so they can support missionaries and pastors. And we need entrepreneurs because work is good. Please don’t ever think you are a second-class citizen in the kingdom of God if you aren’t in full-time ministry. You can honor the Lord as a teacher, mother, doctor, lawyer, loan officer, or social worker; you can work in retail, fast food, politics, or big business; you can be a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker. You can be just about anything you want as long as you aren’t lazy (Proverbs 6:6-11; 26:13-16), and whatever you do you perform to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).- Kevin DeYoung
God calls His people to lots of different things. Sometimes you feel a sense of calling to your job and, you know what, sometimes you don’t. I’m extremely thankful that I love what I do for a living. I feel badly for people who only tolerate their jobs, or worse. But we must all serve the Lord with heart, soul, strength, and mind wherever He’s placed us. Unfortunately, we’ve turned the idea of calling or vocation on its head. The Reformers emphasized calling in order to break down the sacred-secular divide. They said, if you are working for the glory of God, you are doing the Lord’s work, no matter whether you’re a priest or a monk or a banker. But we’ve taken this notion of calling and turned it upside down, so instead of finding purpose in every kind of work we are madly looking for the one job that will fulfill our purpose in life.
I’m not arguing for complacency in or bitter resignation to your present circumstances. I am arguing for what the apostle Paul advocated: godliness with contentment. The two together form “great gain,” he declared (1 Timothy 6:6). Complacency and contentment are often confused, but there is a difference between the two. Contentment is saying, “God has me here for a reason, and if He never does anything different, I’ll still serve and praise Him.” Complacency is saying, “Things will never change, so why bother trying?” The complacent are like wine left with the dregs, like coffee sludge at the bottom of your cup, like the wicked “who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill’” (Zephaniah 1:12). Nothing is impossible with God, so go ahead and run hard after your big plans and take a shot at your dream job. But remember that in almost any job, God can be pleased with your work so long as you are taking pleasure in Him as you do it.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Saturday, June 09, 2012
Barnhardt.biz - Commodity Brokerage
Barnhardt.biz - Commodity Brokerage
SATAN IS REAL.
2. Building on that, I suspect many people out there are thinking this, but are too afraid to say it because they think that people will look down upon them as rednecks or stupid or unintelligent. Let me go out front as a person who doesn't give a crap what others think of me, and who is many things, but not stupid, and say it out loud to hopefully edify others to speak openly about it:
YES, THIS RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF NEAR-DAILY HIDEOUS, CANNIBALISTIC MURDERS AND UNFATHOMABLE SEX CRIMES IS A MANIFESTATION OF DEMONIC POSSESSION AND DEMONIC POWER RECLAIMING A FOOTHOLD IN FORMERLY CONSECRATED CHRISTIAN TERRITORY.
You're not imagining things. That's exactly what it is. People have been "bad tripping" on drugs for decades without turning into demonic animals and eating people's faces off of them alive. Just as satan is very, very real, so are demons. The demonic legions are reclaiming and reasserting power in the Americas and Europe because these physical landmasses have lost their consecration to Christ by their apostasy, blasphemy and child sacrifice. It is going to get worse. We are basically going to turn into what the musloid Middle East has been for 1400 years. Civilization is going to lose cohesion and people are going to start doing things that have absolutely no rational explanation: gratuitously gruesome murders and bodily desecration, and rape variants involving children, animals and corpses that normal people cannot comprehend.
The main gateways for demonic possession are drugs, pornography and homosexual/deviant sex. The cannibals have all been drug users. The Canadian cannibal was also a gay porn star. The British couple who raped their own infant children (on camera) are child and bestiality porn merchants. These incidents will increase in frequency exponentially as the collective apostasy of this culture has now reached the point that the "shedding of God's Grace" upon The Americas and Europe is now limited to individuals - and even then, God's grace for the remnant may be within the context of their persecution, imprisonment and martyrdom.
I guess the best advice I can give is when everything goes to hell and you feel despairing, remember that WE DESERVE THIS. What you are seeing is God's Justice, and an opportunity for you and others to draw closer to Him. And THANK HIM.
SATAN IS REAL.
2. Building on that, I suspect many people out there are thinking this, but are too afraid to say it because they think that people will look down upon them as rednecks or stupid or unintelligent. Let me go out front as a person who doesn't give a crap what others think of me, and who is many things, but not stupid, and say it out loud to hopefully edify others to speak openly about it:
YES, THIS RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF NEAR-DAILY HIDEOUS, CANNIBALISTIC MURDERS AND UNFATHOMABLE SEX CRIMES IS A MANIFESTATION OF DEMONIC POSSESSION AND DEMONIC POWER RECLAIMING A FOOTHOLD IN FORMERLY CONSECRATED CHRISTIAN TERRITORY.
You're not imagining things. That's exactly what it is. People have been "bad tripping" on drugs for decades without turning into demonic animals and eating people's faces off of them alive. Just as satan is very, very real, so are demons. The demonic legions are reclaiming and reasserting power in the Americas and Europe because these physical landmasses have lost their consecration to Christ by their apostasy, blasphemy and child sacrifice. It is going to get worse. We are basically going to turn into what the musloid Middle East has been for 1400 years. Civilization is going to lose cohesion and people are going to start doing things that have absolutely no rational explanation: gratuitously gruesome murders and bodily desecration, and rape variants involving children, animals and corpses that normal people cannot comprehend.
The main gateways for demonic possession are drugs, pornography and homosexual/deviant sex. The cannibals have all been drug users. The Canadian cannibal was also a gay porn star. The British couple who raped their own infant children (on camera) are child and bestiality porn merchants. These incidents will increase in frequency exponentially as the collective apostasy of this culture has now reached the point that the "shedding of God's Grace" upon The Americas and Europe is now limited to individuals - and even then, God's grace for the remnant may be within the context of their persecution, imprisonment and martyrdom.
I guess the best advice I can give is when everything goes to hell and you feel despairing, remember that WE DESERVE THIS. What you are seeing is God's Justice, and an opportunity for you and others to draw closer to Him. And THANK HIM.
Friday, June 08, 2012
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Someone Wonderful: Doc Watson (1923 - 2012) @ AMERICAN DIGEST
Someone Wonderful: Doc Watson (1923 - 2012) @ AMERICAN DIGEST: � A Frank Exchange of Views [Updated] |
will the circle be unbroken?
will the circle be unbroken?
A Frank Exchange of Views [Updated] @ AMERICAN DIGEST
A Frank Exchange of Views [Updated] @ AMERICAN DIGEST
"Conservatives remind me of the well-dressed Jews in the movie Schindler's List. They keep hoping and acting as if they look like the least threatening and most rule-following of all it will keep them safe. It won't. Doing this just makes sure you are the most frequent victim and get the least respect. If the ghetto teaches us one thing, it teaches us you had better "mad dog" or be ready to fight any and all at any moment. Being nice is precisely how we have become second-class citizens in our own country. Getting approval from the other second-class victims isn't the same as defending your self or your country.
"Remember the contempt you had the first time your grade school teacher told you about the British Redcoats marching into battle in red coats, shoulder to shoulder, with no cover? Remember the anger you felt during Vietnam when our side was playing by WWII strategy and doctrine and the VC were hiding in spider holes and laying booby traps? Conservatives are fighting and losing their country because they will not recognize that the old rules no longer apply. The Left took over this country because they recognized the rules could be changed and the first one to the fight would usually win.
"Wake the Hell up and stop being the best little "Jew" at the trains station. Nobody but you thinks that is a way to win. You must change your comfortable ways. "Get in their face and punch back twice as hard." It's worked for decades. It will even work if we do it. But we are irrelevant until we make our opponents do things. Reaching a logical conclusion and then resuming your chores doesn't work. Listening to conservative radio hosts tell you how outraged they are isn't working. All that matters is "get in their face and punch back twice as hard." You won't be respected until you are feared, no matter how nice you tend your lawn. Action Today."
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The War Prayer by Mark Twain
The War Prayer by Mark Twain
The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
| | |
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.
It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came – next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their faces alight with material dreams – visions of a stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! – then home from the war, bronzed heros, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation – "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"
| |
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory.
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting.
With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal," Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside – which the startled minister did – and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said
"I come from the Throne – bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd and grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import – that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of – except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who hearth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
| |
"You have heard your servant's prayer – the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it – that part which the pastor, and also you in your hearts, fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause)
"Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
Note: Twain wrote The War Prayer during the US war on the Philippines. It was submitted for publication, but on March 22, 1905, Harper's Bazaar rejected it as "not quite suited to a woman's magazine." Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Dan Beard, to whom he had read the story, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth." Because he had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Mark Twain could not publish "The War Prayer" elsewhere and it remained unpublished until 1923.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on Small Flags
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on Small Flags
Posted by TmjUtah at May 27, 2008 7:19 AM
About 9/11 and the towers collapse:
I watched the fires from the first strike from our living room, as my daughters sat speechless next to their almost- packed suitcases.
Their heads framed the screen as we listened to the pundits attempt to make sense of what we were seeing.
I told my wife that they had maybe an hour, if that, to get that fire out before the exterior beams failed from the heat and allowed the floor pans to shear; we were thinking... hoping... "accident". See, I'm not an engineer, but I've built big stuff and building big stuff requires you know something about materials. And anybody who tests materials knows that in steel temperature is a critical variable.
That's why they wrap it. Oops, would have wrapped it in the WTC but for the Greens.
When steel fails under traction or shear, it makes a "snap". A #4 rebar snapping inside a concrete wall can sound like a desk falling over. A main structure H or I -beam failure - components with dimensions measured in feet and tons- sounds like an auto accident impact. Or a bomb, if you will.
Then there's the sound an acre sized floor pancaking down on the one beneath it makes. A lot of floors in those buildings, and even if the Little Eichmanns softened the impacts, the noise and fury would be impossible to distinguish from explosions. This is especially true because the ejecta of corpses, ash, office equipment, glass, building face materials, ash, corpses, paper, concrete, more ash... that used to be corpses... would be intense as the air was slammed out from between the pans.
Anyway, shortly after I told the wife all that we were surprised to see the second aircraft strike and I knew then we were at war.
A lot of Democrats still don't get that, but I've ceased to be puzzled by that. Some folks you oppose, some you just have to beat.
Troofers. Proof that God likes a joke as much as the next guy.
God Bless our troops. Those that give now, and them that have given all. Thanks, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks.
Posted by TmjUtah at May 27, 2008 7:19 AM
About 9/11 and the towers collapse:
I watched the fires from the first strike from our living room, as my daughters sat speechless next to their almost- packed suitcases.
Their heads framed the screen as we listened to the pundits attempt to make sense of what we were seeing.
I told my wife that they had maybe an hour, if that, to get that fire out before the exterior beams failed from the heat and allowed the floor pans to shear; we were thinking... hoping... "accident". See, I'm not an engineer, but I've built big stuff and building big stuff requires you know something about materials. And anybody who tests materials knows that in steel temperature is a critical variable.
That's why they wrap it. Oops, would have wrapped it in the WTC but for the Greens.
When steel fails under traction or shear, it makes a "snap". A #4 rebar snapping inside a concrete wall can sound like a desk falling over. A main structure H or I -beam failure - components with dimensions measured in feet and tons- sounds like an auto accident impact. Or a bomb, if you will.
Then there's the sound an acre sized floor pancaking down on the one beneath it makes. A lot of floors in those buildings, and even if the Little Eichmanns softened the impacts, the noise and fury would be impossible to distinguish from explosions. This is especially true because the ejecta of corpses, ash, office equipment, glass, building face materials, ash, corpses, paper, concrete, more ash... that used to be corpses... would be intense as the air was slammed out from between the pans.
Anyway, shortly after I told the wife all that we were surprised to see the second aircraft strike and I knew then we were at war.
A lot of Democrats still don't get that, but I've ceased to be puzzled by that. Some folks you oppose, some you just have to beat.
Troofers. Proof that God likes a joke as much as the next guy.
God Bless our troops. Those that give now, and them that have given all. Thanks, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: The greatest result of Sabbath resting is the opportunity to know the presence of God, no matter what our present circumstances might be. We do not need to rely on our own strength to deal with the tragic. Rather, spiritual rest gives us the freedom to accept the fact that human happiness is fleeting and to trust that there will be enough grace to carry us through all tragedy. We might be experiencing a time of sadness and mourning, but our faith assures us that God is with us in our sorrow to bring us the Joy of his presence.
—Marva J. Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting
—Marva J. Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: The greatest result of Sabbath resting is the opportunity to know the presence of God, no matter what our present circumstances might be. We do not need to rely on our own strength to deal with the tragic. Rather, spiritual rest gives us the freedom to accept the fact that human happiness is fleeting and to trust that there will be enough grace to carry us through all tragedy. We might be experiencing a time of sadness and mourning, but our faith assures us that God is with us in our sorrow to bring us the Joy of his presence.
—Marva J. Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting
—Marva J. Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting
Sunday, May 20, 2012
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