How to die like a Christian gentleman
A portrayal of Charles I
Catholic integralism is the true seamless garment.
Don't apologize for things you didn't do, to people who don't believe in forgiveness or redemption.
I do not understand the stance of some priests who are quite orthodox theologically yet have little or no issue with liturgical abuses. I suppose because of the profusion of liturgical abuse as being the “norm”. Is it because the versus populum orientation, communion in the hand, banal liturgical forms/music are seen as in the “spirit of Vatican II” and being “with it”? It’s a mystery ...One reason there are orthodox Catholics who say only the doctrine matters is the Thomas Day factor. The persecuted Irish couldn’t have nice churches with big public ceremonies so they discounted those things. That became the dominant RC mindset in English-speaking countries. Before Vatican II Fr Leonard Feeney, hardly considered a liberal, actually wrote ‘dogmas come first, not liturgies’.
The government has embraced an arrogant ideology. They claim to know the key to prosperity. It’s analogous to communism. They thought the same thing. The clever ones – themselves – would run everything. That’s the analogy. The key to prosperity is to let things run themselves. We’ll liberalize everything, let everyone look after himself, let business, not the state, run the economy. The state should have no views, no policies of its own. Just open it all up, step back, let it go and you’ll see how well everything will work if we just leave things alone.From here.
There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.From Donna.
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all.
He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.
The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.
The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, ‘You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. But it won’t matter how many times you say you’re sorry, the wound will still be there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.’
Remember that friends are very rare jewels indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed, they lend an ear, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us.
Show your friends how much you care.
Please forgive me if I have ever left a ‘hole’ in your fence.
Another thing that doesn’t get much press. It makes me so sad, and it seems to come of people feeling absolutely entitled to having a child, like any possession, and damn the consequences.Rather like how some adoptees feel but worse? (But, I think the argument goes, adoption’s not unnatural.) A consequence of treating children like a commodity... the brave new world of sex without babies (‘because you don’t want that new life; all you want is the thrill of playing at it’ as Peter Kreeft wrote) and babies without sex, something the church condemns. I’ve sometimes wondered if there could be some development of doctrine to finesse aiding conception (which wouldn’t change any of the issues people attack the church for now) but maybe not.
How many times have you been told to start with a little stretching? Yet multiple studies of pre-workout stretching demonstrate that it actually raises your likelihood of injury and lowers your subsequent performance. Turns out muscles that aren’t warmed up don’t really stretch anyway, and tugging on them just firms up their resistance to a wider range of motion. In fact, limbering up even has a slackening effect on your muscles, reducing their stability and the amount of power and strength they’ll generate.
Cardio machines are innocent enough, as they won’t actually make you any less fit, but maintaining cardiovascular fitness doesn’t really take much more than breathing uncomfortably hard for about 20 minutes, three times a week. And we all know that swimming, hoops, bike riding, and even Ultimate Frisbee can get the job done, and that treadmills or elliptical trainers are a pale substitute.
Weight machines, on the other hand, are far more insidious because they appear to be a huge technological advance over free weights. But quite the opposite is true: Weight machines train individual muscles in isolation, while the rest of you sits completely inert. This works okay for physical therapy and injury rehab, and it’s passable for bodybuilding, but every serious strength-and-conditioning coach in America will tell you that muscle-isolation machines don’t create real-world strength for life and sport.
Most gyms do include a few token free weights, but think about where you’ll find them: around the edges of the room, like fresh fruits and vegetables in a supermarket that gives all the prime middle-of-the-store shelf space to Frosted Flakes and frozen cheesecake. Truly indispensable gear — like the good old-fashioned adjustable barbell rack, the sine qua non of any remotely serious gym — has, by contrast, become a downright rarity. As for niche but no less important equipment like an Olympic lifting platform, forget about it: The lawyers would never let it through the door.
Here’s the problem: If you’re in the fitness-equipment business, free weights are a loser. The 2010 model looks too much like the 1950 model, and they both last forever. Far better to create gleaming $4,000 contraptions that can be reinvented every two years, and then hire a PR firm to promote some made-up training theory claiming that machines are the answer, like the now infamous HIT — or High Intensity Training — approach sold by Arthur Jones, inventor of the original Nautilus machines, that explained how moving quickly through an entire, complete circuit of, you guessed it, Nautilus machines, would help you reach your true potential. Meanwhile, the real reason your gym has so many strength machines is that anybody can figure out how to use them, and they make injury nearly impossible.
Commercial health clubs need about 10 times as many members as their facilities can handle, so designing them for athletes, or even aspiring athletes, makes no sense. Fitness fanatics work out too much, making every potential new member think, Nah, this place looks too crowded for me. The winning marketing strategy, according to Recreation Management Magazine, a health club–industry trade rag, focuses strictly on luring in the “out-of-shape public,” meaning all of those people whose doctors have told them, “About 20 minutes three times a week,” who won’t come often if ever, and who definitely won’t join unless everything looks easy, available, and safe. The entire gym, from soup to nuts, has been designed around getting suckers to sign up, and then getting them mildly, vaguely exercised every once in a long while, and then getting them out the door.
Facts about Obama’s connections and viewpoints were readily available in the conservative press before his election. The “mainstream” press played see no evil, and voters in general voted for what they wanted to see in Obama, not what he really is. Contrary to the current idea in the liberal press that opposition to Obama is based on racism, actually a lot of people voted for him on the idea that it would be a positive thing to have a president of African ancestry. I wanted to be able to vote for him for that reason. I don’t vote for symbols, however, and the reality of his political philosophy made me oppose him. The electorate in 2008 had a massive case of adolescent puppy love.From here.
It had the usual relaxed formality of any other divine liturgy to which I have been. Things were done with ceremony and dignity but it seemed natural and “lived in”, not done with forced military precision as though the participants had learnt it from an instruction manual and were afraid of setting a foot wrong.From here.
Seems the government is able to transmit microwave messages to our brains which can “hear” them.From Cracked.
And tin foil really does keep them out!
Do not look forward to the mishaps of this life with anxiety, but await them with perfect confidence so that when they do occur, God, to whom you belong, will deliver you from them. He has kept you up to the present; remain securely in the hand of his providence, and he will help you in all situations. When you cannot walk, he will carry you. Do not think about what will happen tomorrow, for the same eternal Father who takes care of you today will look out for you tomorrow and always. Either he will keep you from evil or he will give you invincible courage to endure it. Remain in peace; rid your imagination of whatever troubles you.From here.
Good music should be an integrating force and not a fragmenting one. “To Plato and Nietzsche,” he writes, “the history of music is a series of attempts to give form and beauty to the dark, chaotic, premonitory forces in the soul – to make them serve a higher purpose, an ideal, to give man’s duties a fullness. Bach’s religious intentions and Beethoven’s revolutionary and humane ones are clear enough examples. Such cultivation of the soul uses the passions and satisfies them while sublimating them and giving them an artistic unity. A man whose noblest activities are accompanied by a music that expresses them while providing a pleasure extending from the lowest bodily to the highest spiritual, is whole, and there is no tension in him between the pleasant and the good. By contrast a man whose business life is prosaic and unmusical and whose leisure is made up of coarse, intense entertainments, is divided, and each side of his existence is undermined by the other.”
People sometimes rag on St. Augustine for saying that the behaviour of infants and small children is a clear indication of the truth of the doctrine of Original Sin.From Hilary.
These people hardly ever take the time to remember their own childhoods.
I took a more detailed altar picture this morning. It was mentioned a few weeks ago it is rather Western-looking.Thanks for this.
The situation is tremendously depressing, as Israel is carrying on a kind of slow-motion ethnic cleansing, severing the Palestinians from Jerusalem but various bureaucratic measures and home demolitions. It is sad both for itself – to see the extent to which Palestinian every day lives are regulated by Israelis with guns; for the peace process – because there will be no peace unless the Palestinians and Muslims world in general have some access to Jerusalem, which is a holy city for Muslims and Christians, as well as Jews. And because America, as Israel’s only ally and benefactor, makes all this possible – indeed encourages it by the supine nature of its dealings with Israel.From @TAC.
The House Republican Study Committee’s budget-cutting plan includes cutting off $250 million per year to Egypt. It’s a good idea to cut off all foreign aid to all countries, including Israel.
Here’s how it works:
Cantor takes Israel off the foreign-aid dole and hides the Israel subsidy in the DoD numbers til Lieberman takes over from Gates. That way Cantor can vote his heart out against foreign aid without having to explain why Israel – the biggest international welfare case in human history – gets to keep draining the American taxpayer of his lifeblood.
Neat, huh?
If America is seen doing justice in the Middle East, there will be no need for billions of dollars on security. All Americans I met are nice people yet Americans are hated round the world because of their foreign policy that hasn’t changed at all. I grew up in Damascus, witnessed 3 Middle East wars. when I was a young child, during the Israeli bombings, my mum used to hide us in the toilet (being the strongest part of the house) and cover the doorway with her body in case a bomb dropped in the house. Those were American bombs. I grew up hating America and Israel. I try now not to be angry. I don’t want my children to grow up in a hate environment. But it is hard. Everytime I see America doing something positive in the Middle East, I see 10 or more negative things. For humanity’s sake, why can’t America do what fair and just for everybody?
Two recent polls (one by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and one by the Brookings Institute) found that 2/3 of the American people want America to take no side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet, both parties in our Congress are staunchly pro-Israel.
Our representatives do not represent us. The Israeli lobby has stepped in to fill a void because most Americans are totally ignorant of the true history of that conflict and the current situation. That’s why, K. Shbib.
Our media is totally complicit in this, and that is also why; Americans just aren’t getting the truth, and don’t know any better and thus do not seek out other news sources such as the BBC, Guardian, Independent, Ha’aretz, Forward, etc.
Hey guys, watch out for any infections, particularly the newest “strain” called Whitesmoke! It will appear as an icon on the taskbar near your clock. If you have this infection shut down IMMEDIATELY and do not attempt to fix it yourself.... GET IT TO A REPAIR SHOP. Even a cleaning with COMBOFIX and MALWAREBYTES will NOT clean the root of the problem. It may inform you where the infection is but can’t remove the registry entries that will allow a speedy reinfection. Unfortunately too many PC repair shops and technicians don’t know how to COMPLETELY remove this infection so be sure that your continue to back up your data in case you are faced with having to “NUKE” your PC and start from scratch!At least I can get into my old drive (only with Spybot repeating a warning box) and move what I need to the server and then onto a different machine in the newsroom.
When’s the last time you heard of rock-and-roll lovers in conflict with classical-music lovers, or Mac lovers in conflict with PC lovers, or football lovers in conflict with golf lovers? It seldom if ever happens. When there’s market allocation of resources and peaceable, voluntary exchange, people have their preferences satisfied and are able to live in peace with one another.
Think what might be the case if it were a political decision of whether there’d be football or golf watched on TV, whether we used Macs or PCs and whether we listened to classical music or rock and roll. Everyone had to comply with the politically made decision or suffer the pain of fines or imprisonment. Football lovers would be lined up against golf lovers, Mac lovers against PC lovers and rock-and-rollers against classical-music lovers. People who previously lived in peace with one another would now be in conflict.
Why? If, for example, classical-music lovers got what they wanted, rock-and-rollers wouldn’t. Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was made in the political arena.
The lesson here is that the prime feature of political decision-making is that it’s a zero-sum game. One person’s gain is of necessity another person’s loss. As such, political allocation of resources is conflict-enhancing, while market allocation is conflict-reducing.
I, too, believe in Detroit. I believe that it is a metropolitan area of roughly 139 square miles situated on the Detroit River. I also believe that facts are more helpful than empty rhetoric, especially when you’re trying to lure investors, so I’ve compiled some basic facts about the city.From Taki.
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force commemorates life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Depends. Equality or special treatment, like rewriting the law to force all to pretend two men can marry each other for example? Hardly justice. Like many black clergy and congregations then and now, like those in California who voted down Prop 8 more than two years ago (making some gays react like the Klan) and the COGIC congregation near my church, he might have agreed that homosex is a sin (me: but it’s none of the state’s business) and resented having it lumped together with race.
We believe that were he alive today, Dr. King would be standing with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community as we too reach for equality.