Thursday, October 31, 2013

Washington Post Poll Results.......

Are liberal readers of the Washington Post simply brain dead?

The poll question was simple enough -

Will Healthcare.gov's issues cause long-term political damage to President Obama and Democrats?

As this snip shows, 63% said, no it'll cause no problem for Obama.

Seriously?




How can we ever expect anything to be accomplished in this country when we are obviously light-years apart?

Friday, October 25, 2013

Halloween advisory: No Offensive Costumes.

The dean of the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and University of Minnesota Office of Student Affairs have asked students to be a bit more
politically correct sensitive in their choice of Halloween costumes this year.

Some of the costumes on the forbidden list are obvious choices -no black face-no sombreros or serapes-no turbans.


Surprisingly, students were asked not to dress up as "hillbillies" or "white trash".

There is some disagreement as to what is inappropriate. Mike Schmit, the undergraduate student body president at the University of Minnesota said,

“As a student, I think you’re better off erring on the side of not dressing like something that can be questionable. Cowboys, for instance — totally fine. Indians — not totally fine.”

CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard said that as someone from a ranch family, he considers traditional cowboy costumes "crude."

"My people are ranch people from Montana," he said."When you dress up as a cowboy, and you have your sheriff badge on and a big cowboy hat, that's not a representation of a cowboy, that's not a representation of people who work on a ranch that's not a representation of people who live in the West, that's kind of a crude stereotype."

What's acceptable?

Disco parties.

But what would a disco party be without the Village People?

Friday, October 18, 2013

It's the End of the World......again.



For those of you who haven't gotten your fill of end times prophesies lately, here's one from anti-Catholic bigot, John Hagee. This one about "four blood moons".

click here.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Videos Following Recent Earthquake in Philippines.



From Inquirer.net , two videos following the destructive earthquake that jolted parts of the Visayas and Mindanao in Philippines on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013.




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Monday, October 14, 2013

Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Although my taste in music covers a broad spectrum - (I'm truly catholic in my musical tastes) - I'll be the first to admit that not all types of music are equally accessible to everyone. Fans of Bob Dylan might enjoy Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, or The Wallflowers, but Bernard Hermann could be alien to their musical temperament.

One of the forms of music which has been difficult for me to appreciate fully is opera...... more specifically, the singing in a language other than English. How can I understand Carmen when I don't speak French, La traviata when I'm ignorant of Italian, or anything by Wagner when German is, well, Greek to me?
Fortunately, with the Internet, finding the libretto to any opera - along with the English translation - is remarkably easy.

For a good many years, I've been thinking of ploughing my way through Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Now, thanks to a website containing Wagner's librettos and Wikipedia articles on the four operas ( Das Rheingold - Die Walküre - Siegfried and Götterdämmerung ) I can listen to the mega opera on Spotify.

It's going to be slow-go.

As things stand now, I'm listening to one scene at a time. It could possibly take me as long to hear the entire work as it did for Wagner to create it.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Thank God, I'm Not a Methodist.

While Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment may have been "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican", I don't hold to a similar view regarding the criticism of my fellow Christians.

In this Politically Correct Universe we live in, it's perfectly OK for secularists to speak ill of any and all Christians, but it's considered indecorous by some, for one Christian group to speak critically of another. Tolerance above all, is their motto.

As one who firmly believes that the Catholic Church is the one, true apostolic church established by Jesus Christ, I can't support the notion that I should keep quiet about the heresies permeating Protestantism.

One of the most glaring heresy to arise of late is debate within the Methodist community  as to whether or not churches should offer Holy Communion online.

Being an offshoot of the heretical Church of England, Methodists deny that the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ, as the Catholic Church teaches. So, I shouldn't be surprised that some in their church are considering this move. (If we want to be precise, from the Catholic perspective, the Methodist version of communion isn't the actual body and blood of Jesus any way).

The Rev. Daniel Wilson, who is preparing to serve as online campus pastor for Central United Methodist Church in Concord, N.C. says,
 "You will see onscreen an invitation from one of our pastors to get your elements of bread and juice or wine. We do not want to water it down so much that people use Goldfish (crackers) and apple juice.”

I guess that's slightly better than the Alpha Church , which has this on their website concerning online communion:

"To prepare for Holy Communion - Eucharist
Gather your communion elements before you begin the service:
1.) get a small amount of something to drink like juice, water, soup, broth, tea or milk.
2.) get a small amount of something to eat like a cracker, a small piece of bread, a little piece of a tortilla, or a few grains of cooked rice".



Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Ohio school district agrees to keep portrait of Jesus off wall, pay $95G fine.



From several sources:

The Jackson City School District, located in Jackson, Ohio has agreed to remove a portrait of Jesus Christ from school property and pay a $95,000 fine. Under the terms of the settlement, the district will pay the money to the ACLU and Freedom From Religion Foundation for damages and legal fees.

I can't believe that any school district in the United States today would fight this issue. The courts have made it perfectly clear that government-run schools cannot endorse any particular religion. Public schools cannot display paintings of Jesus, or Buddha or Satan ...... and they certainly can't display a portrait of Mohammed.

Note to parents - if you want your child to be taught religion in school, send him or her to a private, religious school.

I'm not supporting the ACLU and Freedom From Religion Foundation in this fiasco either. OK, I get the “unconstitutional” part, but the "students and visitors to the school will continue to suffer permanent, severe and irreparable harm and injury, if a portrait of Jesus continues to reside on school property" part is quite the load of B.S..

Jackson Superintendent Phil Howard said, "Our attorneys felt like this was the best case scenario for the district because the legal fees were mounting by the day. The settlement did not cost the district or taxpayers any money because it was paid for by the district insurance company."

Maybe:

If I lived in Jackson, Ohio, I'd be demanding we find another School Superintendent.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Obama Unhinged over Govt. Shutdown.



From caintv.com:

Bizarro-Obama embraces anti-union, anti-strike, rhetoric in shutdown battle...

"This one ...well, I don't even know where to begin. Today, during a speech President Obama clawed his way through the looking glass into serious bizarro territory. The man who has long prided himself on being the best friend the unions would ever have went on an anti-strike, anti-organized labor rant that must have shaken the very foundations of AFL-CIO headquarters. Speaking to a group of workers in Rockville, Maryland, Obama railed against the very core concept of organized labor in order to attack Republicans over the government shutdown."

In the video, Obama says,

"Everybody here just does their job, right? If you're working here and in the middle of the day you just stopped and said 'you know what, I want to get something, but I don't know exactly what I'm gonna get. I'm just going to stop working till I get something - I'm just going to shut down the whole plant until I get something' - You'd get fired, right?

Cuz the deal is, you've already gotten hired. You've got a job. You're getting a paycheck. ..And so you also are getting the pride of doing a good job, and contributing to a business, and looking out for your fellow workers. That's what you're getting. It shouldn't be any different for a member of Congress."