The New Ireland a Place Once Catholic

 The oppression of Ireland's women is over. They are now liberated from constraints by Church or God of any unwanted consequences to copulation. They can enjoy making love without love. They can lust to their hearts content. And if by chance a baby comes to be it can be gotten rid of with a happy and light conscience. They do not have any restrictions. They can raise up doctors who can be ready with the forceps should any fertility arise. They can remove any guilty growth in the womb. They can have an Ireland liberated of family. What a pleasant place it will be.

The Feminist Linguists Forbid Yet Another Word

When did 'princess' become a 'royal'? Certainly the feminist linguists have not verboten 'princess' from our nomenclature? Now I suppose a little girl in her child's imaginings will have to be satisfied with pretending to be a neutered 'royal' rather than possess the feminine dignity of a princess.

Insensitivity of Biblical Proportions

It is a good thing that all of the MS-13 defenders weren't around when another Person of the biblical era referred to a whole category of people as a 'brood of vipers'. That seems exponentially more damaging to the self esteem than the term 'animals'. After all there really shouldn't be any insult at all with 'animals' if the evolutionists are right.

Response to the "Corrective" Responses on Honeymoon Phase

A couple of "corrective" responses to my response to a writer's use of the phrase, "honeymoon phase" have got me to respond yet again to what some might think is splitting hairs. But the fact is that words have meaning and I do think that the use of 'honeymoon phase' in the context of writing about a wedding  currently happening seems chronologically incongruous. A honeymoon comes up after the wedding, not before. And to suggest an inverse time frame to it seems a way to normalize intimate relations before the wedding. If the phrase was not meant to condition us to the new morality, why not simply use the word "affectionate"? Because of course the writer wished to convey that they were still in a honeymoon phase. If he only means they are still in love, why wouldn't they be? I mean they are getting married aren't they? I would put forth that he used the phrase to acclaim the fact that they haven't gotten tired of each other yet. It is no accident he used a term which is meant to come after and not before for a reason, and that reason was to normalize what most of us unfortunately see as the new normal...that intimacy isn't saved for the honeymoon, but comes even before the wedding.

The Wedding and the Honeymoon

Though I didn't watch the Wedding I thought I'd skim an article about it (since it seems such big news). I came upon this quote:

"If you noticed Prince Harry constantly taking Markle’s hand and rubbing it in his, James explained it’s because the couple are still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship."

I guess this was a wedding right? And doesn't the honeymoon come after the wedding in your typical chronology of relationship? So they are still in their honeymoon phase even before the wedding, the taking of the vows which make them man and wife?

I guess I'm incurably old fashioned but I must say that I like the world much better when the honeymoon came after the wedding; and I do think it was better for marriages. I think it is a sad commentary on the current state of such modern matrimony when the writer seems surprised (why else would he highlight i?) that such affection as hand rubbing is in effect, even before the actual official pronouncement of the union.

NRA Kills Kids?

One of the protesters holds a sign at the White House "NRA kills kids". Really? So do we say after 911 that "American Airlines Kills Manhattans"? Do we say after the truck attacks, "Ford and Chevy Kill Pedestrians"? Do we say after the Marathon bombing, "Fertilizer Kills Onlookers"? Do we after the London knife attack, "Cutlery companies kill citizens"? If the evil was in the instrument used wouldn't previous generations where said instruments were hung over nearly all fireplaces be much more dangerous times for school kids? Is water banned because some end up drowning? And the logic that seems so missing in the leftist brain is the fact that evil men with guns will not be stopped by good men suggesting time outs. But behind it all is the agenda to make the citizenry defenseless against foreign or what is more likely domestic tyranny. The epidemic of violence has everything to do with fatherless families, the fact that a child's discipline now only means going to your room to play video games, a sentimentalized judicial system, and most importantly the exiling of God from the culture. These are the roots of the realities we are reaping these days.

The President's Term for the MS-13 Choirboys

I must respond to all the typical favorable press our President continually receives from the Pravda of our our media especially regarding our President's most recent unbelievable, unconscionable, unforgivable, uncharitable, intolerant, use of the term 'animals' in reference to the MS-13 choir boys. Of course I am grateful too for the compassionate catechesis of Reverend Nancy Pelosi concerning Catholic teaching about the divine spark in all human beings, excepting of course the invading immigrants of cells gathering together to form in a woman's womb. They of course aren't human and it would be okay to call them 'animals'. Wait. There are 'save the whale' campaigns and concern for eagle eggs so that I am not so sure 'animal' is even such a bad term. Anyhow, even allowing for the invading immigrant cells to someday become miraculously a product of a wanted pregnancy---we know the unwanted ones don't count for the divine spark---according to Reverend Nancy's catechesis. I must confess much confusion as I have admittedly been lazy in my bible study and seemed to miss God's indulgence for such things as MS-13 choirboys practice. I am also quite disconcerted in what little I know of the Bible which Nancy seems to exegete quite expertly that our Lord himself in some of his reference to the pharisees didn't seem to exercise twenty-first century compassion when he likened his fellow men to a 'brood of vipers'. This unnerves me as it should anyone who knows that our Lord is principally a nice guy. After all 'vipers' seems to my uneducated ear quite a bit lower on the scale as 'animals'. And then again I read such things as 'white washed sepulchers' which is even lower on the scale of offensive language. I mean 'white washed sepulchers' aren't even alive, and are even more so 'full of dead men's bones' which even adds greater insult. Then there is also our Lord who refers to Herod as 'that fox'. All this to say, I hope the new tolerant translators of the bible will delete these particular offensive remarks and replace them with much kinder compassionate categories until we can read the Bible as a book of niceties. And perhaps our President can become more nice, like all the rest of us obviously are.

Three Yelps and a Howl

An unusual noise in the middle of the night at least for Old Town woke me and particularly agitated my usually unagitatible cat. Dogs don't faze him. But this noise that seemed not even a stone's throw from my window got to him. It rose his back. Even a pat on the head didn't alleviate the angst this alien sound caused in his spirit. No, not alien if one was deep inside a midnight wood but for here...well it was rather eerie. Three sharp yelps and a howl seemed to announce a kill. I was glad my cat was in. I've heard from friends near the woods that there have been sightings. And I've seen the remaining carcasses of unfortunate beasts that have been in his path. My cat may have to rethink his midnight wanderings and perhaps save his wanderings for the daytime ---at least for the time that the rabbit population isn't seeming to satisfy.

While in the Woods this Morning

While in the woods this morning I was reminded of Robert Louis Stevenson's two line poem: "the world is so full of a number of things I'm sure we should all be happy as kings." Some of those things today: a Nashville warbler, black and whites, black throated greens, catbirds, cardinals and jays, a pair of painted turtles sunning on a rock out in the back of the still water, periwinkle alongside the trail, wood anemone, starflower, dandelion, tamarack in all their new yellow-green needle-lace, crabapples in their blushing blossoms. To see such design---shouldn't such natural artifacts delight us and give us the sense that some grand Artist must be responsible? Could chance compilation of atoms excite themselves on their own power and form such things? Can we really contemplate such creation without being convinced it all comes from a Sculptor who must chisel such a marble that breathes so beautifully?

For a Friend who just Passed Away

For Barbara Reilly-miller.  Though I never met you in person, Barbara, your posts even in the midst of your suffering displayed the serenity and the deep trust you had in the Savior. You displayed it seems to me what our Lord meant when he said to bear our crosses. You did this with a heroic cheerfulness. Had I not been a Christian your gentle and quiet spirit would have convinced me that Christ is truly the antidote to the poisoned platitudes we are so often fed. Had I not been a Christian I would have sought the Source of your sustaining smile that seemed expressed in every sentence of your almost daily posts. But I do know from whence it comes. Certainly not of this world. It comes from another deeper and more abiding Source, One to whom you conformed your own spirit. I thank you for your friendship, all too short, but I trust that you will be at this very moment experiencing friendships that will not fade; and especially the friendship of the Friend that made friendship in the first place.

Could I Be Collusional?

I hope I'm just getting skeptical but I must admit and confess that I think it is only a matter of minutes when our source of Pravda Truth---CNN, Comey's FBI, the NY Times, the Congressional Swamp, Soros himself, will establish a narrative of "Korean Collusion". ..Just wait and see. You heard it here first.

On My Way Birding Something Else Came Up

On my way out to look at birds at the Sanctuary I was passing the open ocean on the causeway and looked out at the water and saw something like a large rock that seemed to be in a place that I hadn't seen any evidence of metamorphosis before. Well, I stopped my bike. It seemed that because this rock seemed to be moving more than large mammoth rocks generally do I thought it was worth a scan with the binoculars. There seemed little doubt. The rock was moving. Or was it? Sometimes the wish to see something like a whale produces leviathans out of mere inorganic assemblages of calcified mineral. So I trained the glasses on this rock. I set them down looking with the naked eye. Perhaps the naked eye would be in these days of fake news give me more trustworthy truth. Yes, this was a rock that was moving. And what especially was telling, the thing that cinched it that it was at this time that a column of spray arose from the moving mountain. Well, that's right, a right whale it was. And I stopped and admired this wonder of God's creation (and yes, folks, I'm sorry to all those who don't believe in a God but believe me God is the only thing big enough to make something like a whale and the ocean he lives in). I admired him for hours. Yes, when it comes to it I have to give whales (especially rare ones) a bit more of a prerogative over the birds.

A Comediene's Cold Water on My Face

Michelle Wolf: "Abortion. Don't knock it till you tried it. And when you do try it really knock it. You got to get that baby out of there." 

I just wonder where all the Left's self righteous puritans have gone? I got the feeling that they were turning the corner and weren't teaching as they used to when I went to college that morality was a social construct and was meaningless in a sexually liberated world. I had almost thought because they keep telling me by their signs, "Love Thy Neighbor" and "No Place For Hate" and "Hate Doesn't Live Here" that they really started reading the Bible and had come to personal faith in the Lord. But then I heard this woman and she kind of woke me up if you know what I mean. She splashed some cold water (or was it battery acid?) on my face and I got thinking that perhaps the righteousness and compassion and concern and tolerance and their default for diversity might just be the clever use of language that con men and con women (one must be inclusive don't you know) use and that perhaps the Left isn't really the agenda of Love and Brotherhood and No Place for Hate. Perhaps we have been tricked. Perhaps it might even be the opposite. For I had to ask myself: If one thinks what this woman thinks about babies who never did anyone any hurt (interesting that this is comedy nowadays and should make us laugh) then I guess I will have to rethink this party of Marx and Lenin and Hussein Obama again. I will have to wonder why the Left should not apply their own "No place for hate" signs to themselves and their comedians where they might do the most good. Maybe then we will eventually get comedy that we will be able to laugh at with a good Catholic conscience. But until then I think I will keep my laughter for other things.

"Commediene" Michelle Wolf

I guess this "roast" exemplifies the total tolerance, the delightful diversity, the consummate compassion of the Left. I myself have to say that the difference here between ugliness and beauty has hardly ever been so contrasted. And after hearing this had I been a die-hard Marxist devotee I would tear down every Chavez poster I have, I would burn my edition of Das Kapital, I would hang in effagy my statue of Valdemir Lenin. I would seek to empty myself of nearly all my tree of knowledge education. I would seek to abandon every bit of the self righteous residue of this particular preacher's religion. I would hope to choose to never laugh again rather than laugh at any of what must be this kind of comedy.