Saint Sava

Nebojša Đuranović. Saint Sava as srb archbishop. 1995. Belgrade.
Rastko Nemanjić *1175 was the first archbishop of the church in Srbija. His brother Stefan was the first king. Their father, Stefan Nemanja, began the royal lineage.

As a youth he went off to Mount Athos and became the monk Sava. In time, his father joined him as the monk, Simeon. Both are in the canon.

In 1208, Sava returned home, to bring peace to his brothers, and to begin the srb church as it separated from Ochrid. In 1219, Sava was consecrated as archbishop. After returning from Palestine, a second time, he caught pneumonia, and died at Turnovo, Bulgaria on 14 January 1235. Two years later Vladislav, the king of the srbs, took his remains to, a new monastery, in Mileševa. The casket was opened. Sava was incorrupt, and exuding the odor of sanctity.

His relics were taken from Mileševa, in 1595, and were burnt by the turks on Holy Friday. Three hundred years later, a society was started to build a cathedral, on that spot, Savinac Hill in the Vračar area in Beograd. Construction began in 1935, and was suspended on account of german and communist hostilities. Construction began, again, in 1985. To-day, the building is complete, save for interior art. Of the orthodox churches, Hagia Sophia, in Constantinople, is larger, but under control of turkish authorities for the last five and a half centuries.

Perhaps, Sava can be compared to Saint Patrick, in the esteem, sentiment and historicity his nation has for him. In the lands where people have emigrated, the irish have Patrick parish, the poles have one for either or both Stanislaus, and so on. The srbs have one for Sava, in Cleveland there are two srb parishes, both are Saint Sava.

Baptism of Jesus

John Baptises Jesus. St. Stephen Church, Cleveland, O. Franz Mayer window 1907.

Death penalty

To-day, I have come to the conclusion, that, I feared for some time, that, I might. I can not support the death penalty in the United States, nor perhaps anywhere.

The classical personification of Lady Justice is, that of, a woman, blindfolded, holding, both, scales and a sword. The symbolic metaphor is, that, while weighing the case in hand, no outside influences are in play, and, if warranted, the sword, which is at rest, is available for execution. This makes for a clean logical exposition.

Fiat justitia ruat coelum is a legal maxim. At first, it would suggest to many, that justice no matter what the circumstances, and consequences may be, will be done; but then, how is justice defined? Well yes, if justice means fairness and equity; but what if justice means only an official ruling and command? Then what is decreed, whether it is truly ‘just’ or grandly unjust, must be done.

Seneca writes* of the governor Gnaeus Piso and his justice. A soldier returns without his companion. Piso sentences him to death, as the sentence is about to be executed, the soldier in charge sees the presumed dead companion. This man returns to Piso and tells the tale. Piso has all three executed. Piso was not to be contradicted.

Now, we do not live in pagan imperial Rome. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote an opinion in January 1993, in which, he, with Clarence Thomas concurring, state innocence is not a reason to deny the execution of a man, Leonel Torres Herrera. The, supposed, pro-life, justice’s words:

... reluctance of the present Court to admit publicly that Our Perfect Constitution lets stand any injustice ... embarrassing question ...

Herrera was executed the twelfth of May 1993, in Texas. In the year 2000, the governor of Illinois, George Ryan made the statement:

We have now freed more people than we have put to death under our system.

He said this after a 13th person, whom was to be executed, was shown to be innocent of the crime he was sentenced to. Since Illinois had revived the death penalty, 13 years previous, 12 had been executed. There had been students of journalism, in the class of a Northwestern professor, that had investigated death penalty cases. This academic exercise had shown the governor of the faulty course of justice in his state. Now as one who has read, and considered, the dangerously, subversive, collection of documents, that the church calls, the New Testament. I have to conclude: that Jesus is against such killing, as He is with all killing. Divine Mercy, and obeying the precepts of God, forbid killing; and that includes judicial killing.

The governments of man, and the state, and that includes the United States are not christian institutions. Arguments then, can be made for such killing, but not as christians. Now, besides the Illinois, Texas and Scalia points, it is also true: the United States has more people imprisoned, by absolute number and by percentage, than of any land; another mark of american exceptionalism. Why is this country so criminal, or so imprisoned? There is something gravely in disorder, here.

There is not a uniform system of justice in this country. There is too much caprice, too much imbalance and unbalance. The chains that hold the scales have been broken. The legal system, that impacts the average person, is not the legal system, that impacts the special people of power, influence, wealth and the politically separate. There has been eight years of criminal government leading this country. A new administration, this time legally installed, will be here in a fortnight. There has been little talk of visiting justice upon the wrongdoers. Bi-partisanship is rubbish, when the one party only transgresses, and dictates, and the other tries collegiality, and does not pursue justice, while the former party is unrepentant and contentious.

There is no one imprisoned, in this country, who has broken more laws than the current, now ending, administration. Then there are all their collaborators, minions, underlings and enablers. Truly, no one in America, has more blood on their hands, than bushjr and cheney. They have been a menace to the entire world. If they are not even investigated, let alone convicted and tried ― how can anyone be capitally charged?

The historian Jean Bodin† was read by Thomas Jefferson. In his mention of the knez and the slovene people, before their christianisation, and loss of independence, they found the embodiment of the social contract. Every year (later only on his initial installation), the knez (duke) of the slovenes took the oath to lead his people from the people, on the Knežji kamen, sedes Karinthani ducatus, as his throne underneath an oak. If he was to be found wanting in his leadership, he was to be executed (it is not recorded when this stopped).‡ The leader of his people was responsible to the people. We have no such system of responsibility.
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*De Ira, Book I, Chapter xviii. 41 a.D.
† Method for the Easy Understanding of History, 1566, Six livres de la Republique Paris, 1576. Also written earlier, a chronicle by John of Viktring (Johannes Victoriensis, Abbot of Viktring/Vetrinj), †1347, Liber certarum historiarum.
‡The last enactment of this was in 1414, for the next candidate (that inherited the office was the Habsburg emperor, Frederick III, whom would not).
noto bene: The last president, Bill Clinton, knew something of this democratic practice.

Bombing Gaza

a cartoon from Brasil’s Carlos Latuff. see: http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/5916

There is a ruthless, virtually merciless, zionist war party that is the government of Israel. Now, there are many israelis who are for peace and justice; it would not be surprising, that, they are greater in percentage than in any moslem state, or the United States; but the peace party, within Israel, never exercises governmental policy.

There are several points that can be discussed at length, herewithin is only a partial listing:

Whenever Israel commits hostile acts their propaganda is constant. They (fill in the blank) are killing us. They have made us kill them. We have done nothing wrong. We are suffering. We have our exquisite citizens martyred and murdered. We kill the guilty and the innocent, the guilty deserve it, and we do not consider the rest, except to say, that they are unfortunately dead, and we are not responsible. We are not responsible for anything we do. We have never been guilty of anything; all those who oppose us are guilty. This argument is effective in only the United States, where many people share affinity with those sentiments, and with the jewish people of Israel.

Israel is not concerned with the world’s censure. Some places have mentioned the idea of proportionality. This idea is part of the just war doctrine, and the eye for an eye ethos. The response of Israel is: they have transgressed us, we have no limits to our response.

By accident, the 28th of December is the Massacre of the Innocents (on the christian liturgical calendar). This commemorates the event, when, the judaen king, Herod the Great ordered all male babies, and toddlers, about the area of Bethlehem killed, so as, to eliminate a perceived threat to his throne. The news of the Gaza strike was in the papers on the same day. This biblical co-incidence is not unique, in 2006 Israel bombed Cana.

President Obama does not hold office yet; the bushevik regime has indulged, humored, accommodated Israel. It is an opportune time for an attack. The busheviks will never hold Israel to any standard.

For Gaza shall be destroyed, and Ascalon shall be a desert, they shall cast out Azotus at noonday, and Accaron shall be rooted up. ― Sophonias ii.4.

Norm Coleman = Loser

The junior senator from Minnesota is Al Franken! All the legal ballots have been counted, against Coleman’s will, dragging, screaming and whining. We know the Republicans do not like one man, one vote. Remember Florida in 2000, never forget Florida 2000. When they lose a close election, they by a Tourette’s syndrome tick, yell “stolen”. He promises to sue, sue, sue. At least John McCain took it like a man. Unfortunately, Gore and Kerry allowed themselves to let stand real thefts. The US Supreme Court intervened, by extra constitutional means, to stop vote counting. Michal Connell fixed the computers. Coleman does not have those weapons in his arsenal. He just obstructs. He has two additional partners in defying the mandate of the populace: Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn, whom seem willing to obstruct in the senate. So, add 3 to the list of despicables:

Norm Coleman
Mitch McConnell
John Cornyn

Who, by the way, were the three senators that have received the most $ from the finance, insurance and real estate interests. Now who did they represent?

Back to Norm, this is the typical Republican hypocrite. When the vote was incomplete, and he was in the lead, he told Franken to pack it in and save Minnesota citizens time and money, he would if it was on him. His party makes a big issue, about lawyers and frivolous lawsuits, to gain votes. Now those lawsuits are often when the little guy suffers, and or dies, at the negligence or malevolence of a powerful business interest. Well, his words do not apply to himself, and he will need further lawyers in the FBI’s investigation concerning his shenanigans.

Does his party, tell him to drop it? No. Republicans will avoid battle as servicemen, but not in politics. They show little interest in behaving well. They do not want to relinquish any ground, even if stolen. It is sad the Democracy does not fight so tenaciously.
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postscriptum: 19 February 2009. A page in the electronique ether, realises the inevitable, but time has been grinding on without the swearing in of Senator Franken, there is now a new contest. Guess the day Al Franken will be sworn in as Minnesota's junior senator.
O, and Norm Coleman is despicable.

The year of the rat is ending

The year of the rat is ending. I know little about the chinese zodiac and its folklore, but the year of the rat is about to end. The busheviks are leaving, the plague has run its course. Now, it is the time to bury or burn the corpses. The hard working ox has to plough a stony field filled with rubble.

Lies run and dart very quickly. Often the first story out is remembered, and set as a template. The busheviks are frantically, persistently, campaigning falsities. The term ‘legacy’ is being fabricated to whitewash the evil, and the incompetence, that, these last eight years of usurpation have been. They have used the example of the Reagan propaganda team, but really, this current squad of liars are akin to a situation, where Hitler and Goebbels did not die in the bunker, but were allowed to escape alive and create their vision for their ‘legacy’ to you.

There needs be those who tell you that ‘w’ can only stand for ‘worst’ or ‘war criminal’. Midas the king turned all he touched to gold, bush the rat turned all he touched to either blood or excrement. A creature between a sociopath and a malignant narcissist has occupied the office, and his vice regent is a cold, cavernous malignancy.

A fellow named Feller had published an article that spurred me to write. It was run by the Associated Press ― complete bushwa, a collection of fabrications from the on-going campaign to disseminate deceptions, bold, blatant and banal. In a totalitarian regime one is subject to this continual flood of lies, that are produced, to dissuade one (you) from the exercise of your sight, reason, logic and memory.

Besides his scandalous, and illegitimate, performance in office, and the carnage ― there is what he has done to the United States in the eyes of the world. How is the country to recover from Republicans?

The absurd lies concerning his person: he has not read 95 books in his life, he has not stopped drinking, he is not a follower of Christ ... Rice and Rove have no scruples in regard to truth, they do not waiver from the party line. Tenacity and will may be valued as to their intensity, but not to the quality of illumination, for they do not illuminate, they obscure.

Albert Camus

Albert Camus, *1913, †1960, with iconic trenchcoat and cigarette, is the philosophic writer that personifies the cinematic image of Humphrey Bogart. He was an impoverished pied noir, who was a scholarship student. He was a member of the french resistance. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for literature. On a January 4th, his life ended in an automobile crash.

In his varied writings ― journalism, philosophy, plays and novels ― he was profoundly and deeply concerned with moral order. The individual man against absurd authority. The world crushes people, and the moral man rebels against this cruelty. This moral man duels all oppression.

Camus claimed the world was without God, but many of the french saw him coming closer to catholicism, a very socially active catholicism. This sisyphean struggle is more poignant then. Camus recognised, that, a man became a man by saying one word, one strong and defiant word. The man says, ‘No’.
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What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, and that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest man. That they should get away from the abstraction and confront the blood-stained face history has taken on today.

There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive.

The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

What is a rebel? A man who says no.

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.

One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.

Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." ...
Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if
we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.