To Defend Mendacity and Loyalty, not Truth

• Mendacity is a system we live in. — Brick Pollitt
• Didn't you notice the powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room? — Big Daddy Pollitt *
  

Bob Dole sent a damning and accusatory, electronic letter to McClellan, complaining of his lack of integrity, love of money and lack of loyalty. Of course, the loyalty is in regard to bush junior, and not the United States. He acknowledges, that, McClellan may be speaking the truth, but why did he not quit earlier. If it is true, then why did not more busheviks leave? Again, loyalty was to bush and not to America. If the object was the country, the republic, the Constitution, then, the Executive Mansion and the administration would have been a ghost town.

Dole took money shilling for a drug company about his pecker problem. Did he not have enough money, so that, that was not needed? apparently the embarrassment and ickky-yuck dimension did not shame him. I realise that is a cheap ad hominem, but the crop is in the field. And then, it is, shoot the messenger, when you do not like the message. Gangsters in the rackets never appreciated snitches.

In an ironic, ass-biting moment, it is McClellan, now, being in the position of Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neil, whom he both excoriated when he was in the liar's pulpit. This corrupt and usurperous administration has contacted the public with a permanent, propaganda campaign of falsity. Fleischer, McClellan, Snow and now, Perrino are their designated mouth pieces. Their job was to misdirect, attack, defend and lie. Fleischer was very aggressive, McCllelan was stolid, Snow had an air of false suavity, though, Perrino is cute and far less obnoxious — mendacity — is their stock and trade and their job description. McClellan seemed embarrassed at some of the lies he told. It was noticeable.

The press were, often, lazy and cowardly. The Washington Post and the New York Times, the [hold a stifled giggle] supposed liberal titans, swallowed whole the war rubbish. Most of the press seemed to be in agreement with the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. The Knight Ridder reporters, Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel and John Walcott were diligent and observant, but their capable talent was no basis to be considered, as they were small fish swimming against the tide.

Miss Helen Thomas, also was not fooled, and she was insulted, ignored and frozen out. When David Gregory showed some tenacity, it was, not unsurprisingly, that he was treated in an unfriendly manner. Snow, especially, was curt when challenged by the truth, or a tenacious questioner.

But, the country loves its myths and lies, just as an insecure and stupid woman would bed, a smarmy and unctuous horn dog, whom would tell her, that, she is beautiful. Mendacity is the system we live in. Mendacity is used to manipulate. Mendacity creates the objects of our desires, that, reality refuses to invent. Cold, sober reality only suggests the truth. The truth is, that, which is. And people want, what, they want.
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from Tennessee Williams', Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Sacred Heart of Jesus

sic enim dilexit Deus mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam æternam
For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. ― John iii. xvi.

The Friday the octave after Corpus Christi is dedicated to the Sacred Heart, by his request to Margaret Mary Alacoque (*1647,†1690). This year, it is in May, because of the extremely early Easter moon. To-day, the 30th, is also for Saint Joan of Arc and the pre-Monday holiday observation of Decoration/Memorial Day. The government moves its vacation days to Monday; Catholics move holidays to Sunday, but not this one, it is not a day of obligation. Christ showed the world, His Scourged Heart, on a Friday. This feast logically needs to fall on a Friday. The Heart that suffered for us in love, can be recognised by its continual beating for us. In a manner of cosmic, divine poetry, It circulates throughout creation.

Saint Gertrude the Great (*1256,†1302) bore the stigmata and her heart was pierced. Her writings are the earliest, we have, of detail of the devotion. Throughout the centuries this devotion has been linked to the lance wound to Christ on the cross. To that wound where there flew both water and blood. The Sacred Heart has also been connected with the Five Wounds. Saint John Eudes, Saint Francis de Sales, Claude de La Colombière, St Francis Borgia and St Peter Canisius all encouraged and helped the spread of the devotion.

Christ’s wounded Heart shewed His love for us. The Divine Mercy vision of Saint Faustina, and the teaching of the Divine Mercy, must be connected with the Sacred Heart, for the Source is the same. In 1765 the day became a feast for the Church in Poland, and in 1856 for the entire Church.

The Gospel for the day, from the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, is:

Then the Jews, (because it was the parasceve,) that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath day, (for that was a great sabbath day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. The soldiers therefore came; and they broke the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with him. But after they were come to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water.And he that saw it, hath given testimony, and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true; that you also may believe. For these things were done, that the scripture might be fulfilled: You shall not break a bone of him. And again another scripture saith: They shall look on him whom they pierced. ― John xxxix. 31-7.

Cartoon Coyote Moment

(Overconfidentii Vulgaris)>>

There is the moment, when, in saturday morning cartoons, a determined, yet oblivious, character disastrously overruns a cliff. He stays suspended in air, and finally he realises what he did, and what will happen next. In physics and nature, when an object reverses direction, there is a moment, when the velocity is zero, it is at that moment, that, the character finally understands. He sometimes, holds a sign that says, “Yikes”, “Help”, “Genius”, “OH, NO” or some such.

With the character, Wiley Coyote, and his prey; there often appeared various, humorous, faux-latinate taxonomic names, which, defined their rôles in the play.The colossal effort had failed. The ACME product was ridiculous. It is humorous, especially, when the attempt was doomed from the start.

This can have real life avatars. When does Hillary Clinton admit her campaign is over. Did a moment come for Scott McClellan’s conscience to admit, that, he played a part in a charade to fool the nation? When will the Republicans see that the fall election will sweep them away? The bushevik regime never had legitimacy or credibility, the nation is coming to dawn at that moment. The war, the economy, the execution of law, the accountability and capacity to govern and legislate, have all past the cliff. The jig is up.

Doctor Issam Nemeh

Last Sunday, I attended a healing service by Dr. Issam Nemeh at Saint Stephen’s Cleveland. It was, the sixth, in six locations, that, I had been to. Doctor Nemeh prayed and touched people, with help from his wife, Kathy, and a religious sister, Sister Monica, and he has a crew of volunteers. He murmurs, almost silently, inviting, imploring the Holy Spirit to come and act.

He became known to me through a local broadcaster, Ted Henry (WEWS), whom first told his story on television. A fellow broadcaster, and medical doctor, Ted Castele, also testified on the man’s veracity and gift. With this public announcement, the next few, healing sessions were jammed. A private individual rented out Cleveland State University’s basketball building, for a service, as he was so impressed with the doctor, and the results.

Most, but not all, take place in Catholic churches. He has been in the Cleveland area, extending to Sandusky, Canton, Ashtabula, and onto Michigan. After the first rush of interest, the local establishment rag, which purports to be a newspaper, reviewed him badly. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has not been known to be friendly to catholicism, it was little surprise assigned reporter was not pleased with Dr. Nemeh.* The next winter, another local television station (WKYC) ran a week long morning series with a radio disc jockey, Trapper Jack, Philip Keller, who is blind and is Dr. Nemeh’s spokesman.

I look at televangelists with great scorn. That class, of so called faith healers, are confidence men on the make. The main attraction of their own traveling side show carnival. I consider them charlatans and, as slippery as, snake oil salesmen. They are vainglorious, pompous and adept and dishonest of speech. This man, Dr. Nemeh, and his organisation, Path To Faith, is none of that. The doctor is a Syrian born anesthesiologist, who now has a busy, acupuncture practice. The man is a medical doctor, he has no need to spend time doing this for money. He and those around him see this as a christian ministry, a path of evangelisation.

All the ones I attended, and at least the ones held in Catholic (Latin and Byzantine) churches begin with the regularly scheduled mass and then the service, with the good doctor, begins. It lasts several hours, a good shift, and some times longer. The lessening of the novelty, and the notoriety, and I believe the strain, have reduced the schedule. Everyone who stays, some people are frustrated by the duration, receives a blessing and prayers that invite Jesus and especially, the Holy Spirit to arrive and bestow a healing; it must be understood that the good comes through God.

Bearing on the resources of the church and people available, there are musical backgrounds and interludes of organ, singing, and other instruments, or a music disc playing. There are also: testimonials, the praying of the rosary, and other prayers by the assembly.

No promises are made. NO money is solicited. Donations for the church, and the organisation are accepted, but no requests are made, or even alluded to. There are some discs available, music, video for purchase, and this is away from the assembly.

An honest sceptic can doubt the efficacy, or even the attempt, but only an ill spirited individual can deny the sincerity. A sceptic can suggest that it is psychosomatic placebo. An alternative view, may suggest, the benefit may come from so many people praying together, that has an effect, even to the point, that some good karma, or an equivalent is produced.

A goodly number who ridicule, and cast aspersions on the particulars of this case, show anger, and even malice. I can see, and calmly accept, that some people cannot see this as being real. I cannot see, that, an honest witness would not see the veracity, and sincerity of it.

I find the experience in the assemblage, peaceful and pleasant, and I can tune out the people who grouse about the wait, and why some go before them. For as many people who do come, it takes time, period. If, they are aware, that someone is of a greater physical challenge, they and their family/group go ahead. You can see some are in sad, and even pitiful condition. They have suffered, and are suffering, some people you cannot see what condition of torment, that, they have undergone. The time spent over an individual is not the same for all. Some individuals are prayed over, by several people, and for several minutes.

Some people weep, others slouch and stagger, and some fall straight backwards. There are people to catch them, and mats for them to lie on, and if they are out — a blanket. Some fall very quickly, sometimes several people in succession. Some demonstrate no outward effects.

Some report only a feeling of warmth, or a type of rush, or current. Some say an ailment becomes better. I, the first five times, can say nothing. The last time, with my head down and eyes closed, I somewhat more than vaguely felt/saw something approaching, I can’t say that it arrived.

If you come in goodwill, patience and faith if you can muster it, you will find a good experience and perhaps improvement. In the New Testament, some are said to enjoy this gift, it may only last a season, but that aperture can help many.
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postscriptum: October 2008. I am happy to report, that, my aged mother, whom I brought six times to these events, has had a physical improvement. She has come from her biennial physician’s visit, and a kidney problem that has worried, her physician, has gone away, and this much to the wonder of that physician. Now, Dr. Nemeh, and his crew, never interviewed my mother, yet, especially during the last visit, the doctor and the Sister gave some attention to her kidneys. I am wont to believe, that, their touch, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, were active in this recovery. 

postscriptum: October 2009. I have been told (I have not confirmed this), that, the event I attended in May of ’08 was the last in that format. Now there are events, some with lectures, and tickets at $ 20; I have not been to one.

*I crossed out some text above, as seen. The management and the reporters are different groups. The management are very attentive to the establishment. Some reporters are very careful, and try to be scrupulous. Some writers are different, the reporter who wrote was no fan of his subject. 

Confederate Memorial Day

Spotsylvania Virginia
Confederate Memorial Day is a state holiday in most of what one considers the South. Most people from outside the south do not know of it. When I first read about it, as a child, I thought why the duplication, there was the national day. There are many southern negroes under forty years of age, that are not aware of it, now. Many black americans are surprised and shocked, when they encounter its existence. Many are insulted, angered and want it ended. Human charity demands that people be allowed to mourn.

It was a precursor to a general Memorial Day. It was meant to remember and honor the fallen of the 1861-5 war, the most traumatic event in the history of this land, and the most significant. It is the only lost cause that is of the US.

As George Patton (or George C. Scott, it is the same to the country) is to have remarked*, this country only has respect for winners. It (CMD) is, thereby, remarkable for its existence. Other than the Indian Wars, this land has not known war since. The United States wars, and is damn proud of it, but those wars are on some one else’s land. With the failed War of Southern Secession, americans experienced real war, not a vicarious, hidden war of expedition.

When the southern textbooks referred to the war as the ‘War of Northern Aggression’, they were not meaning to be coolly objective. They wrote with pained, humiliated resentment; they did not lie. A more neutral, and ambiguous term ‘War Between the States’ is better and far more accurate than ‘Civil War’. The rejoinder, “there was nothing civil about it”, is true. In a political sense, it was a civil war, only, in some communities in border areas. Massachusetts was on one side, Mississippi on the other.

The South, the secessionists, lost. The feelings of the vanquished were similar to the central powers (germans, turks, magyars, bulgarians), whom lost the First World War and to the losers in many another war. Pride in the action of existence was a psychological bulwark. We fought therefore, we who survive, we exist. Bello ergo sum.

From this many corollaries are. The current military is more revered, than, the country as a whole. A ‘south will rise again’ attitude lingered and has manifested itself; it still can be discerned.

Where it is observed, it is usually a separate state holiday. It is not on a common date. A couple states move it to a Monday. Three different dates are commemorated. 26 April was Johnston’s surrender to Sherman. Jefferson Davis’s birthday is the 3rd of June. 10 May is the death of Thomas Jackson and the capture of Davis. In addition, some states have a separate Davis Day, and a Lee birthday (19 January). The only one, of these states, to have a Lincoln birthday is his birth state, Kentucky.

The Lincoln item is further interesting. Kentucky recognises Franklin Roosevelt’s birthday (30 April). Most of the south is solidly Republican, it does not recognise the greatest Republican, who was, also, the first Republican president and the only good one.
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*Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. ― Speech to the Third Army. 5 June 1944.
noto bene: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is the junior senator from Alabama.

The Assassination of a Catholic Radical

Forty years ago at a quarter past midnight, the 5th of June 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, a most tragic and decisive event transpired. A madman shot, to death, Robert Kennedy. The course of american and world history was changed, and changed for great ill. Thomas Carlyle espoused a theory of the hero, the great man of history, whom in his person and action effects history. Such a man was our Bobby.

I have previously* posted concerning this. In my generation, this was the critical point, where the slope of the graph changed. Beneficial, progressive change was dashed. We have had two score years of degradation or mediocrity. On the 6th of June, Robert Francis Kennedy died. For many, the hope of a better America did perish also. The more one looks back, the more certain the verdict.

As I type this, on the 23rd of May, Hillary Clinton spoke in South Dakota. After I read, saw and heard her statement, I was appalled. I filled out an electronique courier form and sent this out:

Hell-o Mr. Dean,

Mrs. Clinton's recent remark that referred to the assassination of our dear Robert Kennedy as a reason to continue campaigning is too outré. It's truly time for her to fade away.

Just recently, Bobby’s only, surviving brother† was given grave health news. Some hideous partisans revelled. The hatred of the Kennedys, by a part of this country, is often, hysterically vicious. Though they have erred often, and even seriously before God, they have served, yes, truly served this country well and continuously. So much of the good name, that, this country still enjoys in the world, is on account of the Kennedys. They have not preyed on it such as the Bushes, whom have not garnered an equitable share of opprobrium for their deeds.

Hillary Clinton is like a Republican. Shame is not in her makeup. She feels entitled to the office she aspires. Yes, ruthless ― that is the Republican characteristic. She would be better than an official Republican, but she has that quality of arrogant meanness they are engendered with.
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*October 9, 2007.
†His brother, Edward “Teddy” Kennedy — “My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”
noto bene: In 2006 the fictional, but inspiring tribute movie, “Bobby” was released. It is worth seeing by all, for some, it is a necessary corrective.

Corpus Christi

Disputation over the Blessed Sacrament. Raphaël.Vatican. c.1509.

Stanza della Segnatura, was an office, library, court and ceremonial document finishing room. In this room four great frescoes were done by Raphaël (*1483, †1520). The first completed was supra. Another on the opposite wall, The School of Athens, has been far more reproduced. They are similar in construction, but the Disputà is the grander masterpiece. Its competition is Michelangelo’s ceiling. They are the climax of the High Renaissance, which ended with the Sack of Rome, by german imperial troops, on the 6th of May 1527.

The papal swiss* guard in valiant and heroic military defense were obliterated by the germans†, whom in pillage, vandalism, rape and murder‡ devastated Rome. The frescoes, being paint infused plaster walls, were not mobile. On this fresco the names, of the emperor and Luther were cut in, on two of the limned popes.

“Rome and the Pope have been terribly laid waste. Christ reigns in such a way that the Emperor who persecutes Luther for the Pope is forced to destroy the Pope for Luther.” — Martin Luther

The geometry and perspective of the painting is an architectural feat that translates theology into an icon. This image is on the centrality of The Sacrament in heaven and earth. The indentation on the bottom right is for a door. On a flat wall, Raphaël paints the vault of heaven. On a ledge of clouds and angels sit a company of saints of both Testaments. Moses is holding his stone tables, Peter has a key and so on. Above them stay two coteries of angels, below from left to right a band of historical doctors and members of the Church Militant. Some are identifiable by the books§ beneath them. Aquinas, Dante and some contemporaries are discernable. The Trinity, the Eucharist and the entire Church of heaven and earth in union. With the talent of Raphaël, depth and perspective present a quarter sphere, with diagonal rays and strong rectangles delineated. But, the central axis proves the highest theological demonstration. Raphaël paints a theological geometry. And the focus is the Sacrament.

God the Father, God the Sun, God the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist, displayed in a monstrance are in a direct line. Their Unity is allegorically shown. Jesus is flanked by His Mother and John the Baptist. And this Communion invites us, to join.

There is so very much in this painting. This was completed before the protestant heresies came. The centrality of the Eucharist in our universe is portrayed. An item of instructive humor is the location of the Bird. It can be hypothesised, that, if the Bird (the representation of the Holy Spirit) was positioned between the Father and the Son, then the eastern interpretation (and the only real difference between the Catholicism of the west and the Orthodoxy of the east) of the Spirit proceeding from only the Father, would be asserted; but Raphaël being the exacting draftsman, he was, portrays the Spirit proceeding from both the Father and the Son. On either side of the Holy Spirit are putti holding the four Gospels inspired by Him.

To-day is the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, traditionally Corpus Christi, the Feast of the Body (and Blood) of Christ. Now, in Holy Week, which is so solemn and grave, Thursday saw the institution of the Eucharist; but this wonderful Sacrament that is an ever continuing gift to us is not, cannot be, festively celebrated. The Eucharist is in repose. Now, to-day it can be festively celebrated. After mass was celebrated there would be colorful and joyful processions with a monstrance and a Benediction. It is quite sad, that these traditional practices have become rare, and it is sad, that for convenience, this great day has been transferred to Sunday.

This mass contains the sequence, Lauda Sion, composed by the foremost doctor of the church, and poet of the Sacrament, Saint Thomas Aquinas, when the feast was instituted for the entire Church in 1264|| . The First Gospel, of the old rite is from the 6th chapter of John 56-9:

For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever.

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*500 total, 147 of 189 died outside the Basilica
†20,000 mercenary Landsknechte
‡ 40 - 50,000 ?
§ Moralia at the feet of Gregory the Great, De civitate Dei by Augustine, Bible and Epistles by Jerome. Now, if the Koran lay on the ground, how many fatwas would there be on Raphaël?
|| “Although we daily, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; renew the memory of this Holy Sacrament, we believe that we must, besides, solemnly commemorate it every year, to put the unbelievers to shame; and because vie have been informed that God has revealed to some pious persons that this festival should be celebrated in the whole Church, we direct that on the first Thursday after the octave of Pentecost the faithful shall assemble in church, join with the priests in singing the word of God ” — Urban IV, 1264