We got a new seminarian in residence.

He's here for the summer.  Doing some pastoral interning at the local hospital.

I think he's a keeper. (I didn't much like the last one) and so I ask you all to say a payer for him.  HIs name is Shane D. .

Thanks.

Why Ask for More Guidance?

Monsignor David M. O'Connell is the outgoing President of Catholic University of America.  He has recently had a meeting with the Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.  He has been asking for the Vatican to issue very clear guidance to Catholic colleges and Universities, citing the brouhaha over Notre Dames honoring of a pro-abortion politician, and the absolute lack of consequences for the University for doing so, despite being publicly criticised by 80 bishops for doing so.

OK--maybe a stringer letter or something is needed.  BUT:

I haven't been impressed by the Orthodoxy or Orthopraxis of CUA.

There exists a document called Ex Cord Ecclessia.  It puts out some very clear guidance.

Allow me to make this suggestion to the Monsignor:  Pull up your socks!  You didn't exactly impress the laity with your "strong leadership" in favor of the faith at your university, either.

And allow me to make this suggestion to Bishops who may be wondering what to do:  Re-read the the document, then give 'em a squeeze and find the testicular fortitude to do what it says, and declare an  institution displaying persistent contumacy  to be non-catholic.  No matter how big or how well funded.  You not only have the right, you have the duty to do so.  That's what the Pope wrote the document to remind you of.

Unless, of course, you're a moral coward who wants to pass the buck.

Ooops! He Got Fired!

Jerry Simonelli just got yanked from his pastorate in the Diocese of Joliet IL. 

Bishop J. P. Sartain has removed him.

Simonelli was in a jam earlier because a 21 year old said that they had gay sex two prior to his complaint.  The went about like it should have, from a legal point of view. The local prosecutor pointed out to the guy that he did not have any grounds to make an arrest because he was over the age of consent  and because he consented. 

But the Church's separate investigation found that this was not a singular event, that Simonelli had breached his commitment to celibacy and chastity with others as well.

So he was removed from his pastorate.  And the diocese said he was removed because "He was unfaithful to his vows on more than one occasion."

Gee, I wish some of the Bishops I've lived under would have done that.  It's embarrassing when your parish priest is a known horn dog.

I was wondering...

How come, if a person does modeling for fairly explicit photos of simulated sex in a magazine, they're making porn, but if they pose in the same sort of photos for an instruction manual for sex it's not?

And why, if Playboy is kept behind the counter in a bookstore, a photo illustrated manual for cunnilingus, in the "lesbian style" is on the shelf? (Come to think of it-why is the word "cunnilingus" on the spell checker but most church words are not?)

Have got any kind of uniform standard, or are somethings considered OK because they are "instructional" or "informational" in nature?

Heck--I were to "edit" an "informational" book on some topic, like, I don't know, maybe the best positions for being photographed in group sex, and I just didn't simulate--would that still be on the shelf?

Mostly, I wonder how we've gotten to have so many double, triple and quadruple standards.

A sense of Deprivation

"Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee".

OK, I don't really like poetry, but that's a quote (or perhaps a close paraphrase) we've all heard.  And today, I can safely say that I understand it better than before.  I began to understand it when I listened to the Church Bell toll for today's funeral at our parish.

I volunteer in the office three mornings a week, so I have become accustomed to the rhythm of the funerary process there.  It has a tempo, and a predictable pattern of activities.

So today we had the funeral for Raul S. Abang, MD. 

Dr. Abang was a figure in the Louisville Filipino Community, a man of some 72 years who had been in ill health for a while.  His death was no surprise.  But the activity it spawned was.  All this week we have been fielding phone calls, more than for any other funeral we have conducted in the three years I've been a volunteer.  It's normal to get Two or three people having Mass said for the deceased.  But we have been getting more than that  every day since his death!  And these Masses aren't being requested by just his family, or even just the ethnic community of which he was a part.  In fact, I have had to explain how to get a Mass said (which is super simple, of course) and the custom, and the origin of the Mass stipend, the whole whole thing, to non-catholics who were seeking to show their support for his family, or to express their grief in a way he would understand.  The same is true with gifts to the Parish or it's outreach ministries in his memory.  These things are coming in from people of all walks of life, from many faiths, from many ethnicities. I have never seen anything like it.

And they are accompanied to testimonies to his character beyond what's normal and expected:  this man was respected and admired.

He was a co-parishioner of mine.  I had heard of him, of course, but I never met him.  (What would a working class redneck have in common with a Filipino Physician?  It just didn't happen.)  Now I feel a deprived, that I didn't make an opportunity to meet him.  I think I am poorer for not having known this man.

The Local Alternative News Weeklies

We have two.  the Leo, which is at least progressive journalism, and Velocity, which is basically advertising for trendoid musical and theater events, and the promotion of sex and alcohol.

This week in Velocity they had an article about the best hangover drinks.  You know, a hair of the dog.  So they went to the most popular, trendiest bartenders in town and asked their recipes.  One of the responses, concerning the drink the bartender favored to get over hangovers with said "...if your wanting to return to normalcy...".  I think that they need to realize something.  "Normal" is sober.  Perhaps they should look somethings up and realize that one of the danger signs of the slide into alcoholism is needing a drink to get over a hangover.

Leo, being a far more professional attempt at journalism, and having the dignity not to be a night life Ad masquerading as a paper, is a bit harder to smack around, unless of course you read the letters to the editor.
In this weeks edition, some one was taking the editorial staff to task for giving a novel by her favorite author,  "..the genuine voice of Gen-X" a mediocre review.  This person wrote that "..I bet it will be years before you see one of [authors last name] books in a drug store!"  Well yes--he can't sell enough books to justify a mass market print run.  Because he's mediocre.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I can be mean spirited!

Earlier this week, I was walking down 4th street in Louisville when I saw something odd, even for fourth street:  Two people wearing condom costumes (made of blue and pink plush velour respectively).  As I approached, on my way to the bus stop (If I let the local street theater and phreaks detour me, I'd never get anywhere!) I saw that they were part of a band of PETA wackos.  When I made it to their corner I saw they were promoting the cause of "Spay and Neuter your pets".  (FTR--I agree with that!  Except, it was PETA!)

When the rather pretty, although unconventionally groomed and attired (Well--unconventionally by local standards! It was pretty much the 20 something activist straight girl uniform otherwise.) Asked me if my pets were fixed.  (Well, we did have the cat neutered--now he's a Democrat.) I replied with "I hate pets, but I was trying to decide if I was going to have veal for dinner, or just go to KFC."

Man! The looks on their faces!

Cry to Heaven: A Conservative, Traddy Catholic Looks at Immigration.

I used to have a job guarding a border, the border between West German, East Germany and Czechoslovakia.  It was a quite stressful time.  We really had two functions:  to scream really loud as we died if the Warsaw Pact invaded the west (we were the once famous "trip wire" in NATOs defensive plans, stationed in the Hof Gap), and to deal with IBCs--Illegal Border Crossers.

The Border was heavily patrolled--in our sector we had the 2D ACR--the famed 2d US Cavalry, the oldest serving and most decorated cavalry regiment in the US Army, having long since traded it's horses for tanks, armored vehicles and helicopters--the BGS (Bundes Grenzshutze--parent organization for GSG-9 one of the finest SWAT and anti-terrorist teams in the world)  the Zoll--German customs and the Bayrische GrenzPolizie--the Bavarian Border Police.  The NATO side of the border was wasn't fortified, just patrolled.

The Pact side was fortified, elaborately.  But the fortifications were weird.   They were oriented inward.  Not to keep people out, but to keep them in.  This showed blatantly on the East German border, more subtly on the Czech.  And these fortifications dictated our policies about IBCs.  If so much as a little toe was on the other side, and an East German border guard or Czech pionier (pronounced pee-OH-neer) the Czech border guards) grabbed it, we had to just watch as these unfortunates were dragged off.  But once over the line, our job was to get them away from the border--by a distance of five kilometers.

Because sometimes, the Czech Pioniers and East German Border Guards weren't above crossing the border to catch them.  Or kill them.  (The most memorable occasion of this during my time on the border was a "high-level" defector.  He knew that the secret police were watching and laid false trail, then crossed in a different location.  The Pioniers crossed the border where they thought he was and located someone they thought was their guy.  The subject turned and ran, and they shot him.  70+ times, with sub machine guns chambered in .32ACP.  We never determined how many rounds they fired, but the vegetation around his body was shredded--the definition of "whithering fire".)

I relate this in order to show that I have personal experience of an uneasy border, potentially violent, and people trying to flee conditions that they find intolerable.

The US has two borders and three coasts.  The US/Canadian border is famous for being the worlds longest unpatrolled border.  The Gulf Coast and West Coast are also famous.  The Gulf for being an entry way for Asylum Seekers fleeing Communist oppression in Cuba and poverty, corruption and oppression by criminal gangs in Haiti, and illegal drugs.  Most of the Asylum Seekers are good folks, with the gumption to risk everything to seek a better life for themselves and their families.  The kind of people who immigrated here and built this country.  Some are criminals.  And some are victims of human trafficking.  The West Coast is famous as an entry way for consumer goods, but it's also famous as and entry way for illegal drugs, illegal immigrants and human trafficking.

The Mexican border is a major entry way for commercial traffic, but it is infamous as an entry way for illegal immigrants, drugs, untaxed commodities, human trafficking and sometimes terrorists.

Most of the people crossing the Mexican border and entering the US via the West Coast are, again, the plucky, courageous type of immigrant who built this country through sweat and hard work.  The kind of people who defined the American character.

Every single American, or his ancestors, got here from somewhere else.  Even the American Indians got here from Asia, across the Bearing Land Bridge, seeking better hunting a foraging, following the herds, following opportunity.

We are all immigrants, or the sons of immigrants.

When I meet immigrants, whether Asian, Hispanic, South Asian, African or European my first response is patriotic pride:  my country is the kind of country that people will undergo hardship, separation and the anxiety of moving to a new culture to live in.  My second response is admiration.  These people come here looking to work.  Looking for opportunity and freedom.  They face hardship and conditions that are often considered by mainstream standards to be poverty.  Frequently they experience the frustration of a language barrier due to an imperfect or nonexistent command of English.  But they come, and they try, and very very often, they succeed.  I compare these folks to people I know who have the advantages of citizenship, a command of American English and  socio-economic conditions that those the immigrants left make  appear to be positively affluent, who give up and sit around whining, and I have to admit I'd make an even trade for most of the immigrants any day.

A history of America is a history of successive waves of immigration.  None of those waves have been entirely smooth.  The periodic waves of immigration have always been accompanied by friction,  and the friction remains constant to a remarkable degree.  Writing of German immigrants in the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin said that their lower educational standards would lower achievement in America, that their willingness to "under live" (his words) those of English stock would mean that they would work for less and undermine wages.  I have heard this same thing said of our current immigrants.

Bigotry has always played a roll in the climate of our country during times of immigration.  From anti-German feeling in the 18th century, through anti-Irish, anti-Italian, anti-Greek, anti-Semetic and anti-Slav sentiments in the 19th and early 20th centuries, ethnic bigotry has been present.

And so has religious bigotry.

From the anti Catholicism inherent in the Anglo-Celtic culture of the colonial period sprang virulent anti-catholic actions in the 1850s, like the riots in Louisville that saw a mob coming to burn the parish where I now worship, and the agitations of the Nativists and the Know-Nothing Party, through the assumption of anarchist and communist ideation among Jews and Synagogues in the 1890s through the 1930s, to the automatic imputation of Jihadism to, and suspicion of, every Mosque that gets built in America now.  Not to mention the ongoing characterization Asians as "heathens" on the West Coast, particularly by the forces of organized labour in the early 20th century.  This bigotry still exists.

Racial bigotry has played a role as well, especially from the latter half of the 19th century through and beyond the first half of the 20th.  The first comprehensive immigration laws in the US were in fact racially exclusionist.

In the thinking of the time, southern and eastern Europeans were considered racially separate from people originating in western and northern Europe.  Jews were though of as a race distinct altogether.  When the US experienced a large influx of these peoples, along with an ongoing influx of Asians (predominantly Chinese with a significant number of Japanese) the idea grew that "something must be done".

That something was a quota system, that greatly restricted immigration, and came close to excluding people from eastern and southern Europe.  It virtually excluded Asians altogether.  This law was passed to "protect" the social fabric, the "culture" of America,  Whatever it's motivation, it's execution was purely racist.

The idea that America needs to protect it's social fabric and culture from immigrants begs the observation that our social fabric and culture have been formed by successive waves of immigration.  If our social fabric is under a serious threat, and I think it is, the threat is the breakdown of the family.  And most of the immigrants I have observed and interacted with have been, over time, family oriented, trying mightily to create strong families.

I cannot think of a single wave of immigration that hasn't strengthened and enriched our country.  Artistic, technically, in terms of health, in terms of long term economics.

Salk isn't an Anglo-Celtic name, yet Dr, Salk freed America of the scourge of epidemic polio.  Einstein was an Ashkenazim, yet he came here and enriched our scientific establishment.  Tesla was Hungarian, an immigrant, whose contributions were to make possible the long distance transmission of electricity, leading to economic prosperity in regions of the country that had never known it, an increase in the standard of living for virtually every person in America, and improved health by enabling refrigeration technology to become economically feasible for all.  Senator Hiyakowa was a leader in the US conservative movement in the 60s and 70s, and he was of Japanese extraction.  Leonard Bernstein and Arron Copeland two of our greatest composers were Jewish.  Ulstermen, despised at the time, were instrumental in opening the frontier beyond the Appalachians, and the Ohio River Basin to settlement, (in the process they became known as "Scots-Irish".  The settlement of the Great Plains and the economic integration of the West Coast was made possible by the sweat an labor of Chinese and Irish laborers, who spanned the continent with steel rails.  That Icon of Americana, the cowboy, was made possible by techniques and technologies imported from Mexico,  including his working vocabulary.  Many of the cowboys themselves were Mexican, or African, in origin.

So now we are experiencing another wave of immigration, with it's own problems, it's own challenges and it's own opportunities.  It has obvious similarities and obvious differences from the last great wave, in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries.

While our last wave, which was part of the European Exodus that populated (largely)  Anglophone North America and Australia, and made Europeans a people of diaspora, this wave is part of a global phenomenon In the opinion of some, nothing less than a new Volkswanderung, (The original was the great east to west   movement of peoples, from the 4th century BC to about the 10th Century AD, that established the face of Central Asia, toppled the Roman Empire and was the foundry that created European Culture and Civilization as we know it.)  But this time, the movement is from the Global South to the Global North.

Another aspect of this wave that's different is an apparent widespread disinterest--sometimes hostility to--assimilation. (19th cent. political cartoons often laments the speed with which groups of immigrants sought to assimilate, as a for of "putting on airs".)  This disinterest or hostility sometimes finds expression in the idea of a "reconquista", a revanchist idea that as the land was originally under Spanish or Mexican suzerainty it should belong there still, and that it would be returned so through demographic action.  This idea wouldn't be so disturbing if it weren't for the historical fact that during the last Volkswanderung, most major shifts in sovereignty  and governance weren't proceeded in the historical record (tax rolls, legal documents and funerary epigrams) by a marked increase in the numbers of names belonging to the incoming linguistic or cultural group.  This also held true in ancient times--the clay tablets of Mesopotamia always reflect this--graphic demonstration (bad pun, sorry) of this principle.  This sort of process lead to the Germanic states and enclaves existing in the Roman Empire just before and during its final decline, and vividly in the Danelaw, existing in Anglo-Saxon England, and the Danish kingdom of Ulster.  I holds true today in the form of the "no-go" zones for French law enforcement in the suburbs of Paris, and the districts in London that are under the de facto governance of Sharia courts, and the movement to sanate the situation by giving legal status to the same.

Another difference is Human Trafficking.  Human Trafficking is a broad term that includes the simply transportation of illegal immigrants, but a more sinister dimension is the resurgence of slavery.  (during the last great wave of immigration, there were constant, hysterical references to "whit slavery".  They proved in the event to be unfounded.)   This human trafficking is distressingly prevalent.  In fact the UN has reckoned that this volkswanderung is accompanied by the biggest upswing in slavery since the cessation of the international slave trade as a legal enterprise.  And this isn't a third world phenomenon--it's occurring in Europe and North America.  Modern slavery takes two main forms: debt slavery and confinement slavery.  Both are current in the US.

In the first, an illegal immigrant hasn't the funds to pay a  "coyote" (if he's coming from Latin America) or "snake head" (If the point of origin is in Asia), or   he finds that the fee has inexplicably increased upon arrival. (Fee increases are usually enforced with violence or the threat of violence.) The unfortunate is then told that an employer will pay the fee and allow the person to repay the debt to him from his wages.  The employer will provide  "room and     board" as well, with fees being taken from the wages of the immigrant.  The result is that the worker, afraid to go to the authorities, is held as a virtual       prisoner in crowded, unsanitary conditions, poorly fed and often without hope.  In the case of young women (and sometimes boys) forced prostitution is often the employment they find themselves bound to, and even if they avoid being placed in a brothel or "out call service" they are subjected to sexual violence, maltreatment and exploitation.

In confinement slavery, people--usually women--are recruited overseas to work as domestic servants.  They typical have papers provided by their employers.  When they arrive the papers--often invalid or forged--are taken from them and they are confined.  They y find themselves forced to work long days, (typically 16-18 hours) without pay.  The lucky are domestic servants, the unlucky are sex slaves.  In the US this fate seems to be rather more common among Asian and African illegal immigrants than Hispanic.  It's a nasty business.

A final difference between this wave and prior waves of immigration is crime.
  We should make no mistake, every wave of immigration has been accompanied by an uptick in crime, occasioned by hardship, petty crime surges.  Often it is crimes committed against immigrants by other immigrants. These crimes range from the petty, through simple assault, to protection rackets to large organized gangs.  And we can't forget about crimes inspired by bigotry.  Think of the Irish gangs of the 1850s, and the roll they played din Tammany Hall, the Mafia, the Jewish gangs of the early twentieth century.
But non of the previous waves  had some of the things we're seeing now.

First in previous immigrations, we saw immigrants joining gangs.  Now we see gangs immigrating, deliberately sending members to expand their operations into the US.  Many of these gangs are "general purpose" gangs, engaging in a variety of criminal activities.  Some of the Central American gangs prey as much or more upon the immigrants and the various ethnic communities as they do the "mainstream".  Some have had members apprehended and deported repeatedly.  And some of these gangs are so willing to use violence indiscriminately that they make the Sicilian Mafia look staid.  There are gangs who seem to exist as a sort of shipping industry for the criminal enterprise, moving illegal immigrants, contraband and what have you across international borders.  Some networks extend from southern Mesoamerica to Canada.

And of course, there is the drug trade which has become linked and enmeshed with illegal immigration and human trafficking.

Then there are the incidentals, the crimes of circumstance and opportunity.  They add up as well.  IBCs cutting a fence may seem minor to some, but to a rancher who has had his cattle stray, perhaps irretrievably across a border, and those cattle are valued at several k a piece it isn't minor.  Add in such little things as water valves left open on stock tanks in an arid climate, IBCs going to isolated homes and ranch houses demanding to be fed (reportedly these are usually repeat crossers--mules for the drug trade) and thefts, and it gets to be a major problem.  Not to mention the growing reports of deliberate vandalism.  Current estimates  place the cost of Illegal Border Crossers to Arizona in excess of $1,000,000,000 a year.

It's growing more violent.  Some segments of the press report on "anti-immigrant" violence, but less well known is the average of the Border Patrol:  one agent assaulted along the border eve3ry 72 hours.  I have heard people dismiss this on the the grounds that often it's just throwiing stones.  So let me put it on the record:  controlled testing by anthropologists finds that an average adult male throwing a one pound stone can deliver as much force to a target as a bullet from a .32 automatic pistol, at a distance of 7 meters. ( Don't dismiss throwing rocks.)  Often recreation trails in the area  have signs instructing users not to leave the trail and warning them of dangers posed by IBCs.  Many are closed to use now.

The final thing that can be found striking is the effects of a more complex system of identification and records keeping that exists now.  To get along in almost any fashion, one needs ID.   It's a fact of modern life, and in some jurisdictions not only can you not get along without it, you can be arrested and held for not having it.  And this has led to a new category of crime.  Getting the right sort of false papers.  With the numbers of illegal immigrants in the country there exists a large market for papers.  And where there is a large market, there are people providing to that market.  Unfortunately this often leads to identity theft.  We normally conceive of this crime in terms of someone getting your SSAN or Bank Account numbers and going on a spending spree.  But the basic document in the US is a SSAN, and whether a forger uses a valid SSAN from some distant person, or makes one up at random, to the person rightfully holding and using the number it can be bad, with effects ranging from petty--say being stuck with a bill you didn't incur--to catastrophic--being arrested and charged with a crime you didn't commit.  In a paper and records obsessed society, the chaos and confusion caused by false papers can get out of hand quickly.

So this wave of immigration is in many ways similar to the past waves of immigration we have experienced, but it is different as well.  Sometimes frighteningly.  And right now immigration is the most complex moral question confronting the nation, and most especially we Catholics.  I hope to have something useful to say about the moral questions in the next part of this post.

Immigration post coming!

It's going to be split into three posts, because it's getting long.   I hope to have the first part posted by Monday.  It's in my notebook now.  (My note book isn't apple or PC, it's paper, and I find I can write better in a paper note book with a pencil than with any other technology.  I guess I'm just to old to be one of the cool kids).

In My Universe, It Was funny

I am not noted for brand loyalty.  Usually I could care less.  If a product does what I want, I'm fine with it.  About the only two things where I consider brands to be important are boats and vehicles.  For years I had a strong preference for dodge pick-ups, but as the durability and utility of many of their trucks began to decline I gave up on them.  More recently I have become impressed with Ford pick-ups.  I see a lot of old ones on the road, more than old Dodge or Chevy trucks.  I despise Chevy products in general as poorly made, not very durable in my experience, and almost always uncomfortable to ride in.

Not to mention that Chevy's parent company, GMC took lots and lots of bailout cash, and is now over 60% owned by the Government.  Oh--and their little slight of hand, telling us they had repaid the bail out when they simply did slight of hand and repaid the bailout with other federal monies and though no one would notice.

So here's what was funny:  I say a Ford F-150 of "a certain vintage" cruising down the road, towing a trailer.  The trailer was made of the bed and rear end of a Chevy pick-up, that was by body style clearly at least of a vintage 10 years younger than the tow vehicle.

That's the kind of thing this red neck laughs at.

Just a Quote

"So why would someone lash out at a large family when they wouldn't even dream of ridiculing a gay couple?  Because if you practice contraception and in general look at children more as a burden than a blessing, seeing a family with nine kids cross your path feels like an indictment of your decision.  That gay couple hasn't affected or harmed your marriage, but that large family has (at least it seems).  Even if the parent of the large family is nothing but charming and friendly, the insults still pour in.  If you have a large family, you need to have a thick skin.  It's a world upside down."

Written by Joshua Mercer, 18 May, and posted on http://catholicvoteaction.org/ . 

Heh!

So Ms. Oklahoma, Morgan Woolard, was ahead in the competition, out scoring Ms. Fakim.  Right up until she answered a question by saying she (along with a substantial majority of Americans) supports the Arizona Immigration Law.  All of a sudden, she's not a winner--she's not politically correct.

So, Ms. America, Rima Fakhim, is crowned, after affirming her support of multiculturalism and birth control--demonstrating her political correctness.

Of course, now the video and photos surface of her competing in a contest of another sort--for strippers.  Despite the lingerie photos in this years contest, still a no-no for Miss USA.

Heh.

It would be so sweetly ironic if Ms. Fakhim has to surrender her crown and the runner up takes her place.  Ms Oklahoma would then be, political incorrectness and all.

Of course, it might even please the Jihadists out there--they can't be pleased that a woman from a powerful Shiite family in the use poses in lingerie and strips on camera.

Jeez--I'm commenting on this for two reasons:  One, I dislike the enforcement of political correctness. Two, the hypocrisy of the Pageant Industry is so blatant I can't figure out why it survives!

Maybe enough of this sort of farcial activity will put an end to it?  Nah--too much money at stake!

Two Readers I would Love to Have

If I could add any two people in the world as readers, it would be the Archbishop of Indianapolis, Daniel Buchlein, and the Archbishop of Louisville, Joseph Kurtz.

The reason is simple:  I live in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, and I am a registered Parishioner in the Archdiocese of Louisville. 

Abp. Buchlein might like to know why I had to go to a parish outside of the Archdiocese to get my spiritual needs filled, and Abp, Kurtz might like to know how someone outside the clique that dominates the Archdiocese feels about things.

They both could probably find reasons to criticize what I say.  And perhaps both could profit from some of my criticisms.

So if any one reading this can sort of give these two prelates the nudge to read my scribblings, go for it.

I hope to have it done by tomarrow.

UPDATE!!!!---This is taking longer to write than I expected, so it's still in draft mode.  I want to be sure I know what I'm talking about, you see, and this is very complicated.


It's been a while since I made everybody on Earth mad at me, so I'm writting a post on immigration.  I hope to have it finished by tomarrow.

If I express myself clearly, and write in accordance with the teachings of the Church, everyone should be mad at me.  So be it.  I think it needs said.

Well, this should help the Global Warming Problem

Those of us who actually paid attention in History class will remember "The Year Without a Summer", when Europe and parts of North America suffered crop failures due to very unseasonably cold and wet weather, triggered by the ash cloud from Krakatoa absorbing sunlight at altitude.  In the U.S. it changed settlement patterns and partially depopulated parts of New England as people decided they couldn't count on producing enough food.

Well, the geologists are saying we might be getting  ash from the Eyjafjallajokull for several more years.

In fact, TIMESONLINE is reporting that a statistical and historical analysis of Icelandic volcanism suggests that the nature of volcanic activity in in Iceland is cyclical, and that we are moving into a high activity period.

They also note that the Latla Volcano, which is historically linked in its eruptions to the E. (I ain'tn't typing that out ever and over again!) was considered to be close to "failure" (eruption) before the current eruption.  The volcanoes Grimsvotn, Hekla and Askja seem to be building towards eruption.  All of these volcanoes are larger and more violent than E, and Hekla has a history of catastrophic eruptions.  Right now, Ice and snow are melting at an unusual rate at the summit of Hekla.

The upshot of this is, that we may not be facing a catastrophe of "Global Warming", but declining food production due to unfavorable weather in the northern and western portions of the Eurasian landmass, and in Canada.  (This is quite possibly an alarmist position, I know.  But it is not an implausible position.  The eruption of the Laki  Fissure Volcano in 1783 caused a significant decrease in Norther Hemisphere temperatures for three years. This decrease caused crop failures and famine that killed two million people and raised food prices high enough to trigger the french revolution.  And the Laki fissure volcano is in Iceland, part of the volcanic system we're discussing.) Since much of the world gets it's grains from these regions, a precarious food supply might well get worse.  In the US, that will mostly mean higher food prices, perhaps much higher.  But in Africa and parts of Asia, it could mean famine.  And famine, on a large scale, in the modern world would mean war.

Of course, War is often considered to be a chastisement for sin, as is Famine.  And Our Lady has, for a considerable period, been warning us of a Chastisement. 

And we need to look at things globally--look at questions of social justice, of morality, of our various economic systems, all of which seem to militate against the Gospel.

So maybe we could do with a little penance, a lot of prayer, and some examination of our individual lives, to see what we can do to improve things everywhere.

And if we have any responsibility fro children or grandchildren, we could stock up on shelf stable staples, to help stretch the food budget if prices go through the roof, or to stretch us through times when there just wasn't much in the supermarket.  Red beans, rice, wheat (not flour--the grain) honey and powdered milk can get you through a lot of hard times.


I think I'll lay in some more spare scapulars, too!

I need someone smarter than me, and with a better education...

...with a deeper understanding of economics as a discipline, to explain to me whether the Hu-Hu about the Euro disintegrating, or the E.U. having deep structural problems is fear mongering or something to worry about.

Not that I expected the E.U. to last, but I did expect it to last longer than this.