No, They Can't Murder Our Freedom

2nd Amendment gun nuts

They're really obsolete as a guarantee of Civil Rights against a tyrannical government, and have been since the invention of the repeating rifle in about 1870 -- no civilian or group of civilians can afford or manage the logistics of providing enough ammunition to put up resistance to the military for more than a few days.

When the Department of Hyenas & Scorpions (as well as the Dept's of Agriculture and the Interior) can order, ship, and distribute ammo in ton lots, poor pitiful pop-gun pushers are outgunned, and out of luck.

I sympathize, to some degree with their distaste for the current US government, but not at all with their testosterone fantasies.

Gringo Church Blues

The Episcopal Church (used to be PECUSA) is the quintessential Gringo Church -- starchy, white, upperclass, and LIBERAL. So Liberal, it looks like they will soon change their name to T(LGBTQ)C.

Hispanics (who are the growing ethnos in the US), on the other hand, are emotional, brown, middle-to-underclass, conservative, and family oriented.

In the last 40 years, a great number of Hispanics have deserted the rigidities of Rome (divorce, birth control, refusal of sacraments to non-parish members . . .) for the Gringo Church, who seemed to have a sense of sacrament and fervor. Fundamentalist Protestants have also made inroads into their traditionally Roman ranks.

Then, too, they are not enamored of the whole LGBTQ scene, and its often shrill apologists/practitioners. My sources in the Mission District of San Francisco and the barrios of the East Bay tell me that there is an increasing sense of hurt among the Episcopalian Hispanic community, just as there was/is among those still "at home with Rome".

St. Gregory the Great, 'round about 600 AD, said that the job of the Church and its bishops is to be "Servants of the Servants of God". While it is also necessary for the Church to speak truth to those in power, and fight the habits of evil and sloth that we are heir to as children of Adam and Eve, we should also be understanding and working WITH the cultures of the people we serve.

For those who cannot manage that, the blues are going to get deeper, and the defections larger.

Newton, Conn. 1st-Person Shooter

Today's (2012-12-14) news is full of gory details and emotional reactions to yet another classroom massacre by a young man with s ninja suit and firearms. He is described by his classmates as "warm", "polite", and "soft-spoken". Where th en did all this rage and murderousness come from? Violent computer games, of course -- DOOM! Duke Nuke'em, and the like. So called "First- Person Shooters" I will be willing to bet that examination of the young man's personal computer sill show several of these "games". It may come as a surprise to those born before 1980, that their kids' Primary Reality is computer games. Most of your lives and interests are, frankly boring to creepy to your kids -- work, politics, TV dramas (though adolescent girls like these). they may share devotion to the US' majority religion -- the National Football league -- but that is just another win-at-any-cost adrenalin pumper. Please don't act surprised when young idiots show what their inner world really looks like. As you sow, so also shall you reap.

Vaticangate

Vaticangate -- the recent series of Wikileaks-type revelations in the Italian press about relatively mild skull-duggery in the Vatican bureaucracy -- seem to me to have several roots: 1) Papa Ratzi is aging -- likely there will be another Consistory in the next 10 years (or maybe 5), and electioneering to choose the next Pope is beginning. 2) The book "His Holiness" is aimed directly at knocking ABp.Tarcisio Bertone out of the list of possible papabile. (Bertone is the same sort of friend of Papa Ratzi as Ratzi was of JPII -- no dynasties wanted!) 3) Liberal Cardinals and Bishops are beginning to take aim at Opus Dei -- the irridentist and revanchist (Forward to 1870!!!") storm troops that JPII canonized to fight Jesuit heresy and anarchy left by Paul VI. 4) Vatican money affairs are improving as the various Capos and Consigilari are moved away from the seats of power. This will be a long, slow process, considering that some of the families have had their fingers in the pie since around 600 AD.

So What's The Problem?

CNN News (http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/16/justice/stephen-glass/index.html?hpt=hp_c3) sez:

"Trust me, an infamous serial liar says."

It's no coincidence that most dialects of English pronounce the words "LAWYER" and "LIAR" identically.

Glass just got caught at it.

Then too, journalists huffing and puffing about truthfulness is risible in itself.

Mitt the Mormon

Mormons ae generally nice people -- hard-working, energetic, and clean-cut. Romney is no exception, and seems to have done a good job of being Governor. Successive governors and legislators in Utah also seem to have done pretty well.

The religion is to giggle at, however -- a collection of every sort of early 19th Century silliness, plopped on top of a basically Presbyterian ethos. The Book of Mormon is the second most successful religious novel of the 19th Century -- after Ben Hur.

Meso-American archaeology in the 20th Century was largely supported by well-off Mormon businessmen, seeking validation of Joseph Smith's fairy-tales of an Iron-age culture in the Americas. What was found, instead, were numerous High Neolithic cultures. No iron, very little, if any, bronze, and lots of feathers.

As to Mormonism being a cult -- NAAHH, They are too mainstream, and unlike most cults (Jehovah's Witless, for example), they don't try to cut you off from your family -- they want you to recruit them -- both the live ones and the dead ones. :)

Mormons aren't Christian -- they fail the first test: "I believe in _ONE_ God . . ." -- they believe in innumerable gods, and every Mormon boy (not girls, mind you :) has a chance to become a god. Not being Christian doesn't make them a cult -- "Christian Science" is neither Christian nor science, but is perfectly respectable, if a bit dull. The same goes for Unitarianism.

What it all comes down to is that I'd be willing to vote for Romney for President, unless some REAL scandal appears, or the Democrats run someone more reasonable. Then, too, some of the FunDUHmentalists screaming about Romney look a lot more cultish than the LDS.