Duh

Poet Ezra Pound commenting on pre-revolutionary Spain ( 1936): "There’s a lot of Catholicism here and not much religion."

Blogger ‘uncommon sense’ commenting on Ted Kennedy’s letter to Pope Benedict XVI: There’s a lot of Catholicism and politicking and papistry there but not much theology, orthodoxy or behavioral compliance.
　

Kennedy hysteria

Clan as in a united group of relatives or families (from Gaelic) or as in Ku Klux Klan, a modern secret society? The Kennedy clan question is open-ended. Their clan’s future depends upon the media’s worshipful coverage of Edward Kennedy’s passing and upon the public's purposeful ignorance of liberal deceptions and intentions. The media and the liberal elite have attempted to create a Princess Di ‘moment’ out of Ted Kennedy’s death, but they are being thwarted by ‘realistic’ pundits. I don't ( and you shouldn't) allow the fact that police officers at Ted Kennedy's funeral wore black round their badges to influence my correct appraisal of the 'last lion's' negative contributions to American politics and culture. Ditto for the Kennedy clan.

The Cash for Clunkers program only boosted consumer spending by .2%. How many people know that this is virtually no boost at all? How many people understand that waste and debt defeat responsible self-interest? How many people can define self-interest in terms of a good? When Hans Morgenthau said that the world was replete with contingency and irrationality, he referred to the art and science of diplomacy on the global stage. Yet contingency and irrationality are universal problems related to the liberal agenda and to the American populace in their worshipful shows.
　

Grievance politics

The life of a worker in the Soviet Union in 1935 was just a "bottomless fatalistic sorrow." A Russian author who should know said this. He also reminds us (in his 1946 memoir) that to "justify present injustice by referring to times past ills is a low demagogic trick."

Wrong-headed, powerful, liberal politicians want Americans today to feel that their health care system, their economic situation, their environmental security, their - you name any phantom crisis - is a bottomless fatalistic sorrow unless rescued by governmental (demagogic ) action. Of course, to them, the ills and injustices of stolen freedoms warrant present actions that further injustice, repression and dependence. We’re a long way baby here in America from even approximating the horror of the Soviet Union but we’ve a long way to go to prevent further slippage into socialism, Fascism and an elite, ruling, political nomenclatura.

TO TED KENNEDY, in restless peace, 8/25/09

"All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors."

"How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
Close by the street of th is fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never-silent waves,
At rest in all this moving up and down!"

"I find my lost youth again.
And the strange and beautiful song,
The groves are repeating it still:
‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

"Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoofbeats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere."

"He is dead, the beautiful youth,
The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,
He, the life and light of us all,
Whose voice was blithe as a bugle call,
Whom all eyes followed with one consent,
The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
Hushed all murmurs of discontent."

"I do not know; nor will I vainly question
Those pages of the mystic books which hold
The story still untold,
But without rash conjecture or suggestion
Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,
Until ‘The End’ I read."

"The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heat,
When the full river of feeling overflows;"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has said everything in and about life and death better than you.

THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This long poem ends with these memorable words:

"Thou too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hope of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what forge and what a heat
Was shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock
‘Tis of the wave and not the rock;
‘Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
Are all with thee - are all with thee!"

In spite of Obama the pirate who has led a mutiny on our Ship of State,
We concerned, Constitutional, conservative patriots now can only wait
For him to shipwreck, and not sail on - and end a country, once great.

TICK - TOCK

"The Old Clock on the Stairs" of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, can you hear it ticking?

"Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear,
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of eternity,
Sayeth this incessantly,
‘Forever - never!
Never- forever!’"

Or as contemporary poet, Edgar Allan Poe’s RAVEN reminds "Nevermore, nevermore!"
We are never alone; always with us is the ‘third man,’ ( i.e. guardian angel? ) mysteriously accompanying us on our journey tick-tocking our hours on earth.
　
　

A pioneer's or a poet prayer

A pioneer woman from the Kansas frontier remembers: "Oh the sunset - see - the sunset! someone would acclaim and its sudden glory sweeping through the kindled cloud portals seemed a visible affirmation of all that had moved our hearts and imaginations this day concerning the things of the Unseen."

Across the ocean, again late 19th century, William Wadsworth Longfellow adds his take on dusk.

"The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight. ...

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
　
　
　
　

Feel the rythm of the variation of the angel...

"When the hours of the day are numbered, (a)
uu/uu/u/u
And the voices of the night (b)
uu/u/u/
Wake the better soul, that slumbered, (a)
uu/u/u/u
To a holy, calm delight; (b)
uu/u/u/
Ere the evening lamps are lighted, (c)
uu/u/u/u
And, the phantoms grim and tall, (d)
uu/u/u/
Shadows from the fitful firelight (c)
/uuu/u/u
Dance upon the parlor wall; (d)
/uuu/u/
Them the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true heated,
Come to visit me once more; ...
And with them the Being Beauteous,
Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me
And is now a saint in heaven."

Three beats of the poet’s heart can be felt by reading each line of this love-lorn poem by Hnry Wadsworth Longfellow called FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS. The feeling is reiterated in another of his poems, ENDYMION, which concludes:

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one is utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds to his own.

Responds - as if with unseen sings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
"Where has thou stayed so long?"

Praxis of evil

"In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims,
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather,
Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.

Near him was seated John Alden, his friend and household companion,
Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window;
Fair-haired, azure-eyed with delicate Saxon complexion.

Mute and amazed was Alden; and listened and looked at Priscilla,
Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more divine in her beauty.
He who but yesterday pleaded so glibly the cause of another,
Stood there embarrassed and silent, and seeking in vain for answer.

This was the wedding morn of Priscilla the Puritan maiden.

Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood with the bride at the doorway,
Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beautiful morning.
Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in the sunshine.

Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers.
So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal procession."

And so the purity of marriage (with 6 accents to each line of blank verse) is honored by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his "Courtship of Miles Standish." But what about the ‘praxis of evil,’ practical revolutionary activity afoot in America today infiltrating every aspect of our lives? Would a Puritan ethic save us now?

Gitche Gumee transformed

"Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?
I should answer, I should tell you,
From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fen lands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among th reeds and rushes.
I repeat them as I heard them,
From the lips of Nawadaha,
The musician, the sweet singer.’
...
"Stay and read this rude inscription,
Read this Song of Hiawatha."

160 pages later Indian Hiawatha , "By the shore of Gitche Gumee,/ By the shining big sea water," went to the ‘land of the thereafter.’ 500 years later we are singing a song to a BigObama, homeland warrior of Saul Olinsky, chief engineer of transformation, agent of change in America. America, by the way has not had these institutions in our past: caudillismo, 19th and 20th century authoritarian rule in Latin America, dharma, the caste system of India, encomienda and the haciendas (estate system) in Spanish America, apartheid, racial segregation in South Africa, glasnost (openness) in the Soviet Union, the shogunate and Meijji period of ‘enlightment’ in Japan. But it’s time to mourn our present condition and pray to The Great Spirit, Hiawatha’s Creator.

TO CONGRESS

If you cannot drive a stake through the heart of the vampire ObamaCare which will suck the blood out of our whole economic system and you must consider an alternative, I have a suggestion. Today I read that Obama proposes splitting ObamaCare legislation "into two parts and pass the MOST EXPENSIVE provisions SOLELY WITH DEMOCRATIC votes (my emphasis)." Then a second bill would contain less controversial items in order to suck in Republican votes and provide cover for the whole monstrosity.
I suggest, that if you break this horror into two parts it be done like this: One bill would contain only the savings ( we can hardly stop laughing) that Obama identified Sunday: "We'll cut hundreds of billions in waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid." The other bill would contain all spending provisions which would become effective in two years and would only spend out of the savings from the first bill (we are rolling on the floor laughing). Seems logical and fair to me but then I am only a rube and don’t have the great insights of elitists who know what’s best for me.
Of course, in these days of government ‘double-speak’ we would need to redefine the word ‘cut’ and replace it with ‘augmented distribution’ (figure that one out). Trust your government.

MAD IN HERDS

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss., and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest."

So begins EVANGELINE by William Wordsworth Longfellow. I hear here a shady, poetic precursor to the style of America’s other great poet, Walt Whitman. But back to the end of Longfellow’s beautiful poem.

"Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,
Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.
Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,
In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed..
Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,
Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever,
Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy,
Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors,
Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey.

The diaspora of Evangelizes ended but America’s sad story continues. As writer Mackay observed, people go mad in herds but find their sanity one at a time. ‘Relocating’ the Acadians might have been a mildly mad thing to do but politics in this country today is severely maddening because the hearts, brains, hands and feet of some Americans are hostile to the hearts, brains, hands and feet of other Americans. Will we ever recover our sanity one citizen at a time?

Blacksmith's lesson

Here’s the poetic lesson from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH., which begins melodically, "Under the spreading chestnut tree/ The village smithy stands; "

"Toiling - rejoicing - sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou has taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought."

Remember too, dear reader, that the job of a bureaucrat is to do NOTHING, thus to accomplish nothing or advance nothing. Only when he/she does something will a bureaucrat lose his or her job. So... do we want government ( the ultimate bureaucracy) to in any way form, become an anvil that shapes our lives? I think not!

A PSALM OF LIFE by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act - act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

A DAY OF SUNSHINE by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

O Gift of God! O perfect day:
Whereon shall no man work, but play:
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!

Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies:
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where through a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloudland in the West
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! And waft through all the rooms
The snowflakes of the cherry blooms!
Blow, winds! And bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach!

O life and love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?

The Gift, the Islands of the Blest call for capitalization because Longfellow’s optimistic transcendentalism shines through in his interpretation of both nature and man as revelations of God. Of course, a perfect day of sun often precedes or follows an imperfect day of shade. If we look above and beyond our President Obama we can unroll "on high the splendid scenery of the sky," but to see and hear the earthly presence of the big O, dark again is another day of his dawning.

Speaking of Death

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS by Henry Wadsworth Longellow

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;
"Have naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again."
He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kissed their drooping leaves;
It was for the Lord of paradise
He bound them in his sheaves.
"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The Reaper said, and smiled;
"Dear tokens of the earth are they,
Where He was once a child.

They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,
And saints, upon their garments white,
Thee sacred blossoms wear."

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;
She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.

Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
‘Twas an angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.

Let’s not forget, like Wordsworth, that death too can be seen as transcendence.
　
　
　

A TRANSCENDENTAL RESPITE by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

MY CATHEDRAL

Like two cathedral towers these steely pines
Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones;
The arch beneath them is not built with stones,
Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines,
And carved this graceful arabesque of vines;
No organ but the wind here sights and moans,
No sepulchre conceals a martyr’s bones,
No marble bishop on his tomb reclines.
Enter! The pavement, carpeted with leaves,
Gives back a softened echo to thy tread!
Listen! The choir is singing; all the birds,
In leafy galleries beneath the eaves,
Are singing! Listen, ere the sound be fled,
And learn there may be worship without words.

I too am graced with neighboring pine and evergreen trees home to birds who fill the air with chirps and songs. I too can appreciate the comparison between the tree and a cathedral as a reverent testament to a watchful, loving God. And awe!

A TRANSCENDENTAL RES[PITE by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

NATURE

As a fond mother, when the day is o’er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted
By promises of others in their stead,
Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;
So nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Lead us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

Abba abba cde cde rhyme in 14 line iambic pentameter sonnet expressing a transcendental feeling and thought. Transcendentalism was a New England movement as represented ;by Emerson, Longfellow and others characterized by the exaltation of the spiritual in a general sense over the material, and the immanence of the divine in all creation.

THE TIDE RISES , AND THE TIDE FALL by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curfew calls;
Along the sea sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, and the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roof and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hand,
Efface the footprints in the sand,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds n their stalls;
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveler to the shore,
And the tide rises, and the tide falls.

Nature here represents the recurring theme of life and death, the temporary and the permanent, the sad but sure. The tide of protests against our President’s policies rise, but the liberal, Democrat progressives do not hear the peoples’ calls. Darkness could settle soon on our roofs and walls. Morning breaks to hear Americans revving up their horse-powered engines. On the one hand, how many victims be claimed by the tide of socialism? Margaret Thatcher once said that the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. On the other hand, the tsunami of questioning and complainting rolls across this land forceful and unrelenting.

THE CROSS OF SNOW a sonnet by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in memory of his wife

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face - the face of one long dead -
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in book be read
The legend of a life more bedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravine
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

14 lines of iambic pentameter (5 short/ long beats per line ), rhyme scheme, abba cddc efg efg
in a poetic formula with pent up passion for a lost beloved.

Will we some years hence need a poetic memoriam to the United States of America as we once knew and loved her?

THE RAIINY DAY By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But hopes of youth fall think in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! And cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

My addendum:
Torrential rains fall in Taiwan
Ramparts of pain wall in America
As Obama reigns after Mexico calls.

FLYING DOLLARS

Let me get this straight:

CEO’s and executives, who at least contribute a modicum to increasing the national wealth, are commanded by the U.S. Government to sell their corporate jets, fly coach or drive, and not to gather at posh places, ostensibly, to make them more like the common people.
Politicians, who strangle or destroy national wealth, are buying new luxury jets with taxpayer money so they don’t have to fly coach or drive to their posh junkets and worthless conferences to represent the common people.

If the above is fair why doesn’t the government finance 26 week vacations for working people under a National Vacation Policy financed by the top 2% of taxpayers at the same time they pay the Obamacare Tax. Obviously 98% of American would think that this is fair.

Fairness for everyone!

2 1/2 profound thought

Elijah, a prophet whose name means Yahweh is my God, brought the message to the Jews, the Chosen People, that they should heed the "still, small voice," the intellectual word of revelation. Religion, we must remember, is not a self-induced sensual frenzy; rather faith is linked with reason and morality.

Benjamin Franklin tells us about "free speech, the principal pillar of free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected in its ruins."

THE ARROW AND THE SONG
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew no where
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where
For who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward in an oak
I found an arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

2 ½ thoughts properly applicable only to man, a rational animal, created with a conscience, a sense of freedom and a recognizable need for love.
　
　
　
　
　
　
　

BIRDS OF PASSAGE by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

Black shadows fall.. From the lindens tall,...That lift aloft their massive wall...Against the southern sky.
And from the realms...Of the shadowy elms...A tide-like darkness overwhelms...The fields that round us lie.
But the night is fair,...And everywhere...A warm, soft vapor fills the air,
...And distant sounds seem near;
And above, in the light...Of the starlit night,...Swift birds of passage wing their flight...Through the dewy atmosphere.
I hear the beat...Of their pinions fleet, ...As from the land of snow and sleet...They seek a southern lea.
I hear the cry...Of their voices high...Falling dreamily through the sky,...But their forms I cannot see.
Oh, say not so!...Those sounds that flow...In murmurs of delight and woe...Come not from wings of birds.
They are throngs ... Of poet’s songs,...Murmurs of pleasure, and pains, and wrongs, ...The sound of winged words.
This is the cry...Of souls, that high...On toiling, beating pinions, fly,... Seeking a warmer clime.
From their distant flight...Through realms of light...It falls into our world of night,...With the murmuring sound of rhyme.

In this poem, Longfellow compares poets to birds who fly high in the world of sound and rhyme. Doesn’t Longfellow succeed admirably in this rhythmical, murmuring, ‘escapist’ poem?
Too bad frightened and dissatisfied Americans are accused of being Nazis by Democrat politicians, of being ‘well-dressed’ violent mobs (when they are not), of wanting to ‘hurt the President,’ of being divisive and provocative, of being mocking and menacing. Too bad left-wing, progressive Obamamites cannot see through the ‘black shadows’ darkening their view of a Utopian (socialist) America. A Polish philosopher writing in 1978, called Marxism " the greatest fantasy of our century, (that) began in a Promethean humanism and culminated in the monstrous tyranny of Stalin." Many citizens concerned about the present state of affairs in Washington may be oblivious to world history, but what they do manifest is an implicit disapproval of governmental efforts to clip their wings of freedom, to inhibit their poetic songs of liberty.

Obama says report dissidents

I wish to report as dangerous dissidents: Thomas McLaughlin, age 70 and Carolyn McLaughlin, age 69 of 90 Heath Lane, New Holland, Ohio 43145.
We are self-reporting ourselves pursuant to Pres. Obama's request this week to report dissidents, malcontents and 'fishy'people to the official White House blog.
1. On the day the Pres. requested the reporting of 'fishy' people, Thomas McLaughlin had a column in the Record-Herald Newspaper condemning Obamacare.
2. Carolyn McLaughlin now refers to Obama as a psychopath (in and out of her blog) having done considerable studies on pathologies of narcissists.
3. They have joined 'mobs' at tea parties in both Columbus and Chillicothe, Ohio which I am not sure qualifies under your standard because we swear they did not see a single swastika at either event and were not directed to attend by any insurance company or any other known subversive group.
4. They oppose Obamacare.
5. They regard 'Cap and Trade' as 'Cap and Tax.'
6. They are 'fishy', grouchy, old malcontents who believe in the goodness of 'normal Americans.
Thomas & Carolyn McLaughlin

Fellow travelers

To fellow travelers in the Obama night...
The night is come, but not too soon;
And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven
But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is give
To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?
The star of love and dreams?
Oh no! From that blue tent above
A hero’s armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,
When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies,
The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light
But the cold light of stars;
I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars.

The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast
Serene, and resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possessed.

And thou, too, whosoe’er thou art,
That readest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.

Summer of 42

If your home is dear to you where your Russian mother nursed you;
If your mother is dear to you, and you cannot bear the thought of the German slapping her wrinkled face;
If you do not want the German to tear down and trample on your father’s picture, with the Crosses he earned in the last war;
I you do not want your old teacher to be hanged outside the old school-house;
If you do not want her, whom for so long you did not dare even kiss, to be stretched out naked on the floor, so that amid hatred, cries and tears, three German curs should take what belongs to your manly love;
If you don’t want to give away all that which you call your Country,
Then kill a German, kill a German every time you see one...

This Russian poem was published in Pravda in the summer of 1942, the day after another Russian city, Voroshilovgrad, fell to the Nazi dogs of the German war machine. Eventually, of course, Russia retaliated with stubbornness and a vengeance to save the homeland in World War II. To what avail? In this time of crisis, it avails us Americans to save our beloved country. Try listening to Obama’s rottweiller, Timothy Geithner, rail against U.S. Financial Regulators with expletives that would make a Nazi Jew-hater or Bolshevist- hater proud. Then ask yourself, how do we save our beloved country in this time of war upon our Constitutional freedoms?

At what cost

Barrack Obama proclaimed "...this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal...." Candidate Obama intoned this piece of fatuous nonsense during his messianic Acceptance Speech on June 3, 2008 for the Democrat nomination for President. He received thunderous applause. Maybe Obama angered a higher deity who actually does have control of the oceans, for now only a year after he directed the oceans to recede, we have scientists puzzling from Maine to Florida why the Atlantic seaboard has experienced higher tides than expected this summer. "At their peak in mid-June, the tides at some locations outstripped predictions by two feet. The change has come too fast to be attributed to melting ice sheets or anything quite that dramatic, and it’s a puzzle for scientists who’ve never seen anything quite like it." Obama commanded the oceans to fall 2 inches and they rise 2 feet; I think there is a message here for any mortal who would pretend to above his biological paygrade. Obama’s solution, of course, is we just need a little bit more government regulation and it will be all right "because if we are willing to work for it, and to fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain, that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began.... [thunderous applause]" I believe Obama’s scenario is as likely as the one theory that Mole People are burrowing up from below the earth and raising the oceans. Or the other theory expressed by Kenneth Mitchell: "Anomalously high tides is matched by the item about the Fermi Paradox. The answer? The aliens are here NOW, hiding in the L2 lagrange point on the far side of the Moon. Their ship is powered by some exotic drive involving a small black hole; hence the higher than normal tides." Poppycock is poppycock whether from a messianic politician or spaced out sci-fi nuts.

Although the oceans refused to recede for Obama, the tides of red ink have risen to unprecedented levels in the Obama administration. Spending and regulation have inundated the nation in trillions of dollars in debts that will drown citizens, engulf their freedoms and be a lead weight tied to the necks of our children. Hope and change don’t float. The Stimulus, TARP, Cap and Trade and Cash For Clunkers all were rushed through a Congress that gave up its obligation to read what they passed into law in a wave of hysteria. Now, day by day, we see that none of these spending initiatives work but, since government never makes mistakes, the only solution is to raise more taxes, incur more deficits and trust Obama’s 33 czars in their wisdom to save us common people from the apocalypse that they ironically are creating. Old time politicians used to say "a million here, a million there, pretty soon it adds up to real money." But now we hear Obama’s czars chant "a billion here, a billion there and its all ours to reshape American society." If some plan does not work it only means that not enough money was thrown at it.
No matter how obvious the shortcomings and failures of the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, TARP and Cash for Clunkers may be, Obama has decided to bulldoze ahead with Obamacare, a total upending of the healthcare system. Once again the 1,000 plus page bill is too urgent for Congressmen to read or debate. It must be done now even though Obama himself said last week that he was not familiar with what was in the Obamacare Bill. Congress doesn’t know, Obama doesn’t know but we can all be assured that Obama’s Healthcare Czar knows. Politicians on summer recess know something too because they are cancelling their town hall meeting because of protests against Obamacare. Dare we citizens who are paying for it ask what’s in the Obamacare bill or are we to acquiesce to the elites like NBC News Andrea Mitchell who says of us common folk "...they may not know what’s good for them."

Cash for Clunkers requires that the ‘clunker’ be destroyed. Think of this as euthanasia for cars many of which are perfectly serviceable and useful to poorer citizen who cannot afford a new vehicle. Obviously the Obama plan is a sop to the car companies he has taken over to boost their sales. For every deal completed a buyer gets $4,500 off, the dealer sells a car, the government gets to shuffle paperwork at great cost and then every taxpayer who didn’t get a deal will pay for the giveaway to the buyer, dealer and government. Fair?

Ask yourself, would you buy a used car from a Congressman or an Obama administration official? If the answer is yes, I bet you also trust Obama to only tax the top 2% of workers to pay for all the benefits he will give to the other 98%.
　

Hero Cities

Russia’s practice of awarding the title ‘Hero City’ should be instituted in this new Obama era, not for courage and determination fighting the Germans in World War II but for protesting govenrmental control at Tea Parties without recognition from the media or our ‘great’ leader. Waves of tea party protestors in many cities continue to attempt to repulse the tide of growing governmental encroachment into our personal freedoms. Hero Cities like Odessa, Kiev, Stalingrad, Leningrad , Sebastopol and Moscow survived horrible times, their miseries and death tolls by heroic efforts of the Russian people. Other mind-boggling, heroic efforts were made by the Russian people during World War II to save the industrial base of their country during the German invasion. In 1941, for example 1523 industries were moved to the East involving 1 1/2 million railway wagon-loads of material. 498 enterprises required 71,000 railway wagons to be re-located. 8000 railway trucks were used for one industrial plant. These numbers are staggering even without a consideration of the immense sacrifice of human capital. Then there was Leningrad ( old, beautiful St. Petersburg), a city of 3 million besieged by the Germans for 2 1/2 years - from September 1940 until the breakout in January 1944 - during which 1/3 ( 1 million) of the inhabitants died from disease and/or starvation. But the Russian people never abandoned their fight for survival during the greatest and longest siege of a modern city in history.

Great too are our present conservative warriors manning the gates and ramparts against the attack upon their Constitutional traditions and personal liberties by liberals and our new President. America now has 44 czars as overseers to regulate practically every aspect of business and pleasure, public and private. Citizens from cities across America continue to demonstrate their displeasure with our leader. Granted the war is on a symbolic front, granted we are metaphorically being besieged by our politicians and President who hope to conquer us and establish a dictatorship of the socialist few enabled by sheeple who do have the courage ( like stalwart Russians ) to question the present state of affairs.

Name dropping

America is not even a Christian country in the names of her children. A picture of winners at our local state fair was underscored with their names and only 1 of 10 contained a reference to a Christian saint. Note: Morgan, Megan, Kaitlyn, Miranda, Kristen, Jordan, Jenna, Kalie, Casey and finally Veronica. Even an obituary for the sad death of a 35 yr. old mother with 5 sons which also printed names, reported: Gavin, Gage, Chase, Blake and Gunner. Where have all the saints gone?
Having gone, they certainly would not return to patronize the Jobs and Family Services program run by our government. Here too, names have been changed for the worse. A jobless person is now a dislocated worker. Assistance now is defined as a prevention, detention and contingency plan. Rules are always described as collaborative and complex. Unruly children are victims of a conduct disorder for which they can receive high school credit when placed into a remedial program. An employee at the local office of the Jobs and Family Services did not speak English any longer; he spoke governmentese. Language has been distorted in both unnecessary welfare services and government jobs in politically-correct, guiltless programs.
No purpose exists for such a waste of taxpayers’ money. But what’s the purpose of the non-Christian, popular nomenclature for our children?

My moment of teaching

The picture of our instigator-leader, Obama, striding ahead of the racist, lame man who is assisted by the falsely maligned policeman/care-giver out of the White House yesterday is a metaphor for life in liberal land. The bureaucrat strides confidently ahead of his inferiors regardless of what’s happening. The infirm is left behind and ignored to be helped by the good-hearted who accepts responsibility for assisting the needy. Kinda liberal ‘you should do what I say but not what I do’ moment.

A liberal (progressive) today is self-centered, self-absorbed including the has beens from the 1960's. Liberals preach equality, brotherhood, sisterhood, egalitarianism, cooperation, humanitarianism, mercy, social justice, etc., the list is endless, but it always ends ( yes, a liberal contradiction) with disinterest in putting their money into charity like their mouth preaches. Theirs is a hedonistic lifestyle based upon a ‘don’t do what I do but do what I say’ mantra with a snobbery beyond the belief of a common, rational bourgeoise.