I know this

And this, too...



A very blunt woman on a righty political website held forth about how defective gay sex is because you can't make babies from it. I wrote her back that, as a reproductive strategy it is certainly pointless, but as sex, there ain't nothin' defective about it!

The second video, btw, is from Ciao, a movie about two men who meet in the wake of another man's death, one his best friend, the other a prospective lover. That pleasant rarity in a gay movie, two characters you actually like.

A not so thin green line

Powerline disagrees with Sarkozy's ban on the full Muslim veil in France. On good American grounds about religious freedom. Sarkozy's justification has to do with the dignity of women and Powerline says it is not the state's business to impose a particular ideology.

I don't know if Sarkozy believes his justification, or if he is using it as a cover, as it were, for the real issue: the expansion of Islamic power in French society.

The trouble is that Islam is not like Buddhism or Presbyterianism. It is an expansionist territorial theocracy. The full veil is part of conquering turf for the Prophet.

The trouble is that once you have a significant Muslim presence in a Western country, you cannot have freedom of religion any longer. The terms are obsolete. Either they dominate or they are contained.

An admission

I like Ricky Martin.
I don't usually go for men who are perfect.
Even at his age, he is like the incarnation of the eromenos.
Unearthly handsome. Unbelievable.
And the boy can move.


So there. He just came out.
So now have I.
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Unseasonable thoughts

Racial and ethnic groups all over the world have far more predictable patterns of behavior, and consequently predictable outcomes, than polite liberal society would allow us to contemplate. And in fact expects us to lie about all the time. Except when they call it "culture" and drool about it.

Genocide is as human as apple pie.

The genius of the Founders was to make a government for men as they are. They created the antagonistic separation of powers in reliance on the greed and vanity of men. Leftists of all stripes before and since have wanted to make government for men as they think they ought to be. Which always leads to disaster: tyranny and failure. We have a disaster sitting in the White House now. To paraphrase his irritating and spoiled wife, his election made me really ashamed of my country for the first time in my life.

When people go on about the depravity of the human race...no argument here, really...what they usually forget is that our species is the way it is also because of the place where it has lived: planet Earth. Our kind did not come to be on a tabula rasa level playing field. (Nothing of the sort has ever existed.) The beloved "environment", now seen as Our Lady of the Sorrowful Gaia, is also a system which forces any creature wanting to survive to compete and struggle, with not a lot of room for choice. Nice humans would never have lasted and still do not (See item 2, above). So if you want to trash humanity, be my guest, but make sure you include Mother Nature.

Shrinkwrapped has made the case for nationalized health care pretty clear. Please give me an example, he says, of a system where you have 1. universal access 2. good quality and 3. affordability. There ain't none. You can have 2 out of 3, but never all three. We are about to find out...again. If we have health care for all, it will not be good care and it will bankrupt us. My prediction. (Who will go into medicine if it's a government job?)

Is it an accident that the places in the world which combine both the greatest amount of social and legal freedom and the greatest security and prosperity are the places created by white Christian men? And is it not odd that the places Third World peoples want to go and live in --America, Australia, Canada--are the very places created by those paragons of racism, white Christian and English-speaking men?

And since I am being unseasonable, I wonder if there are or were any societies where there was a difference in skin color and darker color did not correlate with lower social status? (This is a real question; I don't know the answer.)

Much of the world is savage and/or barbarian Other and we would do well to recognize it and act accordingly. Makes no difference if they use cell phones or not. If you want evidence that use of technology has no bearing on human value, just read the comments sections of, say, a controversial YouTube video. It's all there. The global "we" is thin as a micron. All men may be created equal, but that equality lasts about ten seconds til they start to cry and are handed over to their mothers.

There can be a huge difference between what is merely true and what is both true and significant.

If group A has an average IQ that surpasses group B by several points or more, then if group B is gonna do more than just hang on, it had better have some serious cultural resources that can balance up its intellectual inferiority.

I am speaking, of course, of Asians (A) and Whites (B).

When Wyoming passed the non-binding Code of the Cowboy, some effete pussy on the local paper complained that it was an "ethnocentric ethic" which would not appeal to our multicultural society. Does he not know, this post-Enlightenment waste of breath, that the only codes of ethics that have any claim on a man are ethnocentric? Include his own Kantian BS, which every other group in the world recognizes as useless except for monks and showoffs who never have to face anything like a real moral demand.

Islam is a religion for men. There is no god but Allah, a single and very male God. Muhammad --a ruler, a soldier, a lawmaker-- is his prophet. Submit and obey. End of story. It is utterly patriarchal in its values and structures, absolute monotheism being the primary drive and submission to absolute divine authority the primary structure. The mosque is for men. Men worship together, the women segregated and secondary. Men love this: affiliation created by hierarchy and rank.

Christianity represents a significant feminization of Judaism. Men have had to struggle with it to create versions of it that they could tolerate and thrive in. These versions must always be only partly Christian. Unadulterated Christianity requires either monastic withdrawal or unconnected mendicancy. Not really a religion for this world, without significant admixtures.

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Dreamland

I guess the world of politics in my country is getting into my subconscious. Last night I dreamt of being in a new country, a ReFounded America built out of the Northwest and parts of the upper West. It was a place, apparently, where you can tell offensive jokes without fear of being arrested, since one of the first acts of the government there was to repeal most laws passed since 1960. Grounds being First Amendmentish, "it's not our business to tell citizens how to talk."

I'll miss the weather in California.

______________________

Shrouded in mystery

The History Channel just showed a 2 hour piece on the Shroud of Turin. Lots of scientific investigation, lots of negative findings (no pigment, etc) and speculation. Using the Shroud and computers, this is an image of the face of the 5'8"man depicted there.

_________________

Easter

Christ descending into the mouth of Hell with his Cross
to rescue Adam and Eve
and the just dead



(The Easter fire from the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem:
actual religion, not "spirituality"!)

_____________

New candidates

for the burlap bag. "Anti-racist" White people and their whiteness.
Dunk em. All of em.
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The Friday called Good

The Dream of the Rood
The 700's in England

The Dreamer:

Listen! The choicest of visions I wish to tell,
which came as a dream in middle-night,
after voice-bearers lay at rest.
It seemed that I saw a most wondrous tree
born aloft, wound round by light,5
brightest of beams. All was that beacon
sprinkled with gold. Gems stood
fair at earth's corners; there likewise five
shone on the shoulder-span [ 1 ]. All there beheld the Angel of God [ 2 ],
fair through predestiny [ 3 ]. Indeed, that was no wicked one's gallows,10
but holy souls beheld it there,
men over earth, and all this great creation.
Wondrous that victory-beam--and I stained with sins,
with wounds of disgrace. I saw glory's tree
honored with trappings, shining with joys,15
decked with gold; gems had
wrapped that forest tree worthily round.
Yet through that gold I clearly perceived
old strife of wretches [ 4 ], when first it began
to bleed on its right side. With sorrows most troubled,20
I feared that fair sight. I saw that doom-beacon [ 5 ]
turn trappings and hews: sometimes with water wet,
drenched with blood's going; sometimes with jewels decked.
But lying there long while, I,
troubled, beheld the Healer's tree,25
until I heard its fair voice.
Then best wood spoke these words:

The Cross:

"It was long since--I yet remember it--
that I was hewn at holt's end,
moved from my stem. Strong fiends seized me there,30
worked me for spectacle; cursèd ones lifted me [ 6 ].
On shoulders men bore me there, then fixed me on hill;
fiends enough fastened me. Then saw I mankind's Lord
come with great courage when he would mount on me.
Then dared I not against the Lord's word35
bend or break, when I saw earth's
fields shake. All fiends
I could have felled, but I stood fast.
The young hero stripped himself--he, God Almighty--
strong and stout-minded. He mounted high gallows,40
bold before many, when he would loose mankind.
I shook when that Man clasped me. I dared, still, not bow to earth,
fall to earth's fields, but had to stand fast.
Rood was I reared. I lifted a mighty King,
Lord of the heavens, dared not to bend.45
With dark nails they drove me through: on me those sores are seen,
open malice-wounds. I dared not scathe anyone.
They mocked us both, we two together [ 7 ]. All wet with blood I was,
poured out from that Man's side, after ghost he gave up.
Much have I born on that hill50
of fierce fate. I saw the God of hosts
harshly stretched out. Darknesses had
wound round with clouds the corpse of the Wielder,
bright radiance; a shadow went forth,
dark under heaven. All creation wept,55
King's fall lamented. Christ was on rood.
But there eager ones came from afar
to that noble one. I beheld all that.
Sore was I with sorrows distressed, yet I bent to men's hands,
with great zeal willing. They took there Almighty God,60
lifted him from that grim torment. Those warriors abandoned me
standing all blood-drenched, all wounded with arrows.
They laid there the limb-weary one, stood at his body's head;
beheld they there heaven's Lord, and he himself rested there,
worn from that great strife. Then they worked him an earth-house,65
men in the slayer's sight carved it from bright stone,
set in it the Wielder of Victories. Then they sang him a sorrow-song,
sad in the eventide, when they would go again
with grief from that great Lord. He rested there, with small company.
But we there lamenting a good while70
stood in our places after the warrior's cry
went up. Corpse grew cold,
fair life-dwelling. Then someone felled us
all to the earth. That was a dreadful fate!
Deep in a pit one delved us. Yet there Lord's thanes,75
friends, learned of me,. . . . . . . . . . .
adorned me with silver and gold.

Now you may know, loved man of mine,
what I, work of baleful ones, have endured
of sore sorrows. Now has the time come80
when they will honor me far and wide,
men over earth, and all this great creation,
will pray for themselves to this beacon. On me God's son
suffered awhile. Therefore I, glorious now,
rise under heaven, and I may heal85
any of those who will reverence me.
Once I became hardest of torments,
most loathly to men, before I for them,
voice-bearers, life's right way opened.
Indeed, Glory's Prince, Heaven's Protector,90
honored me, then, over holm-wood [ 8 ].
Thus he his mother, Mary herself,
Almighty God, for all men,
also has honored over all woman-kind.
Now I command you, loved man of mine,95
that you this seeing [ 9 ] tell unto men;
discover with words that it is glory's beam
which Almighty God suffered upon
for all mankind's manifold sins
and for the ancient ill-deeds of Adam.100
Death he tasted there, yet God rose again
by his great might, a help unto men.
He then rose to heaven. Again sets out hither
into this Middle-Earth, seeking mankind
on Doomsday, the Lord himself,105
Almighty God, and with him his angels,
when he will deem--he holds power of doom--
everyone here as he will have earned
for himself earlier in this brief life.
Nor may there be any unafraid110
for the words that the Wielder speaks.
He asks before multitudes where that one is
who for God's name would gladly taste
bitter death, as before he on beam did.
And they then are afraid, and few think115
what they can to Christ's question answer [ 10 ].
Nor need there then any be most afraid [ 11 ]
who ere in his breast bears finest of beacons;
but through that rood shall each soul
from the earth-way enter the kingdom,120
who with the Wielder thinks yet to dwell."

The Dreamer:
I prayed then to that beam with blithe mind,
great zeal, where I alone was
with small company [ 12 ]. My heart was
impelled on the forth-way, waited for in each125
longing-while. For me now life's hope:
that I may seek that victory-beam
alone more often than all men,
honor it well. My desire for that
is much in mind, and my hope of protection130
reverts to the rood. I have not now many
strong friends on this earth; they forth hence
have departed from world's joys, have sought themselves glory's King;
they live now in heaven with the High-Father,
dwell still in glory, and I for myself expect135
each of my days the time when the Lord's rood,
which I here on earth formerly saw,
from this loaned life will fetch me away
and bring me then where is much bliss,
joy in the heavens, where the Lord's folk140
is seated at feast, where is bliss everlasting;
and set me then where I after may
dwell in glory, well with those saints
delights to enjoy. May he be friend to me
who here on earth earlier died145
on that gallows-tree for mankind's sins.
He loosed us and life gave,
a heavenly home. Hope was renewed
with glory and gladness to those who there burning endured.
That Son was victory-fast [ 13 ] in that great venture,150
with might and good-speed [ 14 ], when he with many,
vast host of souls, came to God's kingdom,
One-Wielder Almighty: bliss to the angels
and all the saints--those who in heaven
dwelt long in glory--when their Wielder came,155
Almighty God, where his homeland was.


Jonathan A Glenn, Translator.
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I Corinthian 1.18

April 1st, the Feast of Fools.
I have already been fooled twice...that I know of.

The Orthodox even have a special category of saints, along with apostles, martyrs, virgins, etc:
Fools-for-Christ.


And Holy Thursday, first of the Threedays.

The Office of Tenebrae,
Shadows



The Mass of Chrism, blessing the sacred oils for baptism, sealing, ordination and death.



The Mass of the Lord's Supper

with the Footwashing, the Mandatum.*



The Altar of Repose

And the first day of the month of which TS Eliot wrote in his 1922 Wasteland:

“April is the cruelest month,

breeding lilacs out of the dead land,

mixing memory and desire,

stirring dull roots with spring rain.”

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* When I have given thought to how two men might ritualize a bonding for life, it has seemed to me that washing each other's feet would be a right Christian symbol, and one that did not depend on the male-female marriage ceremony. I have taken part in this ritual on Holy Thursday many times, both as foot washer and as one of those being washed. It is very intimate and physical, quite moving. From what I know of married men and women, it strikes me that mutual footwashing would not be a bad sacramental sign for them, either.