Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Hacom: Reger, these are young men. They are not old enough to be excused.
Reger: They’re visitors.
Hacom: Well, have they no Lawgivers in the Valley? Why be they not at the Festival?
Captain Kirk [in local dress]: We heard that you might have rooms for us.
Reger: There. You see, Hacom? They’ve merely come looking for a place to rest afterwards.
Hacom: The Red Hour has already struck.
Tamar: Hacom, these be strangers. The Valley has different ways.
Hacom: Do you say that Landru is not everywhere?
Tamar: No, of course not. It’s simply they may have different ways.

Star Trek The Return of the Archons 1967

We all have pet peeves in our life, my wife hates when I leave lights on (I like to see) and I hate pans left inside of pans on stoves while DaWife is all for it. But this article title hit a serious Pet Peeve of mine concerning war:

I Am Furious About the Relentless Anti-Israel Propaganda

Now the article itself by David Strom is better than the title. It talks about the relentless propaganda by the left, and by universities and by Hamas attacking Israel and he expresses his disgust thus:

But the truth is that very little of the criticism aimed at Israel is even remotely rational or motivated by anything but anti-Western or antisemitic hate, and I am sick and tired of it. And I am just as disturbed by the media’s spreading of that propaganda with far too little skepticism. 

Words have meaning. Actions have context. Hamas is objectively evil. 

While I share Mr. Strom’s support of Israel and his analysis of Hamas I’ve got to say none of this infuriates me.

Why? Two basic reasons.

First Hamas and the Arab World have been spreading propaganda about Israel from almost the moment of its creation, in fact there is a rather famous intercept from the 1967 War with Nasser pretty much blackmailing Jordan into joining the war and discussing how to spin the destruction of the Arab air forces. Falsehoods and lies are a basic tactic in Muslim Arab culture even to their own people (There are generations of Egyptians who have been taught since their birth that the 1973 war with Israel was a resounding victory).

Second and most importantly: This is war.

Right now Hamas is fighting for it’s very survival, they had no idea that Israel would respond in the way that they did and the people who cheered on Hamas on October 7th and rushed into Israel to steal what they could had no idea that they would be reduced to living in tents because of these actions.

The Qataris and the Iranians who are financing Hamas didn’t see this coming either. They’re happy to fund proxy efforts (Iran with the help of Obama’s pallets of Cash and Biden’s moves to push up oil prices) but don’t dare let the war touch themselves. If Israel decided to strike Qatar they would last about 30 seconds and Iran understands that a direct assault on Israel could give them the casus belli for a counterstrike that could contain a nuclear component to end the Mullahs once and for all.

So naturally they use the best cards they have in their hand which are playable.

For Iran and Qatar it’s money and that money is wisely spent on buying academics and media who are easily bought and pushing a narrative. There are plenty of Muslims in Europe and the US who don’t like Jews and would be happy to see them dead but without the ability or strength to legally slaughter the Jews in their midst they’ll settle for intimidation and vandalism and the spreading of propaganda across regular and social media until such a time in the future when their numbers grow to the point when they can can openly slaughter them.

For the far left which has been aborting and neutering their own children and encouraging other to do the same, they’ll welcome the additional number sure in the idea that it will be a generation or more before they are strong enough to take action against the gays, transgenders and libertines which the Arabs despise. (And if it means some Jewish leftists are demoted from Useful idiots to simply idiots to be discarded so be it).

For Hamas it’s the hostages. As long as Hamas holds them or can be thought of as holding them they have a card they can use to delay and disrupt Israel both in the field and on the home front, so no matter how much understandable outrage one might hold over the barbarity of holding hostages, especially women & children I’m not phased or shocked over their doing so because for them that’s the best card they have.

This is war, a game of life and death that is played to win, I’m not outraged about the Arabs playing the game in the way they see fit nor am I outraged over them saying one thing in Arabic to their own people and another to people in the west with different customs and standards. That’s what drives me nuts. This is not our culture, it’s not our standards. This is what the Arab/Muslim world is, it’s what it’s always been, it’s what they’ve been doing for decades and what people like Pam Geller and Robert Spencer and Brigitte Gabriel have warned the west repeatedly about. It’s not a secret and we should not be shocked and outraged that they act as they do.

If you want to be outraged, be outraged about the people who either through ignorance or expedience fall for or pretend to fall for it for cash, or fame or acceptance or even fear.

That’s something to be outraged about.

Instead think of how to counter it and act accordingly.

The good folks at Libs of TicTok note an interesting double standard when it comes to “hate”.

Now given that I’m a very Catholic guy, who reads scripture regularly (a minimum of 21 chapters and seven Psalms a week) you might think this would bother me.

But other than the double standard, which at worst annoys and which I’ll note, it doesn’t really bother me. Let’s list the reasons why it doesn’t bother me in order of unimportance:

  1. I don’t know if they’re actual Catholic Bibles
  2. None of this does anything to my faith or anyone else’s
  3. As long as the person is alive it’s their soul to play with and or throw away
  4. You never know what God has in store for such a guy, If there was such a thing as the Bible on the day Saul left for Damascus he might have cheered burning them too.
  5. Such an act self identifies someone that I need to pray for thus generating needed prayer
  6. If those bibles belonged to the person who burned them it’s none of my business unless I lived in the town and was delayed by a fire illegally set at an intersection

In a republic reason one is the key one. I don’t believe in hate crimes. If a person chooses to hate their neighbor that’s on them people have the right to their own opinions even nasty ones. As long as those actions don’t harm anyone and involve their own property it’s not my business. In fact if they had not left this in the middle of an intersection blocking it I don’t think it would be newsworthy at all.

Now if they sheriff decides to cite this guy for blocking an intersection and reckless endangerment (fire at a public intersection) I’m all for it but those are the crimes involved period.

If some guy wants to buy bibles and burn them, it’s on them. Now if someone decides to try to take one of MY bibles or someone else’s Bible, Catholic or no, and destroys it, THEN we have a problem that needs to be acted on. That’s theft and vandalism.

But I’m not going to be provoked by idiots being idiots who are only harming themselves to anything other than prayer.

That’s how Christianity works.

The fifth day of the Divine Mercy Novena

Today bring to Me THE SOULS OF THOSE WHO HAVE SEPARATED THEMSELVES FROM MY CHURCH,* and immerse them in the ocean of My mercy. During My bitter Passion they tore at My Body and Heart, that is, My Church. As they return to unity with the Church, My wounds heal and in this way they alleviate My Passion.

Most Merciful Jesus, Goodness Itself, You do not refuse light to those who seek it of You. Receive into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart the souls of those who have separated themselves from Your Church. Draw them by Your light into the unity of the Church, and do not let them escape from the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart; but bring it about that they, too, come to glorify the generosity of Your mercy.

Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon the souls of those who have separated themselves from Your Son’s Church, who have squandered Your blessings and misused Your graces by obstinately persisting in their errors. Do not look upon their errors, but upon the love of Your own Son and upon His bitter Passion, which He underwent for their sake, since they, too, are enclosed in His Most Compassionate Heart. Bring it about that they also may glorify Your great mercy for endless ages. Amen.

At the conclusion of the prayers pray the chaplet. Instructions are here.

The site for the National Shrine of Divine Mercy is here.

And I’ll close with a special message to those who ganged up to cancel comic artist Ed Piskor and helped drive him to suicide yesterday. If any of you a feeling a tad guilty over it, such as perhaps the good folks commenting at the Beat who seemingly had no issue with readers piling on until the man killed himself and suddenly comments on the article were closed.

If you’re looking for relief for this guilt now is the perfect time to take the hand of Mercy that Christ Offers and the confession and absolution offered this Sunday. It’s too late for Ed but not too late for you.

I didn’t know Ed or his work or even if he was a nice guy or even a good guy or not but this type of thing is poison to the culture and the soul.

…alas this is reality in the west in 2024:

This is an example of actual “islamophobia” that exists is among governments like England and colleges in the US who are terrified that if they stand up to those who support the mass murder of Jews, people that they’ve lionized and protected as “oppressed” they would face violence themselves from those very same people.

It’s is that fear that illustrates they know the actual reality and are too cowed to deal with it.

As a person who enjoys the study of history it’s rather fascinating to watch a society decaying and falling due to suicide which is the cause of the fall of every republic in history.

It’s in fact a lot less interesting when you are watching it happen while living within it.