New recommendation - Alliance for the Separation of School & State

I have been a member of this organization for years and I believe them to be very important. Public schools are a place where the state teaches our children to worship the state. Those of us who hold to traditional values (particularly Christians) are frustrated to have much of what we teach our children undermined and sometimes contradicted by leftist public school teachers.





Alliance for the Separation of School & State



Those of us who can should make an effort to educate our children our own way. Those of us cannot - should support the Alliance for The Separation of School and State.

The Real Schismatics and Bigots - Patrick Buchanan

"Meyerson’s [ref. Washington Post columnist Howard Meyerson] is the authentic voice of an anti-Catholicism that is out of the closet and on the op-ed pages of the national press."

from "The Real Schismatics and Bigots"
by Patrick Buchanan
from Chronicles

Real Americans - Chesterton

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong -- G.K. Chesterton

Driving to work - head in the clouds

Here's a picture I took through my front windshield last week of a pretty cloud formation. I was driving to work on the 422 - about 7:00 AM.

The Greatest Gift For All - Paul Craig Roberts

Quotes by Paul Craig Roberts

VDare

Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only one in five American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first president to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.

Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men, or three kings, who brought gifts to baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than they are now, but even then people were complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialization. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift-giving causes us to remember others and to take time from our harried lives to give them thought.

The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.

...

All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak. Power is the horse ridden by evil.

...

Christianity's emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ's birthday honors a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.

The Gospel According to Incorruptible

I’ve had a wonderful time playing Jack the one-eyed minstrel in King Of Prussia Players production of Michael Hollinger’s Incorruptible. As the show progressed all of us found new and wonderful elements in it.

I love the conflict between the sacred and the profane in Father Charles’ tormented soul symbolized by Brother Martin (Profane) and Brother Felix (sacred). Each tugging at him from different sides. He - wanted to be a baker once.

I love the way Brother Olf, always seeing through the eyes of a child, whose only wish was to see a miracle - was the first to see the miracle at the end of the play. Michael Hollinger himself pointed this out at a talkback session.

I love the way God used the pagan-with-an-attitude, Jack as His vehicle to change the monastery. Jack, when he came brought sin, materialism, lust, and godlessness. But God used him as His vehicle to overcome these things.

I love the imagery at the end when Felix runs off with Marie - she is pregant and riding on a donkey. The father of the child - unknown but probably Jack.

This dark comedy - presented itself first to me as a slapsticky, Monte Pythonesque farce. But there’s a lot more to it. Thank you Michael Hollinger for a terrific theatrical and intellectual experience.

Episcopal Bishop Marc Handley Andrus arrested at peace demonstration

Bishop Marc Handley Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California was arrested December 7 for blocking the front door of the San Francisco federal building to protest the deaths caused by the Iraq war.

Andrus, carrying his crozier and singing "Down by the Riverside,'' was among 250 protesters, including members of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship and people of other faiths, who had marched from Grace Cathedral, on Nob Hill, to join the weekly "die-in" at on Golden Gate Avenue near City Hall.

Mary Francis Schjonberg

Episcopal News Service

I share the anti-war position. It is nice to see prominent Episcopalians will to stand against the war as well.

I don't care for the church involving itself in political and social causes. The church ought not speak on issues of the day as though it speaks for all Episcopalians. Episcopalians are intelligent and open-minded. We can think for ourselves.

Best wishes to Bishop Andrus. I wish we had heard more from him when we were bombing Serbia under Bill Clinton. But that would have been hard. This was easy - all too easy.

The Feast Of St. Nicolas

The Feast Of St. Nicolas by Jan Steen. c. 1660-65. Oil on canvas, 82 x 70.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands