Tomorrow, that is. It's a fairly safe bet I won't be posting tomorrow. The past few years, let's face it, it's a fairly safe bet that I won't be posting on pretty well any particular day. The few things I have to say, I've said too many times, and I'm boring even myself.
Tonight, at my church's Christmas Eve service, the small choir in which I sing will be performing a Joseph Martin cantata, "The Winter Rose." (Look on YouTube -- there's all kinds of videos or performances by big choirs, with orchestras and dancers and all. That's not us -- we're a dozen or so voices, accompanied by piano.) It's an odd thing ... we've been rehearsing this at the weekly choir practice for a few months now, but as the time gets closer, I'm finding it more and more difficult to sing my part, here and there, because my voice wants to choke up and I want to kind of tear up. I need to try to get a good grip on myself this evening, because there's only three of us singing bass, and it isn't good if one-third of the bass kind of drops out for a phrase or two.
This is, in many ways, an ugly and frightening world in which we live. And this blog tends to focus, almost exclusively, on that sort of thing. I do not apologize for that -- I think we Americans, in particular, tend to be fed (in the information sense) on dangerous crapola and myths that serve bad purposes, to which the only possible antidote amounts to angry shouting. But God is real, and He is good, and I love Him ... not as I should, and not as would be ordinate to His nature; but in my small, cold, poor way, I do. Let's love each other. Let's be Christ to each other. And a merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Monday, December 24, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Useful
I just watched the Peace Laureate performing his function as Official Comforter of Stricken Communities ... in this case, Newtown, Connecticut, where the most recent school slaughter happened last week. He must have told his speechwriting staff to wax poetic, and they seem to have earned their paychecks.
Yes, I'm sickened and appalled, just as we're all officially supposed to be. But right now, what sickens me are the uses to which the regime -- surely, a manifestation of detestable evil -- puts the pathetic bodies of the dead. In this case, it's not hard to see that they'll be used as a means of further diminishing the liberties remaining to we serfs, and to enhance the powers of our rulers. No great surprise there.
But I'm also thinking about other bodies. Other children's bodies. But not in Connecticut. I'm thinking of ones in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Yemen, and Pakistan. I'm thinking about the Peace Laureate's hired torpedoes (sorry, I must have meant "our heroes in uniform") who kill children ... brownish ones, with funny names ... to advance the alleged US "national interest" in the filthy international games of wealth and power and dominance and advantage. Or to bolster the political standing and tough-guy image of the clowns in American political offices, jackass and elephant alike. Or for the sporting satisfaction of our heroes in uniform, soon to be seeking jobs in American "police forces" ... sleep well, Mr. and Mrs. America!
My, how the state does nourish itself on dead bodies: foreign and domestic alike. Revolting.
Of all the humane and eloquent words mouthed by the Peace Laureate, which do not apply at least as well to the last twenty or thirty underage Muslim victims of drone attacks, ordered by this same Official Comforter? What did he say about the American schoolchildren that isn't at least as true of the collateral damage that he so cheerfully inflicts overseas?
Sow the wind -- reap the whirlwind.
Yes, I'm sickened and appalled, just as we're all officially supposed to be. But right now, what sickens me are the uses to which the regime -- surely, a manifestation of detestable evil -- puts the pathetic bodies of the dead. In this case, it's not hard to see that they'll be used as a means of further diminishing the liberties remaining to we serfs, and to enhance the powers of our rulers. No great surprise there.
But I'm also thinking about other bodies. Other children's bodies. But not in Connecticut. I'm thinking of ones in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Yemen, and Pakistan. I'm thinking about the Peace Laureate's hired torpedoes (sorry, I must have meant "our heroes in uniform") who kill children ... brownish ones, with funny names ... to advance the alleged US "national interest" in the filthy international games of wealth and power and dominance and advantage. Or to bolster the political standing and tough-guy image of the clowns in American political offices, jackass and elephant alike. Or for the sporting satisfaction of our heroes in uniform, soon to be seeking jobs in American "police forces" ... sleep well, Mr. and Mrs. America!
My, how the state does nourish itself on dead bodies: foreign and domestic alike. Revolting.
Of all the humane and eloquent words mouthed by the Peace Laureate, which do not apply at least as well to the last twenty or thirty underage Muslim victims of drone attacks, ordered by this same Official Comforter? What did he say about the American schoolchildren that isn't at least as true of the collateral damage that he so cheerfully inflicts overseas?
Sow the wind -- reap the whirlwind.
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