Happy Fourth of July

The Declartion of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events,

snip

We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
.
That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

--

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles

and organizing its powers in such form,

as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established

should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shewn,
that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they re accustomed

snip

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare,

That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;

snip

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.




The Declartion of Independence

Just Another Diamond Day

Written and performed by Vashti Bunyan from her CD Just Another Diamond Day

Happy Birthday US Army

Today is the 234th Birthday of the United States Army.


The United States Army Ceremonial Drill Team performing at the Edinburgh Military Tatoo.


Be all you can be!

Has Detroit Forgotten How to Make Cars?

The business of the Big Three automakers is to make autos the market wants at reasonable prices. Given their de facto bankruptcy and soon to be de jure bankruptcy one would think they have.


But Then?!?





From the The Detroit News
HT: Orthodox Net Blog

East meets West: President Obama in the Middle East

The Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling (background The article is a little long the key part is last quarter of the article.)

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
tho' they come from the ends of the earth!


While Kipling is often misunderstood to say East and West can never meet, the point of the the stanza and the poem is that when two strong men stand face to face it is possible for them to meet. Near the end of the poem we are told of the British Officer and the Pathan ruler:

They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault,
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt:
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod,
On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God.

But before the British officer went on his chase into Pathan territory he was warned:

There is rock to the left, and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between,
And ye may hear a breech-bolt snick where never a man is seen.

He is always at the mercy of the Pathan and if he does not pass muster the trigger will be pulled.

-----------------------

President Obama this week made a speech in Cairo to the Moslem world laying out his hopes for peace and cooperation. Well delivered as always. It was what his prime consistencies wanted him to say and what his opponents were afraid he would say. He has told the more or less westernized leadership in the Middle East where he coming from. But the real question is are there Moslem "strong men" in control the guns and bombs and will they see a another "strong man" with whom they can take an Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt or will they see an just another American politician and tell their followers to pull the trigger.

Well I hope for the best, but with little confidence.

Kingston Trio -The MTA

As I remember Chicago's CTA was about the same.

Memorial Day 2009

Post Cemetery, Ft Sheridan Illinois.


Let us Pray


Father : Today, though we are not worthy, we remember those who have died in the service of their country, for it was your Son who taught us that he has no greater love than he who gives his life for another.


We ask that You take those who have died into the warmth of Your presence.

We ask for strength an comfort for their families.

We ask that those who are missing and captured may soon be returned to their families.

We ask that those who were wounded have a speedy recovery and a long and happy life.

We thank You for those who have retuned safely home.

Most of all:
we ask that we will never have to add to those we remember this day.

Thy will be done.


We ask this through our Lord and Savior, Your Son Jesus Christ, in union with the Holy Spirit.


Amen

The Ascension of Our Lord

About 2500 to 3000 years ago,

the King of Judah has died,

all Judah is in Jerusalem for the coronation of the new king.

Several large choirs are assembled.

It begins:

Narrating Choir: Why do the nations conspire,
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD and his anointed, saying,

Kings of the Earth: “Let us burst their bonds asunder,
and cast their cords from us."

Narrating Choir: He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the LORD has them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,

The Lord: I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill."

The New King: I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me,

The Lord: You are my son, today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron,
and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

Narrating Choir: Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned,
O rulers of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear,
with trembling
kiss his feet, lest he be angry,
and you perish in the way;

for his wrath is quickly kindled
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

The Second Psalm, is a psalm for the coronation of the new king. On the Feast of the Ascension we celebrate Jesus, a king of the line of Melchizedek and David the King of Judah and of all Glory retuning to Heaven, as Choirs of Angels sing, to sit at the right hand of the Father.

The nations and peoples still plot and conspire in vain, but God laughs at them, He has put his only Son on the Throne and

Blessed are all who Take Refuge in him.

The US Military - An Outside View

Dawn is a Pakistani news service. They recently posted an article by Kamran Shafi on his observations on the American Armed Forces. and the implications for the Pakistani Armed Forces.

I have been to Fort Myer in Virginia with my chum and course-mate Zafar Kayani who was married to Colonel Jo Ann Kayani, now sadly passed on, good and gracious woman. Jo Ann was commander of Headquarters Company, US Army, stationed at Fort Myer and it was my pleasure to visit not only her spartan office but also the canteen where officers ate alongside privates, carrying their own trays and standing in line waiting their turn. Fort Myer serves the Washington D.C. military district and the senior-most officers serving in the Pentagon live there. I have had the pleasure of seeing Gen Colin Powell, then chief of the joint staff, mow his own lawn in one of a row of houses that housed him and other senior generals including the chief of the army staff. The houses were in typically American suburban style: no walls, with sloping lawns running onto the pavements.

Most of all, I was astonished to see that there was no wedding hall anywhere in Fort Myer. Neither was there was any burger joint catering to all comers in any of the officers messes, and none of the mess buildings had bank branches and wedding dress boutiques in them. The US army had not constructed shops all around the fort either, and its soldiers did not sell pastries and bread. I saw no evidence of banks and travel agencies and textile mills and sugar factories and cornflakes-manufacturing mills and estate agencies being run by the US army (or the US navy and the US air force for that matter) in my travels across America. Armed forces stations were just that: armed forces stations with limited access to civilians, and those too who were accompanied by a member of the armed forces or their dependent(s). Neither, and this is important, does the US army run farming operations and get into disputes with the tenant farmers who till the land as share-croppers.

Since one mostly drives in the US to get from point A to B, many were the times that I came upon army convoys on the highways. Every single time the convoy travelled in the slow lane, at the designated speed, the drivers with both hands on the steering wheels, headgear on, looking straight ahead. No slouching, no cigarette hanging from the drooping lower lip Humphrey Bogart style. In the back, if there were soldiers being transported, they sat up straight, headgear on, no slouching, no smoking. And no leering at passing cars either!


Of course, with a closer view I saw the warts he missed, but his comments are appreciated. What he is talking about is an attitude in and out of the military; that is not dependent on this or that defense policy option, this or that weapons system, or budget level. Whatever is done with defense policy maintaining this attitude is vital.

--------------------------------------------------

Read the article, his comments on the current fighting in the Swat and Bruner areas is a different but worthwhile perspective than is given in the American news media.


HT: Pragmatic Euphony who provides a look from an Indian point of view.

Happy Mothers Day!

Top 10 Sayings of Biblical Mothers


10. Samson! Get your hand out of that lion. You don’t know where it’s been! (Judges 14:5-8)

9. David! I told you not to play in the house with that sling! Go practice your harp. We pay good money for those lessons!

8. Abraham! Stop wandering around the countryside and get home for supper!

7. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego! Leave those clothes outside, you smell like a dirty ol’ furnace!

6. Cain! Get off your brother! You’re going to kill him some day!

5. Noah! No, you can’t keep them! I told you, don’t bring home any more strays!

4. Gideon! Have you been hiding in that wine press again? Look at your clothes! (Judges 6:11)

3. James and John! No more burping contests at the dinner table, please. People are going to call you the sons of thunder! (Mark 3:17)

2. Judas! Have you been in my purse again?!

1. Jesus! What do you think, you were born in a barn?


From the Coffee Klatch


HT : The Happy Catholic

Torture, Again

Back in 2005 Wretchard (Richard Fernandez) of the Belmont Club posted on the subject of torture:

At one level the debate over the use of torture in the War on Terror is moot. The United States military has a long operational history of forgoing possible practical advantages in favor of upholding certain national values. The most obvious modern example are rules of engagement in the use of fires. During the recently concluded assault on Fallujah and in current operations in Iraq, military restrictions on the use of firepower around mosques or populated areas are enforced with the foreknowledge that such steps will result in statistically higher casualties to troops. This practice follows long historical precedent. The policy of precision daylight bombing during World War 2; the tendency toward 'No First Strike' during the Cold War and even the restriction on political assassinations in the Carter years are all examples of unilateral renunciations of military advantage


Thinking along those lines I posted:

There are several minor points against the use of torture and I would say a
big one.

Minor

It is not very reliable. The subject is inclined to say what will end the session, i.e. what they think the interrogator expects to hear. The interrogator quite possibly does not have the means to sort this out. Since it is what the interrogator expects to hear they will give it little challenge.

Most often they will talk without torture sooner or later.

It opens our soldiers to retaliation in kind. Even if the current enemy does not a future one may do so.

It gives a motive to enemy personnel not to surrender increasing our casualties.

Allowing torture and similar activities tends to break down military discipline. Having allowed it in one case it is much harder to expect orders not to do similar things in other cases to be obeyed.

If it becomes public it creates a terrific public affairs problem and invites outside intervention into the running of our armed forces.

The Major Problem.

If we allow torture then we will sink to the level of Osama bin Laden and
his scum. Even when bin Laden loses (which he will in any case) we will lose
even more!


--------------------

Andrew C. McCarthy is the federal prosecutor who prosecuted the 1993 bombers of the World Trade Center. He was invited to attend a Justice Department conference on fighting terrorism. Part of his response to Attorney General Holder declining to attend:


Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.




/RantMode=ON

When it is prudent to for a lawyer not to provide good faith advice to the government because a change in governmental policy will result in a prosecution for giving that advice; then we can be certain that governmental decisions will not be made with good legal advice, a problem that is much worse than the original problem. Either the decisions makers will be acting blind or assuming they will be prosecuted in any case will simply ignore any limits on their actions.

This kind of legal strategy will tend to put us at the same level as Osama bin Ladin which is what torture does. WE STILL LOSE

/Rant Mode=OFF



NB: I read the memos in question, it is very clear that the authors were trying to offer legal advice. There is difference between bad advice and particpation.

HT: Southern Illinois Catholics

My posts on Torture

Dutch East Indies

The Second World War effected may people in many ways. Elizebeth van Kampen grew up in the Dutch East Indies, but when the war came she survived some of the cruelest and least reported atrocities of the war,. After the war she builds a life living and traveling in The Netherlands, France, England, South Africa, the United States and other places. Fifty years after the war she returns to Indonesia to see where she grew up.


After a wonderful youth in the Dutch East Indies, today Indonesia, my family and I went through three and a half years Japanese occupation. I lost my father, I lost the country I loved, I lost everything, but I kept my memories. My son advised me to start a website and write all those memories down. So here I am, 79 years old, sitting behind my computer, going back to the Dutch East Indies.


Her amazing story starts here.


HT: World History Blog

“I Did What It Said”

What’s the Harm explains the harm in using GPS systems.

Satellite navigation systems are a godsend to the modern driver. But the data contained in them is not perfect and should not be relied on blindly. People can get hurt.



Bo Bai

Age: 32
Bedford Hills, New York
Rental car destroyed
January 2, 2008
He followed an instruction to turn right from his GPS putting him on a train track in front of an oncoming train. The resulting accident destroyed his rental car and delayed commuters for hours. He was ticketed was to be held liable for costs.
More information

Necdet Bakimci

Gibraltar, Lincolnshire, England
1600 miles off course on delivery
July 20, 2008
He programmed his destination of the Rock of Gibraltar as he left Antakya, Turkey. But because Gibraltar is technically part of the UK, the device routed him to another Gibraltar – a shore town in England. He was 1,600 miles off course.
more information

While a GPS is better than stopping for directions, it is only a navigation aid, you have to navigate.

Remember your most important instrument is that big piece of raparound glass called a windshield - look through it!

The New Computer is Up

and connected to the internet.

I still have some clean up to do and data to recover.

I suppose talking to four help desk people until I found one who could help is retributive justice.

Lightbloging will continue

My compter is about to give up the ghost after much long and mostly faithful service. I will be pretty much off line until it is replaced and the new one is set up. About two weeks I hope

Gurkhas

Bands are fun to watch!






The Band of The Brigade of Gurkhas
Music: Sirtaki (Zorba the Greek)
Military Tattoo Bremen 2000



That is not why we have Armies.




" Indian Army Gurkhas , 'Better to die in battle than live a coward" is produced by Parag Shah of Global Mavericks using clips from the bollywood blockbuster ' Line of Control' showing the Gurkhas bravery during the Kargil conflict.


But the cost is not cheap, though often less than the alterntive.

Taking the Cross: Second Station

V: We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee

R: For by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.


From the Gospel according to Matthew. 27:27-31

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand and knelt before him and mocked him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. After mocking him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

MEDITATION

Jesus, condemned as an imposter king, is mocked, but this very mockery lays bare a painful truth. How often are the symbols of power, borne by the great ones of this world, an affront to truth, to justice and to the dignity of man! How many times are their pomps and their lofty words nothing but grandiose lies, a parody of their solemn obligation to serve the common good! It is because Jesus is mocked and wears the crown of suffering that he appears as the true King. His scepter is justice (cf. Ps 45:7). The price of justice in this world is suffering: Jesus, the true King, does not reign through violence, but through a love which suffers for us and with us. He takes up the Cross, our cross, the burden of being human, the burden of the world. And so he goes before us and points out to us the way which leads to true life.

PRAYER

Lord, you willingly subjected yourself to mockery and scorn. Help us not to ally ourselves with those who look down on the weak and suffering. Help us to acknowledge your face in the lowly and the outcast. May we never lose heart when faced with the contempt of this world, which ridicules our obedience to your will. You carried your own Cross and you ask us to follow you on this path (cf. Mt 10:38). Help us to take up the Cross, and not to shun it. May we never complain or become discouraged by life's trials. Help us to follow the path of love and, in submitting to its demands, to find true joy.

All: Our Father Who art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy Name
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done
On Earth as it is Heaven.
Give us this day, our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from Evil.



OFFICE FOR THE LITURGICAL CELEBRATIONS OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
WAY OF THE CROSS AT THE COLOSSEUM
GOOD FRIDAY 2005
MEDITATIONS AND PRAYERS
BY CARDINAL JOSEPH RATZINGER

Tried: First Station

Ash Wednesday 2009

From a letter to the Corinthians by Saint Clement, Pope. cira 95 A.D.


Let us fix our attention on the blood of Christ and recognise how precious it is to God his Father, since it was shed for our salvation and brought the grace of repentance to all the world

If we review the various ages of history, we will see that in every generation the Lord has offered the opportunity of repentance to any who were willing to turn to him. When Noah preached God’s message of repentance, all who listened to him were saved. Jonah told the Ninevites they were going to be destroyed, but when they repented, their prayers gained God’s forgiveness for their sins, and they were saved, even though they were not of God’s people.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the ministers of God’s grace have spoken of repentance; indeed, the Master of the whole universe himself spoke of repentance with an oath: As I live, says the Lord, I do not wish the death of the sinner but his repentance. He added this evidence of his goodness: House of Israel, repent of your wickedness. Tell the sons of my people: If their sins should reach from earth to heaven, if they are brighter than scarlet and blacker than sackcloth, you need only turn to me with your whole heart and say, “Father,” and I will listen to you as a holy people.

In other words, God wanted all his beloved ones to have the opportunity to repent and he confirmed this desire by his own almighty will. That is why we should obey his sovereign and glorious will and prayerfully entreat his mercy and kindness. We should be suppliant before him and turn to his compassion, rejecting empty works and quarrelling and jealousy which only lead to death.

Brothers, we should be humble in mind, putting aside all arrogance, pride and foolish anger. Rather, we should act in accordance with the Scriptures, as the Holy Spirit says: The wise man must not glory in his wisdom nor the strong man in his strength nor the rich man in his riches. Rather, let him who glories glory in the Lord by seeking him and doing what is right and just. Recall especially what the Lord Jesus said when he taught gentleness and forbearance. Be merciful, he said, so that you may have mercy shown to you. Forgive, so that you may be forgiven. As you treat others, so you will be treated. As you give, so you will receive. As you judge, so you will be judged. As you are kind to others, so you will be treated kindly. The measure of your giving will be the measure of your receiving.

Let these commandments and precepts strengthen us to live in humble obedience to his sacred words. As Scripture asks: Whom shall I look upon with favour except the humble, peaceful man who trembles at my words?

Sharing then in the heritage of so many vast and glorious achievements, let us hasten toward the goal of peace, set before us from the beginning. Let us keep our eyes firmly fixed on the Father and Creator of the whole universe, and hold fast to his splendid and transcendent gifts of peace and all his blessings

Source: The Office of Readings for Ash Wedneday at Universalis

Related: Ash Wednesday 2005

Frank Capra: It's a Wonderful Life??

Frank Capra, contrary to popular opinion, is one of the most challenging—maybe even disturbing—of all filmmakers. He asks us to accept things about which we have grave doubts—not because they’re nice or inspirational or comforting or helpful—but because they’re true.




Rod Bennet in January 2007 edition of the online magazine GodSpy gives us The Gospel according to Frank Capra. He starts by asking the question - how can the story of George Bailey be called It’s a Wonderful Live?

At Christmastime in the year 1974, when I was 14 years old, I saw an old black & white movie on television called It's A Wonderful Life. It was a very cold sunny afternoon as I remember; I was home from school on two weeks of Christmas vacation. I had been randomly turning the TV dial and just happened to get interested in a scene—about ten minutes into the picture, as it turns out—in which a young boy had just saved a drunken druggist from accidentally poisoning a sick child. At the first commercial break, the "Armchair Theatre" announcer told me the title.

Wracked as I was at the time with all the usual terrors and traumas of being fourteen years old, I wasn't at all sure that it was, in fact, a wonderful life here on Planet Earth. But I watched the movie anyway. And the longer that old picture went on the more the sound of that title (which had seemed at first so pat and sugary) began to change in my doubtful ears. It's A Wonderful Life. Standing there so unashamed in the face of everything going on all around it, that simplistic, illogical phrase began to sound... I don't know... defiant; like a challenge being flung at me or even an attack.

I had no way of knowing at the time that this was supposed to be a corny old Christmas "feel-good" movie. It began to make me feel pretty bad, in fact. Certainly I saw that It's A Wonderful Life is full of wonderful things: charm and humor and unforgettable characters that have since become like a second family to me. But the longer the movie went on, the bleaker and blacker things got. George Bailey, the hero (played by James Stewart), the dreamer who was going to see the world and lasso the moon, struggles to get out of the dead end job that keeps him chained to the hick town where he was born. It soon becomes obvious, to us and to him, that he never will get out of it. And yet, somehow, with every commercial break, that announcer kept repeating It's A Wonderful Life. I myself had dreams very like George Bailey's: dreams of accomplishment, dreams of romance.

But the plain reality was that I was failing in school, my first real romance was ten years away, and I was lonely, alienated, and ugly with that unique ugliness only possible to fourteen year olds. And yet with every commercial break, over and over at eight-minute intervals, the "Armchair Theatre" man insisted It's A Wonderful Life. Before long, George Bailey (because of a meaningless accident—his lovable, doddering old uncle has destroyed his business by absentmindedly losing a packet of money) stands on a frigid overpass ready to drown his whole thwarted, aborted dream in an icy black river and we're not so sure we blame him. I stood there with him—my own dreams seemed (and sometimes still seem) just as hopeless. And still the man says It's A Wonderful Life.

I guess the repeated words of that corny title—proved surely to be a lie by the very story to which they had somehow been tacked—made me feel a little like Nero must have felt, listening in disbelief to the joyful hymns the martyrs sang as he fed them to the lions.

And then the final act of the movie began.

Snip

If one had only Capra's reputation to go by, without knowing the man or seeing the films, I suppose that one might come to create a mental portrait of him as some smiling white-haired sentimentalist, perhaps a retired Congregationalist minister, with his eyes full of easy stars and possessing a fondness for quoting Norman Vincent Peale. In reality, Frank Capra was not only a hard-nosed, up-from-poverty immigrant with a rather acidic sense of humor (the biggest laughs in his films are cynical cracks from jaded sophisticates mocking the callow Capra hero), he was actually an intellectual—almost a rationalist. He was certainly every inch the Cal Tech Chemical Engineer of his school years. In fact, in Capra's unique background I've found what has been, for me, the whole key to the mystery of his films and their strange fate at the hands of the critics.

snip

This is why Frank Capra, contrary to popular opinion, is one of the most challenging of all filmmakers and in some ways the most disturbing. Most "serious films"—the "hard-hitting" "uncompromising" films—ask us only to accept, for example, that poverty is bad, relationships are hard, that politics is corrupt. In short, their "challenge" consists precisely in asking us to accept ideas that we already accept anyway, even if we struggle to know just what to do about them. In these comedies, Capra asks us to accept that the old-fashioned American ideals are still good, that David really can whip Goliath, that our prayers do not go unheard, that the meek shall inherit the earth. In other words, he asks us to accept things about which we have grave, grave doubts. And he is uncompromising in his asking: he doesn't ask us to accept these propositions as nice or inspirational or comforting or helpful—he asks us to accept them as true. That, my friend, is a challenging filmmaker. That is serious, avant-garde cinema, if you will.

Read the whole article

Presidents Day 2009 - The Gettysburg Address.

In July 1863 the Union and Confederate Armies engaged each other at Gettysburg Pennsylvania in the decisive battle of the war. (See Book Reviews: Gettysburg for background.) On November 19, 1863 President Lincoln delivered a short address at the dedication of cemetery for those who had fallen. Reportedly the address, following a two hour oration by the main speaker, was hardly noticed by the crowd. But the short length of the Gettysburg Address put it on the front page of every paper in the North and it’s simple eloquence placed it in the heart and memory of the country.

Lincoln’s words are a still a strong reminder of the ideals on which the country was founded and a call to rededicate ourselves to these ideals.




Performed by Jeff Daniels.