Send in the Clowns

 And the singer asks: where are the clowns?
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5os4NFeKFFs&noredirect=1

They are in Washington D.C. legislating and they are in Hawaii vacationing and they are in Iowa campaigning.
And they are on FOX and CNN and MSNBC and ABC and CBS and NBC and hither and thither throughout the ether all about us pontificating about what is best for the rest of us.

Interestingly, all of the above referenced clowns mock and ridicule and attack and defame the same person.
The straight man amongst the clowns.
The one true patriot seeking the highest office in the land.
The fact that all the clowns - whether Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, fringe right or fringe left - all attack the same man merely corroborates the inescapable fact that he is the only one worthy of being Commander in Chief of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Now don't get me wrong. No politician is without blemish. Who amongst us is without sin?
In an imperfect world there are no perfect humans.
(Hell, in a perfect world there still would be no perfect politicians.)

That being said, let us recognize the one candidate for president who is pro life and anti war; who is pro constitution and anti Federal Reserve; who is pro America and, like George Washington, anti foreign entanglements. He would end the unconstitutional usurpation of legislative rights by activist judges and bring home the military from unnecessary foreign wars and post them on our southern border to defend this great land from foreign invasion.
And for all this he is mocked and crucified by the elite, the establishment, the fainthearted and weak willed, the Benedict Arnolds who would toss this nation onto the dung heap of history.
His chances may be slim, but so were David's against Goliath and the 300 against the 10,000.
Every once in a while though, history- no a stranger to irony - presents the underdog with the chance to change the destinies of nations.
This is such a time.
Do not be fainthearted or suicidally cynical.
Support with your prayers and voices and dollars the last, best hope for the Republic whose very life is dimming in a setting sun's fading light.

Little by Little

Our precious freedoms are being slowly whittled away as we sleep off another hangover brought on by an overindulgence of something or other, be it drinking or eating or shopping or plug in electronics.
Did you know that the Department of Homeland Security now monitors Facebook and Twitter for any possible subversive content or anything that may pose a threat to national security, whatever subversive or threat might mean?
As a matter of fact, our beloved Congress is now considering a bill that will greatly limit the internet's content and pose a potential fine/ and or jail time for anyone who uses the internet? It's called the 'Stop Online Piracy Act'. (SOPA) Sounds great, right? Sounds like the government just wants to protect law abiding citizens from infringement of their copyrighted creations, right?
It's wonderful how the lawmakers can come up with bill names that sound so innocent or concerned for citizens, like the 'Patriot Act', right? You know, the act that permits the government to withhold your constitutional rights if they deem you a threat to the nation, whatever that means, ( the government defines all terms).
Anyhow...the SOPA gives the government authority to shut down millions of web sites. The language in the bill is broad and vague. Imagine the shutting down of facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and any site that runs counter to the ruling elite.
Do not laugh. This bill or some variation will pass and be signed in to law with the smiling politicians carping about how they are protecting fellow Americans.
No they are not. They are lessening our freedom and tightening the noose around our necks.
And guess what?
The sheeple of the land of the free and the home of the brave will respond by more hangover inducing over indulgences.
For more on the 'SOPA' see:
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/why-we-must-stop-sopa

At the Trough

The more I read about the corruption of our politicians -on both sides of the aisle- the more I get the urge to regurgitate. I fear we have gone to far down the road of ruin to turn back and recover our lost republic. There are too many factors weighing against a realistic chance to start afresh and secure a land of the free and a home of the brave the way our forefathers envisioned their posterity.
Sometimes I have to slap my face to remind myself that the Judeo-Christian heritage that I hold dear is fast becoming an anachronism for a majority of the American public. I am a stranger in my own land which has become, sad to say, a strange land in itself. Once a nation loses its religious bearings, the citizens fall out and devolve into a hedonistic frenzy. Community dissolves and we are left with a multicultural amalgam of competing interests and claimed rights.
We are there. An indifferent and selfish people being led by a corrupt class of plutocrats.
Nice article on our government plight:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/government_of_the_elites_by_the_elites_and_for_the_elites.html

Will we end up like the swine Jesus dealt with once upon a time?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_%28demon%29

As Eyelids Close

...off to sleep we drift as enticing melodies carry us to Nevernever Land and our minds succumb to the ever spreading beat of Big Brother's tom-tom.
We are adrift in a cold, cruel cosmos and we haven't even left earth's atmosphere. Will anything save us? Where is the Messiah, or, at least, a good old fashioned black hole from the next galaxy over?

But I drift myself. Into Disturbia. Not the movie either, but the real life realization that our time grows short and each day we more closer to an existential point of no return, a point beyond which lies stultifying suffering and eventual permanent blackout.
And all in the good old U S of A.
Yes, each day the evidence grows that we are allowing Big Brother to encroach further and further into our lives to the extent that before we know it the nightmare will be of maximum duration, that is to say, terminal.
A brief listing of nefarious examples from just the tip of the iceberg can be gleaned from the following article.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/12-very-disturbing-examples-of-radical-social-engineering-by-the-u-s-government

The outcome of the next presidential election may change things. It may be the last chance we have to reverse our course. Time will tell.
In the meantime, be prepared for a continuation of our wild ride along the downward spiral our nation is trapped in. Be prepared to make do on your own, or meet your Maker.

Advent is Upon Us

The advent of what, one might ask.
Of course, the Advent season has begun and Christmas is in the air, or at least in the hearts and minds of believers. It is safe to say, though, that Christmas has been ostracized from the debased air that falls across the land of good and plenty.
It will soon be a hate crime to wish anyone a merry Christmas, so let me say it loud and clear before they take me away in the interests of national security,

While imagining that glorious first Christmas in far away Bethlehem, I was reminded of another expected coming, the second coming as the poet put it. During these perilous days, as our once great republic totters on the edge of the abyss and evil daily rears its ugly head all about us, it is this second coming we all need to fear. Take it as a warning like a mournful fog horn in the misty night that envelopes us...werewolf weather indeed.

William Butler Yeats and The Second Coming:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer:
Things fall apart: the centre cannot hold:
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of the Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man.
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
*    *   *

What rough beast? There is only one beast we need be concerned with. The question is: when its day comes, will we be prepared?

Turkey Day Cometh

Turkey day draws ever nearer and the wild American turkey, no longer wild but docile and compliant, awaits the cold and indifferent blade of history. While we have a breathe left to exhale, let us give thanks for the good things in life...a loving family, loyal friends, loved ones gone before, faithful pets, acts of kindness shown to us, beautiful sunsets and gentle snowfalls along with the rest of the majestic natural world God has given us to enjoy, as well as mans' great creative accomplishments in the realms of the arts and sciences. Most of all, let us give (hopeful) thanks for a merciful God come judgement day.
To all four of my readers:

A Pox on All Continued

Not that any confirmation was needed, but check this out. 
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/after-all-of-the-crazy-insider-trading-that-now-has-been-revealed-how-can-the-american-people-ever-trust-congress-again

All Americans should read this book and then take action to get rid of the corrupt hypocrites in politics. Voting against all incumbents regardless of party would be a start. (I know, hahaha. Half of America is illiterate and the other half is divided between the elite who rule, the sheeple who follow the elite's orders and the malcontents whose are exploding on a daily basis.)

...and now the super committee that was supposed to come up with a plan to reduce the national debt has thrown in the towel since neither side wants to give in to the other...not that it matters.
the good old US of A is headed down the tubes of history into the great yawning abyss of nothingness.

A Pox on All

A local high school principal has decided to forfeit his school's soccer team's victory during the State wide championship tournament because the players did a victory dance (in imitation of the resident professional football team ) and the other team's players' parents complained it was poor sportsmanship and showed up their boys.
This pathetic, yet hilarious in a macabre sort of way, action and reaction is illustrative of what's wrong with our society, at least some aspects of our crumbling civilization.

Poor sportsmanship in emulation of the millionaire would be felons a/k/a NFL football players...distraught parents over the fact their tender and sensitive young ones may have been traumatized by the rub it in their nose celebration they had to witness due to their inability to beat the other team. (They were no doubt also disappointed over the fact that they wouldn't be doing their own victory dance.)
Who to be upset with?
Wuss parents...
Spoiled players...
Intolerantly tolerant principal...
NFL meat head thugs...
...and as our society crumbles like a spineless back, yet another god is killed off as we learn today that Joe Paterno whose over sized head would appear on the college football Mt. Rushmore were there one, will retire at the end of the season. This comes after revelations that a staff member was charged with raping children in the school shower and other staff didn't report anything amiss and good old Joe didn't know what was happening, although he is in total control of everything that happens with his team. http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7211674/penn-state-nittany-lions-coach-joe-paterno-legacy-sullied-wake-sandusky-scandal
Then again, he's a hundred and something years old so maybe he is unaware of what's happening.

                                               

...and mother of mercy is this the end of Rico? as Edward G Robinson asked at the end of Little Caesar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEiOjH0v0oM&feature=related
or in this case, Herman Cain?

More on Herm next time.

Rotten Hearts & Cold Souls

America is dying. Oh, not literally. There will be a place called America for some time to come.
The nation of my immigrant grandparents and the multitudes who came before them is dying though, and few seem to care.
I can remember my father explaining back in the 1950s how America would never be defeated by an external enemy. He believed our demise would be the result of self inflicted wounds. He had been a union supporter and shop steward for his Teamster's local. He watched how greed and corruption turned a once positive force for the working man into a malignant entity. He knew, or somehow intuited, that greed would lead to the fall of the American worker and the middle class that was composed of working men.
Time went by and greed saw the collapse or relocation of one American enterprise after another. While this went on, there was a cultural revolution that saw the destruction of the Judeo-Christian value system that had been the foundation of American thought and motivation. Educational and sexual revolutions were hastened ever onward by the entertainment and mass media industries as Marxists and atheists, degenerates and progressive anarchists, secular humanists and self loathing anti-American Americans gained control of the institutions of higher education and the editorial boards of mainstream newsmedia.
George Orwell's Newspeak was the coin of the realm.
We have become a debtor nation that borrows from the world so we can buy their products and defend their borders with our military. Is this madness or what?
Check out this article for some interesting ( interesting in the Chinese sense of a 'curse') tidbits.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/40-signs-that-america-is-rotting-from-the-inside-out

I recommend a just published book by Patrick Buchanan, who says it all a lot better than I ever could. Read it and weep, but don't say no one ever warned you.

http://www.amazon.com/Suicide-Superpower-Will-America-Survive/dp/0312579977/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319137157&sr=1-1

On My Head...Again

How many times must the world turn upside down before we Americans awake from our self induced slumbers? Can't someone just start the revolution?
I ponder this as we approach the 2nd week of NFL football, the national distraction de jour.
Because some off the field meathead, that is to say, one of the ardent fans in the stands, was able to get into a NY Jet game with a taser device and use it on another fan with whom he had a difference of opinion, the NFL will now require all fans above the age of one week to be frisked from the ankles up before being allowed into any NFL game.

Some suggest this is at the direction of Big Sis, the head of Homeland Security, but in any case it is just one more demonstration of how the phony war on terror continues to chip away at our quickly vanishing freedoms.

Personally, I would boycott NFL games as long as they carry out such an infringement of citizens' rights. Since I don't buy NFL tickets or any other NFL merchandise, the best I can do is not watch any games on TV. A small, pitiful course of action, but morally imperative.

If only everyone with a ticket to a game this weekend stayed home in protest. How glorious a flip of the bird that would be.

If only.

I may as well expect the next Perdue oven roaster I purchase to come stuffed with a golden egg.

                                                                         

All of this, laughably, in the name of protecting our freedom.

How sad it is to contemplate the degree to which we have turned our back on our great heritage. We are fast approaching the point of no return and the powers and dominions behind the curtain rub their hands in glee.

The powers and dominions who buy power with others' blood, mostly innocent for all it matters. To wit, an article about another article that explains this better than I can.

(It is a sad state of affairs when I find myself  agreeing with a liberal columnist who writes for the nefarious NY Times.)  http://www.prisonplanet.com/stuck-pigs-and-presstitutes-squeal.html

FYI, the photo to the right is reportedly of two NY Giant fans from the North Bronx who refused to be patted down before the game in D.C. Their whereabouts are unknown, but the bars were made in China.

We will get what we deserve.

Politicians:They're All Whores

I know, I know. A harsh word with connotations of immorality and willful self degradation, but then again, I am referring to our political class, our leaders and public exemplars. Take the above pictured twosome...please, somebody take them...apologies to Henny Youngman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVGVJGX--o0

Different parties, same corruption. The Washington fat cats and their cronies take turns blasting one another for public consumption, for the folks back home and then go play a few rounds of golf at their exclusive club and devise new ways to rob us all.

There are answers of course, ways to greatly reduce, if not completely eliminate the corruption. Things like term limits, let's say two 4 four year terms for president; one 6 year term for senator and 2 or 3 two year terms for congressmen. And, let's have full disclosure of :
Financial records

Medical records

Educational records

(goes for spouses as well)

If elected, all assets go into a blind trust and upon leaving office, all financial records are again revealed.
all of the above also applies to all cabinet members and presidential appointments.

While I'm at it, judges cannot reverse any thing resulting from a popular election unless they can point out in the constitution exactly where the issue in question is clearly forbidden.

But, I am deluded. I forget reality at times...more and more it seems...and begin to believe that...fill in a name...will prove to be that rarest of things, an honest politician.
Jesus said to beware of false prophets, yet we never learn. We seek salvation in all the wrong places and fall for sweet nothings gently whispered in our gullible ears.
                                                                             
Who will be our next savior? Who will replace the annointed one in our never ending cavalcade of corrupt leaders? Is there a chance that someone will emerge from the current crop of ego drenched would be saviors who will prove to be deserving to serve us as our president?

No News Is Good News

Hurricane Irene news coverage was 24/7 for several days.
What happened to the rest of the news? Did the world stop spinning except for Irene's path?

This proves that with the exception of cataclysmic events, there is really no news worth paying attention to. Existence did not cease when other stories were not reported. Politics, sports, entertainment, etc. are non events that repeat in endless cycles and  only serve to distract us from the issues that matter: raising families, growing foodstuffs, building shelters, helping our neighbors, preparing for the next life and so on.

Stop wasting precious time watching the unnecessary stream of bilge that is not even information in any meaningful sense, let alone knowledge, but only useless bits of radio wave data that should be allowed to pass into deep space without any interference from humans.

Such useless data is bad enough for our mental and emotional health, but there is a fatal physical price to pay as well.

With the constant stream of electromagnetism and radiation passing through our skulls on a daily basis via radio, television, earphones, cell phones, computers, headphones, video games, neighborly gossip, etc., we will eventually burn out our brains and wind up true empty heads.

The End of the World As We Know It

...not really, but consider:
Within the same week an earthquake, a hurricane and a small tornado all in Maryland . Gadzooks!
I am beginning to think the 'end of the worlders' might be on to something.
Meanwhile...

The Mexican government, in conjunction with its leading scientists, is publicizing the 2012 Mayan prediction that the world will end sometime in December of next year. They claim to be deadly serious. They also want  to attract tourists, make money, and help the Mexican economy.

What the hell?

If the Mayans are correct and the earth's poles will shift and everything but life at the equator will be wiped out, why is the Mexican government looking to make money? Are they planning to take it with them?

One good thing about the end of the world is it will resolve our economic woes and rid us once and for all of politicians.
As for me, I'm just waiting for football to begin and looking forward to Autumn leaves and the holidays and when our newest family member, Augie Doggie, is house broken and stops peeing in the kitchen.

Maybe by December, 2012.

At Long Last...JFK's Killer ID'd

Well, it's been only 573 months or so since JFK lost his head in the back seat of a convertible and all this time no one - other than the  guilty of course - knew who was responsible for the killing. Now the rest of us know, and it's not at all surprising.

Of course, for all this time there have been multiple theories and claims thrown against the wall of history with bits and pieces sticking but never enough of any one to satisfy the hunger for truth, justice and the pangs of morbid curiosity.

I've read several thousand books...okay, a few dozen; it just seems like thousands..on the assassination and over the years my conclusions about who was responsible fluctuated wildly depending on which book I had just read: Castro and the communists, the KGB, right wing extremists, the mafia, rogue elements in the CIA, Texas radicals...you name it, everyone but Elmer Fudd -who was off chasing Bugs Bunny- and Lee Harvey Oswald who was a patsy, to use his own words.

November 22, 1963. It was early afternoon and I was just home from school and dialing the radio for some music.  On each station an announcer was talking about shots being fired on the presidential motorcade. I assumed it was a South American leader. Halfway through my bologna sandwich the announcer said that President Kennedy was dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy

Over the years, I was fascinated with the questions unanswered/raised by the official Warren Commission Report as well as the host of books purporting to explain what really happened. I was not a Kennedy supporter. I was too young to vote at the time anyway. But, like Humphry Bogart playing Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon http://www.filmsite.org/malt.html says, when your partner gets killed you have to do something about it. Doesn't matter what you thought about him. It's bad for business.
That's about the way I felt about JFK getting killed. I didn't much care for him, but knocking off the president and not solving the crime would be bad for America's business.

At any rate, I recently read the definitive account of the affair and heartily recommend the book.
It's titled Blood, Money, & Power by Barr McClellan. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/blood-money-power?store=book

So now I can relax. It's all settled and even though the perpertrators are beyond earthly punishment, there is a grim satisfaction nevertheless in knowing the truth.

What makes the revelation all the more conclusive is the soon to be released tapes of an interview Jackie Kennedy Onassis gave to the historian Arthur Schlesinger http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023418/Jackie-O-tapes-reveal-JFKs-affairs-believed-death.html#ixzz1UQxb7nEC wherein she claims that LBJ and business associates were responsible for the murder.

In the Land of Lies

We live in perilous times and distract ourselves with the slight of hand presented to us by politicians and the entertainment world alike. Ah, to be young and stupid again instead of just not young.

My eyes bleed and my brain explodes over the bizarre, corrupt and deadly array of political actions spewing forth from our country's leaders on a daily basis.

There comes a time when the heart is constricted by ever tightening bonds of frustration and helplessness over their deeds of our despicable politicians who, with the morals of alley cats and the less backbone than the sardines in the can of King Oscar I snacked on yesterday, sell our great land down the river and over the falls.

Deceit and greed. Our leaders and their followers...us. We are all responsible. We want and we lie, to others and to ourselves. We want and we refuse to sacrifice. We want, want, want and refuse to believe the few truthsayers among us who cry out like the prophets of old and are excoriated and condemned for their courage.

The father of lies, Lucifer, is greedy also. His greed and mendacity got him kicked out of paradise.

He rules hell.

When we are kicked out of our paradise - this beautiful land of bounty, this land of the free and home of the brave - where will we end up? 

Some interesting articles on our current plight for those with open minds and feckless hearts:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-american-empire.html

http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-american-empire.html

Free Agent Augie Joins Firpo's Team

Hailing from the upcountry community of Starr in the illustrious palmetto state of South Carolina Augie, a/k/a Augie Doggie and Son of Mine, is a 4.7 pound whirling dervish who will either keep Firpo young or send him to a premature grave. Time will tell.
Augie was born on the 18th of May, 2011 to Samson and Sweet Petunia II.
He joins 9 year old Max, a fellow Boston Terrier of stalwart heart and sweet disposition who has yet to decide how he feels about his new baby brother.

Time will tell just how patient Max truly is.

Bantu Rising

Dark clouds descend on America the beautiful, the poisonous droppings of  demons loosed from hell. Across this once great land of ours evil lurches about, its fearful violence and indiscriminate hate attacking innocent and guilty alike.
From Boston to Peoria, and Baltimore to Chicago, from Mobile to Philadelphia and Brooklyn to LA, the animals maraud.
We have lost our spiritual courage and our moral outrage along with it. We refuse to face evil and destroy it in its tracks. We have abandoned  hope and entered the antechamber of hell. The beast awaits us, drooling in anticipation of the feast to come.
A mother who no doubt murdered her child goes free and a ninety-five year old great grandmother who is dying of leukemia and in a wheelchair is forced to remove her adult diaper so the TSA agents at the airport can be sure she is not hiding a bomb.
And the Bantu run wild in the street.
Now the police state, the gestapo in red, white and blue shirts, will crack down on...not the Bantu, no, the police will begin restricting access to public places by the law abiding public. Want to go to the park? Expect a screening process similar to the ones in place at the airports. Want to enjoy the beach? Step this way in your bikini or speedo and be frisked for explosive devices.
Want to leave your home? Step through the radioactive body screener, only to ensure you haven't taken any bombs out with you.
The home of the brave, and the land of the free is now a fairy tale myth that will slowly disappear from memory as books fade into oblivion and everyone of us in wired into the omnipotent State which will track us 24/7.
All of this done in the name of security...or national defense...or 'we know what's best for you'.
And Lady Liberty cries herself to death.
*
I was at the local movie house trying to enjoy the show. A couple of female teen aged Bantu came screaming into the theater as the movie began. Of course, they sat in front of me. They proceeded to spend several minutes texting one another or whoever, mini phones alight as they giggled and slurped down fried chicken. Finger licking good. One's phone slipped out of her greasy fingers and landed beneath the seat. The two Bantu giggled some more and then got up and ran screaming out of the theater.
Shortly before the end of the movie, our erstwhile duo re-entered screaming and sat back down in front of me.
I considered my options. Ignore them. Scold them. Have them screaming I attacked them. Have them attack me. Attack them. My blood boiled and as I closed in on an irrevocable action, the two darlings ( they must be some body's darlings) got back up and ran screaming out of the theater and did not return.
On exiting, I spied the wild things. They were trying to sneak into one of the other movies at that multiplex. They couldn't get in. I heard one of them say she would call her mother and have her pick them up. No doubt they had been dropped off earlier in the day and had spent several hours zipping in and out of the various auditoriums at the complex, screaming their way in and out of different movies, interested only in disturbing the peace and provoking outrage.
And I am sure the mother picked up the little darlings and complimented them on being so good and mature that they could function on their own without the need for adult supervision.

We have reached the stage where such aberrant behavior is becoming the norm and those who resist joining the tribe will eventually -sooner than later- be devoured, if not by the Bantu, by the omnipotent, all controlling State. And we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

As the French philosopher Camus ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus ) said, We are all responsible.
*

Choose only one:

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Down through history, there have been countless acts of quiet courage - acts requiring a most difficult moral choice and the willful avoidance of taking the easy way out- of which we can hope to learn only in the next life. Our ignorance does not diminish their significance or the admiration we owe those who performed the acts. Sometimes, years after the fact, we gain a glimpse of such selfless deeds.

During the second world war, the Allied leaders demanded unconditional surrender. This policy resulted in many thousands of needless deaths on both sides. Many of their own military leaders and advisers counselled against such a policy, but the civilian leaders weren't the ones bleeding. They knew only vindictive hatred of the enemy.

This is especially regrettable as there was from 1942 on, a secret movement among many of Germany's military commanders to seek surrender and eliminate Hitler if the allies' demands were less than 'unconditional'. 

Both Roosevelt and Churchill refused to even acknowledge such  an underground movement existed and refused to allow American and British intelligence to contact or acknowledge such a movement.

Over 7000 German men and women involved with this effort were butchered by the Gestapo between 1942-1945, usually hung by piano wire and left to die a slow, painful death or shot summarily without an opportunity to bid farewell to loved ones.

One, Claus von Stauffenberg ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claus_von_Stauffenberg )  is known to many thanks to his portrayal by Tom Cruise in the movie Valkyrie. 

His motivation can be summed up in the last recorded words of a fellow conspirator who eluded the hangman's noose with a bullet to the brain.

"A man's moral worth is established only at the point where he is prepared to give his life for his convictions."  General Henning von Tresckow

I was reminded of such quiet acts of courage the other night while watching a great "B" movie and classic film noire, Where the Sidewalk Ends http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_the_Sidewalk_Ends
The protagonist , played by Dana Andrews, is faced with a difficult moral choice at the end of the movie. While not deadly in its implications, the situation presents a choice between, on the one hand, being acknowledged  a hero and winning the girl , and on the other, admitting to accidentally killing someone and going to prison and possibly losing the girl.

Today, his choice would be a simple one for our corrupt society to make, and his final action would generate guffaws from the ignorant among us.

Yet there was a time when such quiet acts of courage were not laughed at except by the evil ones, but applauded by everyday, morally aware people. I'd like to think there are enough such morally upright people left in our country. Perhaps the next election cycle will reveal whether we - us once great Americans - still have the stuff of greatness about us, the willingness to perform quiet acts of courage and choose the morally correct way, regardless of what sacrifice it entails.

We are where the sidewalk ends and beyond the curb yawns the great abyss, where lie all the collapsed great civilizations of the past moldering in moral decay.

Do we have the will...the energy...the moral courage to make that great leap of faith and avoid the abyss?

Going to Hell in a Handcart

I have always enjoyed viewing The Garden of Earthly Delights, a painting by the 15th century artist Hieronymous Bosch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch.  The good Bosch was actually Dutch and an astute student of human nature and all the depravity contained therein. He was able to portray the results of Original sin along with that sin's offspring, the Seven Deadly sins. The human comedy rolls along on its way to perdition  while we eat, drink and make merry, when we aren't awestruck and stupefied with mouths agape over the latest escapade of some moronic bimbo or a politician caught texting lewd photos of himself to underage women or a very disturbed mother on trial for killing her child...and all the while our culture crumbles in immoral decay and our country drowns in selfish debt and our soldiers die so that Muslim terrorists may someday control foreign lands awash with tent dwellers and black gold.
It would all be terribly funny if it wasn't so just plain terrible.

On top of everything else, we are driven to the abyss by forces mostly unknown to most people. Instead of reporting on all the inanities of the world around us, the entertainments we crave to keep us mentally dulled and oblivious of  the truth, the so called investigative media should focus on the evil that lurches about the globe and its effort to control mankind and in so doing send us into the abyss. Our 'leaders' are anything but. We should be focused on their leaders.
How many of you out there in fantasy land have heard of the Bilderberger group? http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-mainmenu-26/europe-mainmenu-35/7841-awareness-of-bilderberg-cabal-explodes-in-2011 Check it out.
I am afraid we are all too busy exploring the various facets of Original sin's progeny to have time to recognize, much less fight off, the forces of evil that assail us.

Things We Take For Granted

I was sitting outside enjoying the 105 degree heat index, wiping sweat off the back of my neck  and  humming the Lovin' Spoonful's old ditty Summer in the City, you know, Hot time, summer in the city, back of my neck gettin' dirty and gritty...

I had enough and went back inside where my A/C labored to maintain a frigid 70. So much for toughing it. Not like the good old days.

Growing up in the Bronx of the '50s without air conditioning was no big deal. What you never had, you don't miss. Open the windows for a rare breeze ( and some not so rare water bugs ) or turn on a fan if you had one. Wake up in sweat soaked pajamas and take a shower. No big deal. I was nearly thirty before I had a home with air conditioning and ever since would go into a vegetative state if it broke down when needed.  The same with the car. Had one for nearly fourteen years before getting one with A/C. Until then it was roll the windows down and make believe the breeze wasn't steaming. No big deal. Then the car has A/C and if it goes up during the dog days of August I'd run off the road with heat prostration.

The things we never noticed proves ignorance is bliss.

As far as the things we take for granted until they are gone...

The way things are going in our country and the world around us, we will soon be missing the things we take for granted on a much more serious level. Such as liberty.

What with airport invasive security (and government suggestions that such invasive searches be required at train and bus stations) and phone chips that track people and 'security' cameras all over and the government's plans to require all new cars to have a black box to track your gas use and locations and government entities now telling people what they can and cannot eat... well, before you know it we will be implanted with brain chips to control our behavior and probably blow our heads off when we do something big brother doesn't like.

We have been blessed in this country to have something the majority of the human race never had, personal liberty. We have taken it for granted at out own peril. The Bantus in Swaziland and the peasants in Hunan province and the tent dwellers in the Middle East wouldn't know what I'm talking about and don't miss what they never had, but we will.

And perhaps sooner rather than later.