St. Claude - Heart Matters: Sacred and Otherwise

Today is the Feast of Claude La Colombière, S.J. (1641-1682)


Claude packed some serious heart. In his forty one years, the scholarly Frenchman took Orders with the Jesuits, earned a reputation as one of the great preachers of the Post Reformation Catholic Church, acted as confessor to both St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and the Duchess of York during the 'Papist Plot' of Titus Oakes, and was imprisoned by the Parliament which led to his early death following banishment from England.

Claude La Colombière, S.J. is remarkable because he listened. I am gabby. That gets in the way of competent hearing too often. My Old Man used to admonish, "Jesus Christ, give your ears a chance! That mouth of your's moves like a duck's ass,"

St. Claude listened. Margaret Mary Alacoque was canonized a saint of the Catholic Church in 1920. She was from a well-off French family. As a young girl, she was stricken with an illness and vowed to devote her life to Christ, as we all do when faced with calamities. Her health improved and her Mom encouraged her to 'get out in the world' and meet some boys. She did. Returning from a dance, Margaret Mary was blessed with a vision of the Sacred Heart of Christ. The heart represents so many things - the physical power plant of our lives, love and courage.

Having a vision can mean a couple of things - you are gifted with an ability to make sense of the world as it is now and project the process to make things even better, or, you are nuts.

Margaret Mary confessed to Claude and he listened. By really listening, Claude heard the beat of the Sacred Heart through the words of Margaret Mary. The Devotions to the Sacred Heart are paths to better living. Some of them are severe. Margaret Mary would awaken at the 11 P.M. and line prostrate with her face to the ground offering prayers for intercession by the Sacred Heart of Jesus until Midnight. The devotions to the Sacred Heart continued from the 17th Century and rooted here in Chicago. The French lumbermen of Lake Township -down here on the south side along Vincennes Ave. built Sacred Heart Church at 116th & Church. One of the stained glass windows placed on the south wall in 1904 holds a promise from Christ to Margaret Mary ' I Shall Make Tepid Hearts Fervent.'

That promise continues because Claude, a gifted preacher and scholar, closed his mouth, and listened. Hearing - genuine listening opens the heart.

Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and Golf Cad Tiger Woods

Taking a break from the toils at Federal Reserve, Chairman Ben Bernanke shot a game of pocket pool while Golfer Tiger Woods watched from the gallery.

Yes, Dammit, I Take Full Credit for the Recent Events in Cairo and Egypt!

Finally, after inumerable repeated calls and pleas to do so, I take full credit for the democratic out-pouring of freedom in Egypt. That's right! I did it right here from Rockwell, while Anderson Cooper was cowering in a Cairo La Quinta. Not to take away anything from the brave and freedom thirsty throngs in Tahrir Square and clear through the Delta, but I must take full credit. No sense doing this half-assed.

It was nothing really, no more than the mere suggestion to a few well placed fans of . . .With Both Hands - Go ahead Gypos! Take it to the streets - what's the worst that can happen?


Now, if this thing on the Nile goes south badly, try and pin it on me. Go ahead.

President Obama, Julian Assange, GW Bush and the dancers of the new production of that musical rendition of the Damon Runyon reworking of Shaw's Major Barbara - GAYS and Dolls with a new libretto and score by Lord Elton John and Lady Gaga have already claimed credit.

Sharia Law West of the Pecos!

Imam Roy W. Bean: Mr. Harden, it's my duty to inform you that the larceny of an equine is a capital offense punishableby death, but you can rest assured that in this court a horse thief always gets a fair trial before he's hung.


Muslim Scholars have ruled that killing 'innocent Jews and Christians' is Sharia complicit. "That's my Rulin'!"

Abu Walid Al-Maqdisi, leader of the Jama’at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad organization, was asked about Islam’s position on killing innocent civilians during “martyrdom operations” such as the 9/11 attacks. He replied with a fatwa stating that although Islam prohibits the killing of innocents, Jews and Christians may be attacked because they are “aggressive combatants.”

Even if some of the Jews and Christians in these countries may actually be innocent, Muslim scholars “have ruled that, in the case of a surprise attack, it is permissible to kill all of them” including innocent bystanders, he declared.

Our Celebration of Diversity is a Rainbow! Ain't it just?

Happy St. Valentine's Day - Nothing Says I Love You, Like Hearing I Am Sorry, Again!

I fought the Flu Bug this weekend and am now off the canvas. Wobbly, bruised, dizzier than a gnat in an air-shaft, but back on my pins; rather, my broad manly rump is in this seat and my stubby digits are pounding the keyboard.

Happy St. Valentine Day! Love means saying you're sorry -over and over again. In the spirit of reconciliation that signals true love, allow me to offer this revisit to the theme.

If Love means 'Never Having to Say You're Sorry,' then the Irish are screwed, blued and tattooed.

Jesus, I am Sorry about 86 times a day and before 8AM.

I have a pluperfect penchant for missteps, malfunctions, maledictions, and malpractice; but, I run empty on malice.

My misdeeds tend to be sins of omission - Omit thought, planning or the feelings of another. I am Sorry. To paraphrase Boxing Great Billy Conn upon losing to Joe Louis after dominating the Champ the whole fight only to be knocked out for not being cautious, 'What's the Point of Being Irish If You Can't Be Sorry ( Stupid)?'

Celto-centrist I am not. However, there was an interesting story about the recent findings in Dublin, Ireland. ( click my post title)

It appears that St. Valentine, who received no goods or services in exchange for the flowers, sweets and posted Love notes worldwide to morrow, was buried in Dublin ( re-interred more correctly) in the last century. This from Irish News and Events correspondent Dermot O'Gara

Was St Valentine a true blue Dub?
by Dermot O'Gara



JUST about everybody knows that St Valentine is the patron saint of lovers. You may have known that he was a priest in Rome in the third century, and if you're really on top of your game, you may even have been aware that he died in jail, but you probably didn't know that his final resting place is Dublin.


In fact the good priests of the Carmelite Order have been looking after his remains in their priory in Whitefriar St, just off Aungier St in Dublin, for over 160 years.

We have a good deal of information about St Valentine, but separating the fact from the legend is a bit like trying to separate a teenage couple at a school disco.

Fertility festival
It seems he was martyred in 269, supposedly for marrying couples against the wishes of Emperor Claudius II who felt that single men made better soldiers. Legend would have it that he died for his faith on February 14th of that year, and that this is why we celebrate him on that day. However, it's likely that the fact that we celebrate St Valentine at this time of year is more to do with the ancient Roman spring fertility festival of Lupercalia, which like many other pagan holidays was christianised when in 498 Pope Gelasius decreed that February 14th would be St Valentine's Day.

But how did a Roman Martyr, who had never even set foot in what was later to become an island of saints and scholars, end up in a Dublin church.

In the 1820' and 30's, a Carmelite priest by the name of John Spratt had earned a reputation for his work with the destitute citizens of Dublin's Liberties. A man of apparently boundless energy, Spratt started the building process of the Carmelite church in nearby Whitefriar St in 1825.

Exhumed
Ten years later, he was invited to speak at the Jesuit Church in Rome, the Gesu. The elite of Rome came to hear him, including representatives of Pope Gregory XVI. As a token of recognition of the work of Spratt, the Pope ordered the exhumation of the remains of St Valentine from St Hippolytus cemetery near Rome to be shipped to Whitefriar St Church, in Dublin.

In November 1836, the remains were received with great pomp and ceremony, but with the death of Spratt some years later, the remains ceased to be of major public interest.

Some 40 years ago however, they were restored to the public eye having gathered dust for decades in the nether regions of the priory, and are now featured in a purpose-built shrine in the church itself.

This year on February 14th, at 11am and 3.15pm, as has become customary, there will be a special celebration of St Valentine in the place where he now rests, Whitefriar St Church. Carmelite priest, Fr Tony McKenny will celebrate mass and conduct a ring blessing ceremony for engaged and married couples.


People I Love often hear I am sorry.

Chicago - The Most Catholic of Cities and Our Planned Parenthood Candidates

Here's a head-scratcher. Chicago is the most Catholic of American cities, but has absolutely no problem voting for politicians owned by Planned Parenthood. How's that?

Chicago is a City of Peasants, writes America's Montaigne, Northwestern University professor, essayist and short story writer Joseph Epstein in the most recent edition of the Weekly Standard about Rahm Emanuel.

Chicago is a city of peasants, or, more precisely, people of peasant background: Poles, Italians, Irish, Greeks, blacks. Peasants, I think it fair to say, don’t get Jews. And the Rahmbomb is an anti-Semite’s dream. He is wealthy, aggressive, he even took ballet lessons, for God’s sake; all the anti-Semitic stereotypes are in place, except for his not being highly cerebral.

I do not think that Rahm will have any trouble getting elected, but he will go a long way in encouraging more anti-Semites to Jew bait. Catholics who will beef about Rahm's ethnicity already vote for professed Catholics who bow and vow fealty to Planned Parenthood - the same mind-set that made lamp-shades of Jews from 1933-1945 and parse solidarity with Hamas today. Machs nicht.

Mr. Epstein is dead on point and his demographic should also include Mexicans, but his grouping had more to do with historical political clout, I believe. With the exception of blacks and Greeks, we are Catholic peasants -rooted in the soil and the Faith of our Fathers. Chicago is a most Catholic City -demographically 30% of the population of Illinois is Roman Catholic and Cook County is ground zero for Catholics.

Chicago Catholics tend to be Roman Catholic Democrats - a breed that has made peace with Planned Parenthood, God Help Us.

Planned Parenthood is a eugenics PAC that has succeeded in making Americans numb to the Cosmtic Holocaust. Unborn children have been accepted to be no more than 'tissue' and the murder of those children is 'choice.'

I have never been a Pro Life guy, but I have always been very anti-abortion. In 1984, a week after my daughter Nora was born, I got into a debate with a Pro Life activist at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee. He was invited to speak, not to a a religion class, but whole school at an assembly. The person who invited this wildly strident gent ( he is a real John Brown kind of guy) wanted to promote her book, that was written by students in her class. It was great marketing idea, but lousy educational professionalism. I said so, many times; but, the talk was set. The talk was wildly inappropriate and offensive. I said so in the assembly. The guy took wild offense with me - perhaps he was right -for questioning not his motives but his methods. I thought that was the end of things.

My wife and I received death threats and phone calls for months. Me and my big mouth.

It died down by February and I still had a job teaching English. The book writer left at the end of the year and made a ton of money - her students got not dime one. That was my experience with Pro Life.

I hate abortion.

Several years later, my heroic wife Mary fired her female obstetrician who suggested that she abort our son, because she was certain he would be born either with Downs Syndrome or spina bifida. Mary cut this elegant and trendy broad to ribbons -verbally, of course - and sent her packing. "So the Hell What? This is my Child, you bitch!" That is the clean version.

Abortion has become the cosmetic make-over for inconvenience and Americans have no patience for inconvenience. We of peasant stock understand and celebrate the inconvenience of children -healthy, sick, nice, mean, handsome and homely, they are all beautiful!

That said, I detest Planned Parenthood. They are a political PAC. One third of its funding was made available by politicians like Sen. Dick Durbin through federal funding and, more shame on me, channeled and directed here in Illinois by Gov. Pat Quinn, for whom I supported, worked and voted.

Both politicians are Irish Catholic Democrats who accept Planned Parenthood's blood money. Polish Catholic Congressman Dan Lipinski refuses it - God Bless Him!

Now, every Democratic candidate for mayor is supported by Planned Parenthood -Chico, Braun, DeValle, Emanuel, Walls. Chico was born Catholic, but I believe he converted to Judaism - making only DeValle the Catholic in the crowd. Miguel De Valle is the IVI-IPO Progressive Blue Chip Candidate and therefore Planned Parenthood approved.

Given the recent light shed on the horrors that are Planned Parenthood ( New York, Philly Kermit Gosnell's Slaughter of living babies and videos), is it not time for Catholic Chicago to ask some questions of the next mayor - whoever that may be?





Planned Parenthood takes in One Third of its funding to kill children from Federal Tax Dollars. Politicians need money to get and stay elected - I get it.'

I get this too - from to today's Gospel.

Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,
or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.
Let what you say be simply `Yes' or `No'; anything more than this comes from evil.

Democratic politicians will hear the same Gospel and nod with conviction and think it has nothing to do with 'choice,' or their 'personal opposition to abortion' - much in the same way that I'll agree to somehow justify my vote for them - God help us.

It is long past time for Catholics, Jews, Protestants, and secular humanists to give Planned Parenthood the long goodbye.

Confession App - Our Digital Dystopia Goes Nuttier

Last night, my lady love and I enjoyed a few hours of quiet, polite, lively and, for me anyway, enchanting communication using words and body language across the table from one another in Bacchanalia Italian Restaurant* in the Heart of Italy neighborhood. This restaurant is a charming time machine that transports diners to a much better time of human interaction and dignity ( BTW -the tucker and the mutuels are outstanding).

Over a brimming platter of antipasti, Chicken Vesuvio for the Elegant Lady and Porterhouse Vesuvio for this trencherman swain, and ala 'Ferme Auberge' salad -after the main course, we spoke to one another. We talked about the work week, Egypt, Wu and Al Swearingen on Deadwood, the incivility of our electronic world - texting teens and adults, robot customer service, endless cellphone usage. Cable television and the internet have buried the morning newspaper readings that once brought fathers and sons together in the race for the box-scores and mothers reading the funnies to toddlers; yet, we lament the breakdown of the American Family.

Early this morning, I was treated to a wonderful article- yes, via the internet - by Philadelphia journalist Christine Flowers on one of the goofiest additions to our Electronic Communications Crap-pile - The Confession APP. Christine Flowers offers a human and delightful introduction to a child's First Confession and the Sacrament of Penance - click my post title for that serene passage.

Here is the caveat against our growing Techno-Dystopia:

. . .I was so deeply offended to hear that someone had created a "Confession" app for the iPad. Patrick Leinen created Confession: A Roman Catholic App to, as he put it, "invite Catholics to engage in their faith through digital technology."

And my response is: Are you kidding me?

Generations of Catholic kids were forced to go to catechism and CCD classes to grasp the solemnity of the sacraments and appreciate their role in our lives.

Sure, a lot of those mini-Catholics have since left the church because it became too onerous for them to practice their faith with honor and respect, but there are enough of us left who think that reducing the relationship between a penitent and his confessor to a button on some handheld gadget is ridiculous, wrong and a slap in the face. (I wonder what would happen if someone came up with a bar mitzvah app, by which you could do interactive Torah readings and register for presents at the exact same time.)

Or maybe we could be treated to Mecca.com, which, with a click of a button, you could convert to Islam (it would of course have to have separate Sunni and Shia versions of the program since you don't want to have to then click on HolyWar.com).

Not pretty when someone starts playing around with your faith, is it?

Fortunately, the Vatican has come out forcefully against this travesty. As a spokesman in Rome noted, "It is essential to understand that the rites of penance require a personal dialogue between penitents and their confessor. . . It cannot be replaced by a computer application."

Of course it can't. I mean, just imagine if your computer malfunctioned and you downloaded the wrong penance? Eight hundred thousand Our Fathers would be cruel and unusual.

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer. E-mail

cflowers1961@yahoo.com. She blogs at philly.com/philly/blogs/flowersshow.

Lucifer's Laugh Bag!

I can not imagine how, in the name of Sts. Cyril and Methodius,it would be possible to Confess to an I-Pad the fact that my mere presence, let alone utterance of a syllable, often has an emetic effect on people I love due to my follies and inclinations.

Only the direct communication with one of Christ's ordained priests can I manage to articulate the thoughts, words and deeds that offended others and Christ.

Oh, Yeah! I simply download the APP -You can get the application here: https://market.android.com/details?id=appinventor.ai_jamorrow.PenanceProject

"OMG I am Heartily sorry . . ." - I detest all my sins & etc.



Hickey's Sin Menu:

Sexual Thoughts = 24 X 365@ 1 per nano second?

Lies = Has anyone seen my Honorary Degrees from Yale, Harvard and Bob's Theological Seminary; I returned your call of 2/11/2011 @ 9:45AM; Let me be perfectly honest . . . & etc.

Anger: See Sexual Thoughts and multiply by a factor of 5

Pride: I have Irish Alzeimer's

Envy: Well my eyes still work!

Sloth: We get graded on Neatness?

Gluttony: Porterhouse Vesuvio!

Let's put away the toys and devices and get back to human contact . . .just a minute . . .let me get this call.














*Bacchanalia Italian Restaurant
2413 South Oakley Avenue
Chicago, IL 60608
(773) 254-6555

Rahmses Uno- Pharaoh Dealer of Old Chicago!

Now that Hose Knee has taken it on the Arthur Duffy - exite stage left -from his toils in the shadow of the pyramids; let's imagine a film ( yeah, I know, Movie) about the advent of Emanuel -not found in the reeds - but in New Trier - who danced his way into the power and the glory that is Chicago. Imagine all of the genius and money available to preserve that thought in an epic film to rival Avatar and The Hangover. Well, imagine no more Lucille!

I spoke with Chicago Independent film-maker Fay Accompli who is doing a bio-pic/documentary on the all but media-assured election of Rahm Emanuel. Fay Accompli has scads, literally scads, of money.

Fitting this coupling of real Chicago pipe is earnest and Progressive Cecil B. Demille-in-Drag, Fay Accompli's treatment will be wrapped in old timey splendor and CinemaScope and Technicolor with a cast of millions and funded by a grant from the Pritzker Foundation, Arianna Huffington Industries and the Chubb Group. Chicago icon Sugar Rautbord, author of the best smelling novel The Fifth Floor which she is promoting everywhere, is on the project.

Ms. Fay Accompli gushed, " The Chicago Tribune says it all, 'No other candidate combines Emanuel's candor about the threats facing Chicago with the will to take necessary steps -- some of them unpopular -- to tame those threats,' and no one threatens threats like a Pharaoh. Look at Mubarak! Rahm will threaten threats with threatening threats. I see Rahm as Pharaoh - like Yul Brynner. I wish I get him to do the picture, but I'll use Jeremy Piven. He's so Chicago. or John What's is Name? The one whose sister does the phone ads , you know." I do not.
Ms. Accompli fleshed out a scene that I will offer to you, Dear Reader

The scene is Pharaoh's palace on the 5th Floor surrounded by eunuchs from the Chicago Media and horny dowagers who all look like Sugar Rautbord

Rahmses I -
Jeremy Piven, or that John What's His Name as Rahm Emanuel

Ald. Ed Burke -
erst-while Moses the Law Giver played by Richard Deacom

Monied Dowager Sugar Rautbord -
played by none other than author, socialite, wit, shrinking violet Sugar.

Media Eunuch Bruce Dold - Bruce Dold will be played by Chi-panda whose bamboo stuffings are only match by the papier mache substance of Chicago Tribune's Editorial Board.

Rahmses Deuce -
played by scenery chewing Rep. Mike Quigley - short of nothing, but all of that virtue stuff.

Here with just two weeks before the polls close like a maiden's knees at the approach of a bounder, Fay Accompli's Ramses I - the screenplay.

Rahmses I - The Commandments: And You Thought Ten Was a Lot!

Scene: Fifth Floor of City Hall

Rahmses[to Sugar Rautbord] You will be my wife. You will come to me whenever I call you, and I will enjoy that very much. Whether you enjoy it or not is entirely your own affair... But I think you will.

[To Bruce Dold] You will be mine, like my dog, or my horse, or my falcon, except that I shall love you more - and trust you less.

[banishing Ed Burke to the desert] Here is your king's scepter, and here is your kingdom, with the scorpion, the cobra, and the lizard for subjects. Free them if you will. Leave the Hebrews to me.

[ to Mike Quigley] My son, I shall build your tomb upon their crushed bodies.
[to Ed Burke again]Come to me no more, Ed Burke, for the day you see my face again you will surely die! So let it be written, so let it be done...authenticate here, here and here - Move! For @#$%^'s sake! Get it #$%^ing Notarized and #$%^&ing take it to Dave Orr!

The score by Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra - if he's up to it.
My Preview Review: It'll be the Cat's Nuts!

Nun gives papers to DePaul - More Air than the Blue Demons Shoot

Death-Row Demon Nun, Sister Susan Sean Sarandon-Penn tosses her papers to the winless Blue Demons. When DePaul stopped being Catholic, the late Ray Meyer pulled his intercessions - it seems.

" . . .Demons’ losing streak in Big East play to 23 regular-season games." By Toni Ginnetti Staff Reporter/tginnetti@suntimes.com Feb 9, 2011 05:09AM



Enjoy the read Blue Demons.

Actor Michael Moriarty on Literature, Existentialism and The Fragile Minds of American Youth

The mind of a young person is God's marvel. The more the young mind encounters the more it absorbs; however, what that supple organ makes use of what it takes in can be dangerous. Parents, priests and pedagogues are best agents to direct the and chennel the course of experiences and epiphanies taken in by young people. There are very bad ideas - drinking mercury, diving off of a water tower, or basing one's actions upon seductive principles founded on misery.

The Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard built a theology on dread as the basis for making decisions. Abraham agonizing over his pact to sacrifice Issac as the blood bond of God's covenant was the spark of existentialism - a negative philosophy that morphed Kierkegaard's sermons into a Romantic precis of Satan's wildly idiotic battle with God. Knowing full well God's omnipotence, Old Scratch never-the-less gave it the old Ivy League try - again, and again. Byron's Childe Harold in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, lines 1031-1102 whines:

I have not loved the World, nor the World me;
I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed
To its idolatries a patient knee,
Nor coined my cheek to smiles,-nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo; in the crowd
They could not deem me one of such-I stood
Among them, but not of them- in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

What teenage girl girl could not go weak in the knees ( Vampire, Matrix-caparisoned dark eyed, pale and pasty dreamy non Jock) over the sentiments of this brooding youth? J,D. Salinger's Holden Caufield - the quintessential American Teenage Male - narrates his negative world view and spits ironic scorn at the phonies of the ordered world. Young minds are attracted to the dark - death - dread and the Gothic.

The greatest generation and their Korean and Vietnam heirs had their bellies full of death and dread and created a lifestyle and standard of living that was the antithesis - a life affirming ethic and commitment to service - for their children. The American brooding generations had the luxury to hurl defiance at order and life itself with parsing nods to dim authorities found in books and spouting semiotic nonsense from the plush podiums of the Academy - whatever the hell that is.

Chicago-rooted actor, composer,essayist and anti-abortion activist Michael Moriarty wrote a sound study of the dangers of toxic doctrines ingested by young minds without the rigorous oversight of parents, priests and capable pedagogues - that's teachers. Mass murderer Jared Lochner seems to be a case study of toxic thought unchecked . . .and most likely unsupervised.

American Existentialism: Jared Loughner

By Michael Moriarty
web posted February 7, 2011

While Jared Loughner's list of favorite writings run from Hitler's Mein Kampf and Marx's Communist Manifesto to George Orwell, Hermann Hesse and Ernest Hemingway, a mysteriously missing set of fashionably well-respected names are the French Existentialists, such as Abert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre.

By the time I had finished that relentlessly compelling tale of gratuitous murder and vague redemption (Albert Camus' The Stranger which ends with the words, "all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration,") my sense of the world had been shattered into a thousand pieces.

The essentials of this quote are from Stranger In A Strange Land – The Enduring American Appeal Of Existentialism, Nick Gillespie's still startling review of George Cotkin's Existential America.

With the endearing confession I can share with Mr. Gillespie about existentialism – "I still never quite understood it" – I suddenly began to comprehend a few things I had not even dreamt of during Freshman year at Dartmouth and the existential labyrinths of Philosophy 101. The course was taught devoid of the endless examples of senseless murder available even then. Somehow the anti-hero of Albert Camus' The Stranger was held to be examined in an a-historical vacuum. The ghosts of Jack The Ripper and Lizzie Borden were just begging to attend class; but the Professor would not even utter their names.

After this past week, however, and the nightmares rolling out of Tucson, Arizona, with the massacre there, the insane slaughter handed out to all of America by one Jared Loughner?

Cotkin's most original insight is something that escaped Camus and the others: "Existentialism, American style ... jibes well with American antinomianism, that willingness of the lonely individual to rebel against entrenched authority in the name of his or her most intense beliefs. Antinomianism, like existentialism, challenges easy certitude, entrenched religion, and moribund political assumptions."

Scary?

Quite possibly.

This is Jared Loughner, as attorney pro-se, defending himself in court.

The crime in Albert Camus' The Stranger is merely a small example of the massacre in Tucson which America may never recover from. Yet the obscenely joyous anticipation within the murderer that "a huge crowd of spectators … should greet me with howls of execration"?

This, for an existentialist apparently, is not insanity.

This is classic anti-heroism.

"L'enfer est les autres!"

"Hell is other people", as a profoundly existential character proclaims in Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit. The brilliant critic, Walter Kaufmann, encapsulated existentialism as defined by the 4 D's: "death, despair, dread and dauntlessness". According to the likes of Jean Paul Sartre, Jared Loughner is the quintessentially existential anti-hero.

To a French existentialist, Jared Loughner is not insane.

He is "dauntlessly" addressing "death, despair and dread" with a defining existential act, multiple versions of that apparently liberating but cold-blooded killing in Albert Camus' The Stranger.

Is existentialism a true philosophy?

Or is it merely a rationalization for the "enlightened despots" of France, from 18th century Robespierre to the 20th century's Jean Paul Sartre, to either commit mass murder or openly relish the shameless homicides of Jared Loughner, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, et al?

I believe Existentialism is the 20th century effort of French intellectuals to rationalize their horridly bloody, 18th century revolution. Existentialism was, and still is for many Frenchmen and women, the effort of intellectual supremacistsin Paristo defend what is the heart of the French Revolution and the rationale for the French Guillotine: it was the Existentially justifiable thing to do at the time.

Death, despair, dread and dauntlessness!

This is the moment in which I must remind my readers of the true enemy of the French Revolution. The ultimate and permanent enemy of the French Revolution was not the aristocracy nor even the bourgeoisie.

It was and still is the Catholic Church.

In addition and more to the point of this article, the number one enemy of the Progressive Revolution or the Obama Nation's "Fundamental transformation of the United States" is not the Tea Party but the Catholic Church. Rome's unflinching and unwavering condemnation of abortion strikes at the very cornerstone of Progressive philosophy, strategy and visions of the future. While the very black attire of Catholic priests similarly signify the very existential themes of dread, death and despair, the antidote, however, is not a mindless or homicidal dauntlessness.

It is Life!

Life, life and more life!

Life that is even more dauntless, forceful and abandoned than the mad eyes of Jared Loughner.

Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com.

The American classroom could use Michael Moriarty.

Why You Will Not See Me On Craigslist -A Cautionary Tale

To: [redacted]@yahoo.com
From: Pat Hickey
Date: Friday, January 14, 2007, 2:41 PM
Subject: Will Someone Prove To Me Not All CL Men Look Like Toads - 34 (DMV)

Hi,

Hope I'm not a toad. :) i'm a very fat fun classy guy. Live in Morgan Park area. 5ft 190lbs Yellow/brown. 55. .. Hobbyist. I promise not to disappoint.

A Republican Congressman is in the Jack Pot, over a photo and what appears to be a shameless plagiarism of an ad that family and friends discouraged me from sending into Craigslist some years ago - I was lonely.

To: [redacted]@yahoo.com
From: Christopher Lee
Date: Friday, January 14, 2011, 2:41 PM
Subject: Will Someone Prove To Me Not All CL Men Look Like Toads - 34 (DMV)

Hi,

Hope I'm not a toad. :) i'm a very fit fun classy guy. Live in Cap Hill area. 6ft 190lbs blond/blue. 39.. Lobbyist. I promise not to disappoint.

Meet women at wholesome church sponsored events, the Museum of Oriental Art, or at showings of Post-Impressionists artists at the Chicago Art Institute. The librarian at your neighborhood branch, just might check out more than your request for Das Buch vom mönchischen Leben , Rainer Maria Rilke - Cologne edition of 1899 -natürlich. Nothing sexier than a willowy blond in a tight skirt sporting a black turtle neck sweater with an elegant single pearl necklace - lavendar eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. Gotta go!

Good Night Sweet Prince - Charles, Philip, Arthur, George

“Mummy was ever so kind – where was I . . .Balderdash – I’m as pissed as a fart, yet my command of the Queen’s grows exponentially. That notwithstanding, however, Biffois almost certainly no liar – I merely had proper use of the language bludgeoned into me from a very, very young age.

On that note, to bed. Said hard graft requires a man at the helm bright and early in the morrow!”

Boys, the Prince! Prince, the Boys!



Charles Philip Arthur George, KG KT GCB OM AK QSO CD SOM GCL PC AdC(P) FRS by Grace of God Prince of Wales once and future King of the United Kingdom He'll be here all week, Folks! If you do not get BBC on Cable, wait for it!

Click my post title for more chilling insights ( Global Warming no less - I wonder who told him?) from the Prince of Wales. Testors, or was he left in the marinade far too long?

H/t Weazel Zippers.com

The Genius Ben Stein Rolls The Fatuous Mayor Bloomberg's Salt-Free Abortions

Ben Stein is a gentleman to the backbone. Mayor Bloomberg is a parsing dweeb with billions of dollars. One is a mensch and a half and the mayor a nebish squared. . . or as Skinny Sheahan might say, "Ben's a Pair and Mike's Lacking Both."

I read this brilliant piece by Ben Stein in the The American Standard - published and edited by Fenwick Friar Bob Tyrrell.

I am endlessly amazed at how backwards we humans get things in our lives. Just let me give you two very basic examples, one of which is a crime against humanity.

I keep reading in the New York Times that Mayor Bloomberg, a billionaire health nut, is on a campaign against having too much salt in foods in New York City restaurants. His belief is that New Yorkers and visitors shorten their life spans by eating too much salt and therefore raising their blood pressure in a dangerous way. If he took control over the salt content in New York restaurants, he could save a few dozen lives per year, he believes.

But, wait a moment. I also read in the New York Times that New York City is one of the abortion capitals of the nation, with a much higher rate of abortion than most other parts of the nation. And Mayor Bloomberg is a great fan of "…a woman's right to choose…" to abort her baby.

As I calculate it in a rough way, New York City has about 8 million persons living there, or about (very roughly) 3 per cent of the nation's population. And New York has a much higher abortion rate than the rest of the nation. So it is possible that New Yorkers have about 50,000 abortions per year, or maybe a lot more.

That is 50,000 killings of totally innocent children every year. Does Mayor Bloomberg think that his anti-salt campaign means much compared with that number? If he wants to save lives, why doesn't he throw his tiny weight and his huge purse behind right to life? That's a truly life-saving act.

This whole subject endlessly fascinates and horrifies me. We campaign against obesity -- and we should -- because it shortens life. But nothing else makes life as short as abortion. We campaign for more exercise -- and I heartily agree -- because it lengthens life. But, again, no amount of exercise would offset the over 1,000,000 excess American deaths each year caused by abortion of the totally innocent. We want safer cars. We want cleaner air. We want cleaner water. All to save life. But there is nothing we could do that would save more lives than to truly stop abortion in all but the most extreme cases of need.

Why? Why are we so blind to the mass murder of the innocent?

It do give one pause, Ben.