Journalism that Matters

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

H. L. Mencken

I would kill to know what this was about!

Science: Global Warming and Evolution in Politics - The Alchemists Are Back.

'I believe in evolution ... call me crazy' ... In the end, I can say I believe in science and I believe in God. I don't see the need for one to disprove another. Having said that, I also believe–as a Christian and a thinking individual–that if creation theory is to be taught as “an alternative” to evolution in science classes, it should be presented in a scientific way and other creation ... Jon "As Clear as Mud" Huntsman -MSNBC Republican Candidate for President


Q. When the Philosophers speak of gold and silver, from which they extract their matter, are we to suppose that they refer to the vulgar gold and silver?
A. By no means; vulgar silver and gold are dead, while those of the Philosophers are full of life 1766 Alchemical Catechism, Théodore Henri (Ted Henry) de Tschudi


Al Gore says the planet is melting and has the science to prove it. I have a Chicago Telephone Directory. I could use that mass of data and call some folks for a random sampling - 'What's it like outside?' Science kids.

I caught Huntsman on the news last night. The guy strikes me as the kid in the AP Class who looks over on the exam papers of his furiously writing peers and gives the examiner the silent high-sign to indicate that those he scans "might be cheating." Nothing scientific in my assessment, just instinct based upon empirical events.

In the 1920's a high school biology teacher in the Bible Belt (Clingers of Guns and Holy Writ) was tried and convicted of violating State Law that forbade the teaching of Darwin's "Theory" of Evolution. This was age of John Dewey! The smart set was Daffy for Dewey the tweedy Brahmin Hegelain at the University of Chicago that was bankrolled by JD Rockefeller and stuffed with Prussian Doktors, while Chicago's stockyards slaughtered, processed and shipped every cloven and hoofed mammal stupid enough to get corralled. University of Chicago was south and mercifully east of the Stockyards; thus avoiding the stench of the blood and offal that fattened Americans. Now that is Darwin, boys and girls.

Straight south of the Yards,lived the Catholics: Irish, Polish, Lithuanian, and some Italian immigrants. Many worked in the Yards and the scent of work followed them home. If you grew up south of 47th Street between State Street and Western Ave. you remember the scent. It was not Chanel #5. Yards blended with the sulfuric scents of small steel and fabrication works. Mmmmmm. Mn. Darwin. The Food Chain. At the top was JD Rockefeller, the Heine Professors, Old Jack Dewey, the students and Dewey Lab Rats, right on out into popular culture and political debate.

JD Rockefeller packed his University with American Protective Association (APA) professors. The APA had no use for Catholics. An alternative to Catholic scholasticism was blended and sold and America lapped it up. Dewey's American Education Evolved. This one valorizes science, tests and measurements, lab coats, charts and polls. Everything became a Science, because Inquiry is Alpha and Omega in Dewey Hegelianiam. Dewey became the gold standard of American Progressives -

Prominent twentieth-century intellectuals like the philosophers John Dewey and Theodor Adorno commented on Catholicism's inherent authoritarianism and its potentially debilitating effects upon the human psyche and personal autonomy, suggesting that it weakened individual moral conviction and shaped the sort of "followers" suitable for totalitarian regimes. At the popular level, church teachings on matters of sexuality received much attention throughout the twentieth century, and American commentators on birth control, abortion, and homosexuality—including many Catholic commentators—criticized as repressive the prohibitive church teachings on these issues, emphasizing the centrality of personal choice in matters of sexuality and the church's disrespect for individual autonomy. Certainly not every expression of disagreement with official church teaching can be understood as "anti-Catholic"; nonetheless, many U.S. church leaders and lay Catholic commentators have noted the persistence in these debates of centuries-old distinctions between Catholicism and national identity, suggesting that modern anti-Catholic attitudes have assumed greater subtlety to conform to the norms of civil public debate.

Like those New York Times TV commericials packed with lisping Dudes in horn-rimmed glasses and gel-tricked haircuts -"The Times has the best columnists and that settles it." Inquiry! Politics was an art and now it pretends to be a science.

Actually it is alchemy. That was the goofy attempt to change matter, by schoolmen in the Middle Ages. Every body is a Faustus. He was the academic who sold his soul to Mephistopheles in order to have scientific and alchemical power and dominion over the Pope, his princes and his friends. That got him a disappointing date with Helen of Troy and dragged down to Gehenna with Lucifer's Lads. Today Faustus has a show on MSNBC, whose daffy alchemy turned Al Sharpton into a commentator who sounds like a marble salesmen with mouth full of samples. Makes sense in Dewey Hegelian Alchemy.

Jon Huntsman is equally 'comprehensible' . . .not to me. I had a Catholic education which had us study Dewey, among real thinkers. Dewey remains as important to me as Jon Huntsman. John Scopes was as befuddled by the attention he received for offering Darwin and going to the can for it. I do not believe that Mr. Scopes was as a hard-core an Evolutionist as the abortionists of American Progressive political dogma.

The great sceptic of America who reported the Scopes Trial in its entirety for the Baltimore Sun wrote this about science, belief and the alchemy of power.

[The advantage of Catholics] lies in the simple fact that they do not have to decide either for Evolution or against it. Authority has not spoken on the subject; hence it puts no burden upon conscience, and may be discussed realistically and without prejudice. A certain wariness, of course, is necessary. I say that authority has not spoken; it may, however, speak tomorrow, and so the prudent man remembers his step. But in the meanwhile there is nothing to prevent him examining all available facts, and even offering arguments in support of them or against them—so long as those arguments are not presented as dogma. (STJ, 163)**

Jon Huntsman says, " I believe in Science!" Sounds like a Mack Davis song.

* Usually known as "the A.P.A., " a secret proscriptive society in the United States which became a disturbing factor in most of the Northern States during the period 1891-97. Its purpose was indicated clearly enough by its open activity in arranging lectures by "ex-priests," distributing anti-Catholic literature and opposing the election of Catholics to public offices. . . .Catholic Encyclopedia

**STJ= H. L. Mencken on Religion by S. T. Joshi (2002)

Catholic Worship - "not a syllogism, but a poem" H.L. Mencken - The Faithful Skeptic

"Let the reverend fathers go back to Bach. If they keep on spoiling poetry and spouting ideas, the day will come when some extra-bombastic deacon will astound humanity and insult God by proposing to translate the liturgy into American, that all the faithful may be convinced by it." H.L. Mencken - Holy Writ

Last night, I read H.L. Mencken's article Holy Writ.

This morning, I checked my sump pump. Everything is A-Ok! Thanks be to God and Zoeller Cast Iron Quality!

I know what packing a pump is, but I can not pack a pump. I know who the Achaeans are in Homer's Odyssey, but knowing that they were the Greave Wearing Greeks pitted agin the Sons of Troy does not get a pump packed.

First of all who would pack a pump? Anyone who might need a fluid sealing pump in a building or industry. A pump that conveys water, oil, or anti-freeze needs to be packed in order that the seal be tight and thus fluid flow like a river.

A great number of my family know how to pack a pump ( male and female; many of their spouses, or immediate family members have heard the term. As children, it was an accepted part of the mystery of labor, just as the Transfiguration, Consecration, and Pentecost ring recognition in the soul of the collective Catholic Faith of the family. The Faith is practiced in ritual - we participate in Mass. The priest officiates - he transforms bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ and we all consume at the hands of the priest and his Deacons and Eucharistic Ministers. A skilled tradesman understands that fluids must be conducted to essential moving parts and reservoirs in order to heat,cool and transfer fluids as required. The arcana of the packing of the pump is understood by me and accepted on faith, having participated in its rituals. I am no pump priest. I screw things up, by not paying attention, taking short cuts, or not having the proper set of tools.

Likewise, Vatican II turned the pumps over to screw-ups. By that I mean - liturgy since 1966 has been erased: The Word of God and Worship is amateur hour. Priests are preachers and social engineers. Really. The Mystery of Faith? What Mystery? All can and should be known - ask any Kennedy Clan member, or cradle Catholic suburban columnist. Faith is fashion.

What has fashioned faith has been skepticism -"Who's to Say?" The Who's To Sayers are the High Priests of Dialog. We must dialog. Always?

What I know could be fit into a gnats-ass. I know that I can not pack a pump. I my Zoeller Sump Pump looses its seal and goes out - I replace the pump with a spare and take the Cast-Iron Zoeller to be re-packed.

I attend Mass officiated by a priest who understands liturgy is mystery and prayer and ritual must match the sublime nature of Transubstantiation - "that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood ."

For Centuries, the Transubstatiation was celebrated by the greatest music and poetry Mankind was capable of producing. Vatican II cashed that in for "Sons of God/Hear His Holy Word . . . gather round the table of the Lord" and other Sesame Street ditties. Oh, Hell, Yeah! Kick up stool, Cuz! Jesus is pourin'! That Man from Gal-A-Lee!

Prior to that a Ugandan could go to the universal Mass in County Kerry, Stausbourg, Gooli-Barranga, Queensland, and the Solomon Islands. Latin was debunked. I still find myself transported from the gangways and alleys of Chicago to a much better place than a liturgical Fred's Dance Barn, with a Latin Missa Papae Marcelli.

Funny, so did HL Mencken, a Baltimore born and baptized German Catholic who became the icon of American Skepticism. Mencken wrote this -

The Latin Church, which I constantly find myself admiring, despite its frequent astounding imbecilities, has always kept clearly before it the fact that religion is not a syllogism, but a poem. It is accused by Protestant dervishes of withholding the Bible from the people. To some extent this is true; to the same extent the church is wise; again to the same extent it is prosperous. Its toying with ideas, in the main, have been confined to its clergy, and they have commonly reduced the business to a harmless play of technicalities—the awful concepts of Heaven and Hell brought down to the level of a dispute of doctors in long gowns, eager only to dazzle other doctors. Its greatest theologians remain unknown to 99% of its adherents. Rome, indeed, has not only preserved the original poetry in Christianity; it has also made capital additions to that poetry—for example, the poetry of the saints, of Mary, and of the liturgy itself. A solemn high mass must be a thousand times as impressive, to a man with any genuine religious sense in him, as the most powerful sermon ever roared under the big-top by a Presbyterian auctioneer of God. In the face of such overwhelming beauty it is not necessary to belabor the faithful with logic; they are better convinced by letting them alone.

Preaching is not an essential part of the Latin ceremonial. It was very little employed in the early church, and I am convinced that good effects would flow from abandoning it today, or, at all events, reducing it to a few sentences, more or less formal. In the United States the Latin brethren have been seduced by the example of the Protestants, who commonly transform an act of worship into a puerile intellectual exercise; instead of approaching God in fear and wonder these Protestants settle back in their pews, cross their legs, and listen to an ignoramus try to prove that he is a better theologian than the Pope. This folly the Romans now slide into. Their clergy begin to grow argumentative, doctrinaire, ridiculous. It is a pity. A bishop in his robes, playing his part in the solemn ceremonial of the mass, is a dignified spectacle, even though he may sweat freely; the same bishop, bawling against Darwin half an hour later, is seen to be simply an elderly Irishman with a bald head, the son of a respectable saloon-keeper in South Bend, Ind. Let the reverend fathers go back to Bach. If they keep on spoiling poetry and spouting ideas, the day will come when some extra-bombastic deacon will astound humanity and insult God by proposing to translate the liturgy into American, that all the faithful may be convinced by it.

Mencken knew that Everyperson is no pump packer. Why pretend.


Pump packing prevents leakages. There are four main factors that affect its functionality: quality, packing material, mechanical condition and installation and lubrication. Poor quality materials may damage equipment. Packing material should correspond to working conditions. Good mechanical condition of equipment ensures packing's longevity. Proper installation and lubrication ensure efficient operation of the pump. Basic packing types are: flax (low-quality), non-asbestos (medium quality, common in irrigation pumps), Ameri-lon (high quality), GFO (for industrial pumps), chemical resistant (high quality) and high-temperature (high quality).


InstructionsThings You'll Need:
Protective gloves
Packing hooks
Emery cloth
Meter
Pencil and paper
Mandrel
Lubricant
Cloth
Follower - N.B.

Get what you need for every
project at HomeDepot.com
1
Use packing hooks to remove the old packing. Do it carefully to prevent damage to the shaft.

2
Clean the shaft and stuffing box with Emery cloth.

3
Inspect the shaft for damage. If there is any damage, replace the parts in accordance with manufacturer's directions.

4
Measure the shaft and the stuffing box bore diameters with a meter, and write down the dimensions.

5
Subtract the shaft diameter from the bore diameter, and divide the result by two to get cross-section size. Write the size down. Consult the measures when choosing packing materials.

6
Cut the packing into rings with a mandrel. The mandrel should have same dimensions as the shaft.

7
Lubricate the rings. Use a clean cloth and a lubricant to do this.

8
Insert the first ring into the stuffing box using the mandrel. Repeat the procedure for all rings.

9
Install the follower with your hands. The follower is an oval metal component with a hole in the middle. The hole accepts the shaft. Follower's purpose is to transmit shaft motions to valve motions.

10
Start the pump and watch for leakages. Tighten the bolts to decrease leakages to a minimum, but do not stop them completely. That may damage the package. Pump package prevents leaking, and keeps waste out of water.

11
Reduce the leakages gradually during the first hour or two after installation of the packing material.