Explaining ObamaCare and the HHS Abortion Mandate

When life needs a guide-book, there is no better source for context or compelling narrative to ease one through the twisted maze than poetry. The Song of Solomon, The Pslams, Essay on Man, Paradise Lost, Absolam and Achitophel, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot have helped me at times. When that failed, I generally turned to prayer (real poetry) and if that failed, I did some yard work or scrubbed out the shower stall. Poetry generally works.

It is tough to get one's head around the Obama Administration - regime more accurately - and its insistence upon group think and the Constitution.

However, only the poet Adam Rex seems to have his delicate fingers on the pulse political and fully explains the nature and intent of the Obama Regime and Big Government itself.

When Frankenstein
prepared to dine
on ham-and-cheese on wheat,
he found, instead,
he had no bread
(or mustard, cheese, or meat).
What could he do?
He thought it through
until his brain was sore,
And thought he ought
to see what he could
borrow from next door...

Rex 2006

Eureka! Dominus in caelo, e quis!

Read this poem and then apply the principles of criticism - Deconstruction(Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man), Marxist -Gender -Inclination, or Queer Theory , Structuralist Linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, as you choose.

Dusty old me, I cling to the New Criticism of the hillybilly theorists -Johnny Crowe Ransom and believe that words matter and a 12-gauge splatters!

A Musical Consideration of the Debate on the Obama Mandate

Contraception means No Conception - No Birth.

Miserere means " Have Mercy"


The OCCUPELLA WOMEN'S CHORUS* offered their song "Contraception." These women the dowagers of the A Capella Contraception song stand in as a human metaphor to the agenda itself.


Lord, have mercy.

On the other side, my side, we a have an offering of Allegri's Miserere** representing music long cherished, cared for and preserved. Shucks, its older than Pete Seeger.



I can't speak for you but sure seems that one offering was riginally beautiful presented by serious people and the other a monotone, slapdash, self-absorbed stick-up of an old railroad song.

*

March 5, 2012 (San Diego) -- There’s a new all volunteer female chorus in town with more gigs than they can handle. The “Occupella Chorus” sings familiar tunes, but rewords the lyrics to convey the message of social and economic injustice. A sample is “Occupy Your Mind” sung to tune of “Do Re Mi:” “Occupy your mind today. Learn what’s really going on. Me - an individual, Against a corporation.”


The women are of varying ages and from throughout our region, including East County. Members include daughters, wives, mothers and grandmas who are all members of Women Occupy San Diego. They’ve entertained audiences outside the Civic Center, San Diego Rep and AMSD concerts. The group will be singing in support of women’s rights downtown on March 8 and against nuclear power outside the San Onofre Power Plant on March 11.


“If you’re planning a protest rally -- you better book these ladies while they’re free and available, Anita Simons with Occupella says.

Allegri's Miserere

Allegri's masterpiece was written sometime before 1638 for the annual celebration of the matins during Holy Week (the Easter celebration). Twice during that week, on Wednesday and Friday, the service would start at 3AM when 27 candles were extinguished one at a time until but one remained burning. According to reports, the pope would participate in these services. Allegri composed his setting of the Miserere for the very end of the first lesson of these Tenebrae services. At the final candle, the pope would kneel before the altar and pray while the Miserere was sung, culminating the service.

The idea of using a solemn setting of the "Miserere mei Deus" psalm likely started during the reign of Pope Leo X (1513-1521). Contemporaneous accounts relate the use of the Miserere in this way in the year 1514. The earliest surviving setting is dated 1518 and was composed by Costanzo Festa (c. 1490- 1545). Festa's Miserere was sung in the "falsobordone" style, which is an ancient and rather simple means of harmonizing on traditional Gregorian chant. His setting consisted of nine vocal parts split into two choirs, the first a five-part and the second a four-part, each alternating with the traditional Gregorian plainsong melodies, and then coming back together again for the last verse. Festa's setting was the first of twelve such settings collected in a two-volume manuscript preserved in the Pontifical Chapel archives. Ten more contributors, including Guerrero and Palestrina, are represented in these volumes before the final manuscript of Allegri's celebrated work, following exactly the same ensemble layout as Festa's original work and is likewise in the falsobordone style, closes the collection of twelve.

It was not long before Allegri's Miserere was the only such work sung at these services. With its soaring soprano parts (sung for centuries by castrati) and compelling melodic style, the work enjoyed almost immediate popularity. So impressed was some subsequent pope that the work thereafter was protected and a prohibition was placed on its use outside the Sistine Chapel at the appointed time. Chapel regulations forbid its transcription; indeed, the prohibition called for excommunication for anyone who sought to copy the work. In spite of this, by 1770 three copies were known to exist. One was owned by the King of Portugal; another was in the possession of the distinguished composer, pedagogue, and theoretician Padre Giovanni Battista Martini (1706-1784); and a third was kept in the Imperial Library in Vienna.

It is here that the first tale contributes to the mystique that has come to surround this work. The copy in the Imperial Library was brought to Vienna by Emperor Leopold I (1640-1705), who, having heard of the piece from dignitaries visiting Rome, instructed his ambassador to the Vatican to ask the Pope for a copy of the work for performance in the royal chapel. The Pope eventually obliged, but when the work was performed in Vienna, it was so disappointing that the Emperor believed he had been deceived, and a lesser work sent to him instead. He complained to the Pope, who fired his Maestro di Cappella. The unfortunate man pleaded for a papal audience, explaining that the beauty of the work owed to the special performance technique used by the papal choir, which could not be set down on paper. The Pope, understand nothing of music, granted the man permission to go to Vienna and make his case, which he did successfully, and was rehired. In fact, it is this elaborate performance technique, including improvised counterpoint, first employed soon after the work was written, that has been approximated in a recent recording by A Sei Voci on Astree.

The next famous story concerning the Miserere involves the 12-year-old Mozart. On December 13, 1769, Leopold and Wolfgang left Salzburg and set out for a 15-month tour of Italy where, among other things, Leopold hoped that Wolfgang would have the chance to study with Padre Martini in Bologna, who had also taught Johann Christian Bach several years before. On their circuitous route to Bologna, they passed through Innsbruck, Verona, Milan, and arrived in Rome on April 11, 1770, just in time for Easter. As with any tourist, they visited St. Peter's to celebrate the Wednesday Tenebrae and to hear the famous Miserere sung at the Sistine Chapel. Upon arriving at their lodging that evening, Mozart sat down and wrote out from memory the entire piece. On Good Friday, he returned, with his manuscript rolled up in his hat, to hear the piece again and make a few minor corrections. Leopold told of Wolfgang's accomplishment in a letter to his wife dated April 14, 1770 (Rome):

"…You have often heard of the famous Miserere in Rome, which is so greatly prized that the performers are forbidden on pain of excommunication to take away a single part of it, copy it or to give it to anyone. But we have it already. Wolfgang has written it down and we would have sent it to Salzburg in this letter, if it were not necessary for us to be there to perform it. But the manner of performance contributes more to its effect than the composition itself. Moreover, as it is one of the secrets of Rome, we do not wish to let it fall into other hands…."
Wolfgang and his father then traveled on to Naples for a short stay, returning to Rome a few weeks later to attend a papal audience where Wolfgang was made a Knight of the Golden Spur. They left Rome a couple of weeks later to spend the rest of the summer in Bologna, where Wolfgang studied with Padre Martini.

The story does not end here, however. As the Mozarts were sightseeing and traveling back to Rome, the noted biographer and music historian, Dr. Charles Burney, set out from London on a tour of France and Italy to gather material for a book on the state of music in those countries. By August, he arrived in Bologna to meet with Padre Martini. There he also met Mozart. Though little is known about what transpired between Mozart and Burney at this meeting, some facts surrounding the incident lead to interesting conjecture. For one, Mozart's transcription of Allegri's Miserere, important in that it would presumably also reflect the improvised passages performed in 1770 and thus document the style of improvisation employed by the papal choir, has never been found. The second fact is that Burney, upon returning to England near the end of 1771, published an account of his tour as well as a collection of music for the celebration of Holy Week in the Sistine Chapel. This volume included music by Palestrina, Bai, and, for the first time, Allegri's famous Miserere. Subsequently, the Miserere was reprinted many times in England, Leipzig, Paris and Rome, effectively ending the pope's monopoly on the work.

Ask David Axelrod - Is Misericordia Home Really Necessary?

"People with developmental disabilities need places like Misericordia to live fulfilled lives, to live happy lives," said Axelrod. "I've seen it in my own daughter's life, and I want to see that available for many, many others." David Axelrod April, 2011

This year, the Catholic Church in the United States is being told she must "give up" her health care institutions, her universities and many of her social service organizations. This is not a voluntary sacrifice. It is the consequence of the already much discussed Department of Health and Human Services regulations now filed and promulgated for implementation beginning Aug. 1 of this year.

Francis Cardinal George in Catholic New World - February 26, 2012

“The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for the cost of contraception,” Sebelius said. She went on to say the estimated cost is “down not up.” Kathy "One Child Policy" Sebelius HHS Secretary March 1, 2012
Bucks, or Babies? Breeders, Wafer Catholics and Bible toting Gun Hugging Rubes say "Babies, Kathy." Sophisticated Secular Progressives shout, "dollar savings of course. No Babies , No Bucks, No Problem and cleaner, Greener Earth."

Misericordia Home is Chicago's place where special needs children and adults have been cared for since 1921. David Axelrod runs the Obama 2012 Campaign - Greater Together. Ironically enough, David Axelrod has a special needs child in the care of Miseridcodia Home and David Axelrod is not a Catholic. This is ironic because Axelrod's candidate and our Chief Executive,President Obama, is at war with Catholics, because the Catholic Church as an institution is powerful, but only remains powerful in so far as it stands for its doctrines. Doctrines can not be sold like a commodity, or Green Future, or Shares in GE, unless of course one happens to be an elected official who calls himself/herself Catholic but promotes any and all agendas that conflict with the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church as an institution has physical assets, developed through the course of American History via the support of individual Catholics and some friends who admire the good works those assests support - like Misericordia Home.

There are schools, hospitals, and family support centers of all kinds and types.

I am not familiar with a John Dewey Center for Childeless Couples, or a Planned Parenthood Fetus Drop-Off Station, but I know that John Dewey's Hegelian discipuli demand that Catholic Hospitals perform abortions and that Catholics get in line with China's policies toward big families.

Special Needs children are the focus of a new medical paper that is all the rage in Europe. Children born with special needs should be put to death, "in order to spare the mother and other family members a psychological burden" that the child's place as a living carbon foot-print might pose.

Catholics, traditional Catholics, breeders and wafer swallowers,as they are deemed by Catholics for Obama, fear for the future. Catholics for Obama say this:

Is Obama Pro-Life?The answer is “yes.” Looking through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching, Senator Obama has spent his entire career striving for the common good. He supports health care programs that will cover all Americans, a living wage for working families, and solutions that allow distressed families to stay in their homes. And rather than trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, an ineffective strategy for 40 years, Senator Obama will reduce abortions. How? By promoting health care for pregnant women and better infant care, day care and job training. In fact, data has shown that social and education programs actually reduce abortions.

Catholic Social Teaching? Whose? Nevermind. Oh, that one is dated 2008. Could be because there is not a Catholics for Obama 2012 . . .yet.According to this same standard of reason posed by Catholics for Obama - Adolph Hitler was a member of PETA. Loved Blondi, He Did!

Obama Catholics need to tweak that gusher above because President Obama is clearly pro-abortion and not any way near pro-life.

Push has come to shove. Obama will not yield on his Mandate for Contraception and Abortion ( morning after pills for Ms. Fluke)because Planned Parenthood would go all Bill Maher on his butt.

Unless President Obama gets fewer votes than . . . anyone not Obama, the Catholic Church's institutions like Misericordia will close, as will Catholic schools, hospitals, Catholic Charities, any Catholic mission surrounded by bricks and mortar.

I gotta ask, Did David Axelrod actually mean what he said about Misericordia in April 2011? Ask him yourselves, folks.






http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=8093243

http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2012/03/post-natal-abortion-considered-four.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/29/cardinal-george-birth-con_n_1307749.html