It’s hard to put your finger on exactly when and where it was that democracy’s global eclipse began, but a darkness has been encircling the world throughout the 21st century. While the current insurrection in Iran is cause for some hope, overall, the dictators have been winning.
The existence of God requires us to temper every assertion of power with a sense of responsibility to the truth.
In his past few podcasts, Jordan Peterson has picked up with greater vigor a theme that has been increasingly among his favorites: the inescapable role of God in life and meaning.
This would not be so noteworthy were Peterson a cleric of some sort. Preachers of every stripe and style regularly speak to their congregants or students, and it usually doesn’t interest anyone beyond a parochial group.
Is the American way of life threatened by the growing proportion of citizens taking psychiatric medications?
You can learn much about what a civilization lacks by observing what sentiments it elevates as an ideal. The ancient Greeks, who invented the concept of the “golden mean” between extremes, were, on the basis of Greek tragedy and historical accounts, given to wild eruptions of rage. For years now, Americans have exalted empathy as our king of sentiments, but on the evidence of everyday life, empathy is in short supply.
Chris McCandless had been dead for two weeks when a pair of hunters stumbled upon the abandoned bus he had been using as a makeshift shelter near Alaska’s Denali National Park. A note taped to its door…
Technology is emasculating society
Little is known about the ecstatic rites of Cybele, a pre-Hellenic goddess associated with nature and wildness. Shrines have been found throughout Europe, though she was originally from Mesopotamia. And numerous sources describe her mendicant priesthood: castrated men who bleached their hair, and wore heavy makeup and elaborate feminine costumes. They were said to mimic the mythic figure of Attis, a mortal who — the legend goes — was driven to a frenzy by a jealous Cybele, and castrated himself before becoming her deathless consort.
August 2nd marked 4 months in hospice for my brother.
My sister-in-law and I arrived during “music class” this morning.
My brother was in attendance but soon began to nod in and out of consciousness and then appeared to spasm as if in a mild seizure.
We wheeled him back to his room and waited for the nurse to attend.
She monitored his vitals revealing a very low BP and heart rate, he continued to nod in and out becoming less “coherent” in response to questions.
They put him to bed via the lift and raised his feet.
I flagged down his doctor who was surprised at the sudden turn of events since it was she who had wheeled him to music class.
She was able to rouse him and over the next few minutes he became aware of his surroundings.
Slowly over the course of the afternoon he returned to “normal” even managing to eat some fruit and cheese.
He was not in discomfort and is one resilient fellow still we know his time is likely not long.
We will be back tomorrow.
Our fabulous co-blogger Frau Katze has had a bit of a setback.
She fell at the hospital and we await details.
Please wish her well.
PS. I notice we have some spam bots in Disqus. I thank all of you who have reported them.
I try to stay on top of things but I am at the Hospice every other day.
Bear with me.
I usually zap ’em but my internet has been down for 2 days, just came back on. – Sarcasticat
We ordered a concertina for my brother’s next hospice musical extravaganza.
Seems to be in working order.
Scares the bejeebers outta Xavier when I make it talk.
I’ll drop it off tomorrow.
Went for a drive to Hamilton today, bought some beautiful daisies.
A gorgeous afternoon.
Better go make up with Xavier.
I think I need a cat whisperer.
The war in Ukraine is not a brief and bloody spat in a faraway country of which we know little. Instead, as the new Chief of General Staff General Sir Patrick Sanders warned in a historic speech at RUSI today, “This is our 1937 moment,” as “we are living through a period in history as profound as the one that our forebears did over 80 years ago.”
The harsh reality is that “the visceral nature of a European land war is not just some manifestation of distant storm clouds on the horizon; we can see it now”.
RAF vets take to the skies one last time
The hangar is patriotically dressed with tiny flags and a large resin model of a Sunderland bomber. Miniature pilots in its cockpit have painted smiles. Sensible women are handing out buns and tea. Forties jazz plays; I might be in a JB Priestley novel, or at a village fete. The war may never have ended. And dotted around the room, unmistakable, unmistakably old are 48 RAF veterans.
This is Project Propeller, today. Every year, since 1999, it has spirited Royal Air Force vets up in the sky again. Younger pilots come for the war stories, and to say thank you. The vets meet their old comrades.
My brother and the music class facilitator held a concert this morning for the other hospice residents.
He was a good guitarist in his day but his hands are no longer up to the task.
He can however play the cowbell and his blues harp simultaneously.
You’ve never heard Summertime until a cowbell is thrown into the mix.
The Doctor told my sister-in-law that normally she can predict with reasonable accuracy when a resident will cross over within a spread of days.
With my brother she is at a complete loss. He continues to rebound. He continues to defy the odds.
He’s planning another concert due to popular demand.
Globalists were wrong. The world isn’t flat.
First it was baby formula, now there’s a tampon shortage. Tampon prices are up 10% due to the rising price of oil affecting the cost of plastic and higher cotton prices due to mask manufacturing and the war in Ukraine. A whole lot of fertilizer comes out of Ukraine and Russia. So does neon which is used to make semiconductor chips. The chip shortage is shutting down car plants.
This is the thoroughly interconnected world celebrated in prose by journalists like Thomas Friedman who marveled at how Big Data and globalization brought everything together.
As well as serving in the SS and a second act as a Nasa engineer, Wernher von Braun wrote a Martian sci-fi novel with a prescient twist…
I recently read (and greatly enjoyed) V2, Robert Harris’s absorbing second world war thriller about British attempts to locate and destroy the base in the Netherlands from which Hitler’s “Retaliation Weapon 2” – those devastating rocket-powered bombs aimed at London – were launched. Harris is famous for the meticulous research that underpins his plots and V2 is no exception. For me, a particularly interesting aspect of the novel was his portrayal of Wernher von Braun, the German aerospace engineer who was the leading figure in the development of Nazi rocketry and who was snaffled by the US (with a large number of his technical associates) to enjoy a splendid second career as the mastermind of the US space programme.
As I mentioned last evening I received word my brother was being admitted to a palliative care hospice.
We thought it might take a week or two but nope.
I will be taking him in tomorrow morning.
The strength of community in Poland and Ukraine is best explained by faith
Plainchant is surely the proper music of old churches. As the voices rise and echo in the stone spaces, at 11 o’clock on Good Friday night, a line of ordinary Krakowians of all ages queue patiently down the aisle to take their turn kneeling on the flagstones before a small crucifix. Each person spends some minutes in prayer.
