“Obviously someone who was just trying to bring the Holy Spirit back to the church.”
I had to laugh at that even though I am aghast at the tragedy. Sometimes a good laugh at something that is so obviously painful to see can ease the pain somewhat. I think this emotion is a protective mechanism and is sometimes referred to as “gallows humour.”
Have read or have listened to many comments regarding the fire at Notre Dame in Paris. Thousands of people, mainly Muslim, Millennials and other young people are rejoicing. Sad to see that some people believe in nothing; have no values of any sort and cannot see past their own noses. This new generation! Our future leaders! Sad state of affairs.
When you lose your sense of belonging; when you lose your values or moral compass; when you ignore your heritage, culture, history…well…you have no beliefs and no civilization, and when you have no civilization you become an anarchist and you fall into chaos with no direction in life. And without direction you have lost your sense of being and are truly dead…spiritually, emotionally and physically.
Good Friday to all:
I am a Christian
… and I make no apologies for my beliefs
“If I am wrong, no big deal. But if non believers are wrong they have everything to lose…” (thanks to my dear Sadie).
https://youtu.be/7Gx1Pv02w3Q
A gift from God, a voice from Heaven that we all can enjoy:
Happy Good Friday, Happy Easter Sunday
Pray for Our Lady, Notre Dame.
Hey I would love to hear from any of you in the “comments.” I respond to everyone.
Read ya Tuesday. No post on Monday. Taking the day off for a weiner (hot Dog) roast!
This is a poem I wrote some time ago when I lived in Manotick Ontario, a small town located about 10 miles south of Ottawa on the Rideau River. It is about the building of the Rideau Canal – at the time an engineering marvel. The poem is fairly long:
The Rideau Canal
The curtain does fall so majestic and proud
Such a natural wonder, so gracious a shroud
As if a powerful train of glory descends
As a continuous fall at the Outaouais end
A fire alights from the south it did spread
To the north like a plague through its heart it has bled
With a mawkish like cry for freedom and joy
But freedom’s best chance was a fraudulent ploy
From a flicker of flame to a firestorm bred
Death escalates through a life cycle of dread
And taming this shrew with its penchant for blood
Was a foolish man’s bait for poor Madison’s club
Yet the fire would spread in a harrowing scene
From a spark it would roar with a devilish scream
From Niagara on east, to a Forty Mile Creek
To a nondescript farm and a Chateauguay sneak
From Queenstown to Lundy, Detroit and the Thames
The Boxer and Enterprise, surrender of Maine
Through Ohio and Plattsburg, to a Moravian town
The war it did rage for Miss Liberty’s crown
Cities would fall and the towns they would burn
First Newark then York; it was Washington’s turn
War’s firebrand eyes thrust farther to yield
And finally burn in an Orleans field
What came but a draw in this foolish man’s quest
For power and glory are such meaningless guests
Whatever the gain from the lives that were lost
For the hawkish bent men who lied at great cost
And the curtain still fell, so majestic and proud
As if sensing the chaos, so soothing its sound
Like the rapturous strains of a torrent, transcends
To emerge as a call at the Outaouais end
***
The years fell away and the anger did wane
Rush-Baggot had calmed such a petulant strain
An American age brought prosperity’s peace
As a confidant pace of change was unleashed
But the land to the north so upright and proud
Was paranoid still to the south’s freedom sound
A country that cried for security’s calm
Yet stands all alone ‘gainst a threatening psalm
But this land full of lakes and rivers and streams
Was a natural course for a military dream
For fear set in stride a magnificent quest
To build a canal that was strategically blessed
While the mighty St Laurence was a natural draw
It was fraught with real danger from its rapid rock falls
And upstream it ran with a thunderous roar
Too close to the south with its threatening core
The Ottawa ran to St Laurence’s call
To strike from the north and a western landfall
An historical route that opened the west
Where the traders would meet at the curtain for rest
Yet two rivers did run from a common high ground
To the south and the north from Lake Rideau their sound
From the shallows and falls through the marshes and swamps
From King’s town to Wright’s town, two rivers as one
To build a canal through this wilderness screams
Of a madness and curse of the military’s dream
A task so immense, so daunting and brash
That only the British could fathom this task
But the British did find a man of the Corp
A Wellington man from the Peninsular War
A man who had held the Canadian Shield
So right for this task with indefatigable zeal
John By was a Colonel and a leader of men
Ahead of his time and a genius, well bred
An engineer’s man with a passionate streak
For simplicity’s beauty with its functional tweaks
With orders to build a navigable path
From the Outaouais south to Ontario’s wrath
To rise from a bay named the Entrance – way crept
Up flight after flight, like some nautical step
A plan was developed and contracts were signed
Engineering so simple with symmetrical lines
Pure genius at work with a heavenly hand
To guide and instruct a magnanimous man
With Drummond and Redpath, Phillips, MacKay
Canadian contractors, strong men of their day
These artists of stone were men of their word
So forthright and loyal to the Colonel’s accord
The sappers and miners and mason’s stones lay
Stonecutters and woodmen, all of the trades
For comfort, their spirit; their love of the crown
Romantic and colourful, these men of the realm
But the marvelous work that was soon to unfold
Was dependent upon the poor labourer’s code
The back wrenching work to clear out the land
And dig such a ditch with just spades in their hands
Such men from hard times, forever were cursed
To fight for survival and work through their thirst
Through backbreaking strains as their calloused hands scream
As they toiled and they toiled for this military dream
The Frenchmen held sway with their skill and savvy
So noble these men and their role as navvies
Independent of mind with a will to succeed
Just pride in their work and their songs and their deeds
But an Irishman’s fate to arrive at this place
To rescue one’s life from some wretched like fate
The scourge of the earth in the Englishman’s eye
Forgotten at home, they severed all ties
For a pestilence spread to drive them afar
From an emerald isle to this devil’s back yard
Though beauty may rest on the eye from beyond
A hellish nightmare was reality’s song
Just rags on their backs with their wives by their side
With children so weak from starvation and pride
A thousand would fall from a dengueish like hue
And die from this work’s laborious flu
Poor brothers would cry as their graves had been marked
So blind to the danger and the peril from sparks
As the powder was set with a magical link
Their lives were extinguished from the death blast’s cruel drink
Yet the lakes and the streams, swift water, rock falls
Were captured and tamed by this engineer’s call
Magnificent feats what By had achieved
In this harsh, hellish wilderness was hard to conceive
The entrance way blessed by a protestant prayer
The first stone was set by John Franklin with care
Not mindful as yet that his greatness was cast
To die in the Arctic from an arctic cold blast
The curse of Hog’s Back; an Isthmus scourge
The tranquility of Chaffey’s; Long Island was purged
At Burritt’s and Black, these rapids were tamed
And Merrickville’s beauty, a religious refrain
With names like Poonamalie, with its cedar incense
An Indian aura in a wilderness sense
Opinicon’s names and a Cranberry fog
The curse of the labourer to die in this bog
The dam at the falls known locally as Jones
Is a testament still to its magnificent stone
Block upon block in a crescent like stance
Like a rampart of genius or an engineer’s dance
The work underway, six years to progress
The locks were completed and the dams were well dressed
Through steamy hot summers, through sweat and death’s fear
Through winter’s ice jams; hell’s nightmare those years
The locks and the dams, wastewater and weirs
The cut at the entrance, eight steps to the piers
The breadth of this work remains unfathomable, sealed
As a masterpiece set in the Canadian Shield
***
The threat from the south was all but contained
For the status quo boundary was all that was gained
From the firestorm set in those years long ago
Extinguished for good as a friendship would grow
Poor tragedy’s mark on this cornerstone lay
On the heart of a man who held the Rideau at bay
Called back by a King who questioned his deed
A question of funds from some zealot to heed
An inquiry would set the tone through the years
To diminish By’s feats; he was ignored by his peers
His spirit would die from his countrymen’s chill
And not from the bog or the Isthmus ills
Yet his legacy flows for our nation to see
A wonderment still, a magnificent deed
To balance such beauty with a functional stream
Through a Canadian wilderness with just minimal means
But the jewel in the crown of this engineer’s quest
Was not the canal or a technical best
For a town had been born in the Outaouais scene
In this land full of lakes and rivers and streams
By the Barracks Hill shanty near the Sapper’s stone bend
A magnificent tower of peace would ascend
From a lower town swamp to an upper town’s view
A great city would grow with great values imbued
For this capital’s crown of achievement remains
From the peaceful green flow of the Rideau, contained
The seeds of a city and a national theme
To build a great country with the freedom to dream
And the curtain still falls, so majestic and proud
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags are not good for the environment.
The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, “We didn’t have this ‘green thing’ back in my earlier days.”
The young clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”
The older lady said that she was right — our generation didn’t have the “green thing” in its day. The older lady went on to explain:
“Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the “green thing” back in our day.
“Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn’t do the “green thing” back then.
“We walked up stairs because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the “green thing” in our day.
“Back then we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the “green thing” back in our day.
“Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right; we didn’t have the “green thing” back then.
“We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the “green thing” back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family’s $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the “green thing.” We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.
“But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the “green thing” back then?”
There is nothing new or innovative about this so called Green Movement!
Now let’s talk about my generation:
Just read that Peter Tork of the Monkees died yesterday of a rare form of Cancer. He was 77. Almost nothing said about this by the media. Sad! The Monkees were Hollywood’s answer to the Beatles. Pretty delusional on their part, however, they did put out an impressive string of hits in their short musical lifecycle.
Here is one:
https://youtu.be/W83InivbUSQ
Peter is playing the keyboard in this video. He normally played bass and with Michael Nesmith on guitar, was one of the only true musicians of the group. He also played the comedic foil to the rest of the group on the TV series. David Jones, the lead vocalist, died in 2012. Like the Beatles, only two left.
“When everything is offensive, nothing is offensive.”
Blazing Saddles offended everything and everybody. It was hilarious but it could not be made today under current SJW and snowflake sensibilities where everything is offensive. Here is a link. Good reading:
Copy and paste the link into your browser. It’s a great article.
Here is an excerpt from that trail blazing movie:
Madeline Kahn was a fantastic actress. She died way too young.
From the “You Won’t Believe It’s True” file” comes this:
“Just when frustrated residents of New Jersey, one of the most heavily taxed states in the US, thought Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy had already brought the state into the ninth circle of taxation hell with new taxes to save the state’s ailing pension system, middle class voters in one of the least affordable states in the country have now been given one more thing to complain about: A tax on the rain.?”
The air that we breathe is next. Why? Because every living thing on the planet expunges CO2. Yup even Santa Claus Virginia!
I bet you didn’t know that a human body is comprised of 18.3% Carbon. Therefore, given our Liberal politician’s absolute pathological hatred of all things Carbon – “it’s a poison man, a poison” and given that for every breath they take they exhale C02 then why don’t all Liberal and Progressive politicians do us all a favour by taking themselves and all of their cronies, consultants and advisors out of the gene pool. For heaven’s sake…er…for the planet’s sake. Lead by example for a climate change…why don’t you. “Take my Prime Minister…..Please.”
For those of you who do not know, Jody Raybould Wilson is / was Canada’s Justice Minister or Attorney General of Canada for want of a better term – a woman and an Indigenous person to boot. And that is exactly what our spineless Prime Minister Turd-ope did. He gave her the boot by relieving her of the Justice portfolio with a demotion of her cabinet stature to that gawd awful, gawd forsaken job of Veteran’s Affairs and Deputy Defence minister! Naturally she resigned from Veteran’s Affairs and has since resigned from Turd-ope’s LIberal Cabinet (she has my respect).
Everybody (except Turd-ope and Turd-ope’s Butt) knows that Wilson was demoted because she would not fall victim to Turd-ope’s and the Prime Minister’s Office’s pressure to intervene in the SNC Lavalin fraud and corruption case by giving SNC a free ride and exoneration from all current and future charges. After all SNC Lavalin, like Bombardier, is a major engineering and high tech firm based in Quebec. And like Bombardier, SNC was deemed by Turd-ope and the PMO as “Too French to Fail.”
The alleged intervention in this case by the Prime Minister and the PMO is, if deemed true, a blatant conflict of interest of the highest order. It is an action that undermines our democracy and rule of law, as it equates to interference in a legal case by government officials. This is far more serious than ADSCAM. But given the liberal propensity of our media this will probably be construed as a non event so “move on people. No story here.” It will not be covered by the press. And Turd-ope, just like the alleged groping incident, will be given a free ride on this “Shame on you the Me Too” crowd for allowing that incident to disappear from the public’s eye.
Family Compact? Remember that from your Canadian History. The compact that hastened the revolts of 1837 in Upper and Lower Canada and resulted in the 1839 Durham Report which in turn led to the Act of Union of Lower and Upper Canada of 1840, which ultimately resulted in Confederation of 1868 and the British North American Act (I researched this so you don’t have to). Well if you think that the Family Compact went away think again. Canada’s political hierarchy has been anchored in Quebec and Ontario since 1867. That political hierarchy has been running this country ever since Confederation. If you think that the Family Compact in Canada is dead then consider this:
House of Commons or Canadian Representatives….Predominantly Liberal;
Cabinet or Executive Branch of Government…………..Liberal;
Judiciary…………………………………………………………………….Liberal
Academia……………………………………………………………………Hard left Liberal;
Cultural………………………………………………………………………Hard Left Liberal; and
Media………………………………………………………………………….Liberal.
With respect to criticism of government policies there is no debate but rather a typical government response of: Racism, Bigotry, Homophobia, or some other form of Phobia.
CANADIANS!………………………..WAKE UP!
Now I am not a fan of Proportional Representation as the NDP or Greens would define it but I am in favour of some form of government electoral system that is not tied to the “First Past the Post Paradigm.” After all, if a party forms a majority government in Canada, what we really have in this country is an elected dictatorship for 4 years…..not good.
Thinking about all these never ending Left and Right protests these past few years. I consider myself non partisan but I wonder how people would feel about me if they knew:
That I am a practicing Catholic;
That I believe in God and a higher power;
That personally I am a pro-life type of person – although I believe a woman has the right to choose;
That I was in the Navy for 37 years;
That I love my country;
That I believe in national sovereignty;
That I believe in the “Rule of Law”
That I respect our History – warts and all;
That we should live within our means – everyone, governments included;
That some things are worth fighting for;
That I am not hypocritical;
That I respect our Police and authority;
That I respect our constitution and Bill of Rights;
That my political views are between me and the ballot box;
That criticism and debate of progressive government policies will brand you a racist, a bigot and whatever phobia exists, by the federal Liberal government;
That the family compact of 1837 still exists in Canada, especially in Ontario and Quebec;
That I love to walk;
That I loved my late wife and I love my family;
That one should work hard to get ahead in life;
That handouts are for dogs and cats, not humans -troubled people excepted;
That a social safety net is important, except for cats and dogs;
That current music sucks;
That today’s news is oxymoronic;
That journalists have no work ethic and are dishonest, misleading;
That all mind altering drugs are bad, including marijuana;
That parents should teach their children morals and not their teachers;
That political indoctrination at school is a form of child abuse;
That graphic sexual education and promotion of transgenderism to young impressionable minds before puberty is a form of child abuse;
That changing the English language is not negotiable by University students;
That a good pint of bitter is nirvana;
That a good steak is wonderful;
That PETA sucks;
That Black Olives Matter, especially on Pizza;
That you cannot compromise or have a debate with a greenie;
That organic pizzas are green;
That the word Organic is a Latin word meaning grown in pig shit;
That the word Commune is a Latin word meaning shithouse;
That going to University is not a god given or atheist given right, its a privilege;
That one should pay their own way through school;
That climate change purported by politicians is the biggest fraud in history;
That Orwell was right and we are now living proof of this;
That the Baby Boomer generation was the most self absorbed, self centric generation in history – and I am one of them;
That the Baby Boomer generation is primarily responsible for all the shyte we are now going through;
That you cannot make your school change the date of a solar eclipse to meet your child’s scheduling demands;
That the song “Imagine” is well past its best before date;
That bitcoins and climate change are the currency of madness;
That to “Make Love, Not War” was not the rallying banner we all thought it was but a thought process of the 1960s that produced a lot of bastards;
That I am a Toronto Argonauts fan (thanks Ted); and
That’s all she wrote.
And this is all I have to say about that……….
Obviously I am a (insert whatever label here) phobian. So be it but I am happy.
Why can’t we all just get along, be treated equally under the law and be Canadians first and foremost?
… and I make no apologies for my beliefs
