We Have Arrived At The Future...And Need A Map To Retrace Our Steps

To the point that the Prayer Book Society has taken publishing a glossary for C of E ordinands, who cannot comprehend the language of the Book Of Common Prayer.

OS remembers clearly when our betters imposed their bright/shiny new modern language liturgies upon all congregations and denominations. They were 'inclusive' of everything and everybody, save the majesty, beauty and transcendence of the Almighty...Himself. The hymnals were sanitized, the great poems of the Wesleys, Cowper, Newton, and Crosby (to name just a few) were gutted, to keep the sensitive souls who-just-had-to-be-catered-to...comfortable. Offenses like 'Time, like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away' were just toooooo offensive! So, over time, 'Oh, God Our Help In Ages Past' simply fades from memories and hymbooks. In many cases, the hymnbooks themselves have disappeared, replaced by screens, and the voice of the congregation has been silenced by bands and performers singing to them--endless reptitions of 'I just wanna....' (repeat four times) modulate up one-half step and play louder 'I just wanna...' Rinse and repeat four more times.

So, now, we have an illiterate clergy and silent and diminishing congregations. Wow!! Great Job, you guys!! Between the clerical elites, the press and the 'Christian Music Business' and 'Christian Publishing Business', ya'll have damn near killed off any voice the Church had in the culture.

So, the Prayer Book Society is publishing a glossary for the illiterate clergy, and LifeWay Christian Resources of Nashville TN (formerly the Baptist Sunday School Board) is hosting themselves a conference dedicated to reteaching congregations how to sing. What. A. Concept.

Here's the 'vision' (don'tcha just love that word 'Vision', so under-used in our day...)

It begins as a book and a conference in September, launching a two-year focus on congregational singing. We are hoping and praying that the conference is the most significant event our organization has ever had the privilege to initiate.

The project also ties in with the 500th anniversary of the Reformation set in motion by Martin Luther whose vision for congregational singing, theology and music and the arts was utterly revolutionary in church history and more needed today than any time since.
There are five urgent goals with the project:

1. Teach everyone why and how we sing. 
2. Build deep believers through what we sing. 
3. Strengthen and encourage families to sing together.
4. Build churches by singing together and to each other.
5. Witness to our wider communities by our singing.

 The link to the livestream is here.

It amazes OS that, after thirty years dedicated to turning church congregations into passive consumers of whatever crap they think up to dish to them, LifeWay has experienced its own epiphany--Let's return to hymnody!! Theology matters!!

They even offer a pdf download of the hymns they are now peddling to the newly-revived faithful--in lead sheet form, since who can read four parts anymore? Hell, who can read music anymore? An entire generation, deprived of hymnbooks, can't make their way through even basic music notation.

The 'epiphany' was born of necessity--the firm, once taken over by the pedders of crap, has continued to shrink, and shrink, and shrink. They ended up selling off all their prime downtown Nashville real-estate, after decades of capital investment into office and warehouse facilities, since the land was worth much more than any multiple of earnings they could otherwise generate. They sold a huge conference center near Santa Fe (Santa-byGod-Fe, the refuge of the moneyed) for one American dollar. One dollar, because it had become such a money pit, because their customers realized that they were being peddled crap, and stopped attending conferences. Amazing what happens to a firm that chases off at least half of its customer base, yelling 'Good riddance!' at them as they depart...

In all this, OS is reminded of an old Appalachian Presbyterian preacher who spoke to a small gathering of church refugees, huddled at a state park for a weekend of respite and encouragement. Seeing their demoralization (and this twenty-something years ago) he reminded them of three basic ideas:

1. God's in charge.
2. He always finishes what be begins.
3. He never leaves himself without a witness.

OS and others have held on to those words in the two decades since, watching the world unwind around them.

And, sure enough, #3 on the list comes strolling up: The evensong services in the UK are filling up again, with many of the congregants being young people. Young people, hungry for authenticity, beauty, transcendence--hungry for Christ Himself, if truth be told.

Those things--beauty, authenticity, transcedence--require a deep attachment to the long rich history of Christendom, which attachment the GreatAndGood of all stripes in the leadership of church life in America have spent their careers denigrating and destroying. Now, finally, watching their worlds come unwound, they begin checking the map for the road back home.

OS wishes them every success in that journey. And if they can't read the map, they just need to go away, and leave the job to those who can.

Hitchens Nails It Again

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2017/09/our-drug-addled-louts-are-the-real-reason-we-need-migrants.html

Sometimes, CNN, When A Reporter Shoves A Mic Into The Face Of A Traumatized Mom (great ratings!) She'll Tell You What She Thinks

Quote of the day:

"We walked through four feet of water to get food on the first day.  Yeah, that’s a lot of shit.”

“But y’all sit here, y’all trying to interview people during their worst times — like that’s not the smartest thing to do. Like people are really breaking down and y’all sitting here with cameras and microphones trying to ask us what the fuck is wrong with us."

"And you really trying to understand with the microphone still in my face? With me shivering cold, with my kids wet, and you still putting the microphone in my face."

OS is tempted to set it to music--or better yet, we need a savvy rapper/mixologist to do his/her mashup magic with this moment. 

Anyway, ya'll--this is priceless:

American Presidents, Slavery, and the Confederacy--Which Monuments Should Remain Standing?

It's a fascinating question, when viewed in perspective.

Clyde Wilson of the Abbeville Institute offers that perspective, to wit---only one...all the others have their hands stained (if our politically correct friends are to be trusted).

One wonders, in the end, if all this hysterical semi-historicity has been undertaken to set the stage for an assault on the existence of the Constitution itself...just...sayin'...

In any case, Dr. Wilson's insights follow.

The current pogrom against Southern history and symbols ignores the influence the South and the institution of slavery had on most American presidents. American history would not be the same without it. If the current goal is to purge any reminder of slavery and the Confederacy from the public sphere, then nearly every American president would have to be withdrawn from our historical consciousness. Nineteen presidents either were slaveholders, from slaveholding families, or were married into slaveholding families:
1. George Washington
2. Thomas Jefferson
3. James Madison
4. James Monroe
5. Andrew Jackson
6. Martin Van Buren
7. William Henry Harrison
8. John Tyler
9. James K. Polk
10. Zachary Taylor
11. Abraham Lincoln
12. Andrew Johnson
13. U.S. Grant
14. Benjamin Harrison
15. Theodore Roosevelt
16. Woodrow Wilson
17. Franklin D. Roosevelt
18. Jimmy Carter
19. Barack Hussein Obama

Of these nineteen, thirteen had family members who fought for the Confederacy: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Lincoln, A. Johnson, T. Roosevelt, Wilson, and Carter, while Presidents Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton all had Confederate ancestors as well. The Clinton campaign crafted Confederate Battle Flag “Clinton/Gore” pins in 1992.

George H.W. and George W. Bush hail from the New England slave trading Walker family.
Barack Obama’s Kenyan family, as part of the Luo tribe, most certainly engaged in the East African slave trade selling Africans to Muslims. This trade was older and more pervasive than the more famous West African trade.

Several presidents were either sympathetic to the South, opposed the War at some point between 1861 and 1865, or had favorable opinions of the South and Southerners in general:
1. Millard Fillmore was sympathetic to Southern slaveholders, favored colonization, and sought peace in 1864. For that, he was labeled a traitor and a Copperhead.
2. Franklin Pierce was sympathetic to the South through close friendships with leading Confederate officials including Jefferson Davis and opposed the War.
3. James Buchanan was sympathetic to Southern slaveholders. His “close friend,” William King of Alabama, influenced his views.
4. Grover Cleveland opposed Lincoln’s war and honoured ex-Confederates by appointing them to high offices, including a Supreme Court Justice.
5. William McKinley used the first “Southern strategy” in American history during the 1896 presidential campaign. His Southern tour led many Southerners to support him over the much more leftist William Jennings Bryan in the election. McKinley spoke of his admiration for Confederate soldiers.
6. William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, and Calvin Coolidge all presided over events honouring Confederate soldiers (with Confederate Battle Flags), with Taft speaking directly to members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
7. Dwight D. Eisenhower defended General Lee and Confederate motives during both his administration and his time as a United States General Officer.
8. John F. Kennedy admired John C. Calhoun by classifying him as one of the greatest United States Senators and freely spoke in front of Confederate Battle Flags. He received one as a gift from Senator Fritz Hollings.
9. Richard M. Nixon swept to victory in 1972 with his “Southern strategy” that including Confederate Battle Flag campaign pins.
10. Gerald R. Ford pardoned Robert E. Lee in 1975, an act that would be nearly impossible today.
11. Ronald W. Reagan portrayed sympathetic Confederates in movies as a leading American actor in the 1950s.
12. Donald Trump donated $25,000 to help rebuild Jefferson Davis’s Beauvoir after Hurricane Katrina.

All told, thirty-eight of the forty-three men who have occupied the executive office had ties to slavery, the slave trade, the Confederacy, or held positive views of the South, including the first African-American president, Barack Obama.

Ostensibly, that would leave five Presidents–John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, and Herbert Hoover–worthy of emulation according to the acceptable narrative outlined by the modern social justice warriors.

But not so fast.

John Adams was friends with several large slaveholders, including Thomas Jefferson, and tolerated the institution for the good of the Union.

Rutherford Hayes appointed Southerners to cabinet positions, supported reconciliation, and removed federal troops from the South to end Reconstruction.

James Garfield said that racial equality gave him “a strong feeling of repugnance” and supported colonization of free blacks in Africa.

Chester Arthur dedicated the Washington Monument (a shining example of slavery) and heaped praise upon Confederate veteran John W. Daniel during the ceremony.

And while Hoover was a champion of civil rights and supported federal aid for Southern blacks during the terrible flooding of the Mississippi in the early 1920s, he also (supposedly) opposed the New Deal and an enlarged general government with “safety net” authority. In other words, he hated the poor, black Americans among them.

As a result, J.Q. Adams should be honoured around the United States as the only true American free from the stains of slavery, the Confederacy, Southern sympathies, or racism, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created “Equal.”
Of course, he served only one term, did not receive a majority in the popular vote, and won in 1824 through the “corrupt bargain” in the House of Representatives. Perhaps that is because no one could stand the man. Seems the Yankee “Treasury of Counterfeit Virtue” only goes so far toward American political success.

Or better yet, most American presidents have realized that the South, as real America, is key to winning elections.

O Canada! Justin Trudeau Reminds Illegals That Canada Enforces Strict Immigration Laws...Strictly

Therefore, according to TheGreatAndGood of the politically correct universes of academia, press, entertainment, and Beltway--Trudeau is an irredeemable raaaaaaacist!

Sound the alarm!!! Are there any monuments in Canada that bear the name 'Trudeau' for any purpose? It must be torn down forthwith! Is there any news anchor or sportscaster or hockey player who shares that shameful name? Kick him/her off the air, immmmmeeeeediately if not sooner.

Hate speech cannot be tolerated!

To wit...

“Canada is an opening and welcoming society,” he told reporters in Montreal following talks with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. “But let me be clear. We are also a country of laws. Entering Canada irregularly is not an advantage. There are rigorous immigration and customs rules that will be followed. Make no mistake.”

Sarah Palin Sues The New York Times, Because Enough Is Enough Is Enough Is Enough

The Times repeated, once again, the clearly proven lie that Governor Palin's exercise of free speech resulted in the horrific mass shooting in Arizona that left Congresswoman Gabby Gifford terribly injured, and eleven dead.

A few hours later, they kinda-sorta-maybe retracted the assertion, while pointedly not naming Mrs. Palin as the target of their earlier viciousness, and issuing no apology.

Yesterday, she struck back. A copy of the lawsuit filed may be found here.

OS wishes her every good fortune, and hopes that she gets her day in court, gets her verdict, and gets a jury that sends a painful painful (as in sell bunches of real estate, fire bunches of responsible execs, bleed cash for years paying it all off) judgement against these horrible, horrible people.

Why OS Feels No Sympathy For Kathy Griffin--In Her Own Words

What would have happened if, in December 2008, an actor/TV host/presenter/comedian called Mr. Obama a 'POS' (OS won't quote the phrase exactly), and vowed to 'go after' his minor children.

Outrage would have erupted. Justifiable outrage. Whatever we may think of a person in the public eye, his/her 10-year old children are off limits. They are unwitting participants due to circumstances of birth.

Thus, when Kathy Griffin spouted her nonsense at a December 2016 interview, all the rest of us heard in reaction was the sound of crickets chirping.

OS will even spare his legions of readers the labor of clicking through. This is Mzzzzz Griffin, in her own words.

It’s a question a lot of comedians are asking themselves lately: What should comedy look like during the Trump presidency? “Now more than ever we must absolutely go for all the absurdities,” Kathy Griffin told Vulture at the Equality Now Gala Tuesday night. “For me, that’s Trump and all things Trump. It’s not about trying to be an equal-opportunity offender anymore because Hillary got such a beat down. It’s his turn. So I’m happy to deliver beat down to Donald Trump — and also to Barron. You know a lot of comics are going to go hard for Donald, my edge is that I’ll go direct for Barron. I’m going to get in ahead of the game.”

So, of course, Griffin supported Rosie O’Donnell when she tweeted a video asking if Barron Trump, 10-year-old son of Donald and Melania, was on the autism spectrum. “After the beat down he gave her, she can say whatever she wants to say to that piece of shit,” Griffin said before correcting herself. “Oh, that’s President Piece of Shit.”

OS is curious--Did Mzzzzz Griffin ever have children herself? Perhaps nieces and nephews in her life? People who have some positive role in some child's life don't act like this. 

Don't Mess With Melania: Daily Mail Issues Formal Apology, Pays Damages And Expenses In Libel Suit

Words have meaning, and publishing defamatory false words carries consequences.

The UK's Daily Mail published scurrilous allegations about Melania Trump last summer, which turned out to be blatantly untrue. Mrs. Trump took them to court, and today....

The Mail Online website and the Daily Mail newspaper published an article on 20th August 2016 about Melania Trump which questioned the nature of her work as a professional model, and republished allegations that she provided services beyond simply modelling. The article included statements that Mrs. Trump denied the allegations and Paulo Zampolli, who ran the modelling agency, also denied the allegations, and the article also stated that there was no evidence to support the allegations. The article also claimed that Mr and Mrs Trump may have met three years before they actually met, and "staged" their actual meeting as a "ruse."

We accept that these allegations about Mrs Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them. We apologise to Mrs Trump for any distress that our publication caused her. To settle Mrs Trump's two lawsuits against us, we have agreed to pay her damages and costs. 

A fair observation to note that this retraction was probably written by lawyers, and probably is verbatim part of the settlement between the parties.

Congratulations, Mrs. Trump. Here's hoping your pushback will have a settling effect upon the press here in the colonies as well.

The Ongoing Trainwreck Of Venezuela/The Tale of Joseph

A nation with every, and OS means every possible reason to succeed, is melting down on the far side of the Gulf of Mexico.

Venezuela has a great location in the world, great tropical coastlines and islands, incredibly rich natural resources, including oil reserves, universities, businesses, a large slice of the population that is educated and productive, etc. etc.

And, it has blown sky-high, as in 'Looosy--Wha' Happened' sky-high. A wealthy country suffering shortages of food and medicine. A government that thinks it will solve all problems by jailing the opposition and neutering the legislative branch.

A banana republic.

The wonderful blogger who (for obvious reasons) writes under a pseudonym at The Devil's Excrement has for years done a marvelous job recording this slow death spiral for the world to read and understand.

So, Loooosy. Wha' actually happened?

In brief, Hugo Chavez happened. He rode the spike in oil prices like a rented mule, spent the nation's wealth like a drunken sailor. Chaos ensued, and he loved it. Some leaders actually thrive on chaos.

Then he died, having believed he would live forever, which he didn't. Nor did he create anything resembling a plan for what should happen after he died, since of course he assumed he was immortal.

Then the price of oil died. And all the unspent money, grafted off, never spent on maintaining the oil fields, came back to haunt. Production dropped,  so Venezuela was well and truly....screwed. No one will sell them anything except for hard currency, and no one will lend them money. And their government has managed to piss off the entire world. It's a recipe for failure, plain and simple.

The Biblical tale of Joseph comes to mind. The Pharaoh had disturbing dreams, and heard that one of the Deplorables in his dungeon had the gift of interpretation. Joseph was hauled up before him and stated the obvious: 'Timez is goood your Pharoahness. Let's store grain and wealth now while we can, because famines happen, and you want to keep your head unseparated from your royal shoulders. Hungry populations get pissed off and take to the streets, and not even you can survive that.' So the Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of the project. Sure as shootin' seven years of plenty were followed by seven years of drought (must have been global warming, right?). Egypt was sitting pretty, with grain to sell to the world, and prospered through the hard times. Joseph ended up as Prime Minister, because he exercised simple common sense, and he was by all accounts basically self-effacing.

So what happened to Venezuela? It was the abandonment of common sense, and the embrace of a charismatic leader who told people what they wished to hear. Now they are headed over the cliff.

It's what is known as a Cautionary Tale.

The book of Genesis ends with the Joseph story. The next book, Exodus, opens with the words to this effect: 'There arose in Egypt a generation that knew not Joseph'. The tale that follows recounts the wheels coming off one of the ancient world's most powerful civilizations.

It, too, is a Cautionary Tale.

Jesse Reminds Us Of Kenneth Clark's 'Civilization'

This must be read and viewed.