The Running Of The Pit Bulls

Loyalists confront police in Northern Ireland
 

 It is the Marching Season in Northern Ireland. The Orange Lodges try to march through Catholic neighborhoods, or as close as they can get so they can hurl bottles and petrol bombs at Catholics, and Catholics try to hurl bricks and petrol bombs at the Protestants. The police are in the middle trying to avoid missiles coming from both sides. Reminds me of dodge ball in the gym on rainy days, anyway you get the picture.

 

Now while this goes on in Ireland The Running of the Bulls goes on in Pamplona. Bulls don't really care if you are Protestant or Catholic. If you're in the way on the way to the bullring you better keep moving, anything on two legs is the enemy. Bulls unlike human beings could care less where you worship.

 

Bull Having Fun

So I love tradition but I think it is time to update the Marching Season. The Spanish Armada plan did not work out well for the Spanish, but I think we could mix some traditions here. Think of it as a cultural cocktail rather than a Molotov Cocktail.

 

 

 

 

 

The Running of the Pit Bulls. Turn 40 or so Pit Bulls loose as the marchers get close to the Catholic neighborhoods. The Orangemen will quicken the pace, no time for throwing dangerous objects whether Catholic or Protestant. The police will be entertained rather than assaulted. History will be served with English celebration, Spanish tradition, and a little American innovation.  

 

http://www.globalpost.com/photo/5884503/belfast-marching-season-clashes

Where Is That Village?

Someone once said it takes a village to raise a child. It appears that a village can also destroy a child.

The Zimmerman trial is over, well maybe it is over. Some in the village are outraged at the not guilty verdict and some are pleased. The village appears to be schizophrenic.

I'm trying to find that village in the photograph. It seems to look quiet and best of all deserted. I don't dislike all individuals but then again I am not in love with the concept of the collective conscience.

The collective view of humanity is very attractive to our culture. I am a cynic because when I see a collective group of human beings I see a mob. Mobs tend to be brutish and and of course there is no such thing as a collective consience. Mobs impose their will through force, and if you are not a member of the proverbial village the mob will attempt to destroy you.

The village I live in now is pretty brutal. The village I live in now has murdered at least 48,932,474 children, and yet the villagers rail against violence. The village I live in now sells violence on the movie screen, televison, video games, and music, yet the villagers are willing to give their rapt attention to some musician or actor that speaks out against violence.

The village in the photo appears to be empty from the outside, unfortunately in my village it is many of the villagers that are empty on the inside.

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

Chen Guangcheng

"Because you're not what I would have you be, I blind myself to who, in truth, you are." - Madeleine L'Engle

A dissident can be like that relative everyone agonizes over when the invitation list is being drawn up for that holiday dinner or family barbecue. Their behavior at one family function might be beyond reproach on one occasion and a total disaster on another.

Every family has one of those relatives. You spend months working on the lawn for that 4th of July family picnic and as everyone compliments you on how nice the yard looks Uncle Fred reminds you of your social obligation to compost your yard debris, eggshells, and food scraps, and then goes on to lecture you on the science of the evils to come by using a gas powered lawnmower. You see a fairway at The Masters, Uncle Fred sees Death Valley.

Chen Guangcheng has worn out his welcome at New York University and I think I know why the administration at NYU waits in breathless anticipation for the day that his visa expires and he is on the way back to China.

"Chen Guangcheng (born 12 November 1971) is a Chinese civil rights activist who worked on human rights issues in rural areas of the People's Republic of China. Blind from an early age and self-taught in the law, Chen is frequently described as a "barefoot lawyer" who advocates for women's rights, land rights, and the welfare of the poor. He is best known for exposing abuses in official family-planning practices, often involving claims of violence and forced abortions." - from Wikipedia

The last thing any institution of higher learning needs is a self educated individual on campus that will conduct lectures and seminars for their students. Universities and colleges tend to be outspoken on the merits of socialism in the classroom or the lecture hall, but when it comes to tuition and fees they seem to be admirers of the classic robber barons.
One doesn't invite a college dropout like Bill Gates of Microsoft fame to a college campus to teach a business course. A Bill Gates is offered an honorary degree in the hopes that he brings a suitcase full of cash to the commencement ceremony and then gives a speech to graduates who in turn will be offering their own suitcases filled with cash for years to come to pay off their student loans.

Unfortunately for Chen he did not come to NYU with a suitcase full of cash. What he brings to NYU is a living example of courage. Blindness imposes a certain amount of isolation. Speaking out against evil and not being able to see the jailers punch coming tells me that Chen sees far more than we see.


http://www.nationalreview.com/article/351315/chen-guangcheng-and-nyu-editors

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/activists-departure-from-nyu-draws-fear-of-chinese-pressure/

"10,000 people just melt away."

"You can hire 10,000 people for 10 to 15 minutes," says Gigwalk CEO Bob Bahramipour. "When they're done, those 10,000 people just melt away."

The new normal for a citizen of the United States is the financial and political destruction of the middle class. Socialists, or as in the case of the United States the establishment of that branch of socialism known as corporate fascism is the goal of President Obama and the Democrat Party. Unfortunately some Republicans have now adopted the Pontius Pilate philosophy of political action. They stand at the basin and continually wash their hands, after all if you are in the middle class the least your elected representatives should is clean their hands before placing them in your pockets before removing your wallet.

The news several weeks ago that the Obama administration has delayed the requirements for businesses to to comply with the Obamacare mandate to provide health care if they employ 50 or more people will not change the fact that the United States is on the road to economic Hell. The requirement for individuals to have a health care policy has not been delayed. The middle and lower middle class do not have a voice in the halls of power. Republicans and Democrats alike are wined and dined by big business and big labor. Small businesses and the individual worker are the 10,000 people that are just going to melt away.

Socialists whether they wish to admit or not are class warfare warriors. Socialists know they cannot make everyone wealthy, for to do that means encouraging the private sector and entrepreneurial capitalism, the very things that the socialist despises.Socialist party members do tend to make an exception for themselves in the quest to accumulate wealth. The answer than becomes to pursue policies that will make everyone poorer. If everyone is poor then every man is equal, at least as far as misery is concerned.

Big business tends to support corporate fascism because it destroys competition. Apple, Microsoft, General Electric, & Wal-Mart, to name just a few can afford the lawyers to navigate government rules and regulations. Not only can socialism allow them to crush their competitors, but they can lobby the government to determine which products will be made available to the consumer, and lobby for government subsidies to produce products such as specialized light bulbs, wind turbines, and solar panels. It does not matter if the product is beneficial to the consumer. The consumer not only will have to purchase this product but subsidize it through fees and taxes.

Big business is not going to hire permanent workers. Big business is going to hire temporary workers that will simply melt away. So much for the theory that someone else is going to pay for your health care.

When income tax revenues drop due to the rise in temporary employment, which in turn means a rise in full time unemployment, local, state, and the federal governments will not stop spending. They will raise taxes to cover their new budget shortfalls. The socialist will state that we must tax the surviving corporate giants. What the socialist fails to realize is that individuals pay taxes, corporations do not. The price of goods and services will increase to cover the cost of any new taxes.

The downward spiral will continue for the new underclass. The irony is socialism creates the very thing it is trying to destroy. Socialism creates a class of wealthy elites and destroys the middle class.

The following quote is from Rerum Novarum, Encyclical Letter on the Condition of the Working Classes
His Holiness Pope Leo XIII
May 15, 1891

9. Clearly the essential reason why those who engage in any gainful occupation undertake labor, and at the same time the end to which workers immediately look, is to procure property for themselves and to retain it by individual right as theirs and as their very own. When the worker places his energy and his labor at the disposal of another, he does so for the purpose of getting the means necessary for livelihood. He seeks in return for the work done, accordingly, a true and full right not only to demand his wage but to dispose of it as he sees fit. Therefore, if he saves something by restricting expenditures and invests his savings in a piece of land in order to keep the fruit of his thrift more safe, a holding of this kind is certainly nothing else than his wage under a different form; and on this account land which the worker thus buys is necessarily under his full control as much as the wage which he earned by his labor. But, as is obvious, it is clearly in this that the ownership of movable and immovable goods consists. Therefore, inasmuch as the Socialists seek to transfer the goods of private persons to the community at large, they make the lot of all wage earners worse, because in abolishing the freedom to dispose of wages they take away from them by this very act the hope and the opportunity of increasing their property and of securing advantages for themselves.


http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_le13rn.htm

http://news.yahoo.com/temporary-jobs-becoming-permanent-fixture-140133833.html

Oh Canada, The United States Stands On Guard For Thee

Hey hoser we want our Stanley Cup back.

Interesting article, but it would have been written in German if not for the United States.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-american-revolution-was-a-flop/2013/07/03/fd077db0-e02b-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_story.html