Fatal Introspection

Daily Quotation

2010-11-02T05:00:00.078-04:00

Do you know what bothers me? Is that every election year as well, you get the voter registration drives aimed at the young people. 'Rock the vote! The vote's crack-a-lackin'! Think the vote! You'll music the vote! Mmm-doo-doo-duh-doo-doot! Here: the vote! the vote! the vote! the vote! the vote! the vote! the vote!' Are we so lost we have to be sold our own democratic right? What the Hell is wrong with--what is going on? We have to sexy up the vote for young people? Remember four years ago Puff 'Diddley' had that group, 'Vote or Die!'? Then it turns out he didn't even vote himself? Maybe he forgot which name he registered under.

Listen, here's what I'm saying to you, here's what I would say, here's what I would say: if you don't vote, you're a moron. Right? Just something else: I know what you're saying 'Well, not voting is a vote.' No it isn't. Not voting is just being stupid. Voting is not sexy. Voting is not hip. It is not fashionable. It's not a movie. It's not a video game. All the kids ain't doing it. Frankly, voting is a pain in the ass. But here's a word, look it up: it is your 'duty' to vote. Duty! The foundation, the foundation in this democracy is based on free people making free choices. So: young people, if you can't take your hand out of your bag of Cheetos long enough to fill out a form, then you can't complain when we wind up with 'President Sanjaya'.

Listen, I'm an American. This country as it is, at war, right now; Americans in foreign lands, wearing uniforms, representing this country, are losing their lives. Americans here in this country are losing their homes. We have two patriotic candidates, right? They both love this country. They have different ideas about what to do with it. Learn about them. Read about them. Question them. Listen to them. Then, on election day, exercise your sacred right as an American, and listen to yourself.
~ Craig Ferguson - The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson ~

Daily Quotation

2010-07-06T05:00:00.011-04:00

You watch, the next story is going to be millions of conversions. That was his last gift to all of us.
~ Laura Ingraham after the death of Pope John Paul II, as quoted by Peggy Noonan - John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father ~

Daily Quotation

2010-07-03T05:00:00.011-04:00

The dialogue now switched to French, for one of scientists in that country had developed a radically new drug which the French ambassador's wife was explaining, and I thought: this must be the only capital in the world where a sophisticated international audience can discuss with all seriousness the control of the upper and lower bowel. Yet no aspect of Afghan life was more significant than this, for when the virulent Asiatic diarrhea, known locally as the Kabul Trots, struck, it was not a like a stomach ache back home. It was a sickness which nauseated, embarrassed, debilitated and outraged the human body. In a land where toilet facilities were not excessive, diarrhea was a scourge, and I was willing to gamble that not a single person in that softly lit room, lined with books, was without his or her secret vial of pills and even more secret roll of personal toilet paper.

"What do you do for the disease?" the French ambassador's wife asked Moheb Khan in French.

"It's very simple," Moheb replied in lilting English. "You Europeans are always shocked at our open water supply into which little boys urinate. Or worse. But what happens? From drinking such water most of our children die, and that's neither a curse nor a blessing. They die and that's that. So the life expectancy in Afghanistan is about twenty-three years. But that figure doesn't mean what it says, not really. For if by chance you are one of the babies who does not die, you are one of the babies who does not die, you are inoculated against positively everything. Look about you. See the large number of our men who live to an extreme old age. With the women, I can assure you, it is the same. If you drink our water till you are seven, nothing can kill you but a bullet." He thumped his chest and laughed.

A rotund English doctor, on temporary duty in Kabul, said quietly, "You know of course, he's not teasing. Take poliomyelitis, which strikes so many children in an antiseptic country like America..."

"Here no child gets polio," Moheb Khan insisted. "But you Europeans who come to us later in life, when you've not had the inoculations our water imparts... How many cases have we had of polio among the Europeans?"

"Many, even in my time," the fat doctor concurred.

~ James Michener - Caravans: A Novel of Afghanistan ~

Daily Quotation

2010-07-02T05:00:00.009-04:00

Bon vivant, wit, and tireless author, Chesterton lost the debate about the future direction of society to his contemporaries H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, and George Bernard Shaw. Chesterton saw the implications of their vision of twentieth-century society, and he predicted exactly what would come of it. Chesterton is not a congenial stylist to the modern reader; his witticisms are formal, his references to contemporaries, lost in time. But his essential points are chillingly clear.

Originally published in 1922, this astonishingly prescient text [Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized Society] has much to say about our understanding of genetics then (and now), and about the mass seduction of pseudoscience. Chesterton's was one of the few voices to oppose eugenics in the early twentieth century. He saw right through it as fraudulent on every level, and he predicted where it would lead, with great accuracy. His critics were legion; they reviled him as reactionary, ridiculous, ignorant, hysterical, incoherent, and blindly prejudiced, noting with dismay that "his influence in leading people in the wrong direction is considerable." Yet Chesterton was right, and the consensus of scientists, political leaders and the intelligentsia was wrong. Chesterton lived to see the horrors of Nazi Germany. This book is worth reading because, in retrospect, it is clear that Chesterton's arguments were perfectly sensible and deserving of an answer, and yet he was simply shouted down. And because the most repellent ideas of eugenics are being promoted again in the twenty-first century, under various guises. The editor of this edition has included many quotations form eugenicists of the 1920s, which read astonishingly like the words of contemporary prophets of doom. Some things never change--including, unfortunately, the gullibility of press and public. We human beings don't like to look back at our past mistakes. But we should.
~ Michael Crichton - Next ~

Daily Quotation

2010-07-01T05:00:00.002-04:00

The only way to learn how to pray is to pray. If you are too busy to pray, you are too busy.
~ Blessed Teresa of Calcutta ~

Daily Quotation

2010-04-16T05:00:00.000-04:00

You trust your eyes too much, Asimov. You're not a chameleon, you know. You can't see everywhere at once.
~ Spike Spiegel - Cowboy Bebop Session # 1: Asteroid Blues ~

Daily Quotation

2010-04-14T05:00:00.003-04:00

I'm not a very gadgety man in my life, I don't have gadgets. I'm not good with--I don't even have a microwave in my house. I'm not kidding, I don't. I won't have 'em. I didn't even get rid of it, I just never had one. Don't like 'em. The oven is fast enough for me, thank you. There's people [who] say, 'You need a microwave to cook quickly.' I don't think food should cook that quickly. I think that's witchcraft, there's something wrong with that. You know, 'Ding!', it's ready. That's not right! That's not right! And people always--you say, 'I don't want a microwave'--and people say, 'hey, you can do a baked potato in three minutes!' I can get through life without a three minute baked potato, all right? I can plan ahead an hour in my own life. 'No, I need a potato right now! Three minutes, that's all I've got! Then I need a baked potato!'
~ Craig Ferguson - The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson ~

Bloody 'ell yeah!

2010-02-16T15:35:00.000-05:00

Since I had the day off and all that, I got up late this morning and had tea and toast. Took me all the way back to London a year ago. The only unfortunate part about it all is I'm not sure where my pot of Marmite is so I had to settle for spreading rasberry preserves on my toast instead. C'est la vie. That and I need to get my hands on a decent teapot and loose tea. One more thing to add to my list of things to do.

Daily Quotation

2010-02-15T05:00:00.001-05:00

If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
~ William Shakespeare - Henry V ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-14T05:00:00.014-05:00

Hear me, and I will show you who they are, over whom the devil can prevail. For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil has power.
~ Saint Raphael the Archangel - Tobit 6.16 & 17 ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-13T23:08:00.006-05:00

Home in the valley,

Home in the city,

Home isn't pretty.

Ain't no home for me.

Home in the darkness,

Home on the highway,

Home isn't my way.

Home, I'll never be.

~ Blue Öyster Cult - Burnin' For You ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-12T05:00:00.002-05:00

Now, if you can master a slap like that, there's no need for your clients to hold back. They will open up like a fountain, full of words. No need for strong violence, no, no. They're transported back to their childhood, putty in your hands. Ask Bandy--look, thinks he's back at school... Now, if a slap don't work you cut him or you pay him but you keep the receipts 'cause this ain't the Mafia.
~ Mark Strong as Archy - RocknRolla ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-11T05:00:00.004-05:00

Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks....

Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone had had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.
~ Albert Einstein as quoted in TIME - Religion: German Martyrs ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-10T05:00:00.002-05:00

What is envy? Unfortunately most people use the word wrongly as a synonym for jealously [sic]. But jealously [sic] is not the same as envy. When I am jealous of you, you have something I want and I wish to possess it inordinately. But the key point is that there is somehting good about you or something good you have and I want to have it for myself. When jealousy is sinful I want it inordinately or unreasonably. But envy is very different. Envy is sorrow, sadness or anger at the goodness or excellence of someone else because I take it to lessen my own excellence. But the key difference with envy is that (unlike jealousy) I do not want to posses the good or excellence you have. I want to destroy it.

...

[T]here is an odd form of envy out there that is particularly annoying because it masquerades as sensitivity and kindness. Go with me to a typical neighbordood soccer game or baseball game. The children are on the field and playing their hearts out. But on the sidelines a decision has been made not to keep score. Why? Because the kids [sic] little egos might be damaged by losing. Frankly, it isn't the egos of the children we're protecting here, it is the parents. The fact it [sic] that the kids know the score in most cases. But God forbid that on the sports field there should be winners or losers! The losers might "feel bad." The solution is to destroy or to refuse to acknowledge goodness and excellence in some children because it is taken to lessen the goodness or excellence of the "losers." This is envy and it teaches terrible things by omission. First of all it fails to teach that there are winners and losers in life. This is a fact. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. Either way I should be gracious. Secondly, it fails to reward excellence and this is unjust for excellence should be rewarded and the reward should motivate others to be excellent. Much is lost when we fail to praise what is good. Another example of this envious practice is at school award ceremonies where sometimes (literally) hundred [sic] of awards are given out. There are the traditional Honor Roll awards but then a plethora of made up awards so that everyone gets something. I've even witnessed awards given for the nicest smile. But the problem is that when every on is awarded no one is awarded. Once again envy rears it [sic] ugly head but this time it's wearing a smiley face. God forbid that some kids [sic] little ego might be bruised it [sic] he doesn't get something. God forbid that someone else's excellence might make me look less excellent by comparison. The bottom line is that it is envy: sorrow at someone else's excellence because I take it to lessen my own. And frankly this isn't the kids [sic] issue, it's usually parents and teachers projecting their own struggle with envy on the kids. But the fact is, there are simply some people who are better than I am a [sic] certain things. But that's OK. I don't have all the gifts, you don't have all the gifts. But together we have all the gifts.

Envy is ugly, even when it masquerades as kindness. It diminishes and often seeks to destroy goodness and excellence. The proper response to excellence and goodness is and should always be joy and zeal.
~ Monsignor Charles Pope - The Evil of Envy ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-09T05:00:00.017-05:00

So too it is often implied that all discrimination is unjust. But everyone discriminates regularly and discrimination is essential to every society and especially societies which cherish freedom.

We all choose our friends and society imprisons criminals. The best students are chosen for demanding university courses and only our best athletes represent Australia.

The practice of groups, including churches employing staff who support their aims does not need "and exemption" in law, but the protection of the basic right to freedom of choice and association, and to religious freedom.

Much discrimination is just. No one claims the Labor Party must employ Liberal Party staffers.
~ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney - Capturing the Language ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-08T05:00:00.001-05:00

Esquire magazine, if you don't know, it's like Maxim, but for an older, classier bunch of creepy guys.
~ Craig Ferguson - The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-07T05:00:00.003-05:00

Thus amongst the blessings of marriage, the child holds the first place. And indeed the Creator of the human race Himself, Who in His goodness wishes to use men as His helpers in the propagation of life, taught this when, instituting marriage in Paradise, He said to our first parents, and through them to all future spouses: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth." As St. Augustine admirably deduces from the words of the holy Apostle Saint Paul to Timothy when he says: "The Apostle himself is therefore a witness that marriage is for the sake of generation: 'I wish,' he says, 'young girls to marry.' And, as if someone said to him, 'Why?,' he immediately adds: 'To bear children, to be mothers of families'."
~ Pope Pius XI - Casti Connubii ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-06T05:00:00.012-05:00

He's old fashioned, very old fashioned. The kind of guy who doesn't belong in this day and age.
~ Jet Black - Cowboy Bebop Session # 16: Black Dog Serenade ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-05T05:00:00.001-05:00

Avoid corporate buzzwords such as "paradigm" and "synergy." Simply use "bullshit."
~ Fake AP Stylebook ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-04T05:00:00.002-05:00

If, indeed, we all have a kind of appetite for eternity, we have allowed ourselves to be caught up in a society that frustrates our longing at every turn. Half our inventions are advertised to save time--the washing machine, the fast car, the jet flight--but for what? Never were people more harried by time: by watches, by buzzers, by time clocks, by precise schedules, by the beginning of the programme. There is, in fact, some truth in 'the good old days': no other civilisation of the past was ever so harried by time.

And yet, why not? Time is our natural environment. We live in time as we live in the air we breathe. And we love the air--who has not taken deep breaths of pure, fresh country air, just for the pleasure of it? How strange that we cannot love time. It spoils our loveliest moments. Nothing quite comes up to expectations because of it. We alone: animals, so far as we can see, are unaware of time, untroubled. Time is their natural environment. Why do we sense that it is not ours?

C. S. Lewis, in his second letter to me at Oxford, asked how it was that I, as a product of a materialistic universe, was not at home there. 'Do fish complain of the sea being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or wd. not always be, purely aquatic creatures?' Then, if we complain of time and take such joy in seemingly timeless moments, what does that suggest?

It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it--how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as a proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home.
~ Sheldon Vanauken - A Severe Mercy ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-03T05:00:00.003-05:00

I studied the Koran a great deal, mainly because of our position vis-à-vis the Muslim populations of Algeria and throughout the Near East. I must tell you that I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Mohammed. As far as I can see, it is the principle cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world, and, though it is less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion infinitely more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville as quoted by André Jardin - Tocqueville: A Biography ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-02T05:00:00.005-05:00

But there were still irritants to plague him, and one of the most grating was seated across from him in the coach. Commander Scott, head of the garrison of Fort Charles and self-appointed guardian of courtly good manners, brushed an invisible speck of dust from his uniform and said, "I trust Your Excellency enjoyed an excellent evening, and is even now in good spirits for the morning's exercises."

"I slept well enough," Sir James said abruptly. For the hundredth time, he thought to himself how much more hazardous life was in Jamaica when the commander of the garrison was a dandy and a fool, instead of a serious military man.
~ Michael Crichton - Pirate Latitudes ~

Daily Quotation

2010-02-01T05:00:00.030-05:00

What Appreciative pleasure foreshadows is not so quickly described.

First of all, it is the starting point for our whole experience of beauty. It is impossible to draw a line below which such pleasures are 'sensual' and above which they are 'aesthetic.' The experiences of the expert in claret already contain elements of concentration, judgement, and disciplined perceptiveness, which are not sensual; those of the musician still contain elements which are. There is no frontier--there is seamless continuity--between the sensuous pleasure of garden smells and an enjoyment of the countryside (or 'beauty') as a whole, or even our enjoyment of the painters and poets who treat it.

And, as we have seen, there is in these pleasures from the very beginning a shadow or a dawn of, or an invitation to, disinterestedness. Of course in one way we can be disinterested or unselfish, and far more heroically so, about the Need-pleasures: it is a cup of water that the wounded Sidney sacrifices to the dying soldier. But that is not the sort of disinterestedness I now mean. Sidney loves his neighbour. But in Appreciative pleasures, even at their lowest, and more and more as they grow up into the appreciation of all beauty, we get something that we can hardly help calling love and hardly help calling disinterested, towards the object itself. It is the feeling which would make a man unwilling to deface a great picture even if he were the last man left alive and himself about to die; which makes us glad of unspoiled forests that we shall never see; which makes us anxious that the garden or bean-field should continue to exist. We do not merely like the things; we pronounce them, in a momentarily God-like sense, 'very good.'

And now our principle of starting at the lowest--without which 'the highest does not stand'--begins to pay a dividend. It has revealed to me a deficiency in our previous classification of the loves into those of Need and those of Gift. There is a third element in love, no less important than these, which is foreshadowed by our Appreciative pleasures. This judgement that the object is very good, this attention (almost homage) offered to it as a kind of debt, this wish that it should be and should continue what it is even if we were never to enjoy it, can go out not only to things but to persons. When it is offered to a woman we call it admiration; when to a man, hero-worship; when to God, worship simply.

Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appreciative love says: 'We give thanks to thee for thy great glory.' Need-love says of a woman 'I cannot live without her'; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection--if possible, wealth; Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.
~ C. S. Lewis - The Four Loves ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-31T05:00:00.021-05:00

It is, moreover, Our will that Catholics should abstain from certain appellations which have recently been brought into use to distinguish one group of Catholics from another. They are to be avoided not only as "profane novelties of words," out of harmony with both truth and justice, but also because they give rise to great trouble and confusion among Catholics. Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected: "This is the Catholic faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly; he cannot be saved" (Athanasian Creed). There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim "Christian is my name and Catholic my surname," only let him endeavour to be in reality what he calls himself.
~ Pope Benedict XV - Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-30T05:00:00.002-05:00

Since you've been dating Beth, you're a tool. And not even one of those useful ones. You're like a hammer. A hammer without the hammery part. You're a stick.
~ Rayne Summers, - Least I Could Do ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-29T05:00:00.007-05:00

On a Puritan

He served his God so faithfully and well
That now he sees him face to face, in Hell.

~ Hilaire Belloc - The Complete Verse of Hilaire Belloc ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-28T05:00:00.015-05:00

Warfare is the greatest affair of state, basis of life and death, the Tao (Dao) for survival and extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed. Therefore, structure it according to the following five factors, comparatively evaluate it through estimation, and seek out its true nature. The first is termed the Tao, the second Heaven, the third Earth, the fourth generals, and the fifth the laws for military organization and discipline.

The Tao causes the people to be fully in accord with the ruler. Thus they will die with him, they will live with him and not fear danger.

Heaven encompasses yin and yang, cold and heat, the constraints of the seasons, according with and going contrary to, the basis of victory in warfare.

Earth encompasses high or low, far or near, difficult or easy, expansive or confined ground, fatal or tenable terrain.

The general encompasses wisdom, credibility, benevolence, courage, and strictness.

The laws for military organization and discipline encompass organization and regulations, the Tao of command, and the management of logistics.

There are no generals who have not heard of these five. Those who understand them will be victorious, those who do not understand them will not be victorious.

~ Sun-tzu - The Art of War ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-27T05:00:00.024-05:00

The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach--if not the kingdom of Heaven--the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: Far away from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.

You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It's true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain women and gays if you want to.
~ Umberto Eco - The Holy War: Mac vs DOS ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-26T05:00:00.030-05:00

When I became Catholic, I did so knowing that I came from a world that was radically impoverished liturgically, and so I did not take it upon myself to waltz into the Church and start holding forth on How She Could Improve the Mass to Suit Me. What did I know? Some wet-behind-the-ears convert from a non-denominational storefront church presuming to hold forth on the Divine Mysteries? Who needs it? Best for me to keep my trap shut and say "thanks" for the Awesome Gift. I've held to that policy ever since. I don't know from nothing about the fine details of liturgy, but I do know it's my business to be grateful for the Mass, not bitter and hyper-critical about it. I have this weird notion that "Eucharist" means I should be thankful. And this policy was only reinforced by the spectacle of watching not a few converts of the Matatics variety sashay into the Church, look around, find that it's not perfect enough for them, and proceed to walk out the opposite door because She doesn't suit their discriminating tastes or theological theories.

...

Like many other Catholics, I have this funny notion that when the Church teaches something in council, my task as a Catholic is to listen and obey, not repeat it in the same tone of voice as I would use when saying, "You left your soiled underwear on my coffee table." I dislike Reactionary Dissent as much as Progressive Dissent, not least because despite the contempt for the Decree on Ecumenism with which the Reactionary Dissent crowd is redolent, the fact remains that Vatican II's demand that Catholics engage, rather than avoid and heap contempt upon, Protestants is in no small part one of the reasons I could eventually become Catholic. The post-Vatican II Church's attempt to live out ecumenism, despite some of its loonier excesses, also produced a crop of Catholics who took the time to actually explain the Faith to Protestants like me in terms we could understand. I'm oddly grateful about having a crack at eternal life and the fullness of the Faith, so I'm grateful to the Church's teaching on Ecumenism at the Council.
~ Mark Shea - The Paradox of the Neo-Catholic Traditionalist ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-25T05:00:00.012-05:00

Address to a Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftan o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
In time o'need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin', rich!

Then horn for horn, they stretch an' strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit! hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad make her spew
Wi' perfect sconner ,
Looks down wi' sneering scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckles as wither'd rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash;
His nieve a nit;
Thro' blody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs an' arms, an' hands will sned,
Like taps o' trissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But if ye wish her gratefu' prayer
Gie her a haggis!

~ Rabbie Burns ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-24T05:00:00.003-05:00

In order to avoid the domination of one sex or the other, their differences tend to be denied, viewed as mere effects of historical and cultural conditioning. In this perspective, physical difference, termed sex, is minimized, while the purely cultural element, termed gender, is emphasized to the maximum and held to be primary. The obscuring of the difference or duality of the sexes has enormous consequences on a variety of levels. This theory of the human person, intended to promote prospects for equality of women through liberation from biological determinism, has in reality inspired ideologies which, for example, call into question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality.
~ Pope Benedict XVI - Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World ~

Does this mean that encyclicals will now be limited to 140 characters?

2010-01-24T00:06:00.004-05:00

While I don't personally use Twitter, I do think it's pretty badass that the Vatican now has a Twitter feed. When one considers that I hate Twitter, I think this has more to do with the fact that I think the Vatican in general is just pretty badass. Yes I did just say that. Suck it, Arius (and check out the main Vatican Twitter feed and the Vatican Twitter feed in English). If you do happen to be one of those people that actually uses Twitter and might actually follow these feeds, then check out these tips for following the Vatican on Twitter.

Daily Quotation

2010-01-23T05:00:00.001-05:00

But I guess when one is young, it seems very easy to distinguish between right and wrong. But as one gets older, it becomes more difficult. The villains and the heroes get all mixed up.
~ Giancarlo Giannini as René Mathis - Quantum of Solace ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-22T05:00:00.001-05:00

The trouble with poets is they talk too much.
They tell us it hurts them a little more.
We cannot tell if they make this up,
We've never stood in their shoes, in their skins, in their heads, on their shores.

The trouble with you is you drive me nuts!
I cannot tell what's behind your smile.
What can we find just to lift us up,
Just for tonight, for a time, for the sake of us all, for a while?

The trouble with shoes is they come untied
And you might take a fall down the stairs.
And a poet might come along and say, 'That's just like life.'
I think the trouble with poets is they'll see poetry everywhere.
~ Peter Mulvey - The Trouble With Poets ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-21T05:00:00.009-05:00

I missed not having a Bible at hand. Oh, no doubt there were Catholic Bibles at the basilica three blocks away... in Latin or in Spanish. I wanted the King James version. Again no doubt there were copies of it somewhere in this city--but I did not know where. For the first time in my life I envied the perfect memory of Preachin' Paul (Rev Paul Balonius) who tramped up and down the central states the middle of last century, preaching the Word without carrying the Book with him. Brother Paul was reputed to be able to quote from memory any verse cited by book, chapter, and number of verse, or, conversely, correctly place by book, chapter, and number any verse read to him.

I was born too late to meet Preachin' Paul, so I never saw him do this--but perfect memory is a special gift God bestows not too infrequently; I have no reason to doubt Brother Paul had it. Paul died suddenly, somewhat mysteriously, and possibly sinfully--in the words of my mission studies professor, one should exercise great prudence in praying alone with a married woman.
~ Robert A. Heinlein - Job: A Comedy of Justice ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-20T12:54:00.001-05:00

He who defends everything defends nothing.
~ Frederick the Great ~

Daily Quotation

2010-01-19T10:41:00.000-05:00

God made man in his own image. Ever since we seem intent on returning the favor.
~ Anonymous, as quoted by Monsignor Charles Pope - The Problem of a Designer God ~

Daily Quotation

2009-12-12T17:16:00.000-05:00

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.
~ G. K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy ~

Daily Quotation

2009-12-11T16:14:00.003-05:00

He must increase, but I must decrease.
~ St John the Baptist - John 3.30 ~

Daily Quotation

2009-12-09T14:54:00.000-05:00

The things you own end up owning you.
~ Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden - Fight Club ~

Daily Quotation

2009-12-07T15:27:00.002-05:00

Christianity was preached by the [Catholic] Church before the New Testament was written--that is simply a [sic] historical fact. It is also a fact that the apostles wrote the New Testament and the Church canonized it, deciding which books were divinely inspired. I knew, from logic and common sense, that a cause can never be less than its effect. You can't give what you don't have. If the Church has no divine inspiration and no infallibility, no divine authority, then neither can the New Testament. Protestantism logically entails Modernism. I had to be either a Catholic or a Modernist. That decided it; that was like saying I had to be a patriot or a traitor.
~ Dr Peter Kreeft - Hauled Aboard the Ark ~

Be careful what you ask for...

2009-12-01T09:17:00.000-05:00

Asking God to make you a stronger person can be a dangerous thing to do. Just as bodybuilders like to say, 'No pain, no gain,' the same concept applies to virtue as well. Just as a warrior cannot become a Marine without first undergoing The Crucible so we cannot become stronger people without first undergoing suffering. You cannot get something for nothing. The point? When you ask God to make you strong, don't expect Him to just give it to you. After all, He doesn't owe you anything, He's God. He will make you strong, but you probably won't like the way He goes about doing it. Suck it up and stick it out and when you look back you'll see how all the shit you went through was totally worth it.

Daily Quotation

2009-12-01T05:00:00.001-05:00

A distinguished man should be as particular about his last words as he is about his last breath. He should write them out on a slip of paper and take the judgement of his friends on them. He should never leave such a thing to the last hour of his life, and trust to an intellectual spurt at the last moment to enable him to say something smart with his latest gasp and launch into eternity with grandeur.
~ Mark Twain - The Last Words of Great Men ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-30T17:26:00.002-05:00

An infantry company is an unbelievably destructive component in a modern military force. It is designed and equipped to be self-contained and independent. A company commander has at his disposal his own organic supporting arms--60 mm mortars and M-60 machine guns--and he can reasonably expect support from artillery and air units of virtually any strength. As such, an infantry company and its commander wield enormous destructive power.

A captain commanding an infantry company is the highest-ranking officer who lives with and like the grunts he commands. He has everything to do with policy execution but almost nothing to do with policy formation. Though often out of sight of his superiors, he is almost never out of radio contact with them or other higher headquarters.
~ Colonel Richard D. Camp, Jr, USMC (Ret) - Lima-6: A Marine Company Commander in Vietnam ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-29T05:00:00.008-05:00

'My children, you listen when you like the preacher; but if the preacher does not suit you, you turn him into ridicule... We must not think so much about the man. It is not the body that we must attend to. Whatever the priest may be, he is still the instrument that the good God makes use of to distribute His holy Word. You pour liquor through a funnel; whether it be made of gold or of copper, if the liquor is good it will still be good.'
~ St John-Baptiste-Marie Vianney, Curé d'Ars ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-28T05:00:00.001-05:00

'Is this a courting or a donnybrook? Have the good manners not to hit the man until he's your husband and entitled to hit you back.'
~ Barry Fitzgerald as Michaleen Oge Flynn - The Quiet Man ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-27T05:00:00.002-05:00

'Now the object of the theological virtues is God Himself, Who is the last end of all, as surpassing the knowledge of our reason. On the other hand, the object of the intellectual and moral virtues is something comprehensible to human reason. Wherefore the theological virtues are specifically distinct from the moral and intellectual virtues.'
~ St Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologiæ ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-26T05:00:00.001-05:00

'Sir, so far as possible I hear Mass each day and I go to my knees and tell these beads each night. If that offends you, then I pray God may spare me the indignity of representing you in Parliament.'
~ Hilaire Belloc to an anti-Catholic heckler - 1906 Campaign Speech ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-25T05:00:00.002-05:00

From the hagg and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye,
All the spirits that stand by the naked man
In the Book of Moons defend ye!
That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken,
Nor wander from your selves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon.

Of thirty bare years have I
Twice twenty been enragèd,
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagèd.
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam,
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whip's ding-dong,
With wholesome hunger plenty.

With a thought I took for Maudlin
And a cruse of cockle pottage,
With a thing thus tall, sky bless you all,
I befell into this dotage.
I slept not since the Conquest,
Till then I never wakèd,
Till the roguish boy of love where I lay
Me found and stripped me naked.

I know more than Apollo,
For oft, when hee lies sleeping,
I see the stars at bloody wars
In the wounded welkin weeping;
The moon embrace her shepherd,
And the queen of Love her warrior,
While the first doth horn the star of morn,
And the next the heavenly Farrier.
~ From Tom O'Bedlam - 17th Century Ballad~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-24T09:16:00.000-05:00

'Life in the Holy Spirit fulfills the vocation of man. This life is made up of divine charity and human solidarity. It is graciously offered as salvation.'
~ Catechism of the Catholic Church - Paragraph 1699 ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-23T23:14:00.001-05:00

'I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.'
~ Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone - The Godfather ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-22T23:53:00.002-05:00

'Men are basically smart or dumb and lazy or ambitious. The dumb and ambitious ones are dangerous and I get rid of them. The dumb and lazy ones I give mundane duties. The smart ambitious ones I put on my staff. The smart and lazy ones I make my commanders.'
~ Field Marshal Erwin Rommel ~

The Saints are back! (And finally at a screen near me)

2009-11-21T21:56:00.010-05:00

A month ago, an event occurred that I have been waiting on for the last five years. That's right boys and girls, The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day hit theatres. The terrible problem at play is the fact that it was initially released in a limited number of theatres in the Northeast and on the West Coast. That all changed this past Friday when Apparition expanded distribution to include major metropolitan areas. The result? Necessary action, my friends. Thursday, a friend and I made the trek to Marietta, GA to catch the matinée and it was everything we had expected and more. All I have to say is that if you are a Boondocks fan, you need to see this and if you don't know what I'm talking about then check out the original and then hit the theatre. I should point out that there were around ten cars total in the theatre parking lot. When you subtract staff from that number you get pretty close to the five of us that watched this movie (which is good for a Thursday shortly after 1:00 pm). That's right, the odds are good that the only people in the house watching other movies were projectionists.

As for those of you who think it's just a rip-off of Tarantino then you don't know what you are talking about. While Troy Duffy and Quentin Tarantino both utilise aesthetic violence in their work, there is a philosophical difference in how they do this. That's right folks, philosophical. You can't escape it because you never cease to think and thus we are all philosophers. The point is that artistic violence utilised by Tarantino is philosophically postmodernist. At the end of the day, you feel no real connexion to Tarantino's characters. On the other hand, when Connor and Murphy kill gangsters, you identify with them. Duffy's characters kill for a higher reason than simply advancing the plot: to destroy evil. Tarantino's characters kill to advance the plot and sometimes simply because they can. The point is that the only thing in common between Duffy and Tarantino is the presence of artistic violence. Everything else is different in nature even as far as the plots in question. The closest Tarantino has ever gotten to a story of divine retribution like Boondocks is his revenge epic, Kill Bill I & II. This difference is borne out in how Tarantino and Duffy shoot their fight scenes. Tarantino's scenes are fast, extremely bloody (like a performance artist throwing paint), cut quickly and people die in fantastical ways. Duffy's fight scenes are in slow motion, include a great deal of symbolism and imagery and people die in relatively (for a gun fight) normal ways. Additionally, Tarantino's scenes, while choreographed are choreographed to appear chaotic. With Duffy, his scenes are more reminiscent of a dance. Bodies don't just fall, they fall These differences in style are all indicative of the differences in underlying philosophy, both in general and in regard to film that these respective directors hold. The point? Stop painting everything with such a damn broad brush. That's all I'm trying to say (That and I'm tired of typing this and I don't care what you think so I'm going to cut it to a close.)

So, if you are interested in seeing Boondocks II check out their website and find a theatre near you. If you don't have the luck of the Irish, then head over to Eventful.com and add your name to the list of people that want to see it. After all, it worked for Paranormal Activity so why not give it a shot here too?

Daily Quotation

2009-11-21T21:08:00.005-05:00

Eye on the TV
Cause tragedy thrills me,
Whatever flavor it happens to be.

Like:

'Killed by the husband.'
'Drowned by the ocean.'
'Shot by his own son.'
'She used a poison
In his tea
Then Kissed him goodbye.'
That's my kind of story,
It's no fun till someone dies.

Don't look at me like I am a monster.
Frown out your one face, but with the other
Stare like a junkie into the TV.
Stare like a zombie
While the mother holds her child,
Watches him die.
Hands to the sky
Crying 'Why, oh why?

Cause I need to watch things die,
From a distance.
Vicariously I live while the whole world dies.
You all need it too, don't lie.
~ Tool - Vicarious ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-20T21:17:00.002-05:00

'He couldn't recall what it was in his reading that had begun the train of thought--yes, he could: it had been the great brains in the towers in Stapledon's splendid Last and First Men. He had been wont to despise emotions: girls were emotional, girls were weak, emotions--tears--were weakness. But this morning he was thinking that being a great brain in a tower, nothing but a brain, wouldn't be much fun. No excitement, no dog to love, no joy in the blue sky--no feelings at all. But feelings--feelings are emotions! He was suddenly overwhelmed by the revelation that what makes life worth living is, precisely, the emotions. But, then--this was awful!--maybe girls with their tears and laughter were getting more out of life. Shattering! He checked himself: showing one's emotions was not the thing: having them was. Still, he was dizzy with the revelation. What is beauty but something that is responded to with emotion? Courage, at least partly, is emotional. All the splendour of life. But if the best of life is, in fact, emotional, then one wanted the highest, purest emotions: and that meant joy. Joy was the highest. How did one find joy? In books it seemed to be found in love--a great love--though maybe for the saints there was joy in the love of God. He didn't aspire to that, though; he didn't even believe in God. Certainly not! So, if he wanted the heights of joy, he must have, if he could find it, a great love. But in the books again, great joy through love seemed always to go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still, the joy would be worth the pain--if, indeed, they went together. If there were a choice--and he suspected there was--a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths.'

~ Sheldon Vanauken - A Severe Mercy ~

More thinking early in the morning...

2009-11-19T07:54:00.004-05:00

When we lie, whether to cover our own arses, or advance our own interests, we demonstrate a lack of faith. A lack of faith in God and His perfect will and a lack of faith in His truth. A lack of faith that 'All things work together unto good.' Granted, I am not saying that lying is always a sin (more on this in a future post). What I am saying is that when we lie simply for our own benefit to keep ourselves from looking bad or to make ourselves look good, we not only commit a sin by lying, but we also demonstrate the weakness of our personal faith.

Daily Quotation

2009-11-19T07:29:00.002-05:00

'Rome indeed, has not only preserved the original poetry in Christianity; it has also made capital additions to that poetry--for example, the poetry of the saints, of Mary, and of the liturgy itself. A solemn high Mass must be a thousand times as impressive to a man with any genuine religious sense in him, as the most powerful sermon ever roared under the big-top... In the face of such overwhelming beauty, it is not necessary to belabor the faithful with logic; they are better convinced by letting them alone.'
~ H. L. Mencken - 'Holy Writ' from H. L. Mencken's Smart Set Criticism ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-18T07:52:00.003-05:00

'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'
~ William Shakespeare - Hamlet ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-17T06:32:00.003-05:00

'Very hard ethical questions are involved,' he went on. 'You are to be made into a good boy, 6655321. Never again will you have any desire to commit acts of violence or to offend in any way whatsoever against the State's Peace. I hope you take all that in. I hope you are absolutely clear in your own mind about that.' I said:

'Oh, it will be nice to be good, sir.' But I had a real horrorshow smeck at that inside, brothers. He said:

'It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?'

~ Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-16T07:32:00.001-05:00

'We're very lucky in the band in that we have two visionaries, David and Nigel. They're like poets, like Shelley and Byron. They're two distinct types of visionaries, it's like fire and ice, basically. I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water.'
~ Harry Shearer as Derek Smalls - This is Spinal Tap ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-15T06:15:00.018-05:00

'The first step of humility is unhesitating obedience, which comes naturally to those who cherish Christ above all. Because of the holy service they have professed, or because of the dread of Hell and for the glory of everlasting life, they carry out the superior's order as promptly as if the command came from God Himself.... This very obedience, however, will be acceptable to God and agreeable to men only if compliance with what is commanded is not cringing or sluggish or half-hearted, but free from any grumbling or any reaction of unwillingness. For the obedience shown to superiors is given to God.'
~ St Benedict of Nursia - The Rule of St Benedict in English ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-14T10:43:00.006-05:00

'The virtue of novenas, is that they keep you at it for nine consecutive days and the human attention being what it is, this is a long time. I hate to say most of these prayers written by saint-in-an-emotional-state. You feel you are wearing somebody else's finery, and I can never describe my heart as "burning" to the Lord (who knows better) without snickering.'
~ Flannery O'Connor - The Habit of Being ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-13T06:19:00.002-05:00

'That's it,' said Wilson. 'Worst one can do is kill you. How does it go? Shakespeare. Damned good. See if I can remember. Oh, damned good. Used to quote it to myself at one time. Let's see. "By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next." Damned fine, eh?'

He was very embarrassed, having brought out this thing he had lived by, but he had seen men come of age before and it always moved him. It was not a matter of their twenty-first birthday.

It had taken a strange chance of hunting, a sudden precipitation into action without opportunity for worrying beforehand, to bring this about with Macomber, but regardless of how it had happened it had most certainly happened. Look at the beggar now, Wilson thought. It's that some of them stay little boys so long, Wilson thought. Sometimes all their lives. Their figures stay boyish when they're fifty. The great American boy-men. Damned strange people. But he liked this Macomber now. Damned strange fellow. Probably meant the end of cuckoldry too. Well that would be a damned good thing. Damned good thing. Beggar had probably been afraid all his life. Don't know what started it. But over now. Hadn't had time to be afraid of the buff. That and being angry too. Motor car too. Motor cars made it familiar. Be a damn fire eater now. He'd seen it in the war work the same way. More of a change than any loss of virginity. Fear gone like an operation. Something else grew in its place. Main thing a man had. Made him into a man. Women knew it too. No bloody fear.

From the far corner of the seat Margaret Macomber looked at the two of them. There was no change in Wilson. She saw Wilson as she had seen him the day before when she had first realized what his great talent was. But she saw the change in Francis Macomber now.

~ Earnest Hemingway - The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber ~

Fail!

2009-11-12T22:27:00.004-05:00

While pouring concrete today, I realised that in all my excitement over the birthday of the Marine Corps, I completely forgot about Veterans Day. To quote Homer Simpson: 'Doh!' However, that was yesterday, and anyone who knows me well knows that I'm too lazy to fix that. I'm just going to apply Reaganomics to it. Everything I put up for the Marine Corps birthday will trickle down to Veterans Day. Yeah, so I'm twisting economic theory in a way that doesn't work. Sue me. Keynesians do it all the time. Thanks John Maynard!

Had this thought early this morning...

2009-11-12T08:32:00.003-05:00

Savour every word of every Hail Mary you pray as if it were a bite of the last, best meal you were to eat before death.

Daily Quotation

2009-11-12T07:42:00.003-05:00

'In a world in which falsehood is powerful, the truth is paid for with suffering. The one who desires to avoid suffering, to keep it at bay, keeps life itself and greatness at bay; he cannot be a servant of truth and thus a servant of faith.'

~ Pope Benedict XVI ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-11T09:13:00.004-05:00

'He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.'

~ Douglas Adams - Life, The Universe and Everything ~

EXTRA

2009-11-10T11:25:00.011-05:00

In honour of the 234th birthday of the USMC, we have some extra items of note for your mortal meditation:

'The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!'

~ First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt ~

'We have two companies of Marines running rampant all over the northern half of this island, and three Army regiments pinned down in the southwestern corner, doing nothing. What the Hell is going on?'

~ General John W. Vessey, Jr, USA in regard to Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada, 1983) ~

'In the Army, shock troops are a small minority supported by a vast group of artisans, laborers, clerks and organizers. In the Marines there are practically nothing but shock troops."

~ John Lardner, combat correspondent in a report on the battle of Iwo Jima (1945) ~

'Some people live an entire lifetime and wonder if they have ever made a difference in the world, but the Marines don't have that problem.'

~ President Ronald Reagan ~

'The United States Marine Corps with its fiercely proud tradition of excellence in combat, its hallowed, and its unbending code of honor, is part of the fabric of American myth.'

~ Thomas E. Ricks, author - Making the Corps ~

'We are the United States Marines, and for two and a quarter centuries we have defined the standards of courage, esprit, and military prowess.'

~ General James L. Jones, Jr, USMC (32nd Commandant of the Marine Corps) ~

'The future success of the Marine Corps depends on two factors: first, an efficient performance of all duties to which its officers and men may be assigned; second, promptly bringing this efficiency to the attention of the proper officials of the government and the American people.'

~ Lieutenant General John A. Lejeune, USMC (13th Commandant of the Marine Corps) ~

'I selected an enormous Marine Corps emblem to be tattooed across my chest. It required several sittings and hurt me like the Devil, but the finished product was worth the pain. I blazed triumphantly forth, a Marine from throat to waist. The emblem is still with me. Nothing on earth but skinning will remove it.'

~ Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC on his time as a lieutenant in Asia ~

'Come on you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?'

~ Sergeant Major Daniel Daly, USMC at the Battle of Belleau Wood (France, 1918) ~

'Remember, you are the 1st Marines! Not all the Communists in Hell can overrun you!'

~ Lieutenant General Lewis Burwell 'Chesty' Puller, USMC at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir (Korea, 1950) ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-10T01:43:00.008-05:00

'I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.'

~ Sir Winston Churchill ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-09T23:41:00.006-05:00

'It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything.'

~ Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden - Fight Club ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-08T22:28:00.010-05:00

'What the American people want to do is fight a war without getting hurt. You can't do that anymore than you can go into a barroom fight without getting hurt.... Unless the American people are willing to send their sons out to fight an aggressor, there isn't going to be any United States. A bunch of foreign soldiers will come over and take our women and breed not only another race of people but a hardier race of people.'
~ Lieutenant General Lewis Burwell 'Chesty' Puller, USMC ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-07T23:27:00.010-05:00

Jesus loved Judas, Judas kissed Jesus.

Caesar loved Brutus, Brutus killed Caesar.

I am the king of all that I survey,

Beware my son it could be yours one day.

Heir transparent to a dynasty,

Dog-emperor of woe and misery.

It sent me mad but now it makes me furious.

I'm shadowed by a doubt--I Dubious.

~ Skyclad - I Dubious ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-06T20:46:00.007-05:00

'Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.'

~ Benjamin Franklin ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-05T14:20:00.007-05:00

'It looked like it had eaten a three-year old.'

~ Personal friend Ben Perry, in reference to an extremely fat cat named Ricky Busby ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-04T11:31:00.009-05:00

'I know we should neither be too credulous nor too critical and should hold the middle in all things to find the point of truth and virtue. But I also know that charity easily leads us to believe all that is not contrary to faith or good morals: 'Charity believes all things' (I Corinthians 13:7), whereas pride easily leads us to deny almost all well-authenticated narratives, on the pretext they are not in Holy Scripture.

'Such pretext is one of the devil's snares. Heretics who deny Tradition have fallen into it, and critics of our time are falling into it unawares. These critics refuse to believe what they do not understand or what is not to their liking. They are motivated by pride and a distorted view of their own mind's sufficiency.'

~ St Louis Mary Grignion de Montfort - The Secret of the Rosary ~

Daily Quotation

2009-11-02T19:09:00.009-05:00

'If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions.'

~ Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winnfield - Pulp Fiction ~

Daily Quotation

2009-06-22T08:50:00.005-04:00

'No Delta flight in the free world can bypass Atlanta.'

~ John Grisham - The Firm ~

Daily Quotation

2009-06-19T10:16:00.007-04:00

'A poem should not mean

But be.'

~ Archibald MacLeish - Ars Poetica ~

Daily Quotation

2009-06-18T14:31:00.003-04:00

'Paganism was the largest thing in the world and Christianity was larger; and everything else has been comparatively small.'

~ GK Chesterton ~