Memorial Day

Greetings!

While I did not get the chance to do any baking during this weekend's last stretch of semi-cool temperatures, I did manage to have an interesting Memorial Day.

'Murica. (This was once a profile picture for some Tea Party guy I followed on Myspace back in the day. I only just now discovered I had saved it)

I hadn't planned on doing anything special except domestic duties and cleaning off the bbq grill, but then my husband had the inspired notion that we should go to Mass that morning. Not because it was Memorial Day and we should engage in idolatry of the military, which is what this day is REALLY about, but because the soup kitchen where my husband did his community service has a Mass that takes place every Monday at 10AM. My husband had been to the soup kitchen Mass a few times, but I'd never witnessed it. Even though it was too early for my liking, I decided it was worth it.

We arrived at the soup kitchen and took our seats on the back porch patio a few minutes before the Mass began. The soup kitchen was once a single-family home and had been converted for the purpose of doling out food to the homeless and impoverished, but some reminders of its previous incarnation remained. A few of the staff and regulars recognized my husband from his visits there, some of whom I'd only met for the first time that day. The priest himself was an old left-wing Redemptorist from Boston who now ran a retreat center out in the boonies. Since the soup kitchen is affiliated with the Catholic Worker movement and is run by a pious Catholic who found his way to the Church through the unlikely path of Karl Marx, I expected there to be no patriotard/Murica troop worshiping on this property.

Vintage communist poster

The Mass itself was pretty uneventful, but even though I didn't feel threatened or harassed, my demon meter went off the second we parked the car and stayed on the entire time we were there. Basically, I felt like there were dark entities lurking around the periphery which made me feel uneasy, and some outbursts from the homeless men hanging around watching the Mass lent credence to that hypothesis. Now, I am well aware that within the homeless community, the rates of mental illness are through the roof largely because our mental health care system in this country is atrocious and its really easy to fall through the cracks; but, that being said, my knowledge of demonology tells me that people who are mentally unstable are more vulnerable to demonic influence because their condition provides a hook that demons can use to manipulate the individual to suit its needs. That being said, however, not every mentally ill homeless person is under demonic influence; only some are.

After Mass, we got a food box and went home. The Lord heard my recent craving for bagels and home baked bread, and boy did we get some! We were also blessed with some gourmet potato salad, green beans with mushrooms, fruit salad, and a blueberry pudding cake. Most of it was day-old stuff from local grocery stores, but they were still edible. A number of people complemented how nice our cholomobile looked too. Arizona lends itself to being an ideal place for older vehicles because the dry climate preserves them well.

And that was how I spent my Memorial Day.

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Apostol-asy

Greetings!

The title of today's post is a combination of the words "apostolate" and "apostasy", two subjects that came to my attention recently and deserve to be addressed.

Defined, so I don't have to write it out. Pic found here

In the Catholic world, apostolates are groups run by either lay people or religious and are dedicated to spreading a particular Catholic message to the world. They may have names like Latin Mass Society, Tradition-Family-Property, or Church Militant, each dedicated to spreading the Catholic message in a world that needs it. Apostolates may also be informal, like a particularly well-versed member of the parish advocating for the Faith to his fellow parishioners. While many apostolates are legit and do wonders for helping to both evangelize the unbelievers and reaffirm the faith of the flock, there are a number of apostolates out there that at first glance might seem orthodox, but a little digging reveals something else. And it's for that "something else" that I will not link to any of the apostolates I mention in this post.

About a week ago, a close friend of the family emailed my husband a link to an apostolate in Ohio called Holy Love. The subject of the link was that the bishop was cracking down on this particular apostolate, and that "Jesus was unhappy about it". I will not link to the website of this apostolate because I believe it to be dubious at best, heretical at worst. I came to that conclusion after taking a look around the apostolate's website and found that they claim Jesus and Mary make regular apparitions at the property this apostolate is located on. There was also a schedule of upcoming events that showed the apparitions slated to appear at certain times.

My reason for doubting the veracity of these appearances stems from what I'd been taught in Catechism class. The Austrian priest who taught me my Catechism explained that the Virgin Mary, Jesus, and the Saints do make appearances when they're needed, to whoever needs them and wherever that may be. What they do NOT do, however, is make scheduled appearances the way musicians do at rock concerts or what have you. Anybody who claims otherwise is either deluded or demonic.

I let this trip down the internet wormhole pass and went about life as usual, until Sunday when a friend's innocuous Facebook status about biscuits resulted in a person doing the internet equivalent of a bible-thumper howling about sin with their comment. The commenter, when finished yelling about the state of spiritual warfare, then linked to this website called the St. Michael World Apostolate.

Karl Malden was not a thumper. He just played one. I would have been very sad if he was. Pic found here

This particular outfit claims to promote the message of Our Lady of Fatima, but reading through the website raised a number of red flags. For one, there was the whole "commies crawling out of the walls!" mentality and Russophobia invoked when describing the aftermath of Vatican II up till the present day. I found such blather insulting due to both my Russian heritage and my knowledge of history. Unfortunately, this ignorant fascist mindset is a sadly common feature of Fatimaistas (devotees of Our Lady of Fatima) and their various associations. The big one, however, was the obsession with the year 1972.

In 1972, Pope Paul VI made his famous remark that "the smoke of Satan had entered the Vatican". The site claimed that in that year, the pope was deposed and Satan incarnate sat on the Chair of Peter using a body double. In addition to that load of nonsense, the site featured an obviously doctored photo that their reputed "seer" interpreted as confirming that the Antichrist had indeed arrived on Earth in 1972.

It's crackpots like these apostolates mentioned that set my bullshit detector on high alert whenever someone mentions the name of an apostolate and how "spot-on" or "righteous" they are. Granted some are more crackpot than others, but spotting the bullshit never fails to set my blood boiling. THESE sorts of outfits are how good people of good faith get set out on a wrong and dangerous path. THIS is how people lose faith and become apostates. THIS kind of bullshit gives Catholicism a bad name. And these crackpots NEED to be cracked down on so that they don't cause more damage and drive more souls away!

On Guns

On 8/26/15, in a style that rivaled something out of a Hollywood movie, a disgruntled former newscaster went postal and murdered two of his ex-coworkers before killing himself. Just after he'd shot and killed reporter Allison Parker and her camera man, Adam Ward, Vester Flanagan II faxed his manifesto to ABC news in New York, posted his confession on social media, and then turned the gun on himself.

Could easily be a scene from a movie or videogame if it wasn't real life. Image from here

As we enter the "why" phase that precedes any tragic event, one big issue looms like a pink-polka dot elephant in the room: guns.

This year has been a particularly bloody year for mass shootings in America. In May, a South Carolina cracker shot a bunch of people in a Black church in Charleston. Prior to that, there were a bunch of people shot in movie theaters. School shootings happened too. The list continues.

The common denominator in all these tragedies-individuals who have no business even dealing with weapons, getting a hold of a gun and using it to murder people.

Naturally, this brings up the topic of guns in America. As many know, America loves its guns. The Second Amendment of our Constitution protects individual gun ownership by calling for a "well-regulated militia", which isn't possible without gun ownership. At the state level, gun laws are variable and range from open carry (Arizona, Texas) to all but outlawed (Illinois).

With such patchwork state gun laws in existence, the safeguards that exist also vary widely from state to state as well. Here in Arizona, you can buy guns without having to undergo a background check (restricted to private sales and gun shows, while gun shops still require background checks), whereas in my home state of Illinois, the amount of paperwork and licensing requirements are so onerous that it's a pain in the ass to even bother acquiring a gun. Lobbying groups, like the notorious National Rifle Association, don't help matters by buying politicians and stoking fears of "liberals" taking away peoples guns for one end or another whenever the subject of gun control comes up.

'Murica!

I'm no "liberal" (in fact, I'm a Pinko/Magenta Catholic), but even I know not everyone should have a gun. Even if you arm the general population to the teeth, it's not going to stop mass shootings from happening.  We'll just wind up with a militarized society that's a powder keg waiting to explode in a hail of bullets and blood.

But I'm not against gun ownership. As many beefs as I have with America and the way my country is run, I realize that the right to own a firearm is one that not many other nations share. I just believe that before you own a gun, you should have to undergo at least some safety training and be subjected to a thorough background check before purchase. Some individuals should also have a psychiatric evaluation done in addition to the standard background check before being allowed to own a gun if there is something that pops up in the background check that warrants it. I'm in favor of reasonable safeguards. I don't like the idea of banning guns because they do serve useful purposes, like self-defense and hunting. Remember, a gun is an inanimate object; a human holding it is what makes it deadly.

Of course, changing the culture around guns from one of seeing *insert preferred Other (immigrants, Moslems, etc)* crawling out of the walls to one of rationality isn't easy. Guns are a hugely profitable industry, and one that is very well politically connected from the NRA to the military-industrial complex. These people get their rocks off from seeing more mass shootings happen cuz then they can increase profits off the tragedy (arming both sides means more money in their pockets!), rather than support modest changes that would help reduce the likelihood of guns winding up in the wrong hands.The Ammosexual Agenda, if you will.

Stay safe out there. And may the victims of America's gun culture find peace at last

On the Right

Having just returned to the world of blogging, I've had an opportunity to look at my past posts and see how I used to be. There is a most definite right-wing bent to my past posts.

My impression: What in the HELL was I thinking?!

The answer: I wasn't.

I grew up in a rabidly right-wing home, with family who treated Rush Limbaugh's words as Gospel and who never failed to malign anyone who was not conservative or who supported causes that were anything other than conservative ones. And even certain conservative causes, like the pro-life movement, were viewed with suspicion. Naturally, I fell right in step with such devotion. What reason did I have to think different?

Then while on hiatus from blogging, I did what most people never achieve in their lifetimes. I grew up.

And, in the process, I discovered how full of shit right wing America is. Xenophobia is one thing, disenfranchisement, military worship/warhawkism, and straight-up ignorance encouraged by festering Bible-thumping and apocalypse fantasies are other notable traits. But as if that wasn't enough, then came the insane claim that lowering taxes on the wealthy will magically produce jobs. I believed that lie until I began my working life a few months after I'd done the good deed and graduated from college with a degree. Despite having a degree, the only work I could find was a slave-level job in a call center, doing customer service for a major wireless provider.

A good Republican would say, "well, it's better than nothing! You need to work hard and find a better job or better yet, take a second job! Or, better yet, go back to school and get a degree that will earn you money!"

A person with a brain in their head says that there is something very wrong with this picture.

There is nothing like working in a dead-end industry like customer service to see just how bad capitalism, the rabid right with their insane cult-like devotion to Ayn Rand, Israel, and the super wealthy; and the castrated moderate right that calls itself left wing, have failed us. The best and brightest are maligned, while the mediocre and the conformist are held up as ideal; all the while singing in three-part harmony about how wonderful supply-side economics is and you better fucking support the troops!

The result has been a severe uptick in income inequality, more people turning to welfare and food stamps in order to survive, a spike in the cost of living, and two entire generations (mine and the one prior to mine) of working-age people who will never know what it was like to have job security and the income to sustain a middle-class existence.

But of course, nobody in the the government, both the rabidly right wing and the moderately right wing that characterize the Democrat party, will do a damn thing different. Their patrons stand to lose alot of money and influence if any of that should happen.

But now what about those poor people? You know, the ones who need food stamps and Section 8, and Medicaid? Fuck those leeches! CUT CUT CUT! If people die of starvation, who gives a shit-this is AMERICA where you don't need a handout from the government! You pull yourself up by the bootstraps and do it yourself!

By the way, unless you have a means of supporting yourself, it's a wee bit hard to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Try it sometime.

The funny thing is, you look around Eastern Europe and Latin America, and you can clearly see where the politicians are bought and sold, where there's a tin-pot dictator calling the shots, where crony capitalists hijack the economy, where income inequality is extreme as all getout, where you're constantly under surveillance and the police act with impunity, and think "what a shithole that place is".

It's never occurred to you that we're right on par with those very shitholes you were observing. Perhaps even worse so because our media has done so well hiding what a plutocratic police state America has become.

I can see it right now. Someone from the right will read this post and go "this lazy, brainwashed liberal here is  bitter cuz she doesn't wanna work hard and would rather be a Communist!"

LOL. Communism is just the flip side of your beloved capitalism. One uses material goods for social control, the other reduces humanity to just a commodity to be bought and sold as needed. They both make material goods into god, treat economic activity as a mystical force, and assert itself as a religion (albeit a "secular" one).

I can also see said right winger go "if this communist here doesn't like Amurrika, she should leave".

A thought, I will concede, but a full-on revolt would be alot cheaper and involve less paperwork than moving internationally. Poverty has a way of keeping one tethered.

That, my friends, is why I shredded my Republican registration card and said to hell with you people. Now that I am free of the clutches of the right wing's idiot machine, I will not hesitate to speak out against the right for what they are-the REAL enemies of the state.

tamtam