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Monday, February 1, 2010

An illuminating picture:

This picture helps us visualize the swarm of demons that coalesces around the soul they work to destroy.

Today's Catholic Scripture Reading, beginning with Mark, 5:2, is directly connected:

"When He (Jesus) got out of the boat,
at once a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him.
The man had been dwelling among the tombs,
and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.
In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains,
but the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles smashed,
and no one was strong enough to subdue him.
Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides
he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones.
Catching sight of Jesus from a distance,
he ran up and prostrated himself before him,
crying out in a loud voice,
“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
I adjure you by God, do not torment me!”
(He had been saying to him, “Unclean spirit, come out of the man!”)
He asked him, “What is your name?”
He replied, “Legion is my name. There are many of us.”
And he pleaded earnestly with him
not to drive them away from that territory.

Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside.
And they pleaded with him,
“Send us into the swine. Let us enter them.”
And he let them, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine.
The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank into the sea,
where they were drowned."

As always, Catholic Fundamentalism's desire for quantification sees the possibilities in this passage. There was a known quantity of two thousand demons trying to destroy the poor, possessed man. Though not a popular analysis among most professional psychologists and psychiatrists, when we see mentally disordered people, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that the more disturbed they are, the more demons are disrupting their thought process. 2,000 may be the maximum number possible to work within a mind, though evil tyrants like Herod and Stalin may have a few more.

The man they possessed had lots of problems. He was violent, uncontrollable, couldn't sleep, lived alone in bizarre surroundings, had amazing physical strength when angry, screamed in agony, and repeatedly hurt himself. Altogether, it seems reasonable to assume that he had 2,000 demons driving him nuts.

Questions arise. Can we quantify the number of demons in a person by their aberrant behavior? If he only did half as many crazy things, would he have only a thousand demons within? If we have only one of his problems, like sleeplessness, there are obviously fewer demons, but how many?

But, possessed as he was, he still wanted to be saved, and was able to think well enough to understand that Jesus could cure him. While the man still could control his destiny, approaching Jesus despite the horde of demons urging him not to do so, the demons still controlled him well enough to speak through him. Speaking as one, they admitted that they were "legion", and begged Jesus to let them stay in the neighborhood, even though they couldn't stay in the man any longer. So, the demons asked to be e-mailed into the two thousand pigs, each of which they promptly destroyed.

We may imagine that each of them was no larger than a electron. That, Catholic Fundamentalism assumes, is an appropriate size with which to begin to visualize spirits. Despite their small size, each of them was powerful enough to drive one pig to death, but two thousand of them could not do that to one man, though they certainly ruined his life until The Living Program, Jesus Christ, erased the living errors within him and restored his human program.

By the way, one of the most bizarre things about this Scriptural Passage concerns the number of pigs. 2,000 pigs is a lot of pigs! It indicates that there were large, sophisticated animal husbandry practices in the area, almost comprable to the "factory farms" of today.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Getting through the swarm

of evil spirits that surrounds our own soul involves moving beyond them, bringing our lovingly programmed soul closer to He Who lovingly programmed it. Just as the queen bee, hidden deeply within the picture above, can get away from the swarm and fly off to a better place than an isolated branch, followed in her flight by the buzzing horde, so our own demons will try to follow us when we try to leave them behind.

"Remember all the good times we had?", they, in the form of living thoughts call after us, plaintively. "Remember when we did such and such and so and so and loved every minute of it?"

When we put away childish things, much like the little boy or girl who, one day, puts his toy soldiers or her dolls away and never plays with them again, we grow closer to The Loving Programmer. But, we often see evidence of people who won't put away their toys. Once in a while, we even see a bumper sticker that proudly proclaims "He Who Dies With the Most Toys Wins". An obsession with toys indicates an obsession with programmed entities that makes movement toward The Loving Programmer more difficult than it has to be.

Politically, we see that this failure to mature reigns triumphant in the public sector. There, insatiable demands by legions of the selfish, who are as well-organized as they are greedy for greater pensions, salaries, and benefits, hurt their neighbors and destroy their nation. Those who are organized to forcibly take from, and impoverish, their own neighbors are too self-centered and short-sighted to comprehend how stunted their own spiritual and intellectual development is. We also see that their exaltation of their own desire for more allows the deadly sin of Greed to flourish, choking out the souls' yearning for He Who brought them into being.

It's very hard to get such people to understand that their perennial demands for "More!" indicate that their souls are in danger of being lost, along with hordes of like-minded people who join in the calls for "More!" Indeed, they have embraced endlessly convoluted fields of study to justify their beliefs, calling such dogmas "intellectual", and, more bizarrely, "sensitive concerns for others".

One is reminded that there have been rare examples of public servants able to rise above the temptation to legislate their own enrichment by self-dealing legislation, taxation, and regulation.

Once, John Jacob Astor tried to bribe Edward Gallatin. Mr. Gallatin resisted all of Astor's temptations, telling him, finally, "Mr. Astor, I am a public servant, and it is my goal to die poor."

Few other public servants have been able to escape the swarms of demons who've convinced most of them that the desire for "More!" trumps all other considerations and have found that taxing their friends and neighbors is the easiest way to get it. After a few generations, entire nations fall under the control of those who believe that it is right for them to prosper by devouring their neighbors.

Of all the political movements there have ever been, Democracy has allowed more souls to send themselves to hell than any.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

When someone says, "We'll have to agree to disagree.",

what we're really hearing someone say is that they want to avoid truth and/or change. If arguments can be ended by simply saying "We'll have to agree to disagree.", what's actually being agreed is that "If there is a right and wrong answer, it's not important. What's important is that neither of us, especially me, has to suffer with the fact that we're actually wrong."

"We'll have to agree to disagree." is far more common among government workers than those in the private sector. The average widget producer either has a better widget or he doesn't, and he's not about to let a competitor get away with saying "We'll have to agree to disagree about which widget is better."

Similarly, if two doctors disagree on a diagnosis, simply saying "We'll have to agree to disagree." they make the most correct diagnosis more difficult to find.

Better to respond: "This is such an important issue that we really should find out what's right and wrong, rather than taking the easy way out."

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Novenas. Praying Every Hour, Every Day.

When one becomes a Catholic, one isn't given an instruction manual. The natural progression toward God takes place according to the abilities with which each soul has been programmed. After having been a Catholic for a couple of decades, it was time for my soul to take a step closer. So, a meeting with a substitute dental assistant, a devout Catholic, was arranged. It resulted in my being given a small, laminated card on which the Novena of Childlike Confidence was written.

It consisted of three prayers:

The first prayer: "O, Jesus, Who has said, 'Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.' Through the intercession of Mary, Thy most holy Mother, I knock, I seek, I ask that my prayer be granted. (insert prayer)."

The second prayer: "O, Jesus, Who has said 'All that you ask of The Father in my name He will grant you.' Through the intercession of Mary, thy most holy Mother, I humbly and urgently ask that my prayer be granted. (insert prayer)."

The third: "O Jesus, who has said 'Heaven and earth shall pass away but My Word shall not pass.' Through the intercession of Mary, thy most holy Mother, I am confident that my prayer will be granted. (insert prayer)."

Shortly after getting the card, I began saying a Novena every hour for nine consecutive hours. At first, I said one Novena, but soon began "overloading" the "insert prayer" section until it was two or three times longer than the Novena itself. So, I split the prayer requests in half, and began putting each half into two Novenas every hour. Over time, those sections were similarly over-loaded, so I went to three Novenas every hour for nine hours every day. Now, it's four.

There are times when I'm interrupted or distracted, and don't hit the hour on the hour. Sometimes, a long meeting, telephone call, or distraction will delay the hour's Novena. Usually, I continue to pray during meetings and calls. To my surprise, I don't lose track of what's going on, and when people are talking to me, I listen while saying the Novenas. My responses are often slow, but that seems to help conversations, and that has taught the valuable lesson that it rarely helps to speak at every possible opportunity.

In one of the four Novenas, I pray for my neighbors. One can sense that the swarm of demons surrounding even souls most inclined to sin are penetrated with remarkable ease by prayers. As a result, I like all my neighbors, even the ones I didn't used to, more than ever. I sense that their own guardian angels are aware of my prayers for the souls in their care, and they prompt them to be more open, and friendlier, as well.

That's been going on for a few years, now. The results are so startling, in a myriad of small ways, that it's easy to conclude that all the world's problems are caused by the fact that none of us pray for selves, family, friends, co-workers, and enemies nearly as much as we should.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Not so much.

It's hard not to predict another market melt-down. The stock market reflects hopes and dreams, and we look as if we're entering a hopeless nightmare.

The only thing that's increasing is government spending, and that hurts all but those who receive the spending. It used to be that the economy was based on fulfilling wants and needs. Now, it's based on whatever the tax-addicted can get away with taking.

No one is safe, not even the weaker tax addicts. As this increasingly carnivorous economy continues to devour itself by taking what's been made rather than making more, we may be reminded of various Roman Emperors who spent more than they took in. The budgets could only be balanced by invading other countries, looting property, and selling as many as possible into slavery. When there were no foreign countries to loot, cash-strapped Emperors began waging war on their own people.

Nero was driven to burning Rome. While the ashes were still smoldering, he passed a law making it illegal for anyone to clean up their own property. His employees did that, sifting through the ashes to confiscate whatever valuables and bits of precious metal that could be found. He cleaned up by cleaning up.

Today, our own assets are less safe than ever. Fortunately, God has not changed, and loves us just as much whether we're rich or poor. It's a good thing, because we're all going to be poorer.

Friday, February 5, 2010

A reasonably useless fact: Friday, February Fifth

is notable because all three words of the date begin with "F". It is among the Saturdays and Sundays that fall on September Second, Seventh, and Seventeenth and Fridays that fall on February First, Fourth, Fifth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth. A more ambitious person make the effort to calculate how many days a year such calendar onomatopoeia and assonance happens, but I, alas, am far too slothful to do more than note the unusualness.

In trying to predict the markets, most of us look at graphs showing ups and downs. We try to get an indication of where things are going by seeing where they've been. This does little harm, and may do some good, but the futility of it was explained by a man who was able, in the course of a summer, to call 70 or 80% of market rises and falls. "If the chickens laid more eggs, the market went up. If they laid less, it went down."

Hardly the sort of fact upon which to base our own futures. Now, it seems to be a fact that, at least once, a week that ends with Friday, February the Fifth is not a good week for stock values.

Politicians Spend a Lot of Time Triangulating.

Playing endless variants of "Let's you and him fight.", politicians seek to gain support while weakening opponents. In fact, there are two great divides in America that few politicians wish to define. There are people who are employed by the government who are paid to perform duties neither enumerated nor implied by the Constitution. On the other side of this great divide, there are those taxed to pay the wages, benefits, and pensions of those espousing, causing, and exaggerating any number of largely Imaginary Problems.

The divide is clear, but perpetually blurred by triangulators. The candidates who say "Your taxes are too high.", and focus their theme on that tend to do well. Such people are always attacked by those desperate for more taxes to be levied. The "We just need a slight increase in taxes" people invariably believe that high taxes are the sign of an advanced society. It's not an exageration to say that many of them truly can't understand why people object to paying taxes.

It's hard to keep from being fooled. Their control of the media allows them endless opportunities to propagandize for an uncountable number of programs that do little but pay the salaries of people whose only work is to increase their funding.

Once we identify the basic divide, it only makes sense for conservative candidates to exploit it. Distinctions must be made between those whose only skill is to organize and control government's power and those who provide useful goods and services. The latter should be preferred as a matter of sound public policy.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Historians Deciding What History Should Be.

Most of us have taken history courses. In those courses, we usually read books about the periods being studied. It was rare to be assigned to read any of the source documents from which historians compiled the version of history that they preferred.

Historical source documents are not particularly complicated. A typical example are The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, which can be found on Google. As many ancient source documents, the Chronicles offer a digest of things that happened during the period they cover, in this case, the last part of the First Millennium and the first part of the Second. In it, they chronicle what happened to the mint operators who debased the currency by adulterating silver with baser metals and thought no one would notice the resulting inflation.

People did notice, and many refused to accept the coin of the realm. The King ordered that all the minters involved be called to London. When they arrived, their right hands were cut off. And, they were castrated. Small wonder that historians, who are largely paid by political entities whose inflationary practices involve the continual debasing of their own currencies, never seem to mention this occurrence and the sure and certain cure it offers a government to keep its currency from being debased.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

The Global Warming Lies Collapse Under the Weight of Snow and Cold.

Washington is buried under nearly two feet of snow. Nearby places have even more. The credibility of the lie is collapsing with amazing speed. Actually, measured by satellite, last month was the warmest January on record. But, the high temperatures were only over some of the ocean areas. As those areas got warmer, the land, naturally, got much colder.

Those involved with the Global Warming Lies know this, but find themselves muted by the effects of abnormally low land temperatures on voters. "Who cares what the temperature is over the middle of the Pacific Ocean? I'm freezing! Our electricity is off. Our pipes are freezing and bursting. The hotels and motels are all filled with people, and I have nowhere to go and nothing to do but get colder."

Fortunately, the sun seems to finally be ending its long period of lessened solar activity. Our world will begin to absorb more heat and begin, hopefully, to get a little warmer. Then, of course, the Global Warming Lies will re-emerge with heightened urgency.

Only the most gullible will be fooled into caring.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Public Pensions

have long been one of the biggest economic problems that we face. Most public officials deal with the problem by ignoring it. Since their own pensions are important to them, they certainly want to avoid any reductions.

Ignoring the problem won't make it go away and will only ensure greater economic damage to more people, including them. In fact, pensions purchasing power generally go down because of inflation. If public pensions were reduced somewhere between 3 and 5% per year for several years, the problem would be reduced, if not eliminated. The reduction in inflation would translate to less reduction in each pensions' purchasing power, and may actually increase the net dollars each pensioner has.

Pension reduction is the "third rail" of politics. Those receiving and hoping to receive generous public sector pensions are the most well-organized political groups in any nation. Their hostility to pension reduction must be met by showing that the damage to their own well-being is greater if pensions are allowed to remain as they are.

We quickly understand that we are dealing with greed, the institutionalized and well-organized demons of which demand "More! More!" from taxpayers. At the same time, they blind themselves to the realities that their continued demand for "More!" impoverishes their neighbors to the point that they will develop counter-organizations, as is happening now with the Tea Party movement. One basis for such movements is the awareness that the private sector is being impoverished to pay for far better wages, benefits, and pensions than they, themselves, have any hope of getting.

Most of us have no idea of how bad the problem is because those who do understand look at the numbers and see the tsunami coming. They whistle silently to themselves, and move on to something else. The only real, fair cure is a slow reduction in pension amounts.

The best way to tell if any candidate for office is honest is to see if he agrees that pensions must be reduced and has the courage to say so publicly. If he starts fudging, he's not as forthcoming as possible.