All Hail The Phantom

 

This isn't a military blog, far from it, more of a family thing, but all hail the Phantom. Just a shot away? You be the judge.

What a plane.

Your Buddy,

LSP

Typical Hippy

All hail Roy. Rumor has it he got fired by Led Zep 'coz he was too hippy, even for them. So he retired to Wales.

See You at Stonehenge,

LSP

Where is the Kaiser's Army? Oh, it's in Chile

 

Where is it, that goose stepping machine of Edwardian military precision. In Germany? No, please don't laugh and cough into your drink. England? Don't be silly, the UK doesn't even have an army, despite its bellicose posturing. No, the Kaiser's Army is alive and well in Chile, that'd be South America, check it out:

Zu Befehl,

LSP

PS. why are any of these people wearing medals? Have they fought in some war we're unaware of? Ah, the Great War of life itself. Waged against the Weather? And transphobia?

Roll Me On The Water

 

Behold awesome.

Your Old Pal,

LSP

Rebel Yell

You will notice, readers, that the Rebel Yell was like a game call, and then some.

I'll leave it at that,

LSP

 

How Very Gay

 

Via the Bee:

 

TALLAHASSEE, FL—Take that, DeSantis! In a powerful statement against the "Don't Say Gay" bill, The Episcopal Church in Florida has released a new version of their hymnal in which every song title and lyric is replaced by the word "gay." 

"We condemn DeSantis's bigoted attempt to prevent the sexual indoctrination of small children," said Episcopal Bishop Caiya Diddle. "That's why, starting today, all twelve Episcopals in Florida will sing the word 'gay' over and over and over again every Sunday until this bill is overturned." 

In addition to the song change, preachers will throw out their usual Sunday sermons and just say "gay" over and over again for 30 minutes. They will also replace traditional Sunday School with drag queen story hour so kids can get their fill of kinky classroom instruction they can no longer get in school.

"Here in the Episcopal Church, we loudly and proudly say 'gay,' just like Jesus did," said Diddle. "I look forward to singing my favorite song, "Gay," with my tiny congregation, followed by the old classic "Gay Gay in the Gay."

UPDATE: All members of the congregation have been arrested as part of a sex-trafficking sting.

 

Then there's Chechens,

LSP

Marley's Ghost - Conversion

 

Have you read Chesterton's remarkable biography of Dickens? If not, you should and must. Regardless, here's a snapshot, via Lifesite:

The moment of Scrooge’s conversion is of course legendary, and is the closest depiction I have ever read of what happens in a man’s soul when he accepts the logical justice of damnation and undeserved privilege to repent. I could not describe the culmination of A Christmas Carol any better than the author who knew him best:  

“The beauty and the real blessing of the story do not lie in the mechanical plot of it, the repentance of Scrooge, probable or improbable; they lie in the great furnace of real happiness that glows through Scrooge and everything around him; that great furnace, the heart of Dickens. Whether the Christmas visions would or would not convert Scrooge, they convert us. Whether or not the visions were evoked by real Spirits of the Past, Present, and Future, they were evoked by that truly exalted order of angels who are correctly called High Spirits. They are impelled and sustained by a quality which our contemporary artists ignore or almost deny, but which in a life decently lived is as normal and attainable as sleep, positive, passionate, conscious joy. The story sings from end to end like a happy man going home; and, like a happy and good man, when it cannot sing it yells. It is lyric and exclamatory, from the first exclamatory words of it. It is strictly a Christmas carol.” 

 

Right on, eh? 

God bless,

LSP

Hurry On Sundown

 

And this one's for Detroit. It's comn' back, man. Kiddn.

Cheers,

LSP

Who Will Save The World?

The Mighty Groundhogs, obvs, and right on.

Love to all,

LSP

Texas Independence

 

Texas won it's independence from the Mexican Imperials on March 2, 1836. All hail Sam Houston and come and take it. Santa Anna? Not so much. 

Some Fool on Genie Belle

We celebrate this great victory today, while setting up statues to General Lee, attempting math, dumping coke and reading Dr. Suess as we play with gender positive Hasbro toys. The less DC the better.

Secession,

LSP

The Presentation

LORD, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, * according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen * thy salvation,

Which thou hast prepared * before the face of all people;

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles, * and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

Gloria Patri...

Happy Candlemas, crew. Hope you're soaring, to the Moon.

HOLD THE LINE,

LSP

++++

Just For Kix:

*Its become something of a tradition at St. xxx to preface the Candlemas sermon with a quotation from one of the English reformers. Last year we heard from the one time Bishop of Worcester, Hugh Latimer, and not wanting to let go of a good thing, we’ll hear from him again tonight. The zealous Bishop is writing to a friend in 1538 concerning a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He states:

“She hath been the devil’s instrument to bring many, I fear, to everlasting fire; now she herself, with her old sister Walsingham, (and) her young sister of Ipswich… would make a jolly muster at Smithfield. They would not be all day burning.” The reforming prelate goes on to refer to an image of Our Lady as, 'That great sybil.'” 

There’s plenty more in a similar vein; listen to a layman this time, John Falkes: “it is a foolish thyng to offer to the Image of our Lady… her head shalbe hoare (bef)or I offer to her, what is it but a blocke? If it could speake to me, I would geue it an halpeny worth of ale.”

Latimer, and people like our friend John were pleased because the great shrine statues of the Virgin Mary in England, which the people had venerated for centuries, were being sent to London to be burned. They were to be destroyed, just like the religious houses which had grown up around them. For Latimer and his friends, many of whom were to become vastly rich through the sale of Church land, this was a good thing. Why?

Sheer, unadulterated, demonic greed aside, they felt the Catholic religion, substance and outward sign, doctrine and popular expression, was so much blasphemous fable. They didn’t believe. For them, the statues of the Saints and the devotion centered on them was a simple matter of idolatry; they detracted from the worship due to Christ alone and were therefore idols, fit to be burned. A fitting punishment for graven images that led men to hell fire itself. 

Well, they were burnt, sometime in 1538, in Chelsea, and Latimer was a happy man. The idols had gone, the chief ones anyway, and so had their Shrines, not least Walsingam. But not all were pleased at the result; here’s another person writing, about a decade after the destruction of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. It’s anonymous and runs thus:

Bitter, bitter oh to behould 

The grasse to growe 

Where the walls of Walsingam 

So stately did shewe. 

Such were the works of Walsingam 

While shee did stand 

Such are the wrackes as now do shewe 

Of that so holy land. 

Levell levell with the ground 

The towres doe lye 

Which with their golden, glitteringe tops pearsed once to the skye.

Where weare gates no gates are nowe, 

The waies unknowen, 

Where the press of peares did passe 

While her fame far was blowen. 

Oules do scrike where the sweetest himnes Lately weer songe, 

Toades and serpents hold their dennes 

Wher the palmers did thronge. 

Weepe, weepe O Walsingam, 

Whose dayes are nightes, 

Blessings turned to blasphemies, 

Holy deeds to dispites.

So who was right, the iconoclasts, or their opposition? The people who destroyed the images and became millioniaires, waxing strong on the despoiling of the Church, or those who stood for the ancient devotion of the land? To put it another way, who was right? Churches like ours or those who scorn us as ignorant idolaters? Obviously, we think we’re in the right, otherwise we wouldn’t be celebrating this Feast of Candlemas, held in honour of the Blessed Virgin and her Son. Even so, we owe it to ourselves and to our opposition, ancient and modern, to clarify our position.

Latimer was wrong, we are not idolaters. When we light a candle at the Walsingham Shrine we are not bowing down to a pagan deity, that “great sybil.” We are not worshipping the Blessed ever virgin Mary as a god, on the contrary, we are asking her to pray for us, because we know that she is alive and in heaven. And just as we ask any holy person alive on earth to intercede on our behalf, so too do we ask the same of those in heaven, especially the  holiest of them all, the great Mother of God, Mary most holy, who brought salvation into the world.

More than this, our outward devotion to the Saints, not least the Virgin, with her shrines, statues and candles, isn’t some unnecessary distraction from the worship due to Christ alone, but flows from it. Good Christians naturally want to celebrate the lives of men and women of outstanding sanctity as these people are heroes of the Faith, demonstrating the redeeming power and love of Christ. They show us that the business of our religion is true, and so we set up representations of them in our churches to lead us to greater devotion to Our Saviour who was glorified in their lives. This isn’t graven idolatry, it is the normal piety of the faithful throughout the ages, of people who love Jesus and therefore love His Saints and most especially His Mother.

We see that here at St. XXXX; Bishop Latimer didn’t, and so he moved with his allies to stamp out such devotion. In doing so he destroyed the popular, natural, faith of the English; its no small wonder, I think, that when the statues of the Saints were taken away, so too was sainthood from the people. And for a fact, an England bereft of its Shrines became in short order the most godless country in Europe. It seems, then, that the final verse of our anonymous defender of Walsingham has a prophetic ring. To return:

What we’re doing tonight, on this Feast, is putting right that wrong. We are returning the Saints to the people so that we, in our turn, may strive to be saints, helped on by their glorious example and aided by their powerful intercession So tonight, as we light candles in honour of Our Lady, may the light of Christ’s love burn brightly in us that we too, with her, may join the heavenly host of souls redeemed by the grace and love of God.

Behold Genius

 

I call genius, or perhaps you  dare to disagree? Look, here's a photo:

Your Pal,

LSP

Adeste Fidelis

 

Adeste Fidelis from the Front, and from KCC, which somehow still allows Christian music in its midst, bizarrely.

Hope you've all had the best of days. Here at Dallas HQ it was all about roast beef, Yorkshire Pudding and General Merriment.

Speaking of ranks, the PFC called in from Korea and was having fun, his team had a Christmas BBQ, involving ribs, and all was well.

God bless,

LSP

Playing in the Band

 

Here at the Compound we play requests, and here's one, Playing in the Band, by the indomitable Dead. That said, are you on the bus or not? The bus being your chance to #StopTheSteal. #Jan6. 

Your call, be a serf, or not,

LSP

Rise Up

Thanks to the STAR, Texas was bright, warm and sunny this morning as I drove about the country, getting the job done. Hey, someone's got to do it. Christmas tasks over, I fell back to the Compound and wandered into the church hall to scout about.

Behold, it was decorated for the great Feast of the Incarnation, candy-cane style. I couldn't help myself, "Good Lord!" only to notice the author of this tremendous effort sitting on a bench, exhausted from the sheer intensity of the thing. We visited, and I thanked her for working so hard, and she bought us a pizza. Half peperoni, half "meat lovers." Delicious.

Unlike the recent Covid stimulus bill, which shovels billions into foreign and special interests while putting Americans precisely last. What does this tell us about our elected representatives? That they hate, despise and scorn you, the dirt people who pay their salaries? 

Well, yes, of course. But more than that, their income, the millions of dollars which buy their mansions, servants, and private jets, doesn't come from the pathetic amount of money you give them. 

Which, let's be honest, couldn't make up mortgage on their faux Versailles. No, it comes from the grift they get in office, obviously. 

Pitch Forks and Nooses down the Mall, eh?

Your Friend,

LSP

Grilling is Great

 

While everyone's cleaning weapons, loading mags and running blockades into California, I took time off to fire up the grill. That's right, a charcoal-fired Weber. Objective? Delicious chicken. Here's one way to do it.

Brush chicken thighs with olive oil and salt and cracked pepper. Or, if you want, some kind of dry rub. I wasn't going to go down the rub route, preferring the elegant simplicity of oil, salt and pepper, but that changed. Adventure began and on went the rub. But hey, that's just me, there's no rule.

Then, and UK readers take note, apply the thighs to direct heat for a sear, about two minutes a side, and then remove to indirect heat for around forty minutes with the lid on the grill. Again, UK, pay attention, indirect heat. This means heaping your coals to one side of the grill (direct heat) and leaving the other side empty (indirect heat). Picture it, Brits, one half of the grill is super hot, the other half isn't, more like an oven.

This established, remove the seared thighs to indirect heat, cover the grill and let the whole thing sit for around forty minutes. At the end of which, remove the thighs, transfer to a plate, rest for a five minutes and then...

Fall on your scoff like a warrior,

LSP

Just Taking it Easy

 

Frying striper.

And taking it easy.

Cheers,

LSP

Rambling Man

Build the Wall.

MAGAKAG,

LSP

Spirit Of The Age

Well, well. Your android replica's playing up again but hey, Spirit of the Age.

Your Old Friend,

LSP

Stardust

I love this song, calms you right down.

Your Friend,

LSP