Berdyaev Sunday

It's all very well to post dubiously genuine photos of Vladimir "Lord of Awesomness" Putin riding sharks and manning about but it is, I admit, frivolous.

So here's some 1917 vintage Berdyaev to get things back on track.

The soul of the Russian people will be tempered within a more austere morality. Russia has its own mission, distinct from the mission of Germany, France and England. But the fulfilling of this mission lies through culture, through a duty of obedience to the burdens of civilisation. We have mistaken our backwardness for a point of excellence, as a sign of our higher calling and our greatness. But the terrible fact is that the human person for us is drowning in a primitive collectivism, and this is nowise a point of excellence, nor a sign of our greatness. It makes totally no difference, whether this all-engulfing collectivism be that of the "Black Hundreds" or of the "Bolsheviks". The Russian land lives under the power of a pagan khlysty-like element. In this element gets submerged every face, it is incompatible with personal worthiness and personal responsibility. This demonic element can pull forth from its bosom no true face, save only the likes of Rasputin and Lenin. The Russian "Bolshevik Revolution" is a dreadful worldwide reactionary phenomenon, just as reactionary in its spirit, as the "Rasputinism", as the Black Hundred khlystyism. The Russian people, just like every people, has to pass through a religious and cultural discipline of the person. And for this, it is needful to repudiate Russian illusions. The perishing of these illusions is not at all a perishing of the world. For us it is not given to know the times and seasons of the end of the world. And is not the eschatological and apocalyptic investigation of the religious populists of all the Russian woes and the Russian sins -- is this not one of the Russian illusions and temptations, begotten of the Russian self-conceit?

Nothing like a bit of Berdyaev to get the Sunday going, I always think.

God bless,

LSP

London Riots - A Question

I won't comment on last month's disturbance in London and other British cities but I do have a question.

Just who and what is the blond bloke standing to the right of the 'feral youth' as they loot the Carhartt store in Dalston? Everything else is pretty self-explanatory, but what's he up to?

Curious,

LSP

Putin Peace Prize

Apart from tranqing tigers, riding horses and sharks, scuba diving, hunting, playing concert piano and flying jets, Vladimir Putin also has his own religious cult and is hailed as an emissary from God.

According to Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin's first deputy chief of staff, Putin "is a person sent to Russia by fate and by the Lord at a difficult time for Russia... preordained by fate to serve our peoples."

No wonder then that China has nominated the Russian leader for the coveted Confucius Peace Prize. That's not all, in July, a Berlin nonprofit announced plans to give the outdoors loving Russian Prime Minister the sought after Quadriga Award for being a "role model for enlightenment, dedication and the public good." The Award was later withdrawn, prompting Russian President Dimitry Medvedev to blast the Germans for "cowardice and inconsistency." 

American President Barak Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.

Make of that what you will.

LSP

Choppers

It seems that Team LSP has been hard at work, sending in pictures of choppers. I think they hope I will buy one and roar about the countryside with all the other bikers.  It would be like Nam, Chelt'Nam that is, in the '70s, which I vaguely remember being fond of.

But I can't, looking after the live horse is enough for me and I need to save up for some kind of truck, the present Ranger being on loan - pref 4x4. Like a x-cab Z71 or F150 variant. Then there's always the Defender... 

On a different theme, it's good to know that unlimited dollar liquidity is being offered to Europe's stuttering banks.

That's solved that nasty little solvency problem then. Entirely.

And another thing, why is Piers Morgan still in power?

Cheers,

LSP

Horse, Gun, Liquidity

You probably think that the LSP August was all about excursions from Canada to dodgy parts of Detroit, but that was only part of it. 

There were horses.

There were guns.

And a visit from my brother and his family from Wales. They were hoping to ride but I didn't think that'd be too safe, so the kids got to give JB treats and attention. That horse has come a long way -- I would have felt very uneasy having children around her a year ago. 

But that's not all. Finally managed to read the excellent House of Cards, which is all about the gruesome Bear Stearns blow-up.

And lo and behold, it's happening all over again! But worse! Merkel tells us that we won't have another Lehman Brothers. Well you never know, maybe that magical German alchemy will transmute the radioactive lead on the euro zone balance sheets into fine gold.

Smart people are learning to ride, shoot and grow their own food.

LSP

Detroit House

Sensible Flag

Marthieu425 took exception to my post "Come on, Move to Detroit." He had 

this to say: "It's the most culturally diverse area in the United States. You need some culture sir. Maybe you should come visit before you comment on how "post apocalyptic" it is. It's coming back." Good call, Marthieu425. 


So off I went for a well needed dose of "culture" and who knows, maybe I'd find the Motorway City was miraculously "coming back" since I was there last August.

Red's House - no guns allowed...

Red's place on Commonwealth was better. No upended sofa on the front porch, well done, though the ceiling was still down in the "dining room" and the kitchen didn't seem to have any utilities. No change there.

Not much change anywhere, that I could see, with the exception of "Slows" which cooks good BBQ (the place was packed) and the best pint, maybe the only real pint, of ale I've had in the U.S. Not that I'm some sort of beer technologist.

But enough of that, here's some holiday snaps.

Nice

Occupied, oddly enough

Don't go in there

Greening of America

High Density

Strip Mall

Where are all the cars?

Deja Vu

Back to the Garden

Good old CPA building

No trains, sadly

There goes another one

Outlaws

Logan's Run

Back in the Dominion

Detroit catastrophe theorists will be mad at me for not taking any shots of spectacular brick mansions falling into ruin. There's plenty.

But is the place "coming back"? I'd say large swathes of the city have a post-apocalyptic, Nagasaki, forty years on, kind of feel.

You be the judge.

God bless,

LSP

Have a Blessed Sunday

golden void

Tried to get as much riding in as possible before flying off to the hopefully far cooler North. This means getting up earl and, on Saturday, driving to Miltdown Arabians with the sun at my back. Beautiful, there was even some rain, which was a godsend. 

Had a right workout, 'round poles and barrels at a canter/hand gallop, Western style. Total enjoyment and a good change to put some different horses through their paces.

ridiculous

Apart from horses, there was an interesting Gospel text this morning, in the feeding of the 5000, which serves as a type of the Eucharist. But why 5 loaves and 2 fish? 5 signifies the Law (5 books of the Pentateuch), which is fulfilled and sanctified by the twofold nature of Christ who is "true God and true man". The spiritual sustenance of this renewed Law is Christ Himself, who states "I am the bread of life", and is the acrostic in Greek for fish (Jesus Christ Son of God Savior). 

He will be the nourishment of the faithful whose number is 5000; as we are reminded in Acts, "The number of those who believed were 5000." These are the multitude of the new Law and constitute a new Israel, signified by the 12 baskets of food left over - fed by none other than Our Lord.

When I was a child, Rev. Ronnie Loyd, a Welshman, taught us that the real miracle and the spiritual meaning of the text, was that Jesus persuaded the 5000 to share their lunches, making it the "miracle of the bag lunches". 

hippys

Not dissimilar, I suppose, to a hippy "be-in" but without the thieving and general knavishness. I mentioned this interpretation to the congregation and denounced it trenchantly as, "Rubbish!"

God bless you all, not least in the Sacrament of the Altar.

Canada tomorrow.

LSP

Beware the Boar

Escape from New York

Team LSP NYC had to escape the summer rigor of 'the Isand' for Turkey and stumbled upon the ruined temple of Artemis (Diana). It was one of the Wonders of the classical world but not much remains today after successive earthquakes, fires and looting. 

Artemis could be difficult at times and wasn't above alliance with wild hogs. Here's an excerpt from Ovid:

"‘This shall not pass unpunished. No!’ she cried, ‘I may be seen unhonoured, true, but never unavenged!’

"The smarting goddess sent a giant Boar, huge as the bulls that grassy Epiros breeds, dwarfing the bulls of fertile Sicula (Sicily); his eyes ablaze with fire and blood; his neck solid and steep; his bristles long and sharp, rigid as spearshafts; his broad sweeping flanks flecked, as he hissed and snorted, with hot foam. His mouth flashed lightning and his burning breath seared the green leaves. Now the young growing corn he trampled in the blade... The people fled..."

And who can blame them? Then up springs Ancaeus:

"‘Learn how far the weapons of a man surpass a girl’s and leave this task to me! Even though Latonia [Artemis] shields him from the blow, despite Diana [Artemis], mine shall lay him low!’ Such was Ancaeus’ braggart brazen boast, and raising in both hands his double axe he balanced on his feet and stood tiptoe. Brave and bold! but the beast struck first and plunged both tusks high in his groin, the shortest road to death, and down he fell and, disembowelled, his guts gushed out and soaked the ground with gore."

Moral of the story? Kill the hog with the first shot and don't disrespect women. Or something like that.

Cheers,

LSP

PS. Why Piers must go back from whence he came - see Guido.

Piers Morgan - Please send him back.

Twister

Hailed at Crack.com as "one of the most unpopular journalists working in the UK," Piers Morgan was once editor of Britain's left-leaning Daily Mirror, until he was fired for running fake pictures of British troops abusing Iraqi prisoners.

But he had made lots of money through shrewd investments in the stock market, and moved to America, where he interviews Oprah on CNN and does Simon Cowell impersonations on America's Got Talent. 

Now it seems as if the media mogul's past is catching up with him.

James Hipwell, a former journalist at the Mirror during 'The Dark Lord's' tenure, has claimed it was "inconceivable" that his old boss didn't know about 'phone hacking at the tabloid.

Morgan has vehemently denied the accusations, stating, “I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, nor to my knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone. I am not aware, and have never seen evidence to suggest otherwise, that any Mirror story published during my tenure was obtained from phone hacking.”

Dark Lord

But Piers seems to have said something different in 2009 on the BBC's Desert Island Discs, "...people who rake through bins for a living, people who tap people’s phones, people who take secret photographs, who do all that nasty down-in-the-gutter stuff... How did you feel about that?

"Mr Morgan replied: 'To be honest, let’s put that in perspective as well. Not a lot of that went on. A lot of it was done by third parties rather than the staff themselves. That’s not to defend it, because obviously you were running the results of their work.

'I’m quite happy to be parked in the corner of tabloid beast and to have to sit here defending all these things I used to get up to, and I make no pretence about the stuff we used to do,' he told the programme's host, Kirsty Young.

'I simply say the net of people doing it was very wide, and certainly encompassed the high and low end of the supposed newspaper market.'"

"I simply say the net of people doing it was very wide..."

Maybe "The Mad God" will be summoned back to England by its masters?

You can read all about it in the Telegraph and Guido.

Cheers,

LSP

Come on. Move to Detroit.

Detroit

It's tempting to write something about the crazed Norwegian Templar(?!) and the Jihad, or Amy Winehouse, or the peculiar speech delivered by Barak 'He's less of a man than Putin' Obama last night. 

Evil Madman

But the recent 'cash incentives to live downtown' caught my eye.

'Cash incentives to live downtown?' you ask, 'Where?'

Motor City

Detroit, of course. Under a new $4 million scheme to revitalize Motown, first time home buyers will get a $20,000 forgivable loan and renters a grant of $3,000 spread over two years. That's not all, existing owners living in Detroit's post-apocalyptic urban wasteland will be eligible for a $5000 'exterior improvement' grant.

Tempted? Neither am I. Though my old friend 'Red'  (why didn't he get in trouble for firing off a shotgun in an abandoned house last year - why?) might think of applying for the 'home improvement' money.

I'll suggest it when I visit next week before crossing the river to Canada and the comparative safety of Windsor.

Pray for rain.

LSP

Evil, Satanic Dinosaurs!

Buck-Toothed Evil Spirit

Normally I reserve Alien Head Awards for Bishops, like Sean Manchester, Desmond 'little rascal' Tutu, or Jefferts Schori. But the net's been widened.

You see, there's a whole new class of off-world tomfoolery doing the ecclesial rounds; evil dinosaur theorists. Their theology goes a bit like this:

Dinosaurs aren't mentioned in the Bible, they were fierce, bloodthirsty and strange looking. Satan was a snake, similar to a dinosaur, but smaller. Satan created the dinosaurs but God got fed up with their wicked antics, so He destroyed them. That's why they didn't get a place in the Ark, obviously.

Here's an excerpt from Royce & Zolot's seminal work, "Did God Destroy the Dinosaurs?" 

"... Satan turned Earth into a freakish, hellish nightmare world drenched in the blood and gore of violence, death and destruction, an obscene parody of what God had intended. ... His bloodlust became insatiable. Lucifer abused his creative powers by creating a planet with a steamy, wet, tropical climate, a planet populated by dinosaurs, sea reptiles, flying serpents and other abnormal, grotesque creatures and monstrosities. ..."

Who knew? Now we do.

Royce, Zolot, you get an outstanding ten Alien Heads - so do your catholic friends in DFW, but I won't name names.

Well done. Carry on.

LSP

x10

Bishop, Alien, Monkey?

Ingham

Villagers in China have made a shocking discovery, a strange creature that could be one of the long lost Bishops of ACoC. (Anglican Church of Canada) 


Mrs. Mao Xiping thought it was a harmless rabbit until she noticed that the creature had an 'alien face'. Her neighbours agreed it was like nothing they had ever seen before and thought it acted 'a lot like Bishop Ingham, gobbling up everything in sight.'

Space Aliens

After devouring cucumbers, peaches and local churches, the creature was caged in a washing basket and taken to police, who arrested it.


'It has a voracious appetite,' said Mrs. Mao, who remains convinced that she caught ACoC's litigious Bishop of New Westminster.


But experts aren't convinced. 'It could be a Canadian Bishop, or an alien, or a monkey,' said one scientist, 'It's hard to tell.'

Monkey

When last seen, the tiny ACoC was heading into the icy vastness of deep space.


Archbishop Fred Hiltz was unavailable for comment.


LSP