Katharine Jefferts Schori Goes Soylent Green

The Episcopal Church's leaderene, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, has discovered a new virtue, viriditas, or greenness.

Here's what she had to say to her fellow climate change warriors at the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops meeting in Taiwan:

"Where do you meet viriditas? Where is joy and wonder in the world around you? What creative ferment engages and transforms you? All are signs of expanding possibility, divine creativity, and new green shoots emerging.

Typical Greens, Goofing-Off

Then, after referring to Christ as the "Green Man", Schori went on to state:

"This Episcopal Church is in the throes of creative ferment, yearning to find a new congruence that will discover emerging life in new soil, and refreshed growth in the plantings of former years. Our gathering here will offer opportunities to learn of greenness in different pastures, and God willing, transform us to discover abundance and possibility in more familiar ones. 

"Hildegard’s vision motivates all healers of creation who understand the green web of connection that ties creation together in Wisdom’s body. Creation is sacrament of God – the outward and visible sign of the green and growing, creative expression of God who is the origin of all life and liveliness. Viriditas begins in wonder, and emerges to motivate constructive, healing connection between air and ocean, carbon and crops, hunger and floods, Ebola and economic inequality."

The Presiding Bishop concluded by referring to the viridic power of the Apostle Paul:

"As Colossians puts it, be at peace, let the creative word of God take root within you and bear new branches, discover viriditas and truth, and be not afraid. New life is springing forth – be thankful – and pray for the gift of joy and wonder in God’s good, green, creative possibility."

Resisting the urge to ask how much fossil fuel was used to fly the Episcopal hypocrites Bishops to Taiwan, I'll simply direct attention to the dystopian classic, Soylent Green, in which humanity survives by eating people. 

Call it recycling, if you like.

LSP

Yes. It Could Be Worse. Much Worse?

I present this AI to you without comment.

Thanks, ZeroHedge.

LSP

Semper Latte

As if to mark the Autumnal Equinox, or "Mabon", America has launched air and seaborne strikes against targets in Syria. I guess that means we're at war again, although it's not entirely clear who with and for how long, other than a "very long time."

Martial

Here's our war leader, the Commander in Chief, returning the salute of two Marines.

Inspired to fight and win? Neither are we.

Semper Latte.

LSP

The Ballad of East and West

This one's for LL. The Ballad of East and West, by Kipling.


Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border side,
And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride:
He has lifted her out of the stable-door between the dawn and the day,
And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away.
Then up and spoke the Colonel's son that led a troop of the Guides:
``Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal hides?''
Then up and spoke Mahommed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar,
``If ye know the track of the morning-mist, ye know where his pickets are.
At dusk he harries the Abazai---at dawn he is into Borair,
But he must go by Fort Bukloh to his own place to fare,
So if ye gallop to Fort Bukloh as fast as a bird can fly,
By the favour of God ye may cut him off ere he win to the Tonuge of Jagai,
But if he be passed the Tongue of Jagai, right swiftly turn ye then,
For the length and the breadth of that grisly plain is sown with Kamal's men.
There is rock to the left, and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between,
And ye may hear a breech-bolt snick where never a man is seen.''

Read the whole thing here, if you like.

It ends like this:

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgement Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

Chesterton hated Kipling and I like Chesterton lot. I also like Kipling.

Rumours that I charge about on a horse around the Compound with a saber may or may not be true.

LSP

Autumn Equinox. Hippies, You're On Notice.

Today's the Autumn Equinox, which pagans celebrate as a kind of harvest festival. They'll set up a little altar with some idols, mess about with a wand and an apple and invoke a couple of spirits, like the Goddess.

Sometimes they'll wig-out a little around a bonfire.

Maybe do a little magicke.

And that's all harmless, right? Yeah, until you wake up inside a Wicker Man and it's on fire.

Pagans

There are unconfirmed reports that several large forces of irregular cavalry are moving in the direction of Austin and San Francisco.

Hippies, you have been warned.

LSP

Horsing Around

Some of my parishioners are afraid I'll come off the horse(s) and die. "Don't go so fast, Padre!" they say. They are serious horse people.

Parishioner

I reply, "Don't worry, if things get tippy I'll just hold onto the pommel thing." 

"Saddle horn," they reply.

Grace Slick

Walk, trot, canter, gallop, run!

Arm the Kurds.

LSP

Get in the Saddle

"For a so-called horseman you sure don't seem to do much riding, LSP," I hear you say, pointedly. Well not so fast. Monday being as good a day as any, I pulled on my Ariats, loaded a Circle Y in the truck and headed off to ride.

Keena

Which is what I did, on Keena, an old Polish Arabian mare who used to race and still has plenty of go. But I didn't push it, just walk, trot and a few short canters around Mesquites.

Front Office

Great to be back in the saddle again and next time I'll open things up a bit for a gallop. Good for mind, soul and body, provided you don't come off and break, obviously.

Ride on,

LSP

Vermin In A Destroyed City

Hisham Melhem, the Washington bureau chief of Al-Arabiya, makes a powerful case for the self-evident, that Arab civilization has broken down. He is, understandably, unable to find a single, overarching explanation for this. Here's a snapshot:

"Is it any surprise that, like the vermin that take over a ruined city, the heirs to this self-destroyed civilization should be the nihilistic thugs of the Islamic State? And that there is no one else who can clean up the vast mess we Arabs have made of our world but the Americans and Western countries?

"No one paradigm or one theory can explain what went wrong in the Arab world in the last century."

Powerful stuff and you can read the whole thing here (via Breitbart).

But, in deference to author, could it be that the answer to his question lies within Islam itself?

Just a thought.

God bless,

LSP

Orde Wingate

For the benefit of everyone, and especially those readers interested in irregular warfare, today's focus is on the remarkable, if unconventional, Orde Wingate.

Born in 1903, Wingate secured a Commission in the British Army as a Gunner and went on to learn Arabic at London's School of Oriental Studies (SOAS). This took him to secondment with the Sudan Defence Force and the command of 300 troops which he trained to ambush Muslim slavers and poachers. 

After being recalled to England in 1933, Wingate was assigned to the Palestinian Mandate in 1936, where he went on to form irregular units of British and Jewish Haganah volunteers, called Special Night Squads. The SNS attacked Arab terrorists with effective ferocity; Moshe Dayan claimed that Wingate "taught us everything we know", and while not a Jew, Wingate, who was an ardent Zionist, became a celebrated figure of the Jewish community.

At the outbreak of World War II, Wingate was invited by General Wavell to assist with operations to drive the Italians from Ethiopa. He did just that, creating and training the guerrilla-style Gideon Force, which succeeded in restoring Emperor Haile Selassie to his throne in Addis Abbaba. Awarded a DSO for his efforts, Wingate returned to England and went overseas again, to the Far East, where the sudden Japanese takeover of Burma forced him to India.

From India, he gained permission to create a "deep penetration" strike force, the Chindits, who operated far behind Japanese lines. These fought with controversial success until Wingate's untimely death in March, 1944, when his transport plane crashed into the jungle. He is buried in Arlington cemetery.

Wingate was undoubtably eccentric and didn't much like wearing clothes. One British Officer was surprised to discover him naked and crying on the floor (through frustration? grief?) after an SNS operation and he would often give orders in a state of "undress". This confused some of his more staid colleagues.

The pioneering Chindit commander can be credited for laying some of the groundwork for the Israeli Defense Force's later success, and I have an odd feeling that when I was younger I met some of the people he trained. 

We could do with a few Wingates to launch against ISIS.

God bless,

LSP

Kerry Goofs. Again. Arm the Kurds

America is great and Texas is awesome, but our Secretary of State 'droid needs some tuning, because it's NWO DAARPA designed logic circuits aren't quite up to scratch.

When questioned about the U.S. non-war against the non-Islamic Islamic State, the ketchup fortune traitor-bot stated:

“If you’re more comfortable calling it a war against this enemy of Islam then please do so. We’re happy to call it that.”

Pamela Geller

So I guess we're at war with Pamela Geller. And Israel, and Christianity, and everyone else who lives in the "House of War."

Nice one, Kerry. 

Anti-Jihad

In other news, the enemy of Islam is scared of being deprived of virgins in the afterlife if they get killed by Yazidi women. There are several of these, fortunately.

Tower Hamlets?

The non-Islamic Islamic State has women fighters too.

Arm the Kurds,

LSP

It Rained

After saying Mass at one of the Missions I went out to my truck to drive back to the compound. Dark clouds had rolled in, low and thunderous. Then lightning filled the air and it began to rain. It didn't stop.

Some of you may think that this is a boring story and of little consequence. If you lived here you would not think that.

According to Reuters, a solid quarter of all Americans support secession.

Right on.

LSP