A Sunny Saturday in Pershore

Psych! I wasn't really in Pershore, which is an attractive market town in England, I was in rural Texas, somewhere between Waco and Dallas, with a truckload of guns.

The State Protects You in Pershore

The heat beat down, shimmering off the fields, and I shot away at a silhouette, steel plates, clays, a Sprite can and an old plastic bottle of root beer. And a steel turkey. 

Not Allowed in Pershore!

The guns worked, and I was especially pleased with my Ruger American .17 HMR. Well made, inexpensive, and dead on. Pistol performance wasn't bad either, with the plate swinging more often than not at 30 yards. Take that, steel plate, .45 ACP.

Ride On in Pershore

In Pershore you're not allowed to own a pistol or an AR 15, because the less able you are to defend yourself the safer you'll be. But don't worry, the State will look after you as you're attacked by the village toughs. 

Banned in Pershore

Still, Pershore does have pubs, a river, cider and Guy Fawkes night, but that's a different story.

Your Pal,

LSP

Obama Gets Even More Gayer in Bid to Shame Pope

Just when you thought President Obama couldn't get much gayer, we learn that he's invited a cast of rainbow clowns to meet and shame Pope Francis, when the Supreme Pontif visits America in September. Who are these clowns?

Love Free or Tank at the Box Office

The most famous gay bishop in the world, ever, Gene Robertson, who left his wife and kids to marry Mark and then divorced him, but not before he wrecked the Anglican Communion and starred in the blockbuster smash hit "Love Free or Die." Good choice, Obama.

All Means All, Viv

Then there's "Viv," the famous Episcopalien transsexual, who started off a man, then became a woman, got hired by Integrity and then got a pink slip. "All means all!" was Viv's war cry and Obama's told him to bring all 5 of  the friends he thought most appropriate for a meeting with the Pope. Who are these friends? According to Virtueonline:

Nicole Santamaria, the Secretary of Asociacion Colectivo Alejandria an Hispanic LGBT advocacy group; Marcia Garber a member of Dignity-USA and the mother of a transgendered child; Mateo Williamson, a cross-dressing transgender Catholic and the former co-chairman of Transgender Caucus for Dignity-USA; the Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers, an LGBT advocate, liberal Episcopal theologian, the director of Mission & Reconciliation at General Theological Seminary and chaplain to the Episcopal House of Bishops (reports are that Canon Spellers will be unable to attend the Pope's soiree because she didn't RSVP in time); and the Rev. Cameron Partridge, a transgendered Episcopal priest who preached at the Washington National Cathedral.

Nice mark of respect for the leader of the majority of the world's Christians, right? 

The catholics of this country need to stand up and be counted, in fact all Christians do, before they get steamrolled by the pink juggernaut of gayness.

LSP

Pompey, Trump, and Hilarion Tells it Like it is

I'd walked the dog, said Morning Prayer and set up on the front porch to write something on Anglican-Orhodox relations. This wasn't easy because my mind kept wandering to the phenomenon that is Donald trump.

Is Donald Trump an aggressive version of Pompeius Magnus, from an alternate future reality? I asked Blue Classicist while clicking through the Moscow Agreed Statement. Blue Triumverate didn't seem to care and started to doze, so I applied myself to Metropolitan Hilarion's 2010 address to the Nicean Club. Here's an excerpt:

"We are also extremely concerned and disappointed by other processes that are manifesting themselves in churches of the Anglican Communion. Some Protestant and Anglican churches have repudiated basic Christian moral values by giving a public blessing to same-sex unions and ordaining homosexuals as priests and bishops. Many Protestant and Anglican communities refuse to preach Christian moral values in secular society and prefer to adjust to worldly standards.

"Our Church must sever its relations with those churches and communities that trample on the principles of Christian ethics and traditional morals. Here we uphold a firm stand based on Holy Scripture.

"In 2003, the Russian Orthodox Church had to suspend contact with the Episcopal Church in the USA due to the fact that this Church consecrated a self-acclaimed homosexual, Jim Robertson, as bishop. The Department for External Church Relations made a special statement deploring this fact as anti-Christian and blasphemous. Moreover, the Holy Synod of our Church decided to suspend the work of the Joint Coordinating Committee for Cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Episcopal Church in the USA, which had worked very successfully for many years. The situation was aggravated when a woman bishop was installed as head of the Episcopal Church in the USA in 2006 and a lesbian was placed on the bishop’s chair of Los Angeles in 2010."

Hilarion is a remarkable figure, a former soldier, composer, church historian, theologian and No. 2 in the Russian hierarchy. If you're interested in Anglican-Orthodox dialogue, check out his Nicean address.

I file this story under God, Dogs and Country Life in Texas. Didn't get any guns in. Sorry, next time.

LSP

A Zombie Communion, Archbishop Welby Calls a Primate's Meeting

It's happened, the moment we've all not been waiting for, when the head of the world's third largest denomination, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, calls a Primates meeting. It's going ahead, the letters are out, and the Primates have been invited to meet, face to face in Canterbury, June, 2016.

So what's it all about? To find a way forward for worldwide Anglicanism to somehow exist while holding irreconcilable differences within itself. Here's Welby:

Useless

"Our way forward must respect the decisions of Lambeth 1998 (which upheld Scriptural teaching on marriage)... recognising that the way in which proclamation happens and the pressures on us vary greatly between Provinces. We each live in a different context.

“The difference between our societies and cultures, as well as the speed of cultural change in much of the global north, tempts us to divide as Christians: when the command of scripture, the prayer of Jesus, the tradition of the church and our theological understanding urges unity."

Zombies

Roughly translated: The Anglican Communion can continue as one big tent provided everyone agrees to disagree and by the way, to break unity with the big tent is against Scripture, Tradition and the will of Christ himself. So take that, trads. If you split from us and our lesbian bishops, you're being disloyal Christians, and anyway, take a pill, it's all contextual anyway.

The GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) Primates weren't slow to answer:

"It is on this basis that the GAFCON Primates will prayerfully consider their response to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s letter. They recognize that the crisis in the Communion is not primarily a problem of relationships and cultural context, but of false teaching which continues without repentance or discipline."

Pathetic

False teaching which continues without repentance or discipline? Right on, and Welby's way forward doesn't seem to envisage much of that, if any at all. But it's a moot point; the Anglican Communion hasn't been a communion since the 1970s, when women were ordained and the orders and sacraments of its various provinces were no longer mutually recognized.

At best, Anglicanism since then has been a fellowship of Churches held together by "bonds of affection," but even these have been strained beyond breaking point by the radical liberalism of what Welby refers to as the "global north."

Oh! I have a Barbour! Whatever.

This has resulted in a so-called Communion that exists in name only, a Zombie Communion of Provinces that don't recognize one another's sacraments, orders, faith or morals. In other words, a sham.

House Elf

Welby has dared to call this hollow man together in the New Year. He shouldn't be disappointed if it blows up in his face.

Welby is known variously as Dobby, Sharkey, House Elf, and Chino.

LSP

Trump Uber Alles

Donald Trump filled Dallas' American Airlines stadium yesterday with 20,000 people to rapturous applause. His rise to GOP front-runner has been meteoric and no wonder, he says all the right things and he says them forcefully. 

Like, Hillary Clinton was the worst Secretary of State ever, or, make America great again and make its people rich; end the kind of crony politics that puts self-serving inside-the-Beltway amateurs in charge of affairs of state; make illegal immigration actually illegal; honor veterans, stamp out gangs; put an end to allowing America to be treated like some kind of patsy by the rest of the world, especially China.

The list goes on and it's popular, no doubt about it. No other Republican candidate has the kind of mass appeal that Trump has, and that's rattled the GOP establishment. According to Mark Halperin there are several lines of attack to bring the Trumpian Juggernaut down. Viz:

    Trump can’t be trusted because he is an egomaniac with a 

    bad character.

    Trump is a liberal and unprincipled.

    Trump is not close to being fit to be a serious president or 

    commander-in-chief.

    Trump is a politician, not a businessman/outsider.

That's Halperin, writing for Bloomberg, and I'd say he pretty much sums it up. There's another line, though, and it's this. "If Trump wins, the Left will be laughing at us until the next millennium." Maybe, it might also be the case that Trump is a demented shark, but he's evidently a shark that appeals to Americans after what seems like centuries of Euro-Communist rule in Obama's White House.

I think he has a chance at the Presidency, especially if there's a financial meltdown in 2016. 

Does that mean we've devolved as a nation?

You, the reader, be the judge,

LSP

Bears Surge Into Texas

Everyone's now aware of the Californian migrant surge into Texas, but the Lone Star State is being hit by another wave of unasked for settlers, bears.

Bears are crossing into Texas from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, heading for the Big Thicket in the eastern part of the state.

“They’re coming,” stated biologist, Don Dietz. “I had dinner with a guy two weeks ago in San Augustine County who’s seen a bear twice in the past few weeks.”

According to conservative estimates, as many as 800 bears thrive in the four-county area across the Texas border from Red River County. And while there's a limited bear season in Oklahoma, it's illegal to hunt bears in Texas.

“It’s exciting to think that the bears were here when my family first owned this land and now they’re coming back,” said rancher, Mike Ford, “The landowners that I’ve talked with are excited about it. They appreciate all the native animals, whether they’re turkeys or bears.”

I second that opinion,

LSP

The Gramsci Beat

Are you sick of people saying "narrative"? As though reality was some kind of fruity little story? If so, you might like this:

"The crucial importance of narrative to the leftist project cannot be overstated. Storytelling—or a form of it in which old themes are mined and twisted—sits at the center of everything the Left does. Leftists are fueled by a belief that in the modern world, it does not so much matter what the facts are, as long as the story is well told. Living in a malevolent, upside-down fantasy world, they would rather heed their hearts than their minds, their impulses than their senses; the gulf between empirical reality and their ideology-infused daydreams regularly shocks and surprises them, even as it discomforts or kills millions who suffer the consequences of their delusions."

You can read the whole thing here.

Cheers,

LSP

All Hail Texas

There isn't much in Itasca, apart from an eerily impressive war memorial, and Karen's Authentic Mexican Food.

Karen's has expanded its operation and now includes seating, which it never used to have, but it still offers a fine bean and brisket burrito for around $3. You can have red sauce or green sauce on your bean and brisket, that's up to you. 

I opted for red and drove to Blanton, where I pulled up under a tree, put down the tailgate and ate that burrito. Up until a year or so ago there was an outdoor wooden chapel, open at the sides but tin roofed, to give cover to worshipers and mourners at the nearby cemetery. It had three flagpoles, too, and these would fly the Texan, Confederate and POW MIA flags.

The chapel has gone, sadly, though the flagpoles are still there, and it was tranquil sitting on the back of the truck, with $3 worth of tasty-as-you-like bean and brisket in a delicious tortilla. There was even a cool breeze. I thought back on the times I'd spent there over the last 8 years, mostly on horseback. 

It was a good moment in the Texan countryside and I thank God for that.

Some people scorn Texas. Those people are fools.

LSP

Comrade Corbyn, Clay Golem?

Hundreds of thousands of Bolsheviks, Stalinists, Red Communists and their fellow travelers in the declining Church of England, are rejoicing that Comrade Corbyn has been made head of the Labour Party and plans to save Great Britain from the clutches of a sinister cabal of Old Etonians.

A Clay Golem

But is Corbyn the promised savior of the Islington proletariat or a clay golem, magicked into being by the dark arts of an evil old witch? One prominent member of the US Intelligence community seems to think so.

An English, ahem, Lady

"The question on many people's mind is whether Corbyn is actually a golem, formed from the mud in a toxic waste spill and them magically animated by Madonna," stated a well placed source, on the condition of anonymity.

An Evil Old Witch

Clay golem or regular Red, Comrade Corbyn has been endorsed by demented celebrity millionaire socialist, Russell Brand.

Demented

Workers of the world unite.

LSP

Jeremy Corbyn, Two-Bit Leftie or Islington Shill?

Right wingers in England are worried that the new head of the Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn, will destroy what used to be Great Britain and make it even less great than it already isn't. How will he do that?

By getting rid of the UK's nuclear weapons and disbanding its Army, Navy and Airforce. "What?!?" you exclaim with shock, "England has an Army, a Navy and an Airforce?" Apparently yes, sort of, and some nuclear missiles too. You never know, the Sceptered Isle might be able to deter Israel, or Iran, maybe even Pakistan or Zimbabwe with its mighty arsenal. Corbyn wants to get rid of that.

He also wants to nationalise the once great Britain's trains, flood the country with Mohammedan terrorists, and pay undergraduate students money to take lesbian theater study degrees at the London School of Economics.

Typical Islington Street Scene

The list goes on, and the MP from North Islington sounds exactly like what you'd expect, from the MP from North Islington. Comsymp Pinko altruist? Compared to Hillary, who isn't.  Two-Bit Lefty? Tick. Islington Shill? Obviously. 

But here's the thing, Piers Morgan hates him. Perhaps he deserves a chance?

Corbyn, not the appalling Morgan.

LSP

The Face of the Anglican Communion

A tiny dried up skeleton has been found in a ghost town in Chile, which experts claim is all that's left of the Anglican Communion.

The desiccated body was discovered near an abandoned church by Oscar Munoz, in La Noria, a ghost town in the Atacama desert. No larger than 6 inches long, the mysterious skeleton was wrapped in a shroud and had 9 ribs, sharp teeth and a bulging head.

Tests carried out at a prestigious California university showed that the skeleton wasn't a monkey but a mutated human.

"I can say with absolute certainty that it is not a monkey. It is human - closer to human than chimpanzees. It lived to the age of six to eight,’ said Garry Nolan, director of stem cell biology at Stanford University's School of Medicine in California. "Obviously, it was breathing, it was eating, it was metabolizing. It calls into question how big the thing might have been when it was born."

How the shortlived anomaly known as the Anglican Communion came to rest in a Chilean ghost town remains a mystery.

LSP