Texas Floods, So You Fish

Texas is mostly underwater, which forces us to fish. I tried out the old chicken liver and night crawlers method today, all in the hope of getting a monster catfish.

That meant clambering over the bluffs looking down on lake Whitney, and dropping a Carolina rigged treble hook baited with liver onto a recently submerged limestone ledge. I'd seen two big Channel Cats grazing there, so my hopes were up.

OK, Not a Monster, But Still, A Fish.

I left the rod in its holder and waited for the liver to do its trick while I fished the topwater with lures. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes, down went the float, out played the line, and the rod bent with a vengeance. Big excitement, no doubt about it, and I dropped the one rod and scrambled for the other. Reel that fish in! And I did, or at least started to, then... nothing. Whatever it was dropped the bait. 

Fierce Little Thing

My guess is that a Gar hit the liver and ran with it but let go after discovering something was up, they do that. Nothing was biting after that, so I moved on to less adventurous water and was rewarded by a Catfish and a Sunfish.

Gratuitous Texan Sunset Over Lake Whitney

They hit worms on treble hooks in shallow water with the kind of zeal you'd expect from Bernie Sanders promoting the Communist Manifesto. Aggressive beasts, fish. And that, readers, is that, except that it isn't, because the challenge is still on for a big Cat.

Fish on,

LSP

Lies, Fraud, Illegitimacy And Skullduggery

It's been a tumultuous couple of weeks for the Worldwide Anglican Non Communion (WANC). Kevin and George get into the detail on Anglicans Unscripted, giving us the run down on: The Kenyan Forgery, the Episcopal Church's ongoing attempts to subvert African provinces and bishops, the 815 Terminations and, last but not least, Justin Welby's, ahem, hazy family background.

If you get confused watching the first part of the video, which goes into the skullduggery, deceit and power plays evidenced at the Anglican Consultative Council in Lusaka, don't be surprised, it is confusing. Just bear in mind that the Episcopal Church is trying to get the Anglican Communion to go along with its gayness, and doing a pretty good job of it so far -- sanctions and discipline against them have gone nowhere.

However, the Provinces and Archbishops of the Global South and the GAFCON movement have a limited amount of patience with TEC's persistent flouting of the mind of the overwhelming majority of the Communion. And for that matter, Christianity in general. 

Laughing All The Way To The Bank

I fail to see how this will end in anything less than formal schism, no matter how much money and influence rich, white, rainbow libs in America, Canada and England funnel into the hands of mountebanks like Desmond Tutu, and other corruptibles.

Cheers,

LSP

Texas Floods!

Those of you who know I35 know that it's a difficult, treacherous and brutish highway. Now it's flooded, and desperate refugees make their way over the watery grave of this once great transit corridor on the floating debris of abandoned farms and derelict strip malls. 

A Typical Texas Street Scene

It's like Waterworld, but worse, far worse. Smart people had boats and got to them in time, others had the good fortune, or was it good sense? to live on high ground. They were the lucky ones.

El Nino

If only this once great state had had the foresight and sheer common sense to acknowledge the settled science of anthropocentric global warming and pay its weather tax. If only. Now that opportunity is gone and Texas is yet another victim, a casualty, in the War on Weather.

Your Friend,

LSP

Rainbow, Where's The Gold?

In a stunning display of cosmic irony, a rainbow appeared in LSPland, facing Stores, affectionately known on the depot as "Walmart." And not just any old rainbow, no, this one was double.

There it was, hanging in the sky, so I joined the smartphone frenzy and took a picture of it, along with everyone else. There weren't any unicorns frolicking on its graceful curves and I couldn't find the crock of gold, either. 

So Where's The Unicorn?

That, the mythical pot of wealth that comes with the rainbow, is apparently an illusion. Follow the rainbow, they say, and you'll find riches and happiness beyond your wildest dreams. But it's not there, so much for State agitprop.

Stores

After a time the rainbow faded, giving way to torrential rain, house-shaking thunder and ferocious lightning, which I watched from the safety of the porch.

There's a moral in this, if you care to draw it.

LSP

Storm Bringer

That is all.

LSP

Come Hell or High Water

What do you do when the lightning fills the sky and thunder crashes like the guns of Kursk, as a mighty deluge of rain pours down from the sky? You can sit at home like some kind of pajama boy in a onesie and cower in your parents' basement sipping lattes and hot chocolate. Sure, you can do that, that's one option. Or you can climb into your rig, crank up the jukebox, and drive through the storm to Mass.

I chose to avoid Hell and brave the high water, which isn't as amusing as it sounds when you're hydroplaning across a flooded country two lane. Slow down, you're of no liturgical use, in this world, if you wipe out and die in the wilds of Hill County.

Slow Down, Fool.

The storm raged throughout the Mass, like Hillary Clinton thwarted of a speaking fee, or Satan, falling to earth like lightning.

Wake of the flood,

LSP

Go Fishing, After Mass

God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation 

than angling.  

Izaak Walton

With Walton's Compleat Angler in mind I went fishing, after Mass. It was good to stand on the bluffs overlooking Lake Whitney and cast off in the hope of big fish, though I was more in it for relaxation and quiet concentration than anything else.

Not knowing the water, I tried the shotgun approach, which means throwing in a variety of lures to see if anything works, in this case plastics, spinners, a silver spoon and a crankbait shad. No result with the plastic worms and the spoon got hung up as I bounced it off the bottom. Contrary to the spirit of Mr. Walton, I made a bit of a ruckus trying to unsnag the thing but no joy, the lure was stuck, so I cut the line. Just then, a large gray Catfish rose up from the depths and circled around and above the watery tomb of the spoon. It was like a baby shark, no fooling.

Compleat

This taught me that big Catfish live under the bluffs on that part of the lake and that they can and will be caught if I fish accordingly. Think positive, fisherman. After the spoon, I had a bit of action on the crankbait, which was partially hit by a Bass as it lured its way near the surface, but no strike and I called it a day.

Look. It's a Fish.

Just for kicks, I cast off in a shallow part of the water on the way to the truck, using a small green spinner. Why not? Maybe the fish will find it irresistible, I thought to myself, and sure enough, after a couple of casts a ferocious little Bass attacked the lure like a social justice warrior at a Trump rally. And that was that.

Fish on,

LSP

The Gates of Hell Shall not Prevail. God Bless Bishop Iker.

Bishop Iker in LSPland

You've heard the old saying, "They should round up all the bishops and put them in a cage." There's an exception to that rule in Jack Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth. 

Iker doesn't celebrate Neronian gay marriages and he doesn't ordain women, he doesn't even hold goof-off liturgical dances in his cathedral. But what he does do is drive out to LSPland to confirm a very sick man in his home, out by Slap Out, aka Hubbard.

We RV'd at the Compound and drove out to the countryside and the sacrament of Confirmation, in which the Holy Spirit is bestowed by the laying on of hands and anointing. Now, I've never been present at a "house confirmation," much less asked a bishop to do one and I'll tell you this, it was a powerful and blessed event. I don't say that lightly.

Cage These Goons. And Stacy Sauls? You're fired.

Bishop Iker is known for his unwavering stand for catholic orthodoxy, in the Anglican tradition, in the face of the litigious rage the Episcopal Church. He was the first traditionalist bishop to say enough is enough and leave the Episcopal Church with his diocese. He did so on the floor of the 2006 General Convention in Columbus; I know, I was there. Three years later the Episcopal Church rounded on Iker and his diocese, suing him personally and the diocese, in an attempt to gain its money, property and presumably wreck the life of its bishop.

A Couple of Goof-Off Clowns

That lawsuit is ongoing at huge expense and the Episcopal Church is losing, having suffered a series of defeats in the courts. 

The result has yet to be called, but Bishop Iker remains a pastoral and good man in the Apostolic succession. And what can I say? 

The gates of hell shall not prevail, do not compromise with them.

God bless,

LSP

Nero, The Rainbow Emperor

Christians who support gay marriage might like to consider the marriage equality activism of their forbear Nero.

Nero married three men, Sporus, Doryphorus and Pythagoras. As described by Seutonius and Tacitus:

"[Nero] had a boy named Sporus castrated and tried to transform him into an actual woman; he married him in a regular wedding ceremony, with a dowry and a bridal veil, took him home in front of a great crowd, and treated him as his wife. A witty remark that someone made about this is still circulating: that human kind would have been well off, if his father Domitius had had the same kind of wife” (Suetonius, Nero 28-29).

Here's Doryphorus:

“…he invented a new kind of game (so to speak) in which, dressed in the skin of a wild animal, he was released from a cage and attacked the private parts of men and women who were bound to stakes and, when he had had enough of this savagery, he was finished off (as it were) by his freedman Doryphorus. This Doryphorus he took as his husband, just as Sporus had with him, and in doing so he imitated the cries and wailing of a virgin who is being raped” (Suetonius, Nero 28-29).

And Tacitus gives us Pythagoras:

“A veil was placed over the emperor, the interpreters of the auspices were sent; a dowry, a wedding bed and marriage torches -- in the end, everything that is concealed by night even in the case of a woman was on display” (Tacitus, Ann. 15.37).

A Couple of Rainbow Clowns

The Emperor Nero wasn't just famous for marrying men, he also has a place in history for persecuting the church. According to Tacitus:

"And perishing they were additionally made into sports: they were killed by dogs by having the hides of beasts attached to them, or they were nailed to crosses or set aflame, and, when the daylight passed away, they were used as nighttime lamps. Nero gave his own gardens for this spectacle and performed a Circus game, in the habit of a charioteer mixing with the plebs or driving about the race-course." 

Christians might want to think twice before following the example of the Rainbow Emperor, Nero.

LSP

The Rampaging Harridans of the New Orthodoxy

As witnessed on the campuses of so-called higher learning and elsewhere, the champions of inclusion and tolerance don't seem very good at being, well, inclusive or tolerant. The late Richard Neuhaus, in The Unhappy Fate of Optional Orthodoxy, described them as a "rampaging harridan":

The new liberal orthodoxy of recent decades is hard and nasty; compared to it, the old orthodoxy was merely quaint. The old orthodoxy was like a dotty old uncle in the front parlor; the new orthodoxy is a rampaging harridan in the family room.

A Typical Rampaging Harridan

But what's under the harridan's hood, what drives the motor of radical inclusion to run over any and all opposition? A set of radical ethical imperatives, for sure, to say nothing of good old fashioned revolutionary ardour. And what lies behind this? Neuhaus parses the issue in terms of "identity" and "experience":

Proponents of the new orthodoxy will protest, with some justice, that they, too, are committed to normative truths. These truths, however, are not embodied in propositions, precedent, ecclesial authority, or, goodness knows, revelation. They are experiential truths expressing the truth of who we truly are —“we” being defined by sex, race, class, tribe, or identifying desire (“orientation”).

He goes on:

With the older orthodoxy it is possible to disagree, as in having an argument. Evidence, reason, and logic count, in principle at least. Not so with the new orthodoxy. Here disagreement is an intolerable personal affront. It is construed as a denial of others, of their experience of who they are. It is a blasphemous assault on that most high god, “My Identity.”

There can be no appeal against this other than an assertion of identity, of self, and the rules of that playing field are at best a short step away from a raw assertion of power, to a triumph of the will that allows no dissent, whatsoever.

You have been warned.

Your Old Friend,

LSP

It's Bushcraft Wednesday!

Bushcraft isn't about relying on supermarkets or even butchers and fancy modern kitchen conveniences, like Viking ranges and Agas. No, it's about surviving in the great outdoors, in the bush.

Part of that means catching your own food when in season, such as turkey, and cooking it in the wild. Here at the Compound we hope you find this short infovideo as helpful as we do.

Make sure you use this method near a plentiful water source.

LSP

Obey Your Rainbow Rulers

Great Britain's Monarch, Sir Elton John, has forbidden British press from reporting on his star-studded sex life, involving steamy three-ways with his husband David Furnish and other male celebrities.

Elton John and David Furnish

Because of a court order, it is now illegal for media to publish stories about Elton John and David Furnish cavorting with their lovers in children's swimming pools and having olive oil wrestling bouts with Canadians.

John Bercow

The pink gag order extends to England's Parliament, where the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has banned MPs from revealing the identity of England's Rainbow Rulers, Elton John, and David Furnish.

Er...

Thanks to what is known as a "back door injunction," British citizens and MPs face punitive fines and prison if they publicly reveal the identities of their Queens.

You can read about England's new-found freedom of speech here, here and here.

Some Guy in a Dress

In related news, the US Navy is actively recruiting transsexuals. "The hope," said one senior naval officer on the condition of anonymity, "is that the enemy will die laughing."

Rule Britannia,

LSP