Pentecost

It's the Feast of Pentecost, when our Holy Mother, the Church, celebrates the descent of the Spirit upon the disciples, resting on them likes tongues of fire. I like Basil the Great's exhortation:

The Spirit raises our hearts to heaven, guides the steps of the weak, and brings to perfection those who are making progress. He enlightens those who have been cleansed from every stain of sin and makes them spiritual by communion with himself... Through the Spirit we become citizens of heaven, we are admitted to the company of the angels, we enter into eternal happiness and abide in God. Through the Spirit we acquire a likeness to God; indeed, we attain what is beyond our most sublime aspirations - we become God. 

And note this, all you heretics out there who are busy reading this important mind blog: Basil's divinization, or theosis, in which the faithful participate in God's nature, shouldn't be confused with apotheosis, deification in God's essence. 

Some Crew, Goofing Off in Church

That's an error and a bad one. Like liturgical dance, which is also a bad mistake.

God bless,

LSP

Detroit Shanty Town

Do you remember Detroit? It used to be America's motor city, now it's a prospective venue for zombie parks and "sack of corn, take a mule" land grants, as the once great automotive capital reverts to green field site.

Well done, Libs. Detroit was your great experiment and now it's a wreck, some would say a shanty town,

I know I was there.

LSP

Country Life

I file this picture, from the local Walmart, under "country life in Texas." The same goes for these venison sausages, Rifle to skillet and thank you very much. I think they go well with farm fresh eggs.

Heavy Metal

And you know what? I'm not complaining.

God bless Texas,

LSP 

Statesmen and Hillary

Russian strongman, former KGB Colonel Vladimir Putin, loves animals. Dogs, horses, baby chicks, big cats, dolphins, whatever, he loves them and they love him. 

Putin also loves the Church and is a great statesman. He's made Russia great again.

Then there's US President, Barack Obama, who hasn't made America great again. He loves animals, too, and one special animal in particular. Which one would that be?

But what about Hillary, does she have an animal? Some say she does.

Perhaps she'll be indicted. Will her animals save her?

Your Friend,

LSP

Straight To The Shredder

A Texan Flag

Obama's Rainbow Directive, telling the country's schools to go trans, and allow men to use girl's bathrooms and vice versa, has received short shrift in Texas. One Superintendent said the Presidential decree was going "straight to the shredder."

“I got news for President Barack Obama,” said Port Neches-Groves Superintendent Rodney Cavness, “He ain’t my President and he can’t tell me what to do. That letter is going straight to the paper shredder. I have 5 daughters myself and I have 2,500 girls in my protection. Their moms and dads expect me to protect them. And that is what I am going to do. Now I don’t want them bullied… but there are accommodations that can be made short of this. He is destroying the very fiber of this country. He is not a leader. He is a failure.”

A Typical White House Flag Dash

Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, and Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, have also denounced the Rainbow Directive, promising to fight against it, even if that means losing federal funding.

Fort Worth ISD

The Fort Worth school district, which went trans before the Obama directive, continues to ride the rainbow. Fort Worth parents have not been consulted. And as one reader commented:

"The movement for greater human equality - and safe and clean drinking water across the planet for millions of people in poverty - has been rather derailed if all it's interested in is a collective trip for the elite to the toilet in the richest society in the world."

Well done, Texas, fight back against the Unicorn and its presidential rider. Fort Worth ISD? We scorn you.

LSP

Fort Worth Rides The Rainbow

Who'd have thought it, the gateway to the West, Cowtown, Texas' own Fort Worth, with its fabled stockyards and legends of the frontier, has gone trans and decided to ride the rainbow. At least its schools have. Here's highlights from the recent Fort Worth ISD Rainbow Directive, via Dreher:

There doesn’t need to be a medical or mental health diagnosis involved. If a male student says he’s a girl, then he’s a girl, and vice versa.

Schools are instructed to keep the student’s asserted gender identity hidden from parents unless authorized to share that information with them.

School personnel are to consider themselves to be allies of a student undergoing gender transitioning. That means not telling their parents or guardians.

Transgender students must have the opportunity to participate in school sports as the gender they claim to be, though they are not guaranteed this as a right.

Teachers are no longer to call their students “boys” and “girls,” but to use gender-neutral language to refer to them, e.g., “students.”

Classrooms are to “feature diversity” in their classroom materials.

Well there you go, parents. Send your kids to a Fort Worth public school so they can get sexually confused. But don't worry, it'll be a special secret between your child and their teachers, you won't be allowed to know. That's forbidden, by the State and its Teachers. Obey. Them. 

No fooling and remember, you're paying for this. Where will it end?

Dreher observes:

Don’t be fooled: the bathroom issue is a proxy for a deeper conflict over what it means to be male and female, and beyond that, about fundamental human nature. These standards are collapsing in American society in part because of elites pushing against them, but also — and perhaps more so — because radical individualism is going into hyperdrive. We call it freedom — freedom to choose who you are, with neither custom, nor religion, nor even biology standing in the way of your will. But here’s what’s going to happen. People who submit to this way of thinking will find that their freedom, so construed, will make it impossible for them to construct a coherent, stable identity. They’re not going to make it. This perversion of liberty will wreck them.

I'd add that the perversion of liberty will end in totalitarianism, the same totalitarianism we're beginning to see in Fort Worth's schools. You can read all about it in Dostoevsky's Devils and Crime and Punishment, the ideology hasn't changed, though technology has.

Good Look, Dude. now Everyone Will Think You're a Sexy Chick

In a similar vein, Bruce Jenner wants to be a man again. Good thing he kept his "biology," eh?

LSP

The Wisdom of Dogs

I asked Blue Philosopher if the recent trans fad and the bathroom wars are just a proxy for the wider liberal project of radical self- autonomy, and with it the deconstruction of all external, objective, "given" value. Right down to biological gender and the family itself. "Are they nihilsts?" I concluded, gesticulating wildly, "Mad bomb throwers of the Rainbow Anti-God?!?"

Blue Socrates signaled his wise agreement by saying nothing at all and staring fixedly at the kitchen, which had been the scene of some serious iron skillet steak action.

In other news, the Fort Worth ISD has gone trans, but that's another story again.

Watch out for the Unicorn and its vicious, thudding little hooves,

LSP

It's Bushcraft Wednesday!

In our complex and artificial society, some would call it an anti-society, it's easy to lose track of the way things really are, it's easy to get out of tune with nature. That's where Bushcraft steps in.

Bushcraft is all about doing it yourself, in the bush, in the woods; it's about getting back to nature and rediscovering your connection to the way things really are, without modern conveniences like shopping malls and the Nanny State.

Being able to read the signs of the woods is a part of this rediscovery, and here at the Compound we hope you find this infovideo as helpful as we do.

Tracker,

LSP

The RAF Goes Jihad

Stephen Mustafa Gray

A former member of Great Britain's legendary RAF, Stephen Mustafa Gray, has been convicted on three counts of preparing acts of terror.

Gray, who served in the RAF Regiment as a gunner in the Iraq war, later converted to Islam and tried to join the Jihad in Syria. He was accompanied by another UK Muslim convert, Raymond Matimba, known as Abu Qaqa Britani Afro. Gray was turned back from Syria and returned to the UK, leaving Abu Qaqa to join ISIS in Raqqa.

Abu Qaqa in Raqqa

The two convert Muslims were assisted by a paraplegic Jihadi from Manchester, Abdal Raouf Abdallah, who worked for the Royal Mail. Abdallah has also been charged under the Terrorism Act, though Abu Qaqa Britani Afro remains at large.

Who knows, maybe the Russians will get Abu Qaqa, or maybe he's one of the deserters that ISIS recently buried alive. 

The Mailman

Some argue that there's an terrorist Muslim 5th Column in Great Britain. That's absurd. As everyone knows, Islam's a religion of peace, not terror. Like Buddhism, only way more peaceful.

Kizmet,

LSP

Patriarch Kirill Calls For a Holy War

While Western Christianity dithers, obfuscates and appeases its enemy, the Jihad, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has called for a "Holy War" against the Islamic fanatics.

Speaking at a Mass on the Feast of St. George, during the commemoration of Russia's overwhelming victory over the Hitlerite Nazis, the Patriarch stated:

“Today, when our warriors take part in combat operations in the Middle East, we know that this is not an aggression, occupation or an attempt to impose some ideology on other people, this has nothing to do with supporting certain governments. This is the fight against the fearsome foe that is currently not only spreading evil through the Middle East but also threatening the whole of mankind.”

No, fighting the Jihad is not an "aggression" but a just war. Kirill continued:

“This is why the war on terrorism today is the holy war today. I pray to God that people all over the world understand this and stop dividing terrorists into good and bad ones as well as connecting the war on terror with their own goals, that are often non-declared yet strongly present on the political agenda.”

Now The Jihad's Really Scared

And on:

“Let us pray that our nation’s armed forces always and in all circumstances remain faithful to the spiritual principle guiding their participation only in the fight against evil, the fight for justice, and the protection of human life.”

At this point in time, the leaders, spiritual and temporal of the West, are unable or unwilling to name their mortal enemy. An enemy that's not even bothering to hide, very much, in plain sight, Islam. 

Kirill and Russia have had the temerity to call it like it is. Maybe, at some point before the Sharia Police start throwing people off of buildings in European cities, the West will wake up.

The Religion of Peace. Wake Up, Fools.

In the meanwhile, a Jihadist stabbed and killed some Germans at a train station in Bavaria the other day, shouting Allahu Akbar and words to the effect of "Die, infidel pigs!" German police insist this has nothing to do with Islam. 

Right. Perhaps the Methodists did it. Or Pope Francis.

LSP

In Search of Texas

There's a lot of noise in the media these days about Texas. Is it some kind of neo-fascist Platonic Ideal, instantiated, Aristotle-style, in a landmass that's as big or bigger than a lot of lesser countries?

Or is it a place where the frontier, with its God, guns, church and country life, looms large? A place where people don't look too kindly at latte swilling coastal elites telling them to get with the program and ride the rainbow. Whatever the case, I took my dog for a walk after Morning Prayer and went in search of Texas. 

Hey, Look at This.

The Nepalese woman at the pick 'n steal accepted my money for a coffee, while a crew of Park Department workers played scratch card lottery. Some were black, some were white, some were Latino. They were having fun, loudly, at losing the lottery and the coffee tasted pretty good. Have to hand it to the Nepalese, they make damn good fighting knives and excellent coffee. Was that Texas?

Texas

On the way home, I passed 4 churches in the space of 4 blocks. Blue Destroyer used the entrance of one as a "convenience," he's a cow dog. Maybe that's Texas? Then I found a snake skin on the side of the road.

Satisfied with finally finding Texas, I went back to the Compound.

That is all.

LSP

Facebook Fraud

It's no secret that the media tends to function as the agitprop arm of The Party while pretending objectivity, but it's rare for one of its departments to get caught out in a really blatant lie. Like Facebook.

It seems billionaire socialist Mark Zuckerberg's influential trending news section was the creation of a crew of journalists, working out of the basement of the propaganda department's building in New York. The journalists, not Facesoviet's users, determined what stories were "trending" and these, shocked surprise, had a decidedly Party bias.

Who were these basement hacks? Ivy League lib elites, apparently:

The trending news section is run by people in their 20s and early 30s, most of whom graduated from Ivy League and private East Coast schools like Columbia University and NYU. They’ve previously worked at outlets like theNew York Daily News, Bloomberg, MSNBC, and the Guardian. Some former curators have left Facebook for jobs at organizations including the New Yorker, Mashable, and Sky Sports.

According to former team members interviewed by Gizmodo, this small group has the power to choose what stories make it onto the trending bar and, more importantly, what news sites each topic links out to. “We choose what’s trending,” said one. “There was no real standard for measuring what qualified as news and what didn’t. It was up to the news curator to decide.”

Socialist

As usual, Rod Dreher nails it: 

So East Coast elites were making invisible, unaccountable editorial decisions, while Facebook led its members to believe that they were unbiased, that “trending” was only a thing to do with what its users were actually reading.

It was a lie. Mark Zuckerberg is a fraud.

That progleft agitprop is promoted by billionaire socialists like Mark Zuckerberg and his crew of East Coast elite basement hacks, isn't surprising. That Facemonkey's fraudulent "trending" section is read by 600 million people? Terrifying.

You can read Dreher's excellent piece here. While you're at it, note his comments on the recent Times story about Texas and why the lib media  just don't get it.

Trending,

LSP