WAR!

 

Note brave war dog and "what we do in life echoes in eternity."

SPQR,

LSP

Gone Fishing

 

So, what'd you do today, so-called LSP, if that's your real name, which we doubt. Well, nothing complicated, a morning visit to the Pick 'n Steal and then off to the lake and its dam to try my luck against the piscine adversary. Would they bite?

No, they did not. Don't get me wrong, I tried, I really did, but the fish weren't having it. There they were, predatory gar lying in ambush downstream of the spillway pool, you could see them loud and clear through cleverly polarized glasses.

But no, they weren't having it, frozen shad didn't cut it today, so I tried my luck at Soldiers Bluff on the other side of the dam. There were fish there, yes, you could see them, but would they bite? No, they would not.

In fact, it was like fishing into a wind tunnel and who can blame the fish for keeping their heads down beneath the surging waves. So I packed up light Ugly Stick rods and headed for home, thankful for a morning under the big clear sky and clean air of Texas.

Don't worry, fish, your day will come. Draw the moral as you care to take it and that, dear readers, is the story of that.

Never Surrender,

LSP

A Short Sunday Reflection

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:

And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Mt. 22:11-13)

Ferocious words from Christ and perhaps they seem somehow unfair. After all, the man had been invited off the streets, no wonder he wasn't dressed up. But our Lord isn't talking salvation through haberdashery, he's addressing the state of a person's soul.

Is that clothed correctly? If it's not, if our hearts are full of darkness, of pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, sloth and incumbent wickedness, then we have no part in the marriage feast; we can't participate or be a part of the celebration of the union of God and Man in Christ. On the contrary,  our home isn't in heaven, it's in the other place, the outer darkness where there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth, Hell.

So put on the wedding garment, all you who've answered the invite of the king and turned up at the feast which is the worship of the Church on earth and in heaven. Put on the garment or find yourself thrown out as a soul incompatible with divine love. But what is this garment?

St. Paul describes its character and quality, writing to the Philippians,  "...whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence..." Truth, honor, justice, purity, love, grace, excellence, these are the defining qualities of a soul fit for the feast. And they are the virtues of Christ himself. As the Apostle says elsewhere, we must "put on" Christ as a garment.

To that end, turn to our Savior in humble, repentant faith that he may clothe us in righteousness and admit us to the marriage feast of the Lamb, to paradise itself.

You'll note, Worldwide LSP Communion, that I am preaching to myself.

Vade Retro Satana,

LSP

Heart Of Glass

 

Good heavens

would this be banned today?

Your Best Pal,

LSP

Glass

 

It wasn't easy to tear myself away from our impending doom 24/7 news war cycle but that's what I did, put down the internet and drove out to Mission #2 for a presentation by Bryant Stanton of Stanton Studios on his glasswork. This features at the Mission in a series of windows, which he made in the '80s.

Since then he's grown in expertise and so has his family business, which produces remarkable glass, not least for the Church. Seriously, here's a person, a true artist and craftsman who creates beauty in this medium, glass.

I tell you, a rare breed and even rarer, totally without side, a humble and faithful Christian artisan. I was totally impressed. You can see his studio's work here and, if your church needs new or restored stained glass, give him a call. Most definitely the real deal. I understand he works nationally but perhaps overseas too.

And herein lies a lesson. We've surrounded ourselves with ugliness in our shortsighted greed and this reflects an ugliness of the soul. Stanton and people like him are about the exact opposite, we must support them.

Cheers,

LSP

Listen Up - You Pagans

 

wisdom

GloboHomo really hates this and, back in the day, they killed his servants. What did the King do? He sent his army to kill those murderers and burn their city down. Here, in Western idiom:

Do you think, gentlemen and women, that the King will act differently today?

Titus and Vespasian forever,

LSP

The Southern Deanery

 

There are many deaneries in the Diocese of Fort Worth but only one deanery, the Southern Deanery. I'm in charge of that, which makes me a Rural Dean, curiously. But what do I mean by "curiously"? Loyal son of the South all the way. Let's have a look, plates to prove it.

We met together tonight amidst candlelight for wine, cheese, meat and Hawaiian buns, tasted pretty good. And what good boys, all for the Faith. And that's what we're talking about, when this sinful edifice comes crashing down as it surely must, the Faith will remain.

Bless you all,

LSP

Just Take It Easy

 

Hey now, maybe this helps, but perhaps anodyne? Then there's this... anthem:

DFTR,

LSP

.50 Cal

 

You'll be surprised and dismayed that my Fiddy was lost in a tragic boating accident, but through tears of loss I remember seeing my first .50 cartridge. It was in Milwaukee and I was maybe 7; there we were at a party in the next door neighbor's house.

The boys who lived there had just got back from Vietnam and I remember one of them showing me a cartridge case, we were by the kitchen sink. "What's that?" I asked, being 7 and curious, he replied, "That's a Fifty and it'd go right through this sink, through the wall of this house, through the wall of your house and out the other side."

This, gentle readers, has stayed with me for something like half a century.

Arma Virumque Cano,

LSP

A Fiftieth Anniversary War?

 

Just as you're recovering from random space rock biker Czarist posts on this increasingly random mind blog, here's some serious thought from Victor Davis Hanson, via LL:

A 50th Anniversary War?

Why did Hamas stage a long-planned, carefully executed and multifaceted attack on Israeli towns, soldiers, and civilians—one designed to instill terror by executing noncombatants, taking hostages, and desecrating the bodies of the dead?

And how were the killers able to enter Israeli proper in enough numbers to kill what could be hundreds and perhaps eventually wound what could be thousands?

a) Ostensibly, radical Palestinians wanted to stop any rumored rapprochement between the Gulf monarchies—the traditional source of much of their cash—and Israel, by forcing the issue of Arab solidarity in times of “war”, especially through waging a gruesome attack aimed at civilians and encompassing executions and hostage taking. Iran likely was the driving force to prompt the war—given its greatest fear is a Sunni Arab-Israeli rapprochement.

b) Arab forces have had only success against Israel through surprise attacks during Israeli holidays, as in the Yom Kippur War (i.e., was it any accident that the present attack began 50-years almost to the day after the October 6, 1973 beginning of the Yom Kippur War?). And so they struck again this Saturday during Simchat Torah, coming at the end of a weeklong Jewish celebration of Sukkot—in hopes that others will join in as happened in 1973. (So much for the Arab warnings not for Westerners to conduct war during Ramadan).

c) Hamas may have reckoned that recent Israeli turmoil and mass leftist street protests over proposed reforms of the Israeli Supreme Court had led to permanent internal divisions and thus a climate of domestic distraction if not an erosion of deterrence.

But, more importantly, in a larger sense the Biden administration has contributed both to the notion that Hamas was a legitimate Middle East player, and to the perception that the U.S. was backing away from its traditional support for Israel—to the delight of Hamas—based on the following inexplicable policies:

1) In February Secretary of State Blinken had bragged that not only had the Biden administration resumed massive aid to the PLA cancelled by Trump, but cumulatively had transferred $1 billion—even as Palestinian authorities bragged that they would continue to pay bounties to the families of “martyrs” (i.e., those killed while conducting terrorists attacks against Israel).

And millions of American dollars also went into Gaza, run by Hamas—despite the Biden administration’s efforts to keep mostly quiet the resumption of such inexplicable support. In this regard, note the current shameful State-Department (“U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs”) website news release that was posted after today’s attack. It ended with this quite embarrassing, morally equivalent admonition:

“We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”

“All sides?” “Refrain from retaliatory attacks?”

So Israel is the moral equivalent of terrorists executing civilians and brutalizing their corpses? And the IDF then is not supposed to retaliate against these killers?

This Biden State Department insanity cannot stand. So expect some apparatchik to take down this Munich-like posting as soon as possible.

2) The Biden administration had recently released some $6 billion to Iran through a prison swap deal that saw South Korea hand over embargoed Iranian money to Qatar—despite Tehran’s increased anti-Israeli rhetoric and its loud brag about the escalation. We should assume money for rockets (Hamas claims they have launched 5,000, and have received 100,000 of them via the Damascus airport) and weapons in general for Hamas were supplied by Iran, which again is likely the chief catalyst for this surprise attack.

3) Almost immediately, after his inauguration Biden mobilized to resume the bankrupt Iran deal. And in unhinged fashion he appointed the anti-Israeli bigot, pro-Iranian journalist Robert Malley as America’s chief negotiator. Note that Malley is now under FBI investigation for security breaches, involving disclosing classified U.S. documents and also for allegedly helping pro-Iranian activists and propagandists land influential billets inside the U.S. government.

In short, there was a general Hamas and Iranian perception that the Biden administration had resumed the discredited Obama madness of empowering Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

This discredited agenda was to “balance” the power of Israel and the moderate Arab Gulf governments to achieve “creative tension”, exacerbated by Biden’s loathing of the government of Benjamín Netanyahu (who has been snubbed by Biden and never invited for an official visit).

Note as well that the Biden administration has siphoned off key weapons and munitions from stockpiles inside Israel to transfer them to Ukraine.

The so-called “War Reserve Ammunition—Israel” is all but depleted of just the sorts of weapons needed in the present crisis.

In this regard is there not a pattern here?

Upon the ascension of Biden and his woke military agendas, we saw the following: the complete humiliation of the U.S. in Kabul in its most shameful flight in 50 years and greatest abandonment of equipment in its history; followed by Vladimir Putin’s opportunistic invasion of Ukraine; followed by China’s new belligerence and escalating threats to Taiwan; followed by Turkey’s new de facto alliance with Russia and recent drone encounter with the U.S. air force in Syria; followed by the Hamas/Iranian inspired attack on Israel—with more to come unfortunately.

And will Biden finally get the message from the attacks on the Ukraine and Israeli borders, that borders matter and we too are being invaded, with the encouragement of the Mexican government and to the advantage of the cartels whose fentanyl exports kills 100,000 Americans a year?

What to expect in Israel?

Expect the following: the usual Hamas/terrorist selling and/or execution of Israeli hostages, the use of Israeli hostages as “human shields” in Gaza, the bargaining/sale of the remains of Israeli dead, occasional killings of Jews inside Israel by Arabs who falsely believe there will be a winning Middle East-wide existential war against Israel. And finally, a devastating Israeli counter-response that will eventually earn a U.S. rebuke.

What should the U.S. instead do?

It should quit talking to Iran and restore full sanctions against it. It should cut off all aid immediately to all the Palestinians.

It should undertake a 1973-like massive arms lift of key munitions to Israel and warn Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and others in the Middle East not to intervene or else, given that Israel will need several weeks to deal with Hamas and Gaza.

And if it shows any hesitation or weakness, other terrorist groups will opportunistically jump in.

I feel the beast is slouching towards Nazareth, make that driving full speed, and I pray I'm wrong. Just think, a week ago we were debating the mores of trans bathrooms.

Your Friend,

LSP 

Eyes Left

 

Stand Steady, say no to the Bolshevik scourge.

Always,

LSP

Warrior - On The Edge Of Time

 

Looking kinda close, eh. Assault and battery? Wager the dam monkey on it. Still, and in parting, footprints in the sands of time, what?

Your Old Pal and Space Rock forever,

LSP