Austro Pithecanthropus

“I no longer believe that there is a moral majority. I do not believe that a majority of Americans actually shares our values … Cultural Marxism is succeeding in its war against our culture. The questions becomes, if we are unable to escape the cultural disintegration that is gripping society, then what hope can we have?” [Weyrich]

2012-02-01T12:37:00.001+01:00

Romney reminds me of Don Draper in MAD MEN. A show which reveals the lives of the ruthlessly competitive men of Madison Avenue’s “Golden Age,” where key players make the art of the sell while their private lives get sold. And no one plays the game better than Mitt Romney, the biggest ad man of them all. His hair and teeth tell the whole story. I can see why the bloodless RINOs would love a guy like Mitt. Mitt is just like them. Why should I vote for Mitt when we already have the perfect liberal in The White House? When Obama will make Mitt disappear for good, along with the Stupid Party, I still will feel revulsion having the minstrel show around for another four years. I just never expected Al Jonson to be the winner. Obama shocked even some of his supporters with his “culture of death” contraceptive and abortifacient mandate. L.A.s Red Cardinal is denouncing the administration for the same reason. As I said before, Obama will only be defeated by Obama and he is doing a great job at that. Obama’s self-regard is endless as is his arrogance. I find the man unappetizing at all levels. He not only kills people on the battlefields around the world, he also is very eager to kill in the nation’s maternity wards. He is a despicable creature. He possesses not an ounce of human decency. I know, I know, you adore him no matter what. It’s breathtaking how mature grown-ups begin to drool just when Obama’s name is mentioned. But don’t count the ‘unhatched’ Henny Pennies yet. It’s almost an eternity till November. And, before the excitement overpowers you, take a cold shower and memorize Proverbs 16:18.

… , what’s more, a state’s endorsement of same-sex “marriage” does create an arbitrary and invidious discrimination.

2012-01-31T16:00:00.001+01:00

Now, that Obama has accomplished to piss off the Catholics (even Dionne is foaming at the mouth), it won’t be long now and church bells will be accompanying his official demise in November (or not). Ron Paul is the perfect Catholic candidate. And not just because he is not a warmonger and murderer * Marriage is a “business” contract. Homosexual unions are an indulgence contra naturam (yes, I know, you’ve derisively told me, that it is a scholastic term – as if that were the final put down). Homosexual marriage is a proposition that leads to absurd and untenable conclusions (reductiones ad absurdum). I firmly believe that homosexual marriage represents the proverbial overreach of the liberals and will be the death knell of their movement which has as its goal the destruction of conservative ideology itself and the distribution of free contraceptives (sheer horror!). But, no dice, homey. It will never happen ¹ * So, I am torturing my brain over your head over heels love affair with Obama. It helps that he has the right amount of melanin, but that’s not it. He is the perfect liberal with the perfect liberal agenda. He does everything to please his devoted base. He does not miss a beat. He is the perfect liberal. He even nixes a pipeline he must know would help us affordably running our cars and him winning elections. Yet, he sacrifices all for your hugs. Even I, a stalwart anarcho-capitalist Libertarian freedom rider, impeccable foe of all things progressive, am all over the place. One day Obama is quite the sly fox, the other day he is the incompetent. One day he can’t lose (like, when he and Panetta severely reduce our standing killer machine), the other day he is supremely beatable. Above Regensburg is the Donau Durchbruch. Millennia ago the Danube broke through a massive wall of rocks on her way through Bavaria, into Austria, on its way forming the beautiful Wachau valley, passing by Vienna (the city does not incorporate the river), flowing on through Hungary into the Black Sea. Such will be the coming election. It will signify a major Durchbruch. After November not much will be the same. I have no clue about the particulars. But November will be a threshold. It won’t bring a city on a shining hill covered with liberal busy bodies running hither and fro trying to strangle a great nation with socialist legislation and rules. It will indeed be a city on a shining hill, but a beacon for all of us who yearn to be free from the shackles of all leftist nonsense for which we will find a proper place on history’s garbage pile. Gaudeamus igitur!

¹ http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/01/4597

Let us take away our president on a tumbril

2012-01-30T15:56:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: A nation does not run up debt for the same reason it raises children: it believes in its future. Presently, America, by worshipping hacks and celebrating abortion lacks the political will to bequeath a worthy culture to its progeny. Obama stifles, stultifies and destroys. And another Obama term will make us wish we were dead. Looking at Obama I get the same spine splintering feeling as hearing fingernails scratching on a blackboard. Obama’s departure from the public scene is way overdue. He even annoys our cat which rolls over and plays dead when he shows up on TV. As much as I despise what the Grinch, Sanctorum and the Mormon Bishop stand for, I still find them eminently more qualified to be president, and I much rather have any of them sully The White House than this swaggering oaf from Chicago. I have read some of the unbearable nonsense of the State of the Union speech. The Obama worshippers handle this trite and repetitive eighth grade drivel as if it were scripture. Why are people unable to see that there is nothing there? Fictional Dorothy has a greater ability for self assessment and honesty than those frilly Obama acolytes. At least she has the courage to look behind the curtain!

Black is white, white is black (this is not a reference to our president)

2012-01-29T15:09:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: We Paulinistas shall vanquish Mitt Newtorum. And we shall bring Obama home and mount him on our trophy wall. The wholesome difference being, Ron Paul has insights the other candidates are utterly without. I finally figured out why you have no time for Austrian economy. Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and the other Austrian School greats began explaining, in the early twentieth century, that Socialism is an inherently failed economic system. And you just hate to hear that. For you Socialism is elixir and balm. And Marx is head god in your pantheon. Barry, the hope for and of mankind, sits at his feet. Government has been instituted to rob the citizens, keep most of the loot for its goons and redistribute a pittance to keep the unwashed quiet. Your sense of justice is to steal and redistribute. Socialism is state ordained thievery and from dawn of civilization the cause for societal destruction. The only question left to be answered is why Socialists don’t learn from their colossal failures. Because it feels good? A posteriori we know Socialism is responsible for all the misery in the world: Lenin, Hitler (oh, yes, he is a lefty), Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, et alia, all brought destruction, bloodshed and hopelessness! History tells us! And still, historical facts just don’t matter to the ideologues. Just as if a Ravenous fan would insist he clearly had seen Cundiff put it right between the posts. There existed majority Democrats who blamed the Republican minorities for the Democrats’ failure to pass legislation. When I told those Democrats that their party had the votes but obviously not the gumption to pass legislation, I just got empty stares. And I know they are absolutely convinced up is down and down is up. Obama, just like Newt, is temperamentally unsuited to the presidency. No matter who will face him in the fall (if he survives the constitutional challenges), be it a swamp frog or a newt, he will be electorally destroyed. In the end, not only the “numbers” will kill him. We will not reelect a contemptible racist who has contempt for our country and its people. He already has invalidated himself.

Vox populi?

2012-01-28T16:51:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: What are the chances that, after more than 200 years, we will ever become a constitutional Republic? Meaning: a sovereign people? Stop laughing, will you? It is a serious question. Our rulers are steadfastly preventing the population of The United States from becoming a people. Those thugs hijacked our νόμος, the rights and obligations of citizens. We are nothing but a herd of voters, every few years driven, supplied with empty promises, into the voting booths so we may choose the “lesser evil.” The States are worldwide in position 47 in the category “Freedom of the Press.” The Journaille, spokespeople for our ruling elite, are, of course, too intimidated and browbeaten, to speak up. Nor do they appear to care. Have you ever considered how you are being manipulated? How you regurgitate political ideas, by rote, just like a good apparatchik, of your party’s programme? The establishment, which gives Obama a Nobel Peace Prize for purely political reasons, is a sham. Rudolf Hess, risking his life flying under Hitler’s orders to England to make peace, dies after decades a prisoner in Spandau, which was maintained as a prison for decades just for Hess. Hate is what keeps them alive. I grew up constantly hearing about the evil apartheid regime in South Africa while a few miles from my home Millions chafed under a murderous, cruel, brutal and oppressive evil dictatorships. And the world competed fiercely with each other by beating a path to the door of those thuggish oligarchies. What do we know about our Representatives, except for the letter behind their names? How long is the list of things we thoughtlessly accept? That we even entertain to vote for any of those cretins running for President does not speak well for us. Electing Obama as president, drawing down shame on us and our progeny, will be held against us for all of our history. He will be forever a dark spot (no pun intended) in our electoral history. Because we are so eager not to be called racists we elected the worst of them all. Right in the kisser, Alice!

A new certainty has emerged in American life: in a crisis, the government will make matters worse and worse until it wrecks our life and all that makes it worth living.

2012-01-27T21:36:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Your palpable disdain for the Austrian Economists because no American university would hire them, as if institutional acceptance is the criterion for one’s academic worthiness, is severely grating on my Austrian sensibilities. Yet you celebrate and worship Obama, an academic bottom feeder, as the ideal of intellectual achievement. Not just academically he is a cypher, a big zero, a nothing, he also underachieved as Senator and is catastrophically failing as president. He is in all those positions only on account of his skin color. He has been wafted into those positions by those who please to use him. He is the symbol for liberal ideology’s intellectual bankruptcy which celebrates its predilection for accidentia over substantia as if it were a virtue. Its not that intellectual prowess isn’t meaningful, it is wisdom which is superior. And in the present Stygian administration it is sorely lacking. He and his thuggish advisors took advantage of a sullen, stuporous and easily manipulated electorate which, stultified and stupefied, opened the door for electoral disaster. And the Stupid Party is mightily laboring to give America another four years of same unmitigated policy failure. Archie Bunker as president would be an improvement. However, as Ronald Reagan used to say, underneath this pile of shit there got to be a pony somewhere. And, indeed, there is. Obama not only will prevent Bolton as Secretary of State, he, and the saintly Panetta, who was given insufficient time to destroy the CIA, will reduce the Empire, if not destroy it. This way we both will have something, albeit different, to celebrate in Taormina next spring. Benvenuti in La Trinacria!

New doubts over historical Jesus.

2012-01-27T00:16:00.001+01:00

There always will be doubters. First among them is retired Pastor Hermann Detering. In his new book he shows non-Christian sources of antiquity are no reliable witnesses for a historical Jesus. The Bible Geek and Biblical scholar extraordinaire Robert Price: "Hermann Detering once again proves himself the most keenly insightful New Testament scholar of this generation, worthy to stand among the neglected giants of Radical Criticism whose work, he has brought to light to stir today's Bible students from their deep dogmatic slumbers. My own debt to his work is profound." Just so.

Could this be the reason?

2012-01-26T21:27:00.001+01:00

Dear Comrade Bensõnista: Cuba embraces Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, income taxation, welfare, and equalization of wealth – that is, the same socialist programs that our dictator embraces. Cuba also treats its citizens the way we do – military tribunals, denial of due process, no independent criminal defense attorneys, no jury trials, and swift punishment. Cuba even favors the war on drugs, despite its decades of failure. So, why does our government hate Cuba? Could it be because Cuba has long kept independent of Washington?

Updated Gonzo Journalism: Hunter S. Thompson, R.i.P.

2012-01-24T13:26:00.001+01:00

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world. A nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Well, shit on that dumbness, Barry Obama does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today and we will not vote for them again. Or ever. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by Obama? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us. They are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.

Sexual mores and arrest all unions

2012-01-24T10:19:00.001+01:00

The Democrats are crucifying Newt for his libertine attitude towards marriage and women. As we sinners all should. But the liberal eyes are firmly shut to a president who likes to be fellated by his body man and by the old white geezers in the Chicago bathhouses, all the while snorting and inhaling – in company of his Mayor and other assorted friends, some of whom have ended up murdered. Well, dead anyway. The curtain will be rent and the filth will be revealed. “All foul deeds rise to the top.” The Democrats celebrate Bubba, a vicious serial rapist, unashamed adulterer and accomplished female abuser-in-Chief. Another piece of Democrat filth. But being a Democrat one is by definition of finest character, highest standards and privileged to be an outlaw. Democrat presidents are a gift to the universe. I couldn’t become a Democrat. My capacity for mendacity and hypocrisy is not sufficiently devious to gain me membership in the club. Nor could I represent a reprehensible idea. It being, you may by force take from anyone and give it to anybody and you alone decide who will get the loot. Socialism is nothing but a malicious and devious theme of grand theft. As long time member of the International Association of Machinists I know where evil lurks. The unions are despicable. Instead of getting government support they should be prosecuted under RICO as crime syndicates. Like government, unions also commit grand theft writ large. You may lard copious amounts of lipstick on a pig, alas, it will remain a sow. As a liberal you should have a lot of affinity for Newt. He is shameless, opportunistic and likes to play in the mud.

Salvation

2012-01-23T15:14:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Ah, there you are. I thought a big Florida swamp alligator swallowed you whole. But I looked at the bright side: one vote less for Obama. Yes, indeed, I am very grateful to have made it to Maryland. A propitious decision made in pure desperation and hopelessness. However, when I met Christine I felt like George Jefferson (“movin’ on up”) and it just continues to glow. Haggling over my past may appear to be the ravings of an ingrate. But far from it, I see my self as fortunate victim: I got away. Now the authority of the State and its violent and murderous governance occupy the place in my soul reserved for handling the inevitable unpleasantness of life. I believe government to have the paternal traits I so feared as a child and despise as an adult: violence, force, threat, hostility, coercion, soullessness. But living in the United States, Maryland, Cape Cod, New Jersey, marrying and trying to be a family man also make for some of my happiest memories. Last, but surely not least, there is UMBC and my benefactor Dr. Benson. My first foray into education without the threat of punishment. Not bad for a country pumpkin who, frightened to death, stared into nothingness and at a gruesome existence as a country parson with a lousy theological education and, at best, middling Latin. Life is truly a gift. Mine is spectacular. Another proof for the existence of God. I want to be arrogant and say I hit a home run, but my humility demands to claim it being just a stand-up triple. Did you hear? Billy Cundiff wasn’t allowed to disembark at BWI.

Don't we have a moral obligation to vote for Dr. Paul?

2012-01-22T17:37:00.002+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Dr. Paul mentioned Nixon’s line, “We are all Keynesians now,” saying, “I'm looking forward to the day when we can say, 'We're all Austrians now!'" While Dr. Paul may not be the nominee of the Stupid Party he may be very well one of its pallbearers. And that is a good thing. The GOP has long since outlived its usefulness; as have, of course, the Liberals. The GOP was founded by anti-slavery activists and eventually managed to lose the black vote. Now it’s the Democrats turn to exploit, use and abuse our black citizens. Alas, the stars are lining up for Obama anyway. He cannot be defeated. Only he can defeat himself. And his attempt at self destruction is effortless. It helps that he is severely limited in what makes one a decent human being. Of course, a second Obama term will also have good consequences. He will be impeached and removed from office. I will rejoice in his public humiliation! The Democrat Party will cease to exist. Socialism will have been utterly destroyed and uprooted on these shores. Liberal fanatics who refuse to countenance any other opinion (many not being loyal even to their own …), will perish among the inconsistencies and contradictions at the root of their programmes. Liberals will perish because they are unable to recognize the difference between what is possible and the abstract products of their thinking. If tomorrow we cease to be an empire how will we defend ourselves at a ‘Nürnberg Trial’ against the charges of waging aggressive wars, of deception, disinformation, falsehoods, incarcerating and assassinating our citizens without trial? Above all, we would have to defend ourselves for worldwide mass killings. Give Obama and his Stalinist/Maoist minions some time and there will be death camps on American soil. Don’t scoff at me! After all, it happened in Germany and both, Hitler and Obama, have at their roots the same psychopathic natures. Both never knew their fathers. May I recommend Alice Miller’s Am Anfang war Erziehung? Both lives can be described as“From hidden to public horror!” This coming November we have the opportunity to rid ourselves from grave danger. A chance, the Germans missed.

There is a criminal psychopath in The White House

2012-01-21T11:50:00.002+01:00

Dear Emeritus: I have not watched any of the discussions of the GOP candidates. Why should I? Dr.Ron Paul is the first, the last and there is no other beside him. He is principled, honest and truthful. All the others are soulless miscreants not worthy of his presence. The nation needs him.The poor are poorer than at any time, blacks are totally ignored by a black president, the unemployment rate is at the highest since the Great Depression, our elders and retired citizens have lost their savings, and the entire nation is essentially a poor house. The only ones benefiting from the policies of our malignant narcissist-in-Chief are illegal immigrants and corporate and political psychopaths. But most deserving of our contempt is the political opposition allowing a mad man in The White House to run amok. President Obama needs be impeached, removed from office and returned to Chicago, condemned to clean the Mayor’s office for life. His supporters ought to be forced to wear a dunce’s cap for the rest of their lives, thus constantly exposed to well deserved public ridicule.

The man of action is essentially conscienceless (Goethe)

2012-01-20T11:14:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: When China is mentioned you fall into hushed reverence and unrequited admiration. Yet, where will a country end up which jails its people by multitudes and forces millions to subsist on stinging nettles? China is all about commerce, it is spiritually dead and offers nothing to emulate * Ron Paul is the only candidate who staunchly refuses to be a killer. Which brings me to my consistent, still unanswered, question, why are you, a Lutheran and son of a Lutheran pastor, voting for a mass murderer and serial abortionist? Luther did side with the Fürsten in killing the peasants, thus making himself, a few hundred years ahead of time, a worthy candidate for the United States presidency * Poverty in America is likely to get worse, reports find. An Indiana University study finds that 46 million Americans are living below the poverty line – up 27% since the start of recession. What, besides handing out food stamps and not building pipelines, is Obama doing for America? * Ron Paul is being ignored by the media because he doesn't fit into the pre-manufactured public opinion mold used by the establishment to pigeonhole the electorate and create the so-called narrative that drives media coverage of elections * Why do the morally and ethically challenged gravitate toward Washington, D.C.? * Lewis Lapham got it about right writing that “both parties are adrift in scandal, discredited by their means of raising campaign money, suspected of crimes against the common good, convicted of neglecting the poor, despoiling the environment, raffling off the prospects of the country’s long-term future for the promise of a short-term vote” * Searching for God is like having a word on the tip of your tongue, however, unable to speak it. One knows the word, its meaning, but simply can’t remember it. One is close, yet distant.

Post Christmas Analysis

2012-01-18T18:48:00.001+01:00

The altogether fictional Christmas story teaches us a few very important economic facts. Mary and Josef, in all of Bethlehem, can’t find any “Camere libere” signs. All indicate “No Vacancy.” Clueless storytellers present this fact as cruel and heartless attitude of the innkeepers. The reason for all rooms being sold out is that a lot people have gathered to be counted by the government so that the Roman emperor would be able to more efficiently fleece them. The Inns are private businesses. Having guests is essential for the Business of an inn. Why would an Inn reject guests if rooms are available? An innkeeper offers Mary and Josef his stables. The Evangelist Luke doesn’t tell us if they had to pay for it. Thus the Word of God became flesh through the generosity of a private business man. We complain about the commercialization of Christmas. Here is scriptural proof, albeit fictional, that it is part of Christmas from the very beginning. More than 2000 years after the Word became Flesh we still don’t know the name of the generous innkeeper. Throughout history this is the fate of capitalist entrepreneurs. Their essential and important service is quickly forgotten.

What really pisses me off

2012-01-18T12:33:00.001+01:00

Reading Friedrich Nietzsche, living for decades in The United States where victims are coddled, being around for decades now, and in general, I am sick and tired of hearing about the vicissitudes of life, how tough it is, and how this one and that one is a victim of this and that unfortunate circumstance (in America that usually refers to skin color). There are victims of all kinds of -causts and genocides, of slavery, and most wallow in victimhood of discrimination. Yes, life can be shitty and brutal and it is short. I am sick and tired listening to the whiners, wailers and moaners. Life sucks! Woe me! Yes, “Hell is – the other people” “L'enfer est – d'autres personnes!” A Jean-Paul Sartre bon-mot. If life is so terrible why don’t you go ahead and kill yourself? Just stop whining, you cause auricular and mental suffering. Stop being a pain in the ass. If you, riding your horse, get stuck in the mud, do like Baron von Münchhausen, pull yourself out of the muck by the shock of your own hair! In other words, do everything to enjoy life! Just drawing one single breath is worth way more than not having lived at all. But, please, please, stop complaining. I have no pity for you whiners, only disgust and contempt. And next time when you clamor, “Oh, woe! Why me? Why me?” - ask yourself instead “Why not me?” O.k., where is the light switch?

USASSR

2012-01-16T20:06:00.002+01:00

At home as well as overseas Obama is an unmitigated disaster. A tin pot toad without professionalism and competence. His goal is to destroy a successful free market capitalist Republic in favor of The United States of American Soviet Socialist Republics. To wish upon us all such Marxist malignancy is contemptible. Since all Obama’s evil deeds before long will have risen to the top for all to see and recognize, we will be easily persuaded to hand the affairs of state to a blandly officious, super helpful boring Billionaire business manager and will give the boot to the red menace. Barry has vulgar appetites and no graces, nor class, and behaves like a corn pone hay seed. If I would vote my choice would be easy between a former pro-life Billionaire governor or a baby killing loathsome slug of a man.

Why I am a devout non-voter

2012-01-13T15:57:00.002+01:00

Carissime Emerite: With great excitement and even greater expectation I went into the seminary, believing God was in heaven and his Deputy Dawg held court in Rome. With great humility and unbelievable naïveté I felt called to serve God. With the same huge excitement and great expectations I voted for Ronald Reagan, believing he is the One we had been waiting for. Then, along the way, I had an epiphany (helped by too much Chivas Regal). There never was a Reagan revolution, there is no such thing as heaven, and Deputy Dawg is just the most senior Dawg around the Vatican. Just like god always chooses the most senior ‘Apostle’ of the Mormon Church to be His prophet, seer and revelator. It’s all a confidence game. Just as heaven is empty, there was no Reagan revolution and Obama continues Dubya’s policies. It makes no difference what ‘We, the People’ want or whom we elect. We will be played no matter what.“If voting made any difference, it would be illegal” (Emma Goldman?). Our two party system is an illusion, designed to give us the impression of choice. Barack Obama will easily win reelection, unless he arrogantly defeats himself. The system is hard-wired. That any of the candidates represent different visions and plans is truly and absolutely ludicrous. You so presciently called Reagan an old tottering B-actor. Why has your Occam's Razor become so dulled that you actually believe the rotten garbage left on your curb side by the Obama campaign smells good? Should, by some accident of history, Romney end up in The White House, he will continue the neoconservative policies of his predecessors. War, and more wars. Debt, and more debt. Waste, and more waste. Bigger, and vastly bigger government. Higher taxes. The Police State. Eventually we will have the perfect war and welfare state. The fascist Russians and Marxist Chinese just pretend to be Democrats. It always was and is about ruthless power wielded by an oligarchy of butchers. Just like in The States.

President Obama is an enemy of our nation and its people. Just so.

2012-01-12T16:01:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Our president thinks he must rule and, at the same time, contemptuously ignore us. He constantly circumvents the will of the people; imposes regulations; grants Obama Care waivers to his supporters; ignores House and Senate; nominates judges whom even the American Bar Association finds "not qualified;” ignores laws and hands over the auto industry to its unions and leaves the taxpayers on the hook for the cost; and so it continues. Obama has reached his expiration point. He does not respect the people, nor the Constitution. We will fire him. The Stupid Party doesn’t have the gumption to stop Obama. He is busy destroying our way of life. And he is busy killing people worldwide and here at home. Since you slavishly support Obama it follows you, too, do not desire a constitutional Republic. With Obama as ruler we will not have Civil rights, no political freedoms and the economy will be centrally planned. Does the fact that it all has been tried and always catastrophically failed not deter you? There is no one who will defeat him. He will fail and falter all on his own, just like Jimmy from Georgia. And I shall celebrate. However, as a civilized Abendländer I will not support the Marines urinating on him.

Who is the One?

2012-01-11T00:58:00.001+01:00

For the most illustrious Hudson River Squire: Whenever one of their idea fails liberals double their propaganda efforts ("We have to be right at all cost!"). To uphold an idea, like the Transubstantiation, which can never be shown to be right or wrong, or better, real or imagined, is one thing, but one which has been proven in time to be unworkable, like Marxism, also known as the Obama administration, is wholly other. To cause dislocation and disadvantage for ideological fanaticism is asking for violence. The divine provenance of scripture or divine authority bestowed on humans by humans is quite harmless until it is elevated to common policy. Then the burning of the opposition at the stake will be necessary. Did you hear? Phil Donohue praises Ron Paul. I praise Ron Paul. Ron Paul should be praised. Ron Paul should be president. President Obama is not only worthless, he is dangerous to our way of life. He is sick of mind and spirit. In addition to being a Marxist he is also a racist of limited intellectual facilities and extremely dangerous to our common good. He is the enemy in our midst. He personifies black monolithic thinking and black racism. Wanna call me a cracker-ass honkey? Go ahead. I am only servile to the Österreichische Volkswirtschaftslehre and Ludwig van Mises. I am a deadly enemy of collectivist ideas. Marxism? Never! Let all Lefties climb la monte-à-regret. Why do the idiotic presidential candidates of the Stupid Party (Ron Paul excepted, of course) defame Romney as capitalist? For us libertarians to be called a capitalist is honorific. Obama will lose in a landslide. Not because a Republican will beat him, he will defeat himself. Just like Jimmy from Georgia. I am catching fire! w

Alice Miller † 2010

2012-01-09T14:19:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Professor Miller believes how we handle life is decided during our early years. Lucky for those surrounding me I took the violence (brutal beatings and utter humiliation) I experienced as a child out on myself. And, occasionally, still do. My father, himself a product of black pedagogy, a shell shocked soldier of WWII (Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Major Depressive Disorder and victim of Nazi arrogance ... his life was far more traumatic and chaotic than I previously realized) furthered the cycle of violence. Mother, severely schizophrenic, herself subject of abuse, past and present, watched on helplessly. Both pitted their sons against each other and totally destroyed the family. We all fled home. I, first into "the arms of God," and then, because the Roman god turned out to be a rotter, across the Atlantic all the way to The United States, as far away as possible from hellish, toxic home and hellish, toxic Seminary, until I finally felt safe.

Comme ci comme ça

2012-01-08T01:03:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: The academic presumption (one among many) that the footnote somehow sustains the text is like insisting that the predicate in an analytic sentence (judgment) does expand its meaning * Michael Ryan, the chair of my dissertation committee, loved to quote Molly Ivins (R.i.P.). Saying: "So, it must be true!" * The election of Barry Obama proves human nature prefers to sustain "pygmies." Only in a crisis are we willing to seriously consider and select substance. Looks like we don't foresee a crisis * I can't remember when my illusion about human nature was shattered. Was it my upbringing in violence, abuse and utter loneliness, or at the abrupt end of my sojourn in a Catholic seminary. Along the way I found out man is a selfish creature and cannot be trusted. If we must trust, it will be a perilous adventure - as are all relationships because of our faulty natures * In order to find a resolution for our dysfunctional relationship with God we invented "sacrifice." We burn grains or animals and hope to assuage God. We send Billy-goats into the desert. We even made God Himself die on a cross for mankind. We do whatever it takes to get us off the hook. We even personified malum to divert the focus from us ("The devil made me do it!"). Luther, my favorite theologian because he frankly talks about defecation at the dinner table, is quite correct: Without the grace of God we are lost.

A Degree of Viciousness

2012-01-07T13:25:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Oh well, my dream of a Bachmann-Paul ticket will not become reality. Looks like we will face Socialism no matter what. Your admiration for the murderous, vicious Marxist clique oppressing the Chinese people leads me to understand your unreserved admiration for president Obama. For he, too, doesn't think the American people should freely decide their own destiny. He wants to determine the degree of our happiness. He, too, has a vicious mentality. How did a nice Midwestern Lutheran boy like you get to be a Marxist? You are not just off the chart, you are nowhere near it. Had I known while at UMBC, I would have started my missionary activities a long time ago. Why the fascination with Obama? He is a flat liner. There is no depths to the guy. His intellect is at best flaccid. He is a nasty piece of work. When he puts people down he does it with an evil smirk. He is not a nice person. But what impresses me the most is his hollowness, his "unbearable lightness," his emptiness. "There is no there there." Most of all he lacks maturity. No wonder you liberals are so impressed with him.

The Magi

2012-01-06T15:08:00.002+01:00

History Is On Our Side

2012-01-06T02:11:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Because of your inexplicable fondness - engouement - for all things Chinese and Marxist you won't need an introduction to Joseph Needham. With his book, History Is on Our Side (1947), he not only repeats the same claim Marx makes in the preface to the second edition of Das Kapital, that Marxism is a scientific ideology, a theory of economics no less exact than Newton's celestial mechanics, but that he feels certain that the long subjection of the Chinese people to feudal lords and a feudal type of economy was the reason why science had not been born in China. By the time he finished the volume he had reached a totally different conclusion: The Chinese failed in science because they had failed in theology! Having rejected, sometime in the early second millennium B.C.E., their belief in a personal, rational and transcendental Creator, a Lawgiver, the Chinese lost confidence in the ability of the human mind to fathom the laws of nature. All of which does not really answer the question, relevant even more so since president Obama inhabits The White House, "On whose side is history?" As a middling theologian, who tries to survive on the side lines, I believe history will always stand firmly for the world view which provided the indispensable spark for the birth of science, and with which science must side if it is to remain true to its creativity. There is a tremendous future to orthodox Christian belief. Only when steeped in that world view will our moral strength be enough to let history be on everyone's side. The first, necessary step we must take is to evacuate president Pepé le Pew from OUR House and return him to the rock from under whencever he crawled.

The enemy's activities maybe deceptive

2012-01-04T01:16:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: The idea that president Obama will be reelected to a second term is 'fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous main stream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end' (©2007, Texas A&M University). Unless, of course, Axelrod and his adlati mali champion a well paid off third candidate impressive enough to syphon votes off Romney and push Obama over the line at around 42% (his maximum under the best of circumstances). If Dr. Paul does not win it will make no difference who sits in The White House, the Marxist again or the faux Conservative (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/ taibblog). It's an agiotage. And, to the mocking laughter of the hucksters and puppeteers, we fall for it every time. However, I single mindedly look forward to February Second, the feast of the Purification of the Virgin and the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Then I know Spring isn't far. Time to polish the trike.

They said this will never happen in the land of Schiller, Goethe and Beethoven.

2012-01-03T04:12:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Congress has now passed, and the president has signed, albeit with "reservations," the National Defense Appropriations Act, with Amendment 1031, which allows for the military detention of American citizens. Ninety-three Senators voted to support this bill and now most of Congress, which means indefinite military detention for U.S. citizens is now in the hands of a secretive conference committee. Wherever democratically elected Benito and Adolf are, surely, they must be grinning. Obama signed the suspension of habeas corpus, albeit promising never to use it. The candidate supported by liberals and progressives and for whom most will vote — Barack Obama — advocates views on these issues (indeed, has taken action on these issues) that liberals and progressives have long claimed to find repellent, even evil. What causes you to be blind to the truth and unwilling to admit the chrysalis is turning into a dragon! I am dumbfounded that you've fallen for the propaganda. And will you tell me why Obama is sending special forces troops to Uganda? To join the civil war there? Troops will also be sent to South Sudan, Congo and Central African Republic. However, they will only "engage" for "self-defense," says Obama. With Libya secured, an invasion of Africa is under way. Is this an additional reason to reelect Obama?

"I am not blaming those who are resolved to rule, only those who show an even greater readiness to submit" (Thucydides)

2012-01-02T00:27:00.001+01:00

America has fought many wars. But we have ever more enemies. Obama is guilty of ideas which Liberals hold to be pernicious (endless, undeclared wars; unchecked executive power; the surveillance state; secrecy; inequality in the legal system; the transfer of wealth from the middle class to corporate conglomerates; and so forth). Isn't then their support for him based on mindless party loyalty, lack of intellectual honesty and absence of political independence? Liberals are not even pretending to be consistent.

The per person Medicare insurance premium will increase from the present monthly fee of $96.40, rising to: $104.20 in 2012; $120.20 in 2013; And $247.00 in 2014. These are provisions incorporated in the Obama Care legislation, purposely delayed so as not to discombobulate the 2012 re-election campaigns. Obama lies and deceives.

When was the last time you thought about something for an entire hour? How about for a whole day? What do you think it takes to become confident in something you’ve never done before? How do you start doing that, and not feel incredibly at risk? In the past when I’ve disciplined myself to sit and think, the return has been tremendous. Now most of the time the cup board remains empty. Often the tyranny of the urgently banal prevents discovery and insight. Most of the time I fear I am going batty. How can I prevent Christine having to live with and care for a 230 lbs. gorilla? And I thought I will – happy and content - ride in great comfort into the sunset. Well, 'they' lied to me.

The State loves war

2011-12-31T00:16:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: We need to set up new rules. Whoever contrives to go to war must be the first one to ride into battle or cross the Straits in a canoe. We must restrain the old, war-lusty men from sending our young daughters and sons to die in their wars. "Voting is the highest duty and privilege!" and "The Fatherland needs your service!" are the government's two most lethal lies. The first one impoverishes you, the second kills you. Any politician who votes for war should be arrested and tried for war crimes. My second favored leftist, Noam Chomsky, on the matter: "If the Nürnberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged." Including, of course, Barry Obama, King of Kings, ruler by the divine grace, befuddled nincompoop.

Life can be irritating

2011-12-30T19:23:00.001+01:00

Emeritus: Many successful people are narcissistic, have a great sense of self importance, believe they are smarter and better than anybody else. They work long hours to provide confirmation to support their grandiose ideas. It impairs the ability for intimacy and closeness, their social and interpersonal interactions, because they lack empathy and they cannot understand the importance of other people's life experiences. So, they work and play hard (mostly golf with the totally incompetent Speaker of the House), ignore their ideological friends, because they are pursuing grand visions of themselves. When they don't get what they believe is rightfully theirs, when others break the rules, act unfairly, or getting more than their fair share of the pie, they erupt with self-righteous indignation, pick up their toys and go home. Enough about Obama. O.K., one more. He not only did not close Gitmo, he signed legislation sending American citizen to the Cuban-American GULAG. And you find him worthy of reelection? What demons have befallen you?

The Oval Office and the Reichskanzlei have merged

2011-12-29T23:58:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: John XXIII. said, "It is most evil to hold that the most filthy affections for persons of the same sex are in fact a privilege of a higher level of culture." And he is the liberals' favored? I know liberals have a difficult time figuring out whether they are subject to a compliment or derisive laughter. Ever since Obama has been elevated to The White House, war, invasion, mass murder and violence have become a Democrat virtue. Dubya's radically lawless, criminal and dictatorial conduct transforms itself in Obama's administration into highest statecraft and widely admired virtue of public service. Obama insists, just like Dubya, that he may, without a trial, secretly assassinate a citizen if he just suspects him of working with terrorists. Lawlessness in the highest ranks defines a Banana Republic. Come to think of it Obama does strikingly look like Papa Doc. You worship Obama while loathing Dubya, yet there are no differences in the style of how they go about their killings. What attracts you to one and repulses you from the other? Your ability to incisively and ably take apart the Bush junta simply vanishes when you are faced with Obama's dilettantism and ineptitude. But I won't relent until I have found the worm at the core of your apple. What's the difference in the quality of life between a Bostromian artellect and an Obamabot? The catatonic state of the latter? I am just looking at figures. I am trying to figure out which of the two presidential decisions of Democrat Truman have, over time, cost more lives, the nuclear bombing of postwar Japanese cities or his instant support in 1948 of the State of Israel?

Three Outsiders (Søren Kierkegaard, Blaise Pascal, Simone Weil)

2011-12-28T00:06:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: People always ask me what's the best bookI've ever read. The Jesuits taught me how to be properly (humbly) offended by stupid questions. I have finally arrived at that 'cool dude' place whence I can say with a straight face, "Anteroposterior lip positions of the most-favored Japanese facial profiles," from the Department of Orthodontics, Kyushu University, Japan. Well, you get the point. I differentiate between books which achieve their announced purpose and those which utterly fail, which are crushingly in the majority. I can't possibly make you feel the disappointment when a book, especially one recommended, turns out to be still-born. One of those high achievers, and to which I return over and over again, is Diogenes Allen's The Three Outsiders (I was very fortunate to have been able to personally tell him, while serving him veal kidneys in mustard sauce, that of all his books so far The Three Outsiders succeeds most spectacularly). If that book doesn't cause you sleepless nights then the book has utterly failed and should be incinerated. The book is a guide on how to become spiritual. Just one tit bit. In fragment 978 Pascal tells the reader he suffers so much misery not because he loves himself too much, he struggles with his misery and suffering just because he doesn't find enough in himself which he can love. It jerks the soul.

Don't feel too cocky about reelection

2011-12-27T06:46:00.002+01:00

"Many Americans have little or no idea how government works or who is holding the reins on their lives. The majority of American voters do not know the name of their congressman, the length of terms of House or Senate members, what the Bill of Rights guarantees, or what the government is actually doing in the vast majority of its interventions. A survey after the 2002 congressional election revealed that less than a third of Americans knew 'that the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives prior to the election.' Recent polls show that almost two-thirds of Americans could not name a single Supreme Court justice and that 58 percent of Americans could not name a single cabinet department in the federal government." James Bovard

Clauso utero

2011-12-27T00:12:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: It took Christianity, and its sub-sub-subject Mariology, several hundred years before it decided to go for perpetual virginity. At the Fifth Ecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in 553, the council members refer to Mary as ἀειπάρθενος (i.e., ever-virgin). The early Christians had no clue that God's holy vessel was a virgin. Where did all the brothers and sisters come from? Listening to my teachers in Seminary one never found out that Mary and Joseph actually had a large family. The first family of Christendom was thoroughly sanitized. Sex? Fie on you! After Jesus Joseph had to man up because the Holy Spirit was only used once as stand-in for God (what a daunting job!). But the theologians are silent about how Joseph and Mary went about having children after Jesus. Some theologians write of a clauso utero after Mary's first delivery. Thorval, who is very comfortable with his ignorance, told me (contrary to Brigham Young and the magisterium Urbs Lacus Salsi) God and Mary did not have yucky intercourse but that God somehow manipulated the ovum, hence Jesus. Mary's position within the church is godlike, after all, she was raised with body and soul to the thrones of heaven by Pope "Heil Hitler" Pius XII, so oogamous reproduction is unbecoming the Queen of heaven and mother of God. But he is somewhat fuzzy about the rest of the story. Which is understandable, because that is just what it is: a story, a fabrication, not a historical event. And because the early Christian plagiarizers never got the story straight to begin with they ended up with a lot of confusion and nonsense. To this day I swear that Pater Öry ("Fundamentaltheologie") always got a slight erection when speaking in his heavy Hungarian accent about Mary, mother of God. When I remember my time in the seminary I deserve to be raised a martyr to the honor of the Roman altars for I have clearly suffered for my faith.

Good News?

2011-12-26T00:28:00.001+01:00

Your Excellency: Horror! Despite being attractively thin and gracefully slender (svelte, actually) my body mass index still puts me in the category "obese" (Fettleibigkeit). Obviously the index is messed up. As EUtopia slowly evolves into EUrabia it will be increasingly difficult to find a succulent pork roast in Germany. Hog farmers all over Europe are going the way of the coal industry. A beef Bratwurst is just not the same. Halal means permissible? Permissible for what? The Moslems are forcing me to lose weight for I don't eat eyeballs. Do you realize when Islam comes to rule Europe it will destroy all the vinyards just like the statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. * Even though I am a devout non-voter, I do follow politics. I "choose" politicians by the enemies they make. The fiercer the opponent that much more honor. In the past whenever you listed members of the GOP you deemed worthy of consideration (not that you would ever go slumming and dirty yourself by voting for one of those GOP sub-humans) it was always Bill Buckley who got your top rating. You so much admired his intelligence. Well, it turns out, this neo-conish, war loving CIA agent also was a sniveling racist, albeit a sophisticated one. The guy in The White House is just a sniveling one. People bewail that we scrape the bottom of the political barrel. Nonsense. We always had the lowest of the low rush to the public troughs and – incomprehensibly – you vote for them.

Joseph and Yahweh

2011-12-25T12:41:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: On Christmas Day I do not want to cause emerital pyrosis. Herewith a fine Christmas story which is not able to offend. In Doctrines & Covenants it is written that polygamy is the only way to heavenly glory. Yet, Mormons relinquish this claim when faced with the force of the State. Mormons left for the salt marshes so that they may be free just to give in to the coercion of the State. With Taylor's Manifesto the Mormons gave up being the church of God just like the early Christian church did when it exchanged spiritual independence for the power of the State. If plural marriage is the divine way why sacrifice it because the State insists it be abolished? * There just aren't faithful believers on one end and scoffers at the other. There are also those who see and appreciate the complexities. Answers to that which is can only be expressed by riddles, aphorisms and parables. The final interpretation of being is irony. We have no other choice. How else to face the wet and cold grave? How else to react to death when death smirks at you? Respond with irony to irony. In the end we run our head against the wall. In the no more is a new beginning, but we don't have a clue. What is it? Something or nothing? It drives us insane or we choose the alternative and become Mormons. Mormonism speaks of a multitude of gods, of many creations. Yet, incongruously, calls itself monotheistic. It calls Christianity the whore of Babylon yet insists to be a Christian religion. Jesus is the historical figure which had to be invented in order to give the mythos shape, form and history. Mormonism followed suite. It only did what we all do. It became part of what is established. And, consequently, lost all attraction by becoming corrupt.

For everything that lives is holy (William Blake)

2011-12-24T00:49:00.001+01:00

Thomas Pogge thinks about how to change the world: "We don't have to resign ourselves to poverty and hunger. Misery is iniquitous. We can remove it from our world." The order of our world is mass murder. Thousands die daily of diseases caused by hunger and malnutrition. We, who live in the rich nations give aid to this infamous crime. Poverty is not a natural event and the world is not a place without morality. Those who set the rules, those who decide over export credits, control the selling and buying of raw materials, those who set import quotas, anti-dumping fees, subsidies, those also decide over life and death. Pogge says that Marx sharpened his moral sensitivity, but not until he encountered Kant ("Rechtsverletzung an einem Platz der Erde wird an allen gefühlt") did he learn to think. Rawls, Pogge's dissertation chairman, disappointed his pupil insisting wealthy nation do only have a duty of assistance to poor countries, nothing more. Rawls consoled himself with the possibility of a just world order to come. Pogge revolts, "Why not now? Why do we accept the unacceptable? Are we so used to misery we can't think of a world without weapons of mass destruction, without Millions dying of hunger? A world without No-go-areas?" Pogge calculates. 40% of the world population have to live on $2.- (2005 buying power) a day. Millions have no access to clean water, to medicine. We are obligated to help in a most radical way. For Pogge the world is rich enough to abolish hunger. Pogge does not seek alternatives to capitalism, he is looking for alternatives within capitalism. Philosophy, Pogge says, is love for wisdom and to be wise is to know what is important. "As powerful and self-righteous as the global elite of the privileged may be; as weak and anxious as the masses may be: injustice will remain injustice. You are only able to enjoy your good life if you don't live it at the expense of others." But fear not, President Obama will abolish injustice, hunger and suffering. He has been send by God himself to extinguish all evil on earth. He is a great President (just not as good as Lincoln, FDR, and Johnson, as he told 60 Minutes) and he will make us all happy and pay our mortgages. But to fulfill his divine calling he will need another term.

Nick Bostrom and Obama

2011-12-22T19:54:00.001+01:00

Since Obama has become president you have not mentioned Nick Bostrom and his desire to reengineer man. Since, in your case, nothing is ever coincidence nor happenstance but Kalkül, I have given weight and attention to your silence, analyzed background chatter and your always well calculated and thought-out information transfer, considered all against carefully cultivated probability and likelihood and came up with a titillating question: Could it be Obama's presidency has given urgency to Nick Bostrom's ideas, increasing their importance and relevance? When Dr. Bostrom began thinking of a future full of human enhancement, nanotechnology and cloning, he couldn't have thought of Obama who was not yet a speck on anyone's radar screen. Hence no urgency. How fortunate it would have been had he never made it out of Chicago's filthy gutters. If he'd just stayed mired in its bathhouses being serviced by Chicago's powerful white, old men, we would still be ruled by the Clinton family. But now, Nick Bostrom knows, based on his famous simulation argument – which presents evidence for the Matrix-like idea that humans are living in a computer simulation – to the impact of uploading our brains on human consciousness that he approaches both the inevitable and speculative using the tools of philosophy, bioethics and probability. Nick Bostrom is thinking of Obama, "When we are headed the wrong way, the last thing we need are progressive ideas. If we developed the ability to think more clearly and to understand the world better–which we have to do if we want to figure out what is right–then that understanding will also tend to increase the pace with which we move against Obama and his ilk. And the better we understand technologies of removal, the closer we will be to developing new and more efficient technologies to get rid of Democ-Rats. That practical knowledge is an important part of innovation and for change of tenants in The White House." Nick Bostrom has stepped up his search for super-intelligent intellects in order to head off Obama at the pass, to use a well worn Hollywood cliché. The tension, on one hand, arising out of your admiration for Nick's innovative thinking and, on the other, from your fiendish obeisance to Obama's evil and destructive designs, must have become, by now, unbearable. I hope you'll find some relief in Florida, Jeb's old hunting grounds. You must know Jeb is beset from all sides to run for The White House. What a lucky people we are to never having run out of Bushes.

Our "Gröfaz"¹

2011-12-21T01:07:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Our president, suffering under delusions of grandeur, calls himself, on the Steve Kroft show "60 Minutes," the 4th best president after Lincoln, FDR, and Johnson. In his utter megalomania he has no clue that he absolutely, and justifiably, lines himself up with some of our worst Presidents. But in liberal phantasy land what is up is down, what is best is worst. So it happens that I do agree this once with our president who is severely suffering from delusions of greatness. CBS, protecting the president, mercifully left the embarrassment on the cutting room floor.

¹ "Größter Führer aller Zeiten" (and Gröfaz it was what the Germans derisively called Hitler, after Göring, in all sincerity, proposed to his Landsleute to call their Führer the grandest of them all).

Post scriptum: Since I believe that Obama is an incompetent, overly self-confident, narcissistic, hardcore leftist ideologue who is dragging America towards the proverbial abyss I'd understand if you'd prefer a Walter-free time in sunny Florida and just clicked the DELETE button. My ego will not be damaged. Don't step on an Alligator. I need my audience-of-one! When you go to midnight mass do you go because "Silent Night" sends a shiver up your leg, or because you take delirious joy in celebrating the birthday of one who's never lived?

A stark anti-Semitic Christmas joke, albeit too funny!

2011-12-20T16:13:00.001+01:00

The Teacher asked young Patrick Murphy: "What do you do at Christmas time?

Patrick addressed the class: "Well Ms. Jones, me and my twelve brothers and sisters go to midnight mass and we sing hymns; then we come home very late and we put mince pies by the back door and hang up our stockings. Then all excited, we go to bed and wait for Father Christmas to come with all our toys."

"Very nice Patrick," she said. "Now Jimmy Brown, what do you do at Christmas?"

"Well, Ms. Jones, me and my sister also go to church with Mom and Dad and we sing carols and we get home ever so late. We put cookies and milk by the chimney and we hang up our stockings. We hardly sleep, waiting for Santa Claus to bring our presents."

Realizing there was a Jewish boy in the class and not wanting to leave him out of the discussion, she asked, "Now, Isaac Cohen, what do you do at Christmas?"

Isaac said, "Well, it's the same thing every year...Dad comes home from the office. We all pile into the Rolls Royce; then we drive to Dad's toy factory. When we get inside, we look at all the empty shelves...And begin to sing: 'What A Friend We Have in Jesus'. Then we all go to the Bahamas."

Shlomo Sand, "The Invention of the Jewish People"

2011-12-20T00:40:00.001+01:00

Professor Sand was born in Linz, Austria. So you know right up front he is very smart, erudite, well educated and unsurpassable bright. He, after receiving tenure, is the one who destroys the Zionist myth of Israel's foundation. All modern nation states have a story of their origins (like the peaceful takeover of America by white European settlers), passed down through and enforced by official channels and pop culture. The Israeli national myth, sold as historical fact and fervently defended by the Mayor Koch and Professor Dershowitz types, turns out to be, surprise, surprise, most divisive. Jewish exile during the first century CE, enforced by Rome, and the assertion that the Jewish people are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow is passionately defended by the Zionists far beyond Israel's borders. Despite its use as a justification for Jewish settlement in Palestine and the project of a Greater Israel, there have been few scholars investigating the historical accuracy of the story as a whole. Sand shows that the Israeli national myth has its origins in the nineteenth century (just like Mormonism's – never avoid a scorcher when the opportunity arises!), not in biblical times, which Jewish historians busily falsified and rearranged reconstituting an imagined people in order to model a future nation. And the Palestinians suffer because the myth must endure. The Jews deserve a homeland? What about the Kurds? What about the Tuaregs? What about the Roma and Sinti? Study, learn, reject the ideological bullshit, call out the liars, live the truth. Elect Dr. Paul!

Simple logic

2011-12-19T22:20:00.001+01:00

There have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers. The firearm death rate in Washington, DC is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. That means you are about 25 per cent more likely to be shot and killed in the US capital which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the U.S., than you are in Iraq. Shouldn't the U.S. pull out of Washington?

Dear Emeritus, Noam Chomsky calls you a lemming!

2011-12-19T00:04:00.001+01:00

The Barack Obama revolution was over before it started, Noam opines, gutted by the politician’s overweening desire to prove himself to the grandees of the establishment that he has the same old imperial ambitions. And Obama sure has. Just like Hitchens (Requiescat in pace!) pretending to be a Trotskyite, ending up loving the Iraq war and kissing Bush' ass. "Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion." The Counterpunch guys (St. Clair & Frank) are coming out with a devastating critique of Obama. And well they should. For the sake of our nation and future generation our president's career needs to be destroyed.

Next election will bring an end to the political career – fraudulent any which way – of a most extraordinary phony character ever to show up on our political stage: Windbag Barrack.

2011-12-18T02:15:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: We have a most shabby low-road president, of political potter's field destiny. But what is most egregious is that he ably side blinded most intelligent and bright characters, albeit liberals, to join his corner. And here I must go off the train. This lowlife creature, scraped off the seedy side roads of Chicago by a substrata criminis (meaning Messina, Axelrod, Rahm, and other enemies of The United States), is celebrated as the second coming by those gullible liberal types. He has the intelligence of a back alley pick pocket and the language of a rogue pimp. He moves like a night crawler, yet, knows his melanin is all forgiving and that his pretensions are taken as wisdom. He publicly presents himself in a serpentine manner which his acolytes gobble up as world stage mannerisms. He is most vulgar and common in his treatment of anyone opposing him and very comfortable in appealing to the lowest of instincts. He represents the lowest of common denominators. A despicable slime ball. With him polite and decent political processes have come to a halt, stunted, as they may be, replaced by boorish and uncultured instincts, and we find ourselves at the bottom of a spittoon. It is inconceivable that this 'bottle holder' will again be elevated to the honors of the first position of the land. If so, life itself will loose its luster. However, what is most discombobulating, disturbing, utterly inexplicable, making me distraught, hopeless and despairing, is that you fancy this punk! I have always looked up to you in boundless admiration for your powerful intellect, your prodigious knowledge and learning, your powerhouse force of life. And then you upend my life going high hog for a cynical punk, a cypher, a nothing, a nobody like Obama. Why are you doing this to me? Yes, it's that personal! What I find most appalling and offensive about Obama is that he uses his skin color to gain advantage. What a cheap, tawdry, insidious way of manipulating (and disappointing) a nation of good will!

Laughing at the wheel chair – and defying life (well, trying to)

2011-12-17T01:01:00.001+01:00

The sudden onset of mental and physical decay and steep decline in Endocrine Metabolic functions is worrisome and unsettling. I am struck by a fast, furious and sudden physical debilitation and mental disintegration. Being most proud of my humility, I love to complain about everything, especially the nastiness of life but, of course, do know that misfortune is without reason and fate lacks intelligent cause. To lament with clenched fists against the heavens is the immature and helpless cry, 'Why me?' But the correct reaction is a laconic 'Why not me?' Life is arbitrary and capricious. Its circles, peaks and dales don't rhyme nor have reason. It just is. That's the mystery of life. Things just are. And that is, probably, the hardest to take about being. To alleviate the abstract fear of nothingness we invent all kinds of hobgoblins, pantheons of gods, witches, kobolds, and "creatures that go bump in the night." At any stage of life we are challenged to grow and mature. I fervently wish to pass my next exam as well and accept what is. It is unbecoming for a child of God to behave hope- and helplessly. I do not want to get caught screaming, yelling and resisting going into the good night. It would be unbecoming a life spent in pursuit of eternal truths. I am asking for dispassionate wisdom and serenity. Above all I fervently hope not to succumb to self pity, to taking myself too seriously and behaving like an asshole.

Prejudice and Abuse

2011-12-16T00:07:00.001+01:00

The principle of ancient heritage, so savagely, disingenuously and insultingly abused by modern Israel, would, if applied the same way by the European nations, plunge the continent into chaos. The Jews were persecuted mostly by the Russians and Europeans. Why, then, do the Palestinians have to suffer the consequences? Newt is wrong. The Palestinians are a people. The Jews, which have never been exiled by anyone, stuck around the Holy Land, assimilated and were absorbed by the surrounding peoples and ended up converting to Islam. The Palestinians are the "real" Jews. The bulk of modern Jewry is not of Palestinian but of Caucasian origin. The Carthaginians and Berbers became Jews (the latter moved to Spain); the Khazars (a Turkic people who originated in Central Asia) converted to Judaism (they later moved to Eastern Europe to escape the onslaught of the inner Asian nomadic hordes and their descendants faced extermination by the Nazi hordes); and so did the Falasha, the black Jews of Ethiopia. So, why do the Palestinians have to give up their land? Before 1948 the Palestinians and Jews lived together peacefully and well. The ones who didn't accommodate the Palestinians were the Jews not the other way around. The Palestinians were driven off their land. Jimmy Carter, a colossal dolt, got it right by calling Israel an Apartheid state (proving that even a blind chicken once in a while discovers a kernel of corn in the barnyard). Only Jews enjoy full rights and privileges of citizenship. Seeds of destruction! The Jews learned well from the Nazis, successfully applying their Blut und Boden ideology to Palestine. The US media don't report the facts about Jewish treatment of the Palestinians. One has to read the European papers to get the truth. Israel as a state has always been doubly illegitimate. Ex officio and because it stole the land. My Jewish friends are busy saying "The Mourners' Kaddish" over my still breathing body. Mossad assassins are lurking in the shadows.

We are all warriors

2011-12-15T01:07:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: With his monthly letter, "Zarathustra Speaks," available for subscription by electronic mail at no charge, Bob unwittingly gave me the title for my autobiography, "Proclaiming the Death of God and the Dawn of Superman." A title justifying an Olympian's life. Fighting fire with fire! My headstone has been forged, too. It is inscribed, "Ignorance is no weapon in the war of ideas." I used to take the power of religion quite seriously and my past was consequently very painful. Now I am busy taking revenge. The existence of God is, of course, a serious enterprise. Conclusive answers are not possible. At least, until now we have not been able to achieve consensus. However, many conjectures, by guilty and innocent bystanders alike, have been offered. But, because so many conjectures serve an ideology it must remain, needs be, a subjective enterprise. If not, we get organized religion. And we know how that worked out. Subjugating oneself to another person (unless its Christine, of course), hierarchy or institution means surrendering one's freedom and independence. This is why a citizen is a slave of the State * By the way, do you know Buddha has been raised to the honors of the altars and is venerated as a Saint by Roman-Catholics? Considering some of his stuff found its way into the New Testament it is wholly justified. Fascinating history!

Nearer my God to Thee

2011-12-14T01:18:00.002+01:00

Dear Professor: For someone as cynical as me and one who does not believe in a historical Jesus, but has no problems with the stories of the Grimm Brothers, I spend an inordinate amount of time with books of spiritual nature. One does not come to god via ratio. I've learned that much during my exposure to the Jesuits. Neo-Platonism may have made Christianity palatable to the Greco-Roman world, but does not help much in finding God. Thomas Aquinas may be a very smart cookie but his a se se does not force me onto my knees. The voice from the burning bush, requesting me to take off my shoes, because I stand on holy ground, does the trick for me. There is a way to God. It can't be traversed with scholastic airs but only with bare feet and humility. The sciences, logic and mathematics, are good enough to get us to the moon and to measure the distance between A and B, but do little to encourage us to become children of god. Yet, there is help. There are books written over the centuries teaching us how to lead a spiritual life. They are more than books. They are travelling companions on our path to spiritual maturity. Books which reflect our self and the experience we made with God himself. Most of my library I dropped off at Rose Memorial (will I ever again pick up Pannenberg's Systematische Theologie?). But not those which span the centuries from Cyril's of Jerusalem Mystagogicae catecheses, over many Saints, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Simone Weil, to Nouwen's, Nimm sein Bild in dein Herz. For the Season I wish for you that your wine is always properly chilled, your scotch be always single-malt and your life be pure bliss! And stop travelling so much and rest more.

Lord of the Rings

2011-12-13T01:06:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Did I ever tell you that the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy is, as a work of cinematic art, ham-fisted, shallow, bombastic, and laughably overrated? Well, I just did. We like our double burgers, our colossal shrimp, our giant drinks, everything supersized. But not all Americans are Obama voters. Some of us got taste and class. Obama publicly confesses not to care who the GOP candidate will be, intimating he will kick whoop ass no matter who the sacrificial lamb will be. I want to see Obama's face the day after he will be beaten by Daffy Duck. There are plenty of gullible voters around to get bamboozled the first time. But there are not enough Marxists in the entire country to push him over the finish line a second time. Peace, not war! Freedom, not socialism! Prosperity, not inflation! Liberty, not intervention! Protect private property! Constitution not politics! Ron Paul, not Wall Street puppets!

Let me propose a solution

2011-12-12T00:18:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: I am an immigrant. I came to America, sick of heart and mind after three years in a Roman-catholic seminary and years of being brought up by two dysfunctional, sick and twisted individuals who both should have been neutered to make having children impossible. How can there be a God when two psychopathic monsters like my parents are allowed to have children? I have never regretted my decision to leave a stultifying and stupefying home and come to America. I would like to propose a solution of the illegal immigration problem afflicting our common weal and paralyzing official Washington. Although it is difficult to analyze the problems of the latter. Abolish welfare at all levels of government! Then there will be no more incentives for the deadbeats to beat a path to Schlaraffenland. And all those seeking a better life for which they are willing to work hard and sacrifice will still want to come and we will welcome them.

The Coming Collapse of China

2011-12-11T01:15:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: I must comment about a vexing matter. Your tendency to waxing gaga over one of history's bloodiest slaughterhouses, Communist China, is rather disturbing as it indicates not only your fascination with Potemkin's villages, like the Obama administration and Marxist ideology, but with a way of life inimical to all that is dear to us Abendländer. How long will a nation survive which prevents its people from moving freely about, trying to divert its attention with trinkets? Millions of Chinese are forced to subsist on the country side, prevented to seek to better themselves by a cabal of thugs. Its environmental destruction and depredations are colossal and will keep generations ailing. The one-child policy is pure, unfiltered, unadulterated evil. The demographic problems, the tensions among the various tribes having nothing in common, making up a porous and weak nation and peoples not dedicated to a νόμος, reminding me of Joseph Broz Tito's unrealistic and, in the final analysis, destructive concoction called Yugoslavia, just not on a much grander and more decadent scale. You are blended by the neon lights of Shanghai the same way as you are by Obama's empty, meaningless, misleading and cynical rhetoric all pointing you nowhere. It's all just cheap glitter. Remember, the love of things leads to despair * Our Base library is sort of a double jeopardy Bibliotheca. It not only caters to the tastes of the soldier's wives, albeit by design, causing one nevertheless to despair over the selections and is making the discovery of a literary gem pure happenstance – and delight. I stumbled upon Jonathan Stroud's Golem Trilogy which is incongruously classified under Young Adult (YA). The books about Bartimaeus are quite sophisticated, well written, captivating, gaily entertaining, credible and a great joy to read. Certainly stacks above the cloying and silly Harry Potter nonsense. Rowling maybe a Billionaire but not a literary talent.

Oh, give me a home where the Buffalo roam, Where the Deer and the Antelope play; Where never is heard a discouraging word, And the sky is not clouded all day.

2011-12-10T09:42:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: I am sure in Kansas Obama hit all the right notes for you. National Socialists argue from the same insidious premises. It must have been all too familiar for you. Watching Obama's speech (on You Tube) I had an epiphany. The Stupid Party is all nervous for sending its utterly risible rear guard doing front row battle with Obama. No need to worry. Obama won't be defeated by any of them. Next November will be his auto-da-fé (Moment of Truth & Act of Faith ), immediately followed by his self-immolation at the stake of public insistence. The Stupid Party could nominate Porky Pig and the cartoon animal would garner 400 plus electoral votes. Obama's speech writers must be "Reichskanzlei" hand-me-downs. Even cornpone liberals are being seen running the other way. Obama simply has no clue that federal intervention in the economy is the root cause of inflation, credit expansion, its depression and mass unemployment. Capitalism, or "rugged individualism," is risk taking. It raises real wages and living standards and it increases productivity. Capitalism improves the quantity and quality of goods and – life. While socialism exploits labor and causes monopolistic control. Anarcho-libertarian capitalism, in the person of our next president, Dr. Ron Paul, is dedicated to the abolition of the welfare and warfare state. He will eliminate Social Security and Medicare. He will dismantle public education. He will foster private ownership of land. He will abolish all personal and corporate income taxes. He will reduce federal spending by 90%. National defense and court services will be provided by the market. Central government will cease to operate. And all that will be accomplished on the morning of the 20th of January, 2013. Propitiously a Sunday. In the afternoon Dr. Paul will rest.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors

2011-12-09T09:15:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Platon is wrong. It makes no difference if you vote or not, you always end up with your inferiors ruling you. Not voting just makes one feel better * If you are religious just because you expect religion to be helpful in your life then a religious commitment wouldn't be anything more than a personal preference. Some of us prefer strawberry over chocolate ice cream, just like some of us prefer as a matter of "taste" to be Christians rather than living without a religious ideology. However, if we say something is true then this represents a drastic change, especially if it is said about a religion. Then it is not about taste anymore. For the challenge of a religion is a serious matter. Something which is all encompassing and all affecting. Then religion is way more than just a question of taste. One feels strong fealty to a religious institution. Its leaders are believed to be called and instituted by god himself even if they just exploit their positions and sexually abuse our children * Why don't our political leaders strongly oppose illegal immigration? Because it must be exceedingly profitable to our fascist regime, "Washington" and its corporate supporters * Remember the Military Commissions Act of 2008? Stripping Habeas Corpus and other fundamental rights from The People, establishing government's power to detain indefinitely and torture prisoners and giving US officials immunity from prosecution? The act erodes democratic accountability of the US government. Your beloved president, who continuously defames and belittles Dubya, has no intentions to abolish the act * The criminal depredations of our predatory elite points to mental instability and dictatorial animus. We all know that at bottom any war is pointless, foolish and murderous, yet we still cheer on our blood lusty representatives * By now I should know better, yet it always comes as a surprise to me that US officials are simply oblivious to how much they are disliked around the world. And it is not a matter of too little P.R. A long time ago the US replaced the democratically elected prime minister of Iran with the Shah, who was a murderous, tyrannical monster. Yet, we call the Iranians evil. Americans fail to recognize that such worldwide dislike is well founded and justified. Foreigners do like the American citizens, the principles and values we are supposed to stand for. Nobody likes our government and its policies. I support Ron Paul. He will reduce the Federal government. He will dismantle our diplomatic and military empire. He will end all foreign aid. He will bring all troops home and close all American bases on foreign soil. He will unleash our entrepreneurs – the private sector – to freely interact with the world. He will restore decency to public life. For far too long we have been suffering dry-rot abominations defiling The White House and our public discourse. Obama represents the Nadir of American politics. Even on the most dense cornpone homunculus Americanus (also known as liberal) it is slowly dawning that Obama represents the willful and intentional destruction of our common weal. November 2012 we will eliminate him from our national consciousness. We will wipe his name from our history books. He will be declared an outlaw and made subject of public derision. His name will be no more.

Deuteronomy 7:6

2011-12-08T00:07:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus; The only president who ever opposed Israel becoming armed with atomic bombs was JFK! Is that why Mossad and George Bush were in Dallas on November 22, 1963? Or was he killed because he wanted to put an end to war and the Federal Reserve? I finally raised the white flag and opened a FACEBOOK page. I am always looking for free opportunities affording me the occasion for shameless self-promotion. I crave notoriety and severely suffer under my insignificance. FACEBOOK allows the lowly, the ugly, the unhappy – including Obama voters – to hide behind their anonymous FACEBOOK accounts, cowardly spewing bile. I despise those who genuflect before our predatory elite, also known as politicians and church leaders. Those moral nullities and lickspittle, also known as The Gullible Mass, defend those so called leaders of their churches as men of God, when all they do is exploit their positions which rest on the members' belief. Mormons pay 10% of their income for a vague promise of eternal exaltation. Many, with help of their rank stupidity and sheer mental incompetence, enter the next stage: adulation, to the point of self-abasement, of the malfeasant state and its foul depredators, a special infamous and criminal class of moral and intellectual cretins. The state is an organization which exploits and robs not allowing its victims the opportunity to escape its suffocating embrace. Before it will admit citizens are not legally obligated to submit a filled out F1040, it will rather kill them.

"Thou lump of foul deformity" (Lady Anne to Richard III, one of Obama's predecessors-in-office)

2011-12-07T02:56:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Since the dawn of the already seemingly interminable Obama administration it appears its unwashed crackpots are all over the District of Columbia, festering in its crevices, nooks and crannies, emitting a foul stench. Bad taste doesn't only extend to our building codes and dressing habits but obviously also to our foreign and domestic policies. Or is it simply arrogant incompetence? Maybe imbecility? I was convinced that Bill Clinton's Iraqi sanctions, which cost so many children their lives (his foreign secretary Madame Not-too-bright called the death of so many children "justified" – may she rot in hell!), his bombing of Iraq ("to send a message"), his elimination of welfare "as we knew it" (especially federal support of single women with dependent children), his support of the disastrous NAFTA accords (which do not protect our jobs), his lies about the Camp David Accords, his denial of the Gulf War Syndrome, his bombing of Khartoum and Belgrade, his cavalier treatment of our nation's secrets, his cynical "they'll forget about Monica," his depravity and turpitude, will easily make this punk our worst president. Well, I was wrong. Obama, the most needless creature alive, is clearly the most catastrophic, calamitous and disastrous interludium in our presidential history. What a miserable creature! The only honorable mention he deserves is for sitting on top of history's garbage heap. Can't we get rid already of this synapse challenged poofter before his self deluded addle brain will do more damage to our νόμος ?

Let them burn at the stake

2011-12-03T19:42:00.001+01:00

Dearest 'Rishi': Tolerance, acceptance and sensitivity are quite inappropriate when confronting the bizarre, foolish and absurd. In particular I am thinking of liberal and LDS ideologies. Don't restrain yourself, go ahead and call both by their various names: harum-scarum, haruspicium or hepatoscopy. I am an intellectual snob who can't be found where learning is too heavy a burden for the mortal mind to carry. In other words, I loathe Fundamentalism. Its psychic violence against intellect and scholarship continues but the issue remains a clash between different senses of knowledge. And, yet, I do behave like a sectarian and close myself off to the outside world. Solitude is at a premium. Almost half of American adults take a literalist view of creation. Almost as many believe God has guided creation over the course of millions of years. 120 Million American adults place the Big Bang 2500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. I am not surprised Obama could get elected president, just pissed off that I have to share my space with so many knuckle heads. I really don't care what people think and if they are offended that I don't respect their opinions I simply don't care. Yes, I am called an ass. But I am contend and happy. All my life I have been dealing with ideas which have been advanced dogmatically rather than achieved by speculative thinking. Their claims come from authoritative insight and revelation. Not from a class of intellectuals but from prophets, church fathers, popes and priestly classes which insist that their idea of reality is quite compatible with science whose research, of course, is never allowed to percolate. Ideas, of course, are not the exclusive property of anyone but subject to continuous research by independent scholars. The priestly cast rejects such independence fearing for their authority. Since there is no embargo on ideas an intellectual professional elite will welcome the exchange. But fundamentalists are stifled, and so is inquiry and research. Discussions are discouraged. The priestly cast not only demands absolute authority but also the right to inquisition and persecution, immediately prepared to excommunicate, stifle and suppress. The "authorities" have no influence over outsiders and so they are all generally presented as tools of the devil and denigrated without discussion. This self-righteous attitude works well with the average member of the sect used to complete tutelage. However, it causes anguish and pain among those members who realize what the church is but not allowed to be. One of the best books dealing with this subject is James Barr's Fundamentalism. A learned tour de force.

Nemesis, goddess of retribution and vengeance, punishes pride and hubris

2011-12-01T15:06:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Obama, no doubt, is part of the imperial conspiracy - and against good taste in general. Reinhold Niebuhr, in The Irony of American History, predicted that the winner of the Cold War would inevitably "face the imperial problem of using power in global terms but from one particular center of authority, so preponderant and unchallenged, that its world rule would almost certainly violate basic standards of justice." Michael Scheuer, in Imperial Hubris, writes that America today is unable to recognize its injustice towards others and assumes our good intentions in the world are self-evident. Our hubris is full blown imperialism. Our concern with national defense resulted in full blown militarism. Our decline has already begun. Hooray, no more killing!We ended up being the only super power and did not dismantle our bases, nor reduce our military budget. Our policies, continued by Obama, include domination of the world through absolute military superiority; waging preventive wars against any possible competitor. We insist to have the unilateral right to overthrow any government in the world we deem a threat to our national security. We believe we must be constantly prepared to wage war on terror, to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of our enemies, take the battle to them, disrupt their plans, and confront the threats before they emerge. The USA must be ready for preemptive action and, if necessary, defend lives and liberty. Our path to safety and security is the path of military action. Our government believes it must defend liberty and justice because these principles are right and true for all people everywhere. All our troubles stem from our desire to export our principles. Principles which our rulers ignore at home. Except for Ron Paul, who would stop our insanity, all other presidential candidates, above all Obama, believe mismanagement, waste, transgressions and criminal conduct in conducting foreign and domestic policies by invading and occupying foreign nations and exterminating their people in pursuing our imperial goals is no vice. Neither is oppressing the nation with massive violence (by Police and Courts) and coercion (by Departments and Agencies). End government! Go, Dr. Paul, go!

Electronic mails between climate gate scientists, show a concerted effort to hide rather than disseminate underlying evidence and procedures.

2011-11-30T05:56:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus (audience of one): Global Warming is as real as the emperor's nakedness. It takes a clueless, benighted child to speak the truth. Europe is about to collapse. Yet, the pressure in the USA to copy the European system increases. Germany's labor market is not free and, therefore, cannot lead to full employment. Pension funds will be broke within a decade. Germany's health care is an excess of Dirigisme. And about half of Germany's GNP is under government control. Gigantic government interventionism? The Germans are fully aware of these economic atrocities, even discuss them at length, yet are unwilling to apply free market solutions. "The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

And then there is writing. An enterprise for which I am much too lazy. I am also lacking ideas and discipline. Writing is a lonely craft and its efforts quickly use up one's energy and joy of living. Plus, my angle of incidences is narrow. Above all, I am way too selfish. I'd much rather sit in the sun and read. I love to read books, I do not want to write them. Well, the truth is I have nothing to say. At least not anything of importance. Also being a part time misanthrope detracts. The circle of people I pay attention to is tightly drawn. Anyone offended? I don't care.

Newt, GOP front runner du jour? The Stupid Party is handing Obama his second term without exerting any efforts on his part. Great empires run on empty long before dying without a whimper. Obama 21st century's Romulus Augustulus?

Casa Grugno

2011-11-28T15:29:00.002+01:00

Dear Emeritus: The neo-cons and other faux patriots lament that America is about to lose its position as the world's hegemon. Where does it say America has to be the mightiest, the strongest, the deadliest? Our awesome killing ability is an accident of history. It must not be so. And soon it won't.
You are chomping at the bit to win our quadrennial wager who will be the nation's Billy Goat for the next four years. Here is my suggestion. If Obama wins reelection (just putting it down on paper makes me convulse with hysterical laughter) you determine the restaurant where you will seek to humiliate me (fat chance!). If Obama goes down in flames, which is a fool's bet, I would like you to pay the bill at the Casa Grugno in Taormina in the province of Messina (at the foot of the mighty Etna). Chef Andreas Zangerl is from Austria. Guide Michelin awarded him one star. After having your vegetarian chow in this place you will thank the gods for Obama's decisive and overwhelmingly humiliating loss making it possible for you to dine in such a foremost establishment. Onward preparations won't be necessary. Just hop on a plane.
The Manchester Union Leader favors sleazy neo-con Newton Leroy Gingrich. The old Loeb would never have debased himself in such an ugly way. However, a debate featuring a devious brain vs. no-brain would be deeply satisfying to watch. Newt would reduce the Chicago pol to tears. But I sense Obama won't be a candidate for reelection. He is just too effective a failure. Gaudeamus igitur! A Sicilian told me of his unease about the excessive neatness of Obama common to morticians and Mafia dons. He added that Berlusconi and Obama share being excessively oleaginous. I agree. Judging by the way you chose presidents, I strongly suggest you avoid betting when in Saratoga.

Lux lucet in tenebris

2011-11-27T23:05:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Waldensian theology and lifestyle is based on evangelical poverty, a critique of church hierarchies, refusal of the church as a political power and a strong emphasis on lay leadership, including women. And heaven is just a metaphor. Between the Hautes-Alpes et Savoie and the Piemonte are the four valleys of the Alpi Cozie which for centuries hid the Waldensian mysteries of my Methodist Drew education and of my unfulfilled ministerial desires. Decades ago, in the bowels of the Rose Memorial library I discovered the history of the people of the first reformation, insisting to live their lives according to the Sermon on the Mount for which they were persecuted, prosecuted, tortured and hung by their entrails by the Holy Roman Church. I have been fascinated and unable to sleep well ever since. The Waldensian Community is an eternal reminder that I have missed my life's calling. We live the lie that all can be made well. How misleadingly wrong. Some things cannot be restored. (George Eliot, Adam Bede) The lesson of life is that bad behavior, evil, and wrongdoing cannot be undone. Missed opportunities do not present themselves again.

Majestät

2011-11-23T08:00:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: This summer "mein Kaiser," HRH Otto von Habsburg, Emperor of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, and the only member of the European Council not needing translation, for he was fluent in all the languages spoken in his "Reich," was buried in the Imperial crypt below the Church of the Capuchins in the imperial capital of Vienna. His heart, according to Habsburg tradition, was buried at the Pannonhalma Arch-Abbey (Abbatia Territorialis Sancti Martini in Monte Pannoniae) near Budapest, Hungary. Now is a good time to read Hans-Herrmann Hoppe's Democracy: The God that Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order. A book for the ages, an ideological campaign, a tour de force, a hurricane, a mind altering experience, a towering intellectual achievement of delegitimizing the idea and institution of democratic government. It trumpets the superiority of "natural order" -- a condition known by many other names too, including anarcho-capitalism and individualist or free-market anarchism. My heart palpitates, my blood pounds and surges when I open the book. A year from now conservatives must be anti statist libertarians and, equally important, libertarians must be conservatives. Obama must be destroyed, along with his spit licking Marxist minions. A Holy Crusade must be called against him and his infidel rabble. Look towards Washington: it is reduced to arguing for reductions on the margin of an ever-expanding Leviathan. Universal suffrage democracy has utterly failed. I can't proceed in no other way than by peaceful secession and noncooperation. All the while my AK-47 in easy reach. I invite you to be our comrade in arms and let us strike down our leftist enemies. Oh, right, my mistake, how silly of me, forgive me. For a moment I thought you live in my political hemisphere.

Italienische Reise

2011-11-22T22:19:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: We have decided to escape "The Bird." No gobble, gobble for us this Thanksgiving but pure cucina Trinacria. And no Sicilian Vespers either; a climb up Mt. Etna will be all the adventure we seek. In "Italienische Reise" Goethe writes, "To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is to not have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything." I can't wait to unravel the mysteries. I hope these first few days will be the beginning of a lifetime. As long as I don't run into the Obamas.

An Emeritus sternly rebukes an Austrian (ἀδιανόητος intended)

2011-11-20T16:21:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Yes, I am aware that these "Lincoln quotes" were written by Reverend William J.H. Boetcker in the early 20th century. They were reprinted in a column by Ann Landers, quoted in a speech by Ronald Reagan, and have been read into the Congressional Record. I apologize for my Cindy Crawford level of humor. However, I thought this is just what the subject matter requires. Our president is an unserious person, deserving unserious treatment. He reminds me of my High School friends going wild with their spit balls. For Barrack Obama we‘ll have to find a new category of description. Using the “Peter Principle” to describe this hopelessly incompetent moron is wholly insufficient. Official Washington, composed of people I wouldn’t want to be seen with in public, laugh at the president and ridicule him, including more than a handful of his party members. Having him in The White House is bizarre and cause for our nation to be deeply ashamed. Having populated Our House with mass murderers, whoremongers, traitors, mountebanks and rowdies this is saying a mouthful. I do not belong to the faux patriots and worshippers of that delitescent city on a shining hill, but a president of ours should nevertheless have a minimum standard of decorum. Our present White House roomer's Weltanschauung is that of a punker slut, of a delinquent adolescent. We have to spend $ 1 Million a day to house and entertain him. An Affront formidable to our dignity! By the time his tenure is up, being called a racist will be a honorific salute. There is nothing, absolutely nothing about this rake I find endearing. He has no grace, no class, no humor.

Never has there been a president with the middle name Leroy.

2011-11-19T20:18:00.003+01:00

Caro Mio Professore Primissimo: If elections would be decided by one vote I'd surely register. I would have fun. Just to piss you liberals off I'd elect Senator San(c)torum to be president. You are daydreaming of an Alito free Supreme Court. Your forces can't sustain their White House occupations long enough to ever make a difference. Kagan and Sotomayor? What's next? Pooh Baer? Your guys will come close but never get the cigar. Obama is best at wrecking trains. He wants to tax Christmas trees? He must have a death wish. Your candidates are ex officio handicapped and mentally stunted, after all they are Liberals, aren't they? Fate will always tease you, but that will be all for you.
On account of his religious beliefs Romney is supposed to be disqualified for the job he is seeking. If this were the case any candidate holding any type of odd views would be barred from The White House. Such ruling would of course foremost affect Liberals. Religion is man made and its purpose is to wield power over its members which freely subjugate itself to the clergy, or shamans, or whomever. The State and its institutions exist for the same purpose: to exercise control. One threatens its disloyal members with hell fire, the other with capital punishment. The result is coercion and violence. Therefore it would be expedient to drown all clergy and politicians. If Mormonism's beliefs are weird and sinister than I would love to discover one religious ideology whose beliefs are healthy and normal. Mormons are as fine a community as one can find in the Inner Mountain West. It's just the fascist calcified leadership in Salt Lake City which detracts. But look to Rome, same situation. The hierarchy is arrogant, power hungry and, per definitionem, tone deaf. However, there is one big difference. One may leave a church. The worst consequence may be ostracism. But no matter where you are you'll have to worship some form of government. You can't escape Leviathan. It's just too good of a racket for "them." And they simply cannot afford to ignore the freedom riders. Thus the violence.
Too bad insufferable Newton is ethically challenged and won't go far. In presidential debates he would leave Obama, more so than usual, imbecillically stuttering. Way too early anyway for Obama to get all giggly and punch happy. Hillary is way too power hungry to let this opportunity pass. And don't expect the first lady of Arkansas to be as melanin sensitive as you are. "Black" always had only one meaning for her: "household help." Both Clintons, southern "White Trash" royalty, will ruthlessly and with great delight take on the one "who would have served them tea just a few years ago." Now, don't get all self righteous on me, this is how it is. After all, I am the one who was never served his mint julep by the black help. By the way how do you excuse our president's racist remark about the yellow peril? Go, Dr. Paul, go!

How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam Is Dying Too) by David P. Goldman (Spengler)

2011-11-18T09:57:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Almost 40 years ago C. and I got married and in short succession had 5 children. In the meantime we reached the count of seven glorious grandchildren, (hopefully) with no end in sight. Hostile relatives, mean friends, enemies and strangers on the street used to get into our faces because of our contribution to overpopulation. A non existing problem, just like global warming, conjured up by fevered minds. We were asked if we are aware of contraception. Enter Goldman's book. It is a tour de force. Goldman lets the Europeans know that their post-national, secular dystopia is a death trap whence no one would get out alive. He tells the Muslims that nothing would alleviate the unbearable sense of humiliation and loss that globalization inflicted on a civilization that once had pretensions to world dominance. He tells Asian nations (mainly Zhonghua) that materialism leads only to despair. And he tells us that our smugness will be our undoing. USA and Israel will be the only nations which will demographically survive. Thus America, as well as Israel, will have a chance, while Islamic nations, Europe as a whole, and Russia will inevitably collapse. But to make sure we survive, first we must get rid of him who calls himself president of the USA. Obama is a punk. A street marauder. He insults, he attacks, he taunts, he humiliates. He is absolutely not presidential. He knows neither comity nor maturity. He ambushes, degrades and insults people. Take heart, Daniel Klein of The Atlantic tells us, not only Liberals are stupid but so are Conservatives. And right he is. To all those critical of our family policies and politics, have no fear, our children will pay for your Social Security income, your medical insurance, change your diapers, and pick you up from the street should you fall down. And, go, Dr. Paul, go! [Also strongly recommended Mark Steyn's After America: Get Ready for Armageddon and America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It]. Why do 'they' call Mrs. Clinton Hitlery?

Atheism vs.Theism? There is no resolution.

2011-11-17T13:02:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: I look forward to the grand human spirit, yet to be born in a manger, coddled by a virgin and watched over by a cuckolded old coot and live animals, introduced by the author of the narrative to appease the vegetarians. Are you familiar with Mary's post Annunciation interview? John King from CNN (no relation to the Three) asked Mary how sex was with god. Full of ecstasy and rupture she stammered: divine. Imagine what Joseph had to live up to! O.k., I know, I know, we went through it already once. But it didn't work. The Romans nailed him to the cross. We need a da capo performance without the cross. Mankind is in need of a Heiland who will take his syncretistic hammer and hit the all encompassing, all including nail squarely on the head and deeply drive it into our fragmented hearts. But, will it make us stop stirring? Will we give up the hunt for the one simple sentence explaining all being? Will we stop asking to be or not to be? Will the man from the land of Uz cease to suffer? In any case, it will explain non posse non peccare. The cause for our misery and tears is not our verdarbte Natur. Certainly not because creation is lacking the helping hand of C.S. Lewis' cloying god. We are condemned to misery, sin, sickness, disease, war, death and president Obama because we are, indeed, the measure of all things, not some metaphysical being no one has ever heard from or seen (Dr. Szasz: "When you talk to god you are praying, when god talks to you they'll take you away in a paddy wagon"). Well, the Biblical account is just belles lettres. Especially after the 7th century BCE it's just good stories. Although they are, having studied them, quite fascinating stuff. God addresses Moses from a burning bush telling him to take his shoes off because he stands on holy ground. From this account the TSA got the idea. Truly stuff of the edge. Of course there is no god. If there were we wouldn't have a Congress. Can you see an all powerful, all knowing, all good god put up with our form of government? Although I am somewhat suspicious about Obama. He looks and acts just too much like a joke god would play on us. The ears give him away. Too much like Alfred E. Neuman! You clearly must be discombobulated. You equate the Wall Street Occupiers with anarchists? I am an anarchist and, believe me, they are no such thing. I am heir to Lysander Spooner and Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin and we would never pee and defecate in the streets and certainly not on each other. I am an anarchist who believes in order and would never throw old ladies down stairs, rape underage kids or wildly copulate in a tent by sub zero temps. The Wall Street Occupiers are filthy leftist scum. No wonder you would like to connect them to us outstanding law-abiding patriotic anarcho-capitalist libertarian citizens. I do agree it is quite possible Obama will make it for another term. But you shouldn't worry about the possibility of reelection, you should break out in cold sweat over its probability. Obama is a piece of dead meat. Even Newt would pound him into coarse nuggets. I do not embrace Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris. All three are very militantly anti-theistic. Their efforts have the odiferous stench of anti-religious sentiment. To deny the existence of god will fail just as its affirmation. There is no way to know. The heavens are silent. When attending funerals I always check out the coffin. I have never found a sentient being, only very stiff and cold, sometimes "ripe," bodies. Imagine, finally god will not bother me anymore! Hail glorious death!

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: Twilight zone

2011-11-15T16:40:00.001+01:00

Dearest Emeritus: As an anarcho-capitalist libertarian, fiercely anti State, anti War and staunchly pro free market (and proud charter member of the Hohenfels CCC), I fully understand that my electronic messages are an irritant, especially for a dyed-in-the-wool socialist Lutheran. Considering Luther's position during the Bauernkriege it is to my unceasing amazement how you are able to live with such a severe contradictio.

Even though you have confessed your political proclivities, I am still not sure how far reaching they are. Do the members of the Rhinebeck politbureau address you as 'Herr Reichsleiter' or 'Gospod Commissar'? No difference, really. However, there is one thing certain concerning your left leaning attitudes. 'Collectivism' is tattooed on your left buttocks. A UMBC friend ratted you out. Please, don't ask, it's too delicate. Liberal racism (a celebrated virtue among the left cognoscenti, as is virulent anti-Semitism) fears colored folks will leave the secure confines of the plantation and consequently demand their right to not only voice their opinion but – gasp! - to have it heard and acknowledged, too. In that enlightened state of political Sein they just might vote en masse for Ron Paul. Wouldn't that be the culmination of uppity? But as long as you don't allow your most important voting block to come-of-age (a little Bonhoeffer bon mot), you'll be safe. Hitler, too, knew it would be to his advantage to keep the Bürger in the dark (pun not intended). By the way, do you keep up on the misdeeds of the current administration? Cronyism, incompetence, stonewalling, evasion and smears? I didn't think so. The myth sounds much more palatable. Official Washington knows what corruption is and the Obama administration is the master of oleaginous criminal dealings in the dark.

The President signed an executive order titled Promoting Efficient Spending declaring, “I direct agency heads to take even more aggressive steps to assure the government is a good steward of taxpayer money.” If Dubya, heck, any predecessor, had thought of this stunning and mind blowing solution we certainly wouldn't be in the mess we are in now. Thanks to god we have a national σωτήρ in The White House. One stroke of the pen and our problems are solved. Who would have thought of that? Now, even I am tempted to work for such a genius' reelection.

The Denial of Death

2011-11-13T13:05:00.001+01:00

Dear Emeritus: Why do leftists react so petulantly when one dares to differ with their lofty opinions? Could a possible cause be that leftists have a predilection to party among themselves in spite of their slavish devotion to multiculturalism because they really can't stand differences in mind and 'body'? The latter refers to liberals' pernicious racism. But their maids still come from Nicaragua, right? I assume because they are more easily exploited than African-American ones. I was told the reason for the liberals' preference for help from below the Rio Grande is that the women south of the border keep their nails short and won't break them as easily than your wives' when – god forbid - they have to do your dirty dishes. Such are the priorities of the liberal rich. I just read a description of Michael Moore's mansion. What a phony!

When I read a critique of Christianity, I always wonder why people go through the effort again and again? It is unnecessary, because the Enlightenment already did a good job destroying its pretenses of being a spiritual and intellectual phenomenon. And impossible, because it is undistinguishable from the ideas and history of occidental culture, arts and sciences. In view of Christianity's tremendously overwhelming permanence isn't it also misleading to attack its practices? Don't we agree there is a wide gap between what it teaches and how it acts? A discrepancy in which Christianity flourished for many centuries? If the pope, Luther, Hernán Cortés, et alia, are really identical with the Jesus of the Sermon of the mount then surely the idea of Christianity is unsound and foul. The place for those who follow Jesus is on the margins. Feuerbach is quite correct. The calling to clerical positions, always celebrated as divine intervention in one's life, does not come from 'above' but arises in one's dysfunctional and, as in my case, very sick psyche. There is no divine revelation. Only men's desire for life eternal. I always recommend Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death. He and Otto Rank are virtually unknown. As truth tellers always are. w

Hyperbole in defense of conviction

2011-11-10T20:16:00.001+01:00

When I listen to the countess' Dove sono i bei momenti I am rendered powerless over my emotions. Mozart's genius in musically expressing a mocked and shamed spouse dissolves all my lowly male chauvinistic arrogance. As I age, more and more I seek solace and shelter in divine language. When God created music he must have thought of those of us who are in special need of redemption. I remember sitting, a teenager, in the local theater listening for the first time to Franco Corelli singing Cavaradossi's Recondita armonia. At that moment I was persuaded that life is worth living. With music like that how bad can it be? At that time I lacked the ability to darkly imagine that a base creature like Obama could even exist; a so thoroughly corrupt night crawler which causes one to appreciate the catholic teaching of original sin. You unerringly categorized Dubya as a fungus gnat, a subspecies of the dirt fly. That selfsame clear eyed judgment, so firmly and persuasively at work in Dubya's case, is, to my everlasting sorrow, totally absent in the case of the Chicago sewer rat. Obama is a cypher, just like many of his predecessors. An empty suit. A strutting peacock. He means nothing. He is nothing. He only detracts. His presidency is stuck on "Underachievement." When, not if, he attacks Iran you will finally be forced to save your own liberal purity and dump (on) him or share his infamy. And I will have a front row seat stomping, applauding and loudly cheering the final act of the Prince of Darkness (pun intended). Go, Dr. Paul, go!

Movimento politico Lega Nord per l'indipendenza della Padania

2011-11-08T17:21:00.001+01:00

After a week's break to tend to grandchildren I find Europe still fears the break up of Greece, but mostly Italy's. For Homer Εὐρώπη was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. For collectivist "Bruxelles" it is neither mythological nor geographical but subject to exert its dictatorial powers. However, the political elite will fail in establishing an enduring USSR of Europe as it will fail with its plans for a USSR of the U.S.A. Among TIME's list of 10 aspiring nations the Second Vermont Republic is my favored for it would put the plural back into the United States of America which it lost after the most heinous president of them all successfully destroyed the Confederation of Republics and murdered hundreds of thousands of its citizens. The other nine on TIME's list, Scotland, The Basque Country, Tibet, South Ossetia, Kurdistan, Quebec, Western Sahara, The Republic of Cascadia, and Padania, too, all worthy candidates for freedom, inspire hope and confidence in peoples' desire for independence and liberty. Due to the Stupid Party's self-destructive streak it looks ever more likely that you'll get your wish and a confused electorate will return a most cretinous president for a second round of destruction. I do not vote because I do not endorse evil. But evil it will be nevertheless. I can't think of nothing more depressing than a second term for the most incompetent and inadequate president in our history. Bumper sticker (as seen in Rhinebeck, center of the New York State Sheep and Wool festival): "If you voted for Obama in 2008 to prove you're not a racist, you'll have to vote for someone else in 2012 to prove you're not an idiot." I have searched high and low my soul, conscience, brain and bowels to find a reason to support Obama. I found none. Go, Dr. Paul, go!

Philosophia est ancilla Theologiae

2011-10-26T13:44:00.002+02:00

Dear Emeritus: It finally dawned on me why you prefer an all powerful, all oppressing and all controlling State to personal liberty and general freedom. You expect the State to control all the unwashed, those listening to conservative talk radio – especially to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh - expecting you'll be left alone to live your life, independent, free and unmolested from the thugs running the State for the sole reason that you are an enlightened, mature, caring and giving bleeding heart. The fibbertigibbet occupying The White House, and who counts on your believes for his political longevity, needs to meet his Matamoros before he will harm our commonweal beyond repair. By the way, is it true you genuflect and cross yourself when facing a presidential likeness? I already know how the Obamanites will handle their man's electoral destruction. The legacy legend will be that he was simply too good for us - and in despair many will jump to their death. Dealing with Obama causes me to think about Jesus. Didn't the latter walk on water, too? Increasingly I am subjected to strictly antireligious impulses. All those prejudices, illusions and baseless, unfounded, unsupported ideas which during the time when philosophy served as handmaiden for supreme theology were transfixed in our minds should be systematically eradicated in order to make the way free for an unhindered expansion of human knowledge. To free our thinking of all idols won't just help us to discover the undisguised natural world but hopefully will lead also to insights that will dislodge all irrational thought from our consciousness. Mainly that there is a god and we will live forever. The only one able to stop us from going over the cliff is the good medicus from Texas. Go, Ron Paul, go!

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. H. L. Mencken

2011-10-24T19:08:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: Did you know Washington National Airport was renamed Tempelhof in Obama's honor? "The Constitution is just a god damn piece of paper," said Dubya. I can't think of anything I'd agree with this miserable Nazi-spawn but compared to the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union Hamilton's pro government document is definitely inferior. However, The Patriot Act, a most consequential piece of legislation, gleefully pushed through by a slobbering, obliging, spittle-licking congress made up of mental midgets will gain Dubya eternal status as son of perdition. The crime syndicate populating the swamps lining the Potomac give a damn about us, The People. Alas, the pitcher is taken to the well until at last it breaks. But until then we'll be cursed to go all the way, drinking the Hemlock to the dregs. It is our punishment for electing guys lacking honor and wisdom for high office. The peoples' commonweal is always checked off last. The cause of instability and insecurity is always and exclusively government. Yet we are like a junkie, we cannot pass a voting booth without gaily supporting the political riff-raff. Our presidents kill and we celebrate those high profile murders as foreign policy successes. What a sick people we are!

Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken (Bertrand Russell)

2011-10-21T11:04:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: As in the cases of global warming and the historicity of Jesus, the Nazorean. Hermann Detering, in his new book "Falsche Zeugen. Außerchristliche Jesuszeugnisse auf dem Prüfstand" shows that all non-Christian sources trying to prove Jesus' historical existence are unreliable. I am amazed that even atheists believe Jesus is historical. Googling L.H. Lehmann I came across an article in the January, 1946, issue of The Converted Catholic Magazine entitled "Pope Pius XII" which began as follows: "The Prompta Bibliotheca, an official Roman Catholic almanac published by the press of Propaganda Fide in Rome, in its article under "Papa," state: The Pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is not a mere man, but as it were, God, and the Vicar of Christ. The Pope is of such lofty dignity that, properly speaking, he has not been established in any rank of dignity, but has been placed upon the very summit of all ranks of dignities. He is likewise the Divine Monarch and Supreme Emperor, and King of Kings. The Pope is of so great authority and power that he can modify, explain or interpret even divine laws." Any wonder the Roman catechism has Jesus wander the hills of Galilee? Archeology reveals that Nazareth was not inhabited during the time Jesus is supposed to have lived there.

Only divine intervention can revive Obama's political corpse. I am certain in case of the president's ouster the Rev. Sharpton will accuse god himself of being a racist. The swath of ubiquitous devastation left in the wake of the Obama presidency is simply too much of an obstacle to reelecting Barry, the Putz. Only liberal maniacs anymore have faith in the impossible. Your reference to demography has validity. But once in the country total conversion to the free market is irresistible. Your duly noted hostility towards the white man is indeed very revealing as it is disturbing. Quite unworthy an intellect of your stature.

Last year Prof. Altizer was interviewed by all-round Drewite DDr. Robert M. Price (Biblical scholar extraordinaire) On Point of Inquiry (CFI podcast). The normally intellectually very fastidious listening audience was rather lost, as one could gather from the commentaries. Altizer is in his early eighties but lucid and quick witted as always. We need an Altizer revival.

Kulturgeschichte

2011-10-20T09:44:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: Dubya was obsessed with wanting to be a better warlord than his father, capo di tutti capi of the Bush clan crime syndicate. He certainly is as good a thug as his CIA father (who was in Dallas the day JFK was murdered) and fascist grandfather Prescott. But what is Obama's excuse for being so utterly sanguinary? His father was a womanizing Harvard reject, fired from his government job by Kenyatta and, after his third car accident, died a drunk. What's there to emulate? I understand why Berry Jr. returned Churchill's bust to the Queen but what's with the 'outdubyaing' Dubya on the imperial battlefields? War is a sickness, a pernicious disease, dehumanizing, never a solution. You have stopped eating meat because of your concern for the anguished and suffering animals. Will you show the same concern for your fellow men and stop voting for mass murderers?

West Virginia's most famous son and grandest theologian of them all, Thomas Altizer, most worthy heir of Nietzsche, believes America to be a semi-barbarous nation if only because it has no history. Indeed, we have a fully barbarous government joyfully killing and maiming around the globe cheered on by a populace which believe the Himalayas are a succulent Caribbean dish. I agree with James Baldwin (now there is a genuine African-American I revere, respect and whose books I read) saying that the Chartres cathedral is not part of his past. Although it is part of the history of those immigrants having arrived here (not in chains) from the Occident. Obama, of course, has no clue about any of this. If we want to be a moral people we need to stop to be patsies and cease electing poseurs as presidents who don't know where or even what the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres is and what it represents (hint: it's not a liqueur). Go, Dr. Paul. go!

There must be an Oz, otherwise whereto does the Golden Brick Road lead?

2011-10-16T19:55:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: The accusation that the knuckle dragging GOP troglodytes want to drive the [N-word] from The White House, demonstrates not only the accusers' paucity of creative thinking and moral decay in general but more so their lack of decency and a profound inability to think well. The accusation of racism is the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel. The left can't face the obvious. The president is incompetent. Insufficienter in summa! The liberal mind refuses to grasp the truth that our president is not qualified for the job. So, it has to be those ugly racists. There is something good and wholesome resulting from the liberal crackup: Liberalism's decertification process from being part of our national political discourse is briskly advancing. The façade of competence has been shattered a long time ago. In hindsight I realize how naïve I was. I fully expected Obama to kill the Hegemon and lift our νόμος. Instead he gave us Dubya's third term. I can't think of anything worse to say about our hayseed president. No wait, I can! We are at the end of the golden brick road, ripping away the curtain, and all, in unisono, are crying out: "A popinjay!" David Axelrod sold us Obama as president with extraordinary talents. We painfully found out he doesn't even have ordinary ones.

A revolutionary diet

2011-10-13T21:44:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: Of late, and rather inexplicably, I have been gaining weight. Tracing my diet (consisting of Oatmeal and Pears) and exercise protocol (daily hour-long rides on my recumbent Green Speed gt5) I was hoping to find the cause for my plump amplitude. In the shower I just happened to glance at my shampoo bottle. And there, printed very clearly on the label, is this warning: "FOR EXTRA VOLUME AND BODY!" Having used the shampoo daily I wasn't surprised that I had gained all that fat. Of course, I immediately got rid of the shampoo and, after lengthy research, I am going to use Dawn® dish soap! Its label offers the perfect solution: "DISSOLVES FAT THAT IS OTHERWISE DIFFICULT TO REMOVE." It pays to go to Graduate School and – of course -to support Ron Paul.

Is this finally the dawning of the Age of Aquarius?

2011-10-13T11:47:00.001+02:00

With Cain climbing to first place in the Stupid Party's primary race I thought this must be paradise for you. Two African-American dudes to choose from. Then I realized Cain is indeed of the politically correct color, he even has slave mud running in his veins, but – darn – his address doesn't indicate he lives on a plantation. Doesn't that make him, for dyed-in-the-wool liberals, a no-go? So, it isn't about color, is it? It always has been about ideology. That 'jazz' about race, gender, color, creed, and all that, is just eye and ear candy for the gullible, easily manipulated electorate. President Obama's one-term, as great a damage as it is doing to our national and global common weal, is nevertheless a great gift to all right-thinking people worldwide. It is bringing about the dawn of ideological enlightenment, the exorcism of Karl's ghost and the end of leftist thought which Rozalia Luksenburg of Zamość in Poland and Karl Liebknecht from Leipzig in Germany so fervently revered. Time to bring the Österreichische Nationalökonomie to bear on the universe and put an end to Marxism and all its derivative nonsense, like Fascism and Communism. It's time for anarcho-capitalist libertarianism, then end of the state and wars, for free markets to rise and bring about paradise on earth. Go, Dr. Paul, go!

Benediktus sedicesimo

2011-10-12T23:54:00.001+02:00

I am – again - seriously considering – cross my heart - to stay off a certain subject. It must be painful for you by now. Probably torturous. But Obama is such a dud it is even embarrassing for me as a reviler to beat up on the guy any longer. Although it is a lot of fun and satisfaction. However, I was raised by a god fearing man who instilled in me to have respect for retired emeritos and such like honorable geezers. Am reading Hans Albert's Das Elend der Theologie (The Misery of Theology). Albert is making mincemeat of Küng's theology. Next time around I'll study forestry. On the occasion of His Holiness' visit to the Vaterland the media were filled with anti-Popish stuff. I feel about Ratzinger just like you do about Obama. I adore the man. The pope's naïveté and scientific dishonesty re his theological understanding of the world, its history and events was pilloried, ridiculed and scorned. One by one my idols are falling. However, you, eternal hero of mine, still over-toweringly stand fixed and unmoved on your pedestal. Although your Obama worship positively detracts.

Bullgeschichte

2011-10-08T18:48:00.001+02:00

Eminentissime Monseigneur Le Grand Maitre: Are you condemning the outrageous, aggressive, war-mongering, murderous, invading, occupying, with abandon assassinating, totally corrupt, lying and thieving Obama administration and the president's doggish, fawning, obsequious servility for corporate America with the same intensity you did the actions and policies of the previous administration which, you claim, is incarnate evil? Yet, in a frightening display of fawning adoration you forgivingly drool over the least trustworthy charlatan to ever occupy The White House. Judging by the way Barry and Michelle embarrassingly abuse their White House privileges and perks shows them to be cheap and tawdry Schmarotzers. What a repulsively loathsome couple. And to think both will be staying in the swamp of iniquity for a second term paralyzes and retards my impedimenta. Oh, by the way, if anyone wonders about the meaning of Bullgeschichte - it is the subject of my graduate studies. A strikingly pleasant and very warm six week Altweibersommer in the Oberpfalz is passé. Fall, with low temperatures and rain, has arrived. Snow clouds gather on the Czech horizon. The oil tanks have been refilled and the beech logs are piled high behind the house. Parsley and chives have been replanted and sit on the sunny kitchen sill. The green speed gt5, not yet oiled, cleaned, greased, lubricated and suspended from the barn ceiling for the Winter, still sits expectantly in the garage. We both hope for a few more extraordinary sunny and warm days for traversing the stunningly gorgeous, still snow free landscape of what is, hands down, one of the more remarkable parts of Germany. And, yet, I am prepared to return to the States at the ready to flash my fangs at the monster on the Potomac. This unfortunate presidency needs to be vanquished, eliminated and utterly destroyed. Howgh!

It is conservatism, not liberalism, that takes society seriously. Liberalism preaches confident social engineering by the regulatory state. Conservatism urges government humility in the face of society’s creative complexity! (Dr. Will)

2011-10-05T17:48:00.001+02:00

Everywhere I read of the plebeian resistance to Obama's reelection growing and hardening. And, yet, I am fearful the monster will rear its ugly head for four more years – and beyond. Whence, you ask, the deep insecurity and stark fear? The sinister agenda of the malevolent powers of darkness festering in Mordor on the Potomac have fraudulently planned the ultimate deceptive imposition of the total state concomitant with the destruction of liberty, freedom, independence, anarcho-capitalism, free markets and individualism. The sheer nightmarish horror of the Obama freak show causes breathing difficulties. In cold sweat I lie awake nights overcome with sheer fright and terror. Will no one rid us of this turbulent community organizer and his "I-am-taking-expensive-trips-at the-expense-of-the-taxpayers," haggish he-wife?

The Liberals' Empire

2011-10-02T19:14:00.003+02:00

Dear Emeritus: The Media are calling Herman Cain bigoted and racist. Of course, it's never been about age, disability, equal pay & compensation, genetic information, national origin, pregnancy, race, color, religion, creed, retaliation at the place of work, sexual orientation, sexual harassment, et alia¹ It always, only and exclusively, has been about political persuasion. Political ideology trumps all. Remember Clarence Thomas? "Slave mud" running in his veins made no difference. He was subjected to a high tech lynching (as he himself put it) because for the liberal senators he was of the wrong political persuasion. In The American Language, H.L. Mencken, quite correctly, substitutes Hypocrisy for Liberalism. If anything good will come of Obama's 'post-racial'² one and only term in office, it will have become for evermore obvious that Liberals are using and have used the accusation of "Racism"³, not to express moral outrage, but as cudgel to gain political favor and advantage. The corrective to decades of louts, thugs, mass murderers, thieves and liars, and other miscellaneous vermin in the District of Columbia is the genius of Dr. Ron Paul.
¹ Et alia is Latin for whatever.
² Used here purely sardonically.
³ Jesse Jackson's only positive contribution to the common weal is his insistence upon using the address African-American. It is indeed pernicious and insipid to address a person by the color of his skin.

The Incredible Shrinking Community Organizer

2011-10-01T09:50:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: In China pregnant women without birth permits are hunted down like criminals by the population planning police (why is it that dictatorships are so fond of Orwellian language?) and have their children forcibly aborted. The degree of control and coercion of ordinary spermatized women in communist China should be shocking to anyone who upholds and values the cardinal moral truths that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by God with certain unalienable rights. As a connoisseur of all things "chinoise" do you know how the Chinese treat their animals?

It’s no secret that Ralph Nader and I have held the Democratic Party and its corrupt millionaire warmongering leaders in low esteem for a long time now: as with so much about the Obama presidency, shabby, incompetent, corrupt, disappointing and inadequate don’t even begin to describe the lowly and lonely depths of leftist disappointment, with, of course, one 'emerital' exception. Yet he says there is one candidate who sticks out—who even gives him hope: Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. I always liked Ralph Nader.

"I'm a sap, a specific kind of sap. I'm an Obama Sap," admits David Brooks. Tina Brown now says of the president: "He wasn't ready, it turns out, really." When will you be ready, albeit gnashing your teeth, to admit that you voted for a preposterously farcical, unqualified community organizer as commander-in-chief who would be regarded as a joke candidate even in Bulgaria? We are at the point where you don't even have to tell an Obamanite why you are beating the shit out of him. He already knows why.

You derogatorily commented on Christopher James "Chris" Christie's education. I realize being an attorney, as is the case with our President, doesn't necessarily indicate intelligence and high ethical and moral predilections. But why bother with comparisons? Any which way, Obama's charred toast (not a racial slur!).

Discovering the Riches of Life

2011-09-29T23:55:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus peregrinator: From your itineraries' subject lines I am able to deduce your pensum. It would give a much younger guy dyspnoea; at the least, make him blush for shame. It is also the first time that you've used the adjective 'müde.' Does it hint at less busy times to come? The Bachmann video was a weak attempt on my part to mischievously provoke your libido while on the road. Your delirium politicum, caused by acute 'Obamania,' is about to cause a full fledged breakdown of your sensorium. The only thing Democrats will gain in 2012 are subpoenas, hand cuffs, and hard labor in a quarry. I fully understand why you wouldn't vote for a guy like Romney. Neither would I. He straps the family dog to the roof of the car when he goes on vacation. If he is capable of such cruelty to animals what would he do to the brown people in the Middle East? The time has come for the rise of the good Texan Medicus. Let's hear thunderous applause for Dr. Paul, president par excellence. All things equal, Obama should walk away with the grand prize. And he surely will walk away – empty handed. No president ever, has been in such a misbegotten position a year before the election. He should pull an LBJ and walk away from the shame of losing a fight he'll never was born to win. I haven't yet watched a GOP candidates cattle show, it's been way too painful to watch the Orioles (thank god for the end of the season!). Instead, I am about in my greenspeed gt5®, traversing and conquering the hills and dales of the Oberpfalz, the original paradise, with Diogenes Allen's Theology for a Troubled Believer in my knapsack. I find myself in a state of grace, allowed to unconditionally love and be loved, knowing I have been for a very long time! Prosit!

There is freedom outside ἐκκλησία

2011-09-27T18:25:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: Don Cupitt (in Taking Leave of God) writes that one can be a spiritual Christian without buying into the supernatural claims of the Christian faith. Being an occidental Catholic (universal) Christian means to be free from denominational chains celebrating one's culture, heritage and traditions. Life provides moments of complete happiness, not unlike the one described in Mt.11,25.28: "Jesus says, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to the little children. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." How simple and joyful would our lives be if we could see the beauty in the heart of the other; if we could trust the other without fear of betrayal. There are moments when life's disorder dissolves into pure happiness, when we become like children - able to see God. This is an apt moment to make a smooth transition to the subject of what does not constitute presidential temperament. Saying, when people suffer destruction and loss,“You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change," is nasty, vicious and mean spirited. El máximo líder, Comandante en Jefe, Cuba's Fidel Castro, lest there be doubt who is in charge of the island paradise, blasted our minimo lider's speech to the United Nations as "gibberish," accusing our Barry justifying the "unjustifiable" in a rambling address. "Who understands the gibberish of the president of the United States before the General Assembly?" Castro asked. Far be it from me to argue with your go-to guy, the grandest, most glorious Stalinist dictator in our hemisphere.

"How art thou fallen from heaven, o Lucifer, Son of the Morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!" (Isaiah 14:12)

2011-09-26T00:07:00.001+02:00

This scripture does not refer to our 44th president. Those pretending to be Bible geeks believe Isaiah refers here to the somewhat weird Gnostic myth about a war in heaven. Not at all, let me assure you! Lucifer (carrier of the light) is not Beelzebub but Venus (named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty). It is the second brightest natural object in the night sky. The brightest being Luna. It reaches its maximum brightness shortly before sunrise or shortly after sunset. Venus is the dazzling morning or evening star, and, after a glorious run, disappears from the morning skies. Thus the question, "How art Thou fallen?" If the Republican candidates deserve the epitheton ornans Pygmy, then what to call the "Birthers?" In the presidential election we do not cast a direct vote for a candidate. We are voting for an elector who will be "pledged" to vote for a candidate. The "Birthers" ought to pay attention to the Second Article of our Constitution and to the 12th Amendment (1804). The Electoral College, after voting in the first round for the pledged candidate, are then free to vote for whomever they please. Just like a Jury is free to decide, ignoring the instructions of the Judge, so is the College, too, not bound to vote for the popularly elected candidate. Since the Electoral College is autonomous in its decision, Barrack Hussein Obama is our constitutionally elected president. However, even though the GOP candidates are pygmies, compared to Obama all of them are towering giants and each one of them would beat him. Yes, indeed, even the criminal from Texas. That guy is a phony. But, fear not, Dr. Paul will be the last man standing. What are you mumbling ... ?

In the Beginning Was the Word (not a reference to Obama)

2011-09-23T22:40:00.001+02:00

Eminentissime Domine: Faust falters when he attempts to translate: "In the beginning was the Word!" (John 1,1). "It is impossible," Faust ruminates, "the Word so high to prize, I must translate it otherwise, if I am rightly by the Spirit taught. 'Tis written: In the beginning was the Thought!" (der Sinn). Faust considers: "Is it then thought that works, creatively, hour by hour? Thus should it stand: In the beginning was the Power!" (die Kraft). But Faust can't be right; raw energy alone is not creative enough. The Spirit guides him and Faust is assured what to write: "In the beginning was the Act!" (die noble Tat). Goethe is quite right. When the Bible refers to the word of God it also means act of creation. We are because God said so. In the beginning was the word: our lives are created and guided by divine wisdom. Goethe, a secularist, knew, like many of his contemporaries, the Bible from cover to cover. I have this inordinate fear (nightmares, actually) that, absent an electable GOP candidate (I know, I know: contradictio in adjecto), the national nightmare will drag on for another four years. But, just in case, I am memorizing the lyrics for the election night dirge: "Born in the USA."

Barrack Ozymandias Hussein Obama II The Great

2011-09-20T14:27:00.001+02:00

Dearest Emeritissimus: As a stern commissar of the left, right about now, I assume, you are probably prepared to send me to a labor camp (Konzentrationslager) for the simple reason that I do not worship your god, the State, and am unwilling to kiss the feet of His deputy Barry Ozymandias Hussein, who, were he the moon, would be waning to, fer sure, never wax again. But, since he comes from a never ebbing line of criminals, there will be another thug to replace him. And so on. Ad infinitum. 44 and going. For Lysander Spooner, one of my heroes, the supporters of government consist largely of “dupes” and “knaves.” The latter use government to gain wealth. The dupe thinks he is a free man, a sovereign. That his is a “free government,” “a government of equal rights,” “the best government on earth,” the "greatest country" ever and such like absurdities, inanities and silliness. Then there is a third class. To which I belong. We have some understanding of the evils of government, but do not see a way to get rid of it, or do not choose to sacrifice our private and selfish interests. We are neither seriously nor earnestly willing to work of making a change. How could we anyway? We live overseas! And we love it. We even have McDonald's (fleur de haute cuisine).

From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot! Leftism is a disastrous ideology!

2011-09-16T09:25:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: Identity or Diversity? Equality or Liberty? Constitution or Liberalism? Right or Left? "Fairness" or competition? Dirigisme or Free Market? This is why, as much as Obama begs me to love him, I don't, don't want to, can't. I don't believe him to be an evil, destructive Red menace as so many undifferentiated consciousnesses make him out to be. He is misguided. It's just that Progressivism/Socialism/Leftism is an inconsistent and illogical ideology. It may sound good in the Aula but totally fails in the 'real world.' Therefore, as president he sucks beaucoup out the gazoo, out the wazoo, up the yin-yan! We both may believe Obama to be a likable chap but his ideology and executive incompetence inspire my visceral dislike. I very much enjoy it when the Stupid Party tries to derail his every effort. It is deeply satisfying that the media has swung from fawning to scowling. I look forward when the Democrats' disappointment turns to open hostility. All of the US will turn against him, just like the '9th District.' Hopefully, he and his administration soon come to an ignominious end. I want him driven from the the District of Columbia, this cesspool of corruption, lewd behavior and crime. I just see farce where others celebrate governing. I thought no other president will be able to bring us as low as Dubya. But 'Obummer' succeeded, adding derisiveness to the mess. How many more of his speeches must we endure before everyone turns off the radio. His ideas and proposals aren't working. Of course, never will. His administration needs and will be an epic failure. Liberalism is destined to fail – always. After Bubba failed (and Robert Reich quit), he made an abrupt turn - and won reelection. It's anarcho-capitalism or third world squalor! Go, Dr. Paul, go!

We have the first administration in American history that's both fabulously incompetent and destructively anti-American

2011-09-13T21:17:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: I need to get this out of the way - "The New Deal failed to restore economic health. FDR's administration was far from consistent or coherent in its attempts to cope with the Depression..." (I read that in an old edition of The Nation). Why are you so adamant about adhering to your political delusions no matter the evidence? The laws of thermodynamics, these fundamental principles of physics, hold that there is only a finite amount of energy available within a closed system. And the liberal cause has spent it all. Many times Keynes has been persuasively knocked down but Krugmen continue to uphold the oft defeated proposition. I saw the first bumper sticker of the Obama campaign: "2012: 57 States or bust!" By the way, I have found an entheogen, called cannabis which, of course, I exclusively use in spiritual context, and which, for this purpose only, I can wholeheartedly recommend. It has not only elevated my spiritual experiences to new heretofore unknown levels of intensity but also stimulated my somewhat lackluster appetite which, of late, has led to an alarming loss of weight. Gennifer Flowers to Bill Clinton, in Passion and Betrayal, page 42: “There’s something you need to know. I’ve been hearing tales around town that Hillary is having another thing with a woman.” I watched his face to see his reaction, and couldn’t believe it when he burst out laughing. I was stunned! I asked him what was so funny. “Honey,” he said, “she’s probably eaten more pussy than I have.”

“You will never believe what the motherfucker did now, he tried to rape some bitch!” – Hillary Clinton, spring 1978, referring to Bill’s rape of Juanita Broaddrick

2011-09-13T08:12:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: Do I have fond memories of the first Southern, extremely ugly and embarrassing potty mouthed white trash couple at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue! Certainly more entertaining than the black Leninists presently occupying the Mansion. But the four do have in common the love for redistribution of wealth (theft) and the truly passionate belief that they know what is best for everyone else (unbridled liberal arrogance). Why do we elect such people? Dostoyevsky has the answer: People want panem et circensem, because they shun the burden of real thought, responsibility, and decision. This is why we consent to be ruled by a murdering, lying gang of thieves instead of rejecting the State, a pit of violence and abuse, and all it does. It's not Washington's deadening and mind numbing lack of ideas, it's that it got the wrong ones.

Judging and condemning by the sentence

2011-09-11T18:29:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: Is 11 settembre 2001 una giornata particolare and the beginning of our inevitable decline? * Edmund Burke on the Obama presidency (yes, indeed!): "A great nation and a little mind go ill together." * I must confess your faith in Obama is, at best, unsettling, at worst, disturbing. * Obama's tosh is wisdom? * The Democrats are worried the message that the president is doing great things and is God's gift to the universe hasn't gotten the people's attention. Au contraire, we hear it loud and clear. * Limbaugh's debate analysis: "They're all better than Obama." Allowing for the gasbag effect, he is about right. * Lew Rockwell: "The absence of capitalism would reduce us to barbarism and utter poverty." * Everything the government touches it ruins. * It turns out the One is just another one. * The model you’ve been following has run aground—morally, socially and fiscally (WSJ). * Sadly, the liberals have become wed to the welfare state’s most debilitating premise—that the sole provider for some of the most important goods and services must be the most inefficient institution in American life: the government (WSJ). * 2012 will give you the chance to confess your sins and - as penance – vote for Dr. Paul. Absolution, of course, is uncertain. * Obama, along with his bagage, stinks to high heaven! * Be careful, January 2013, your surd erotomania for Obama will definitely turn into necrophilia, a crime. * Let me end with a suggestion: reverse the failed policies of the last ten years, severely limit government and bring back a strong dollar. In other words: Go, Dr. Paul, go!

"Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide" (James Burnham)

2011-09-08T20:57:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: I assume you are still possessed by boundless erotomania for our president. This being the case, let me change the subject. High time for another paradigm shift. Rodney Stark, in his God's Battalions. The Case For the Crusades (2009), sums up the prevailing wisdom: "during the Crusades, an expansionist, imperialistic Christendom brutalized, looted, and colonized a tolerant and peaceful Islam." Not so, Stark insists, "the Crusades were precipitated by Islamic provocations: by centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West and by sudden new attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places." The vagaries of memory and the difference between inner truths and hard facts also apply to the history and background of our president. So much for changing the subject, huh? The historical lie is aimed at facts everyone knows. It deceives, abuses and perverts truth through mendacity. The Enlightenment invented the Dark Ages to make the contrast work in its favor. The early Christians forged and created texts, a practice continued by the church, which then they presented to the sheep as divine revelation. Hamlet: "All is not well. I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come! Till then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise, though all the earth overwhelm them, to men’s eyes."

Welcome to the double dip recession

2011-09-01T22:54:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: Actor Clooney on confidence man Obama: " ... look, there’s a guy in office right now who is smarter than almost anyone you know, who’s nicer and who has more compassion than almost anyone you know. And he’s having an almost impossible time governing. Why would anybody volunteer for that job?” Obama has lost the support of many Americans, foremost independents and women, but obviously not and never the far left Hollywood numskulls'. Obama is the candidate of the incoherent pursuing obsolete illusions. On the question of war, empire and morality Obama and the whole lot of Republican candidates are clones of Bush. Dr. Ron Paul is the only contender who is a consistent, principled anti-interventionist, opposed to overseas Empire, and a staunch defender of our civil liberties. Why isn't he the frontrunner? A people without a vision die. But so do people with a wrong one.

Confirmation bias

2011-08-30T09:22:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: I don't intend my electronic mails to be cause for 'sour stomach.' It is easier to change my eating habits than my political convictions. I will need to get it through my head that I won't be able to overcome your confirmation bias. Not, because my arguments are weak and cannot persuade - to the contrary, they represent the obvious truths – but for your tendency to favor information that confirms your preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true. Mencken: "When I hear a man applauded by the mob, I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough." Barack has defiled the Office long enough to attract well deserved 'hisses, boos, and catcalls.' By using deadly force overseas and crude coercion at home, just like his predecessors, our president shows neither imagination nor courage, just like an ill-bred boor. No surprise his administration is crumbling and failing. Even under the most negative, bizarre, "end-of-civilization" scenarios it is increasingly unlikely that our ninnyhammer electorate will fall a second time for Pecksniff. Therefore, no cause to be atrabilious. I am even cautiously optimistic. And don't miss Jeffrey Toobin's revisionist article in The New Yorker on Justice Thomas. For more than twenty years you have been mocking a Black man as an ignorant fool when instead you should have admired "the intellectual audacity, philosophical coherence and historical reflection embedded in his judicial work" (Walter Russell Mead). The Congressional Black Caucus is way ahead of you. Isn't it time for you to catch up by also giving Obama the boot? Liberalism always was a dog which couldn't hunt. 'Washington' was never designed to do anything of importance.

Austrian Economics and Dr. Ron Paul

2011-08-27T22:23:00.000+02:00

While your political and economic ideologies are obviously rooted in the French Revolution, my views (Österreichische Nationalökonomie) originate in the fifteenth century in the University of Salamanca. Disciples of Aquinas (or: proto-Austrians) tried to explain the full range of human action (which is also the title of a seminal book by Ludwig van Mises) and social organization. In Seminary the Jesuits taught us that these Scholastics observed the existence of economic law, inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws. Over the course of several generations, "they discovered and explained the laws of supply and demand, the cause of inflation, the operation of foreign exchange rates, and the subjective nature of economic value." All reasons to celebrate them as the first real economists. The Scholastics were advocates of property rights and the freedom to contract and trade. They celebrated the contribution of business to society, while doggedly opposing taxes, price controls, and regulations that inhibited enterprise. They urged governments to obey ethical strictures and laws against theft and murder (id est, taxation & war). And they lived up to van Mises's rule: the first job of an economist is to tell governments what they cannot do. No surprise then that I immediately recognized what I learned in the Seminary in the anarcho-capitalist materials of the van Mises Institute (Auburn, Alabama), whose publications I took to class to purposefully offend my Marxist committee chair and advisor. He still ignores me to this day and has left note with the Graduate School Office that I am not to be invited when he is on campus (his nickname is Renfield). Those Stalinists are ugly types. Obama, Geithner and Madame Defarge, instead of paying attention to Murray Rothbard's wisdom, only listen to the D.C. and Princeton Jacobins who adoringly genuflect before the omniscient (spying), omni-benevolent (redistribution of wealth) and omnipotent (invading, occupying and killing) central government. Now some good news. Not for philosophical but for health reason was I forced to severely restrict my zoophagous eating habits. I mostly subsist on Oatmeal, Spelt and Gorgonzola. Friends complain I have become boring.

In re: Eugen Drewermann

2011-08-22T20:33:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: Churches ignore their best and brightest. Drewermann persuades to allow the soul to run free. He views the world as having value and men as desiring more. Therefore he proposes to allow God to lead and accompany our lives. Growing up in a repressive and violent home I had to learn to find peace on my own and not allow others to define my life, vision and the search for what it means to be a Mensch. Of course, it helped to have a wife who dragged me screaming and yelling into life by allowing me to learn to let my soul lead the way. Drewermann creates the vision of a world which has value. Life is worth living. He encourages to desire more and allow God to be in our lives. The goal is to live in harmony. Which is a reason why I am not supporting Obama. He sets a discordant note. He is a divider. He revels in dissonance. When you go to Saratoga are you knowingly and willingly backing a loser? Well, of course not! Who wants to be a loser? Then, why are you voting for Obama? He is already the lamest horse in the starting gate. By executive order on August 4, he refuses entry to the US of war criminals and human-rights violators. Of course, he ignores the war crimes committed by the Bush-Cheney administration along with proof that his own administration also violates anti-torture laws and the UN convention. He is not worthy to be president. He befouls the Office. Just like so many of his predecessors.

Stop Clinging to False Hope and Face Reality

2011-08-20T22:49:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: I am not hostile towards Obama. I simply believe he is inadequate for the job. I feel hostility towards those who encourage him to think he is able to fill the suit. You are using Senator Coburn's judgment vouching for the President's intelligence. In what other matters do you call on the Senator's opinion? You believe the president to be a conservative centrist? If that were true you wouldn't worship him. You know he is a fellow traveler hence your support. I seamlessly agree with your view of the ghastly Dubya administration. Just alone for the awful Patriot Act he deserves to be fusilladed. Obama, on the other hand, not only continues Dubya's wars, he opens up new fronts. He is as good a murderer as Dubya. And spending? Obama has accumulated more debt in the first two years of his first and only term than all his predecessors together. Yet, inexplicably you let Obama off the hook. Unless your laissez faire attitude is based on a dissociative disorder, I am at a loss to explain your predilection for shutting both eyes. You want strong government and I present absurd propositions. How to spell c-h-a-s-m? Admit it, the only reason you bring up Ronald Reagan is to embarrass and humiliate me. Ever since returning to Europe I have tried to persuade pilgrims in spe to come along to Santiago. I found no one willing to make a commitment. Now, atrophia cerebri et cerebelli will make it somewhat difficult. I could use my recumbent trike to navigate the Camino but, as planned, climbing and conquering the Pyrenees will not be possible under any circumstances. 1968, the year of my Matura, we read The Population Bomb in English class. Ehrlich predicted that "in the 1970s the world will undergo famines – hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." 1972 the Club of Rome announced the world will – in short order - run out of gold, mercury, tin, zinc, petroleum, copper, lead and gas. 1976 Lowell Ponte asked in The Cooling: Has the New Ice Age Already Begun? Can We Survive? 1977 Jimmy Carter predicted that "we could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade." Then there is Al Gore. Question: why should I believe anything a liberal says? And in conclusion, are you familiar with the Austrian Business Cycle Theory? How do you think the Fed is most dangerous, simply by the amount of debt they buy or because of the business cycle and malinvestments they create?Dr. Paul is able to answer that question. Go, Dr. Paul, go!

"Obama is a slime ball, an opportunistic neoliberal without a shred of moral or intellectual principle" (Alexander Cockburn)

2011-08-19T02:48:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: Even though I am keenly aware that facts won't dislodge your ideology, nor will they get between you and Obama's presidency, I won't give up on my missionary work. The first homunculus president and not a peep from Rhinebeck's Ockham's Razor. In addition you also equate Obama's administration with genuine achievements. I am confounded, thunder- and dumbstruck. Maxine Waters, her caucus and Rev. Jackson are publicly spanking Barry. But since, no matter what, they will support him, he and we can afford to simply ignore them with impunity and shouldn't hope for anything to result from this Storm in a Water Glass. What's a good, decent white middle class boy like me to do when even the Black Caucus of the House of Representatives is down on Obama? Join in, of course. Which reminds me. Why do we have a Black Caucus when race doesn't matter? The empire is sinking into the mire and the president has left the imperial city to luxuriate and frolic with the liberals' crème de la crème on Martha's Vineyard, the Isola di Capri of the rich and famous American socialist elites. "Après moi, le déluge?" Your favorite neoconservative, Stalinist radio talk show host asks where are Obama's (former) girl friends? Does he imply something? What impertinence! He is also wondering why we don't hear from Barry's college buddies and from his Harvard students. Barry's curriculum vitae, he suggests, is just like early Christian documents, made up, forged, and borrowed from other sources.

"Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods" (Mencken).

2011-08-18T00:02:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: I must apologize for pressing and pestering you so hard on the subject of Obama. But I am provoked by your standing up for and defending him. His tour bus is in keeping with the defining theme of his campaign: a huge cloddy black outsized monstrous metal tomb, a hearse really, appearing to have difficulties staying on the road. Our president doesn't challenge the Republican clods, he just walks out on them instead of all over them. He does blame everybody else for his disastrous policy failures, the Japanese earthquake for his dysfunctional White House and Dubya for everything else. He appears to not stand up to anyone. Except to milquetoasts like Donald Young and Larry Sinclair. The Germans call that a Weichei (ovum mollis). In the American vernacular it is the equivalent of Pussy. His ears and his toothy grin remind me of Alfred E. Neuman. Speaking of Alfred, Lieberman publicly doubts Obama's reelectablility withholding his support for now. If this keeps up even I will start feeling sorry for the community organizer. How much bashing and ridicule will he be able to take? Poor Barry. Nothing will undermine respect faster than ridicule. And he invites it in gobs. "I also recognize that the real battle for the future of liberty and the survival of the values of Western civilization is right here in our own backyard, fighting for the triumph of the Ron Paul Revolution against the evil empire and its mendacious media whores and sycophants" (Charles Burris). The FBI has published a list defining suspicious activities. I am guilty of at least four: paying with cash, strange odors, making “extreme religious statements,” and radical theology.

Latae Sententiae

2011-08-16T19:41:00.001+02:00

Dear Emeritus: Time for Händel's Todesmarsch? The liberty-destroying, budget-busting, warmongering eight years of George W. Bush followed by another eight-year debacle? Is that what you really want? From bad to worse? What have we done to deserve such severe punishment? Aren't we due a true Σωτήρ? Like Dr. Paul? In this case I will walk the Camino to Santiago de Compostela on my knees to give thanks at the grave of the Holy Apostle James the Greater. Ominous headline: "China's Chief Of Staff Visits Israel To Discuss Strategic And Military Cooperation." Does it mean Obama has driven an (alleged) ally into the embrace of an (alleged) enemy? Will The White House soon roll out the red carpet for their fellow travelers and Това́рищи (Továrišči) Raúl Modesto and Hugo Rafael? In an essay titled, "Just Like You They Feel the Pain," Eugen Drewermann harshly attacks our ethics, calling it a 'piece of folly.' It is especially painfully obvious in our treatment of animals. What we term 'responsibility' has as its standard man alone. Only what is useful for and advantageous to us alone is correct and justifiable. Our Christian-occidental view of the world dictates such a view. But, writes Drewermann, such a view is totally wrong, upside down and harmful and the ethics it is based on is dangerous and pernicious. Man is not the center of the universe. Reading Drewermann's, "Über die Unsterblichkeit der Tiere," causes deep shame over one's carnivorous passions but the fear vegetarianism will make a liberal of me is stronger than my shame. I cannot think of anything more deleterious to befall me than turning 'pinko.' However, in anticipation of your visit, I am proud to reveal that I have added many sumptuous dishes to my vegetarian cuisine repertoire. There are a few vegetarian liberals who dare cross my threshold. My Smaženice is an all around success.