A Great President on a Great Anniversary

For Veteran's Day: President Reagan's speech at Point du Hoc, June 6, 1984 -- the 40th anniversary of D-Day.

Two of the Greatest Minutes in the History of Oratory

For Veteran's Day: the Gettysburg Address. The address was so short that there was no time to photograph President Lincoln in the act of delivering it.

The keynote speaker at the ceremony dedicating the cemetery at Gettysburg was Edward Everett of Massachusetts, a man of many accomplishments who was acclaimed as the greatest orator of his day. He delivered a two-hour oration. President Lincoln followed with a short speech that he had composed after arriving at Gettysburg. "I should be glad," said Edward Everett to the President, "if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes."

Incidentally, we are eight days away from the 146th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal."

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

For Veterans' Day...

...an old classic.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Some Justice

John Allen Muhammad, the convicted Beltway Sniper, is to be executed by lethal injection at 21:00 Eastern Time.  In October of 2002, and his juvenile co-defendant, Lee Boyd Malvo, went on a murder spree that left 10 people dead in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.  Muhammad, a member of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, and Malvo, who is serving a fixed life sentence, shot their victims from the trunk of a car, through a hole cut for the purpose, with a semiautomatic rifle at long range.  Their motive was jihad.  This is one of Lee Malvo's drawings in praise of Osama bin Laden.   

Since the lion's share of media attention today is bound to be devoted to John Muhammad and liberal opponents of capital punishment, it pays to be reminded of the people who are now dead because of John Muhammad and his 17-year-old fellow assassin.

James Martin, 55, killed October 2, 2002 in Wheaton, Maryland
James Buchanan,    39, killed October 3, 2002 in Rockville, Maryland
Premkumar Walekar, 54, killed October 3, 2002 in Aspen Hill, Maryland
Sarah Ramos, 34, killed October 3, 2002 in Silver Spring, Maryland
Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, 25, killed October 3, 2002 in Kensington, Maryland
Pascal Charlot, 72, killed October 3, 2002 in Washington, D.C.
Dean Harold Meyers, 53, killed October 9, 2002 in Manassas, Virginia
Kenneth Bridges, 53, killed October 11, 2002 in Fredericksburg, Virginia
Linda Franklin,    47, killed October 14, 2002 in Falls Church, Virginia
Conrad Johnson,    35, killed October 22, 2002 in Aspen Hill, Maryland 

In a way, the death penalty is insufficient: one life is not a sufficient price to pay for the wanton destruction of ten.  But there is a limit to the reach of human justice, and the totality of his life, liberty and property are all John Muhammad has on earth to pay with.  God have mercy on his soul.

November 9, 1989: The Fall of the Berlin Wall

This is a piece of the Berlin Wall that is preserved at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. I remember that when the shipment of this piece of the Wall to Simi Valley made the news, a poli-sci professor at my university scoffed: "As if RONALD REAGAN had anything to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall!"

Waaal, my dear Prof, here's a little taste of what Ronald Reagan had to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall (which you probably regretted anyway):

Dies Irae

November 8th is the day on which the Order of Preachers remembers and prays for its deceased members. Today at 7:00 p.m. the Bl. Margaret of Castello chapter will recite the Office of the Dead (Vespers) for deceased Dominicans in the day chapel at St. John's Cathedral in Boise. We will begin by chanting Dies Irae (though we don't expect to sound anything like the men and boys' choir in this video).

Dies Irae is the traditional sequence of the Requiem Mass. It is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Latin poetry; its beauty is apparent even to those of us who have very little Latin.

St. Thomas More teaches that meditation on the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, Hell, Heaven) is a first-class remedy against sin. Dies Irae, rich in food for such meditation, has unfortunately been squelched in the Ordinary Rite by those who (unjustly) consider it morbid; but since it survives in the 1962 Missal, the door is open for its comeback.

Nun the Worse

Let's see now...

ITEM: With the support of her prioress, a Dominican sister has aided and abetted abortion by escorting women past demonstrators into abortion mill

ITEM: Three elderly nuns, along with two priests, burglarize a naval base near Seattle in order to brandish kindergarten scribblegrams and scatter sunflower seeds in protest of nukes

ITEM: A nationally known Benedictine nun writes inane columns for an infamous liberal rag

ITEM: A significant number of women religious regularly assemble, in various groups, for the purpose of promoting dissent from the Magisterium

ITEM: The number of women religious declined 54% between 1965 and 2000

So what is the point of the apostolic visitation?

The Heroine of Fort Hood

On Thursday, November 5th, members of the 36th Engineer Brigade milled around the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, near Killeen, Texas. They were about to be deployed overseas, and were waiting to undergo medical exams. They were unarmed.

A little after 1:20 p.m., a man wearing combat fatigues and carrying two handguns entered the processing center. He was Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist who was himself about to be deployed to the Middle East. According to witnesses, Hasan, a Muslim, shouted "Allahu akbar!," opened fire into the crowd of unarmed soldiers, and went around with his gun pointed downward, methodically shooting those who had fallen or dove for cover. The shootings took place in two adjacent facilities on the base, and at one point, the shooter chased a wounded soldier across an open courtyard in an apparent attempt to finish the soldier off.

Enter Sgt. Kimberly Munley, 34, wife, mother and civilian police officer. The slightly built sergeant and her partner happened to be in the area and responded to the scene within about three minutes. Sgt. Munley promptly approached and engaged the shooter. A gun battle ensued. Although she took two shots through her legs, Sgt. Munley persisted and brought the shooter down. Said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the commander of Fort Hood: "It was an amazing and aggressive performance by this police officer." Although she was initially reported to have been killed, Sgt. Munley is alive and presently in stable condition.

There were many acts of selfless devotion at Fort Hood on that dreadful Thursday, when soldiers, some of them heedless of their own wounds, leaped to the aid of their fallen comrades, administering first aid and using their own clothes as bandages and torniquets. Even the shooter was promptly attended to -- a courtesy that would probably not have been extended to a non-Muslim American soldier similarly situated in the Arab World.

Pray for Sgt. Munley and her family, and for all the wounded and dead and their families.

November 2nd: Feast of All Souls

Today is the feast of the Poor Souls in Purgatory. Per the Enchiridion of Indulgences, we can obtain the following indulgences for the Poor Souls on or around this feast day by:

-- Visiting a Cemetery. By devoutly visiting a cemetery and praying for the souls of the departed, we may gain a plenary indulgence applicable only to the Poor Souls from November 1-8. The indulgence is partial on other days.

-- Praying the Requiem Aeternam. We may gain a partial indulgence applicable only to the Poor Souls by praying the following prayer:

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

-- Visiting a Church on All Souls' Day. We may gain a plenary indulgence applicable only to the Poor Souls by visiting a church or public oratory on the Feast of All Souls and praying the Our Father and Apostle's Creed.

Feast of All Saints

Maybe it will turn out that the greatest saints of all went wholly unnoticed during their lives on earth, and were utterly forgotten after their deaths.

On Capitol Hill...

...EVERY day is Halloween.

Halloween, Iowa Style?

Who was that masked man???

Point Made

Look carefully at the letter below. Pay close attention to the first letter of each line in the second and third paragraphs of the body.

If I had still been living in California back when Gray-Out Davis was recalled, and every nut job in the state vied for his seat, I probably would have voted for Schwarzenegger as the most conservative clown in the ring. Overall, however, it seems to me that California has not been as fortunate in its current actor-governor as it was in its last one. Still, I have to give the Governator credit for this one. The Assembly had it coming.

H/T Digital Hairshirt.

When Are Catholics Going to Realize...

...that the whole climate change movement belongs to the culture of death?

Don't believe me? Read this.

For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens (He is God!), Who formed the earth and made it (He established it; He did not create it a chaos, He formed it to be inhabited!): "I am the LORD, and there is no other. I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, 'Seek Me in chaos.'"

Isaiah 45:18-19

Visiting the Orphans and Widows

So is Pope Benedict's forthcoming apostolic constitution poaching? Sheep-stealing? "Fishing in the Anglican pond?"

Or could it be the rescue of the survivors of the shipwreck that is the Anglican communion? Could it be the shelter and care of the numberless orphans and widows of an organization that, bereft of an infallible teaching authority, bears less and less of a resemblance to Christianity? Could it be an act of obedience to Christ's injunction to be "fishers of men"?

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

James 1:27