Pop! Goes The Weasel

     The old nursery rhyme goes like this:

Round and round the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel;
The monkey thought 'twas all in fun:
Pop! goes the weasel.

A penny for a spool of thread,
A penny for a needle;
That's the way the money goes:
Pop! goes the weasel.

      Is it just me, or is there a meaning hidden in this little rhyme?

     The monkey was thinking and operating in the circle of the world, which is to think locally.  The weasel could operate in that world too, just as well as the monkey.  But the weasel could think and operate non-locally, too.

     Where did the weasel go?  Into some tunnel, into some other dimension -- who knows?  He went Pop!

     What happened to the monkey?  Who knows?

     Spools and threads and needles are useful things -- strong, continuous, readily available, and cheap; and so is the money that buys them.

     Both the monkey and the weasel are conscious, animate beings;  but the weasel displays a mode of consciousness and an agility that the monkey does not.

     The smart money is on the weasel.


*       *       *

     Spoiler alert:  that is NOT what Wikipedia thinks it means.

Moron and Oxymoron

     If you really want and fully intend to be a moron, then you are an oxymoron.

For Cam

To the love of the Father
will of the Father

In the joy of the Spirit
power of the Spirit

With the peace of Jesus
body of Christ

Go forth, little man
return

Tom And Ariel On Torture And Forgiveness

     This is one of those posts (that I frequently make) that is really nothing more than a link to someone else's work.  I include posts like this right along with "guest posts," and some of my own original work,  because I think that they deal with topics that might be of interest to the handful of people (probably less than 30 on any given day) who visit here.

     The essay appears at the "Tom Dispatch" website.  It is introduced by Tom Englehardt and written by Ariel Dorfman, an aging playwright and scholar from Duke University whose native country is Chile.  Title? "A Tale Of Torture And Forgiveness."

    I urge you to read this essay, but I feel that I must hasten to offer a re-assurance:  it is "safe" to read:  No "Bible-believing Christians" were harmed in the making of this essay.  This is about torture practiced by "the bad guys" -- or alternatively, one particular bad guy -- in a forgotten world far, far away from our own:  the context is southeast Asia during World War II and the local conditions are things like the Bridge on the River Kwai.  (You may remember the movie.)

     It is also about forgiveness as practiced by a "good guy,"  Eric Lomax, who was an officer in the British army, and what it cost him.  Please read it -- but notice that I did not say, "Enjoy."  Or, "Blessings."

The Menace Of The Herd

     Fred Reed, a veteran of the US armed forces who has lived for several years in Mexico, writes on the recent repatriation of Bowe Bergdahl, and the influence of herd mentality.  Here is the link.

     I think that his points are well taken for consideration.  Here are a couple of my thoughts.

     There exists, in our country, and in the larger world, a War Party, or several war parties.  Their thinking is largely the same.  They largely operate in governments, established institutions, "hallowed traditions," "cultural imperatives," propaganda, and appeals to the baser elements that are present in human nature.

    There is no corresponding Peace Party, as such.  As far as I can tell, there has never really been one.  Other students of history may correct me on this.  Until they do, I am left with the supposition that a desire for peace (and liberty) remains mostly in the province of small communities and private, and usually quiet, individuals.  Life is much more than war, they rightly believe.  And as war is, in its actual operation, opposed to Life and Liberty, this sort of sets the true love of Life and Liberty against war.  I believe that there are actually many such peace-preferring people, though by nature they tend to reserve or suppress their own voices.  Though sometimes they speak out:  someone, after all, wrote the One Hundred Twentieth Psalm, and managed to get it published.

     This thing we have in common:  we all live our lives, and we all die our deaths.  The Lord of All Worlds watches.  Sometimes, He speaks to us, sometimes to others.  Sometimes, He seems silent.

     Perhaps He is mysterious.  What is He thinking?  This, perhaps:  Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the Sons of God.  He said that.  Perhaps that is one reason He is called The Prince of Peace.

     Your thoughts and comments are most welcome, as always.

The Good Song Leader

     Listen to this.  It's a two-and-a-half minute song.

     I sure wish he was still around to lead the singing at our church.  Not for the crowd he'd draw, just for the make-you-think-seriously blessing.

*       *       *

Thanks for the link, Doc.

Bowe Bergdahl's Moral Odyssey

     I make no secret that the readers of this site, while quite international in location, are quite few in number.  But many of them are people whom I know personally.  It is to them that I write this.

    The following post -- a guest post -- is one of the most important, I think, that I have published here, because the issues discussed in this article are crucial to us, politically, personally and spiritually.  The post is quite lengthy, but I urge you to take the time to read it in its entirety.  It was written by William N. Grigg, who blogs regularly at his Pro Libertate website (where I, and many others, have learned much), and he graciously gave permission for me to post it here.

*

Guest post by William N. Grigg.

"The Future is Too Good to Waste on Lies": 

 Bowe Bergdahl's Moral Odyssey

"I can't make up my mind to put the damn thing on again.  I feel so clean and free.  It's like voluntarily taking up filth and slavery again.

 . . . I think I'll just walk off naked across the fields."

John Andrews, a U.S.soldier in World War I who went AWOL, discusses his uniform in Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos

Trying to find their footing amid a gale-force outpouring of largely manufactured outrage, officials in Hailey, Idaho canceled their long-planned homecoming for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. They were understandably intimidated by the prospect of dealing with thousands of protesters who planned to besiege the tiny central Idaho town to demand the blood of a young man they now regard to be a deserter, and a father they consider a terrorist sympathizer.

To understand the kind of welcome the War Party has been preparing for Bowe and his family, it's useful to consider the treatment given to the family of World War I-era conscientious objector John Witmer.

A Mennonite from Colombiana, Ohio who was denied a deferment by the local draft board, Witmer died from the Spanish Flu while stationed at Camp Sherman, Ohio.  Witmer's lifeless body was returned to his hometown on October 10, 1918, where the family -- his father Dan, his siblings, and his fiance, Nola -- was greeted by a silent crowd heavy with sullen disapproval for the "slacker" and his family.

Like thousands of others who shared his faith, John had been kidnapped at gunpoint from his family farm through the evil practice of conscription.  The local draft board had turned down John's appeal for Conscientious Objector status, dishonestly assuring him that once he had taken the oath of enlistment he would be recognized as a CO and be given a non-combatant assignment.

As with everything else of consequence that emerges from the lips, pen, or keyboard of a government functionary, those assurances were lies.

During wartime, explained Bernard Baruch, the head of the Wilson Regime's War Industry Board, all "men, money and things" within the government's claimed jurisdiction "suddenly become a compact instrument of destruction . . . [T]he entire population must suddenly cease to be a congeries of individuals, each following a self-appointed course, and become a vast unitary mechanism."

Read the rest of the post, with its accompanying photographs and links, at the Pro Libertate website.