The First Sunday of Advent: Christingle

 

Today is the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the Western Liturgical Year and the traditional start of the Christmas Season.

The Christingle has its origins in the Moravian Church in the 18th century with  Bishop Johannes de Watteville of Marienborn.

The orange represents the world, the red ribbon the blood of Christ, the dried fruit represents the fruits of the earth and the four seasons, and the candle Jesus, light of the world.

The story of the Christingle is that there were three children, who were very poor, but wanted to give a gift to Jesus, like the other families at church were doing. The only nice thing they had was an orange, so they decided to give him that. The top was going slightly green, so the eldest cut it out and put a candle in the hole. They thought it looked dull, so the youngest girl took her best red ribbon from her hair and attached it round the middle with toothpicks. The middle child had the idea to put a few pieces of dried fruit on the ends of the sticks. They took it to the church for the Christmas mass, and whereas the other children sneered at their meagre gift, the priest took their gift and showed it as an example of true understanding of the meaning of Christmas.

Saturday Sessions: Just to get you in the mood - Christmas Music!

Black Friday

 

I don't know about you, but I would never go shopping today.  The second to last thing I want to do is shop and the last thing I want to do is shop in crowds.  Do you think the sales worth it? I don't, and apparently neither does the Wall Street Journal:

The Myth of the Black Friday deal.

OCCUPY CHRISTMAS

Also known as Buy Nothing Day was started in Canada in 1992 as a protest against consumerism and over-consumption.  It was moved to the day after Thanksgiving in 1998.  Perhaps they're right, last year 141 million of us went shopping on this day and spent $57.4 Billion dollars. What are you going to do today, shop? Or something else.  Me? I'm going to kick back and enjoy the day off.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

So much for a nice pre-Thanksgiving post.

I've left the video here to illustrate the stark contrast between cultural and social desires and reality, Enjoy.

LET'S NOW TALK ABOUT FERGUSON

Had I the time and the appropriate editing software I'd have treated you with scenes of the Ferguson riots set to the music featured above.

1.  The standard for obtaining an indictment from a Grand Jury is probable cause.  Here's a pleasant or unpleasant fact for you dependent upon your point of view;  If you can't obtain an indictment there is no way in hell you are going to obtain a conviction to the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt".  Let's not mince words though, we all know what the rioters of Ferguson want is a lynching, anything less than hanging Darren Wilson from the old oak tree is just not going to satisfy the crowd.

2.  I have an hour commute each morning and have been spending it cycling through the following talk stations: POTUS, Patriot, Urban View, and Progressive on Sirius.  I'd like to address a comment I heard many times on three of the four stations.  "Mike Brown didn't deserve to die for stealing a handful of cigars".

HELLO! Back the cart up Hoss... Mike Brown didn't die for stealing a handful of cigars, he was stopped for walking in the street and possibly, stealing a handful of cigars.  Mike Brown died for assaulting a police officer.  Now whether or not you consider that justifiable given the evidence released is up to you.

3.  Mike Brown is a symptom of a bigger problem and a catalyst for what is going on right now.   It's a multifaceted problem with everything from the Gangsta subculture to the Police subculture at fault.  It's also a "racial problem", but perhaps not in the way you think.  I've known a lot of cops over the years and there are pretty much only two races: Cops and Civilians. I'm not convinced that if Mike Brown was an 18 year old six foot five 290 pound white kid that came through the window of a patrol vehicle and wrestled for the officers gun things would have turned out any differently.

One of the problems is the way the majority of police interact with the community, most cops interact with three kinds of people: Cops, Victims, and Perps.  They live in different neighborhoods, hang out with other cops, and spend life fairly isolated in patrol cars from the community that they serve.  Until we change the way our police do business, and the federal government isn't helping by militarizing them, nothing is going to change, if anything it is going to get worse. We need to get the police out of their cars, at least in urban areas, and onto the streets and interacting with the community in general on a regular basis.  Cops need a regular assigned neighborhood, need to get to know the people in their neighborhoods and the people need to get to know them.

4. There is a trust issue between the police and the black community.  I got news for you, I'm an upper-middle class middle-aged white guy and there is a trust issue between the police and the white community also.  Understandably, the issues between the police and the two communities are not currently the same, but give it time, I'm sure we'll eventually get there. 

5.  The law enforcement response in Ferguson was incompetent.  While I can sort of understand the rational for initially maintaining a low police presence as to not inflame the situation, we can all see, and hindsight is 20/20, how that worked out.  Maintaining the police in a mass military formation like a phalanx of Hoplites was also stupid (although I do understand that it maximizes police safety).  The police should have been stationed at the store Mike Brown robbed, at the business that had been previously been looted, and stationed in pairs along the street at regular intervals, close enough to support one another but far enough apart to provide general coverage.  Having 200 cops in tight formation controls no more territory than a smaller group could.

What do you think?

Vendepatria en la Casa Blanca

President Obama is a liar:  In his Facebook speech announcing his big speech that would come a day later, he claimed that our immigration system is broken. 

No it's Not:  
It is negligently administered and barely enforced.  People cross our borders with impunity, social services and taxpayer-funded services like schools are ladled out to all with no questions asked, and employment enforcement is nonexistent.  When is the last time you heard about a workplace raid?  More importantly, has any employer ever been punished for hiring undocumented workers? 

El Vendepatria
There's a Spanish word for President Obama that our neighbors south of the Rio Grande know quite well:  Vendepatria; one who sells out his country.  Any citizen in any country of Latin American would hurl that insult at her president if he took an action like Obama's.

Barack Hussein Obama is anti-American, and he leads an anti-American criminal enterprise known as the federal government, which is separate and distinct from We The People, and is dedicated to our enslavement.

We have a job shortage in this country resulting in millions of chronically-unemployed.  What does Obama's Enterprise do?  Import more workers who have a demonstrated track record of accepting below-market wages.  The simple law of supply and demand guarantees that wages will not rise.

Common sense also predicts that this will attract even larger waves of humanity to our southern border, which means more death, rapes and robberies along the way, and more exploitable people here that will constitute an even larger problem than President Obama's latest diktat claimed to address.  And by the way, if his unilateral proclamation was so humane, why did he only hand out 5 million golden tickets, and exclude over 15 million more undocumented unfortunates living here?  How inhumane is that?

Divide and Conquer
This creates another noisy Democrat constituency too poor and ignorant to help themselves.  The more uneducated and unemployable the new arrivals are, the better.  It grows the nanny-state, employs a burgeoning cohort of poverty-pushers and gives racist bigots and grievance hustlers like La Raza and MEChA a bigger bullhorn and a bigger slice of taxpayer-funded largess doled out by progressives in government.

It's Their Nation, We The People just Live in It
Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley want cheap labor, hi-tech and low-tech, because there is no such thing as being too rich, and our progressive government (infested with progressives of all parties) enables them, as it does the Wall Street gangsters.  These nefarious swindlers, along with the US Chamber of Communists, are selling the country right out from under us.  They are stealing our birthright, and purposely changing the face of this nation.  Hollywood drug addicts and cultural pornographers are the the propaganda arm of this Cultural Long March.

They don't care that this nation is becoming a third-world toilet.  They live and travel in their own guarded enclaves.  Their children do not attend government schools.  They are rich enough to shield themselves from the societal destruction they perpetrate.

Free people in Tocqueville's America forming free societies and determining their own lives is messy and inefficient.  Today's progressive elites of all parties need us to be needy, addicted to government nickles and dimes, moving which ever way they nudge us.

Does This Conference Make Me Look Like a Pervert?

Seaside, Ore. (CBS SEATTLE) – Controversy is surrounding a sex education conference in Oregon as the event has hosted students as young as 11 years old. The conference gives tips on masturbation, using internet porn and quirky alternatives to sex.

Lesson plans taught at the Oregon Adolescent Sexuality Conference include tutorials on porn websites, pamphlets on sexting and information about “teledildonics,” or the remote use of sex toys over the Internet, KOIN-TV reports. (CBS Local - Seattle)

This isn't a conference; it's a criminal enterprise.  The pedophiles in teachers' clothing who planned and perpetrated the crimes committed at that conference should be arrested for sexual pandering to children.

This was a conference paid for by the State of Oregon, and school districts are required to send people to it in order to be eligible for certain types of funding. As the article states, school children also attend.  Based on interviews featured in the articles, the criminal activities were probably a very tiny part of the conference, and those who stumbled into them unawares were shocked at the content.

Go read both links and then explain to me why the state of Oregon should not immediately arrest perverts Cory Silverberg and Brad Victor and charge them with sexual pandering to minors and other pedophilia-related charges.

What The Hell is Going On?

This is not an isolated incident.  A little Yahoogling reveals that sex education is getting kinkier and more graphic, taught by degenerate pederasts whose true goal is to get their own rocks off and turn America's youth into like-minded twisted freaks.

What are the origins of this?  How and why did such a fetid nest of satyrs, nymphomaniacs, sodomites and filthy sexual deviants hijack our popular culture and take over our nation's pedagogy? 

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but there must be people with a purpose behind this.

Could someone educate me?  (Please, in the old-fashioned way).

Illegal Immigration: A Simple Historical Perspective

This is Æthelstan,  first King of the English.  

The traditional view of the process has assumed the migration of several Germanic peoples, later collectively referred to as Anglo-Saxons, from the western coasts of continental Europe, followed by the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms across most of what is now England and parts of lowland Scotland. 

The assumption that the Anglo-Saxon settlement developed from the migration of people from the Germanic coastlands, largely displacing the native people, has been challenged by those suggesting that the changes in material culture and language were caused primarily by a process of acculturation that followed the movement of a relatively small number of people. 

Britain used to be a Celtic Nation

Population pressures and migration 

can move mountains 

Just ask this guy.

Saturday Sessions

Music to contemplate Obama's

Speech by.

Sorry to you old school fans out there, 

I decided to toss in a few covers.

An Appeal to Emotion

Meet Astrid Silva

Harry Reid & Obama's Gal Pal

US Senate

She didn't get to go to her grandmother's funeral, but she did get a $100,000+ K-12 education courtesy of American taxpayers.

Ed100

Don't believe the chart... here's Nevada's 228 page breakdown

One morning in 2011, Silva's mother watched from a window as immigration officials detained her husband on a deportation order. The family called everyone they knew for help, including Reid's office. After several weeks, her father's deportation was deferred until 2014. Silva thanked the senator in a letter decorated with a sketch of mountains and cactus over which she wrote the title of the state song, "Home Means Nevada." L.A Times

I found the President's speech to be short on substance and long on appeals to emotion and hollow promises.

First, we’ll build on our progress at the border with additional resources for our law enforcement personnel so that they can stem the flow of illegal crossings and speed the return of those who do cross over. 

As my father used to say, "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me".

I know some of the critics of the action call it amnesty. Well, it’s the not.

 Merriam-Webster: the act of an authority (as a government) by which pardon is granted to a large group of individuals.

Actually Mr. President, yes it is.

White House Face Sheet on Immigration Plan


Don't worry though folks... it's a win-win situation.  If this gets struck down either in the congress or the courts, we win.  If this doesn't get struck down in either the congress or the courts, well take the words of David Gergen, Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government to heart:

If a Democratic president can cancel existing laws on immigration, what is to prevent the next Republican from unilaterally canceling laws on health care?

 

The Wonderful World of Infotainment

What's more important?
The Biggest Loser

Reality TV

 

Or the Biggest Loser

of a midterm election since Harry Truman

Seriously though,
What's more important than 
what the President has to say?
 

Grey's Anatomy,

The Big Bang Theory,

The Biggest Loser,

and

Bones

Who is planning to show the Presidents Address on Immigration tonight?  Univision and Telemundo.

“In 2006, Bush gave a 17 minute speech that was televised by all three networks that was about deploying 6000 national guard troops to the border. Obama is making a 10 minute speech that will have a vastly greater impact on the issue. And none of the networks are doing it. We can’t believe they were aggrieved that we announced this on Facebook,” a senior administration official told POLITICO. 

Western Hero would like to point out to the Big 4 broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC) that in accordance with the Radio Act of 1927 the spectrum belongs to the public and licensees have no property rights to use it.  The issuance of broadcast licenses is via comparative hearings held by the FCC, the intended outcome of which is that "the most qualified user will be granted use of the spectrum to best serve the public interest".  Seriously, do the Big 4 really think that The Biggest Loser better serves the public interest than coverage of a presidential address on immigration that polls consistently rank as one of the top 5 problems facing the nation today.

 

Meanwhile in an entirely unrelated coincidence: French lawmakers get a new procedure to remove their president for "breach of their duties that is clearly incompatible with the exercise of their mandate".  The Local

 Vive la République!

Is Pride Racist?

PRIDE by JACOB MATHAM, 1592

The other day after responding to a comment I was reading an article on collective narcissism.  That led me to another article on hubris and group pride.  In that article I found the following:

Black pride is a slogan used primarily in the United States to raise awareness for a black racial identity. The slogan has been used by African Americans of sub-Saharan African origin to denote a feeling of self-confidence, self-respect, celebrating one's heritage, and being proud of one's personal worth.

White pride is a slogan used primarily in the United States for a white race identity. This is traditionally closely aligned with white supremacy, white separatism, and other extreme manifestations of white racism.

So let me see if I get this... Black Pride is a good thing, White Pride is a bad thing.

He said what?

 

Executive action on immigration would amount to violating our laws and would be “very difficult to defend legally.

“If we start broadening that (DREAM), then essentially, I’ll be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally, So that’s not an option.”

“The problem is, is that I’m the president of the United States, I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.”

“The easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws,”

New York Times

Bias?

 

Earlier this year the Oregon Senate passed Bill 833, a measure to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens.  Opponents gathered enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot and they had a vote.

Do a Google News search on Oregon Ballot Measure 88 and you'll find little reporting outside of Oregon itself.  Would you not think that with all of the talk of executive action to effectively grant amnesty to some six million persons residing illegally in the United States that the national media might pick up on the results of this referendum?

But Oregon's a liberal state you might say, the results wouldn't reflect national opinion... you might think that, but in liberal Oregon, the measure to give illegals driver's licenses was defeated by...

66.4%

In fact the measure was defeated in every county in Oregon except for Multnomah, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area.  And you wonder why conservatives think that the mainstream media is biased against them.

The Sound of Music

Photo: Michael Schmid

The Sound of Music opened on Broadway on this day in 1959.  Many people don't realize that the musical is based on a true story and is based on the memoir of  Marie von Trapp.  Below is the song Edelweiss performed by August, Amanda, Melanie, and Sofia von Trapp, the great grandchildren of Captain and Maria von Trapp.

Saturday Sessions: Clara Ann Fowler

The Singin' Rage,

Miss Patti Page

 

Traditional Pop singer Clara Ann Fowler who went by the stage name Patti Page was the best selling female artist of the 1950's.

Starting with the 1948 hit "Confess", Patti Page was one of the first pop artists to overdub her own voice due to a strike that made background singers unavailable.

Her signature song, "The Tennessee Waltz", first recorded in 1950 was one of the best selling singles of the 20th century.

Patti Smith continued to top Pop charts through the mid-sixties and remained a chart topping performer in adult contemporary and country music into the early 1980's.  Patti continued to perform, recording her first live album in 1998; Live at Carnegie Hall, and performed up until 2012.  She passed away on January 1st, 2013.

Brooklyn the New Paris?

Photo: Jim Henderson

My sister used to live in Brooklyn, across the street from Sunset Park.  I remember visiting once and waking up to find all the cars on the park side of the street with slashed tires, fortunately I was on the house side of the street.  That was before she moved to the Upper East Side, just down and across the street from the Permanent Mission of St Kitts and Nevis.  I thought the Upper East Side was way cool.  Imagine my surprise to read that Brooklyn is the new Paris.

Now the wannabe city is Brooklyn...  Ballard is the Brooklyn of Seattle. Glasgow and Melbourne both claim Brooklyn cool. And Oakland, California, has been called the Brooklyn of San Francisco...  There's even a Brooklyn of Paris: the once-gritty suburb of Pantin. Its derelict, graffiti-covered warehouses have been taken over by galleries and artists, turning it into the hippest place in the City of Light. MSN

I haven't been to New York in four years, haven't been to Brooklyn for even longer.  Last time I was there we climbed up on the roof to spectacular views of the Harbor and World Trade Center.

Photo: GK Tramrunner229

 So... is Brooklyn "the new epicenter of cool" ?
 

Throwing Culture out with the Religious Bathwater

Johansen Viggo

Montgomery Co. ed board strips religious holiday references from new calendar

The 7-1 decision by the Montgomery County's Board of Education on Tuesday came after Muslim leaders in the community asked that equal recognition be given to the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha.

Muslim leaders say they're not pleased with the result. They didn't want religious labels removed from the other holidays, just for Muslim students to be treated equally and to have their own holiday recognized. Huffpo

Like it or not, the United States is a Western Nation and as a Western Nation is part of Western Civilization.  Christianity is a defining, if not root, element of Western Civilization.  Everything from Santa Claus to the Easter Bunny are not just religious but cultural holidays.  In fact, the majority of Christian celebrations in the West are covered in the trappings of European pagan holidays that pre-date all other religions with the possible, but doubtful, exception of Judaism.  Christmas and for the most part Easter are celebrated by people of all religions and people of no religion.

The seven idiots on the Montgomery County Board of Education would be well served by taking a lesson from their Muslim petitioners and standing up for their cultural heritage.

Let Me Apologize in Advance

So, What hat goes with this outfit?

 

All I can say is at least he looks better
 than Bush in a Dress

There is a tradition at the APEC conference that the host nation chooses the attire and has been known to be referred to as the silly shirt summit. At the 2011 APEC summit in Honolulu President Obama relented, and did not make world leaders appear in Hawaiian shirts although they were all gifted with them, a decision I'm sure right now he's regretting.

WSJ APEC FASHION

Veterans Day

Joseph Ambrose age 86, a WWI veteran at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedication in 1982.

Western Hero honors the sacrifices of 
  
Patrice Vincent

 

Nathan Cirillo

As well as

Jacob Hess, William Lacy, Andrew McAdams, Drew Scobie, Daniel Lee, Andrew Sipple, Edward Balli, Joshua Gray, Christopher Landis, Roberto Skelt, John Pelham, Aaron Torian, Caleb Erickson, David Poirier, Adam Moralee,  James Chaffin, Kerry Danyluk, Clarke Thomas, Rakesh Chauhan, Spencer Faulkner, James Walters, Oliver Thomas, Shawn Farrell, Christian Chandler, Deric Rassmussen, Martin Barreras, Adrian Perkins, Jacob Wykstra, Jason Jones, Matthew Walker, Justin Helton, Aaron Toppen, Scott Studenmund, Jason McDonald, Justin Clouse, Terry Hurne, Brandon Garabrant, David Stewart, Adam Wolff, Thomas Spitzer, Todd Chidgey, Ivo Klusák, Libor Ligac, Jan Šenkýr, David Beneš, Lieskovan Jaroslav, Benjamin Prange, Keith Williams, Donnell Hamilton, Girard Gass, Harold Greene, Samuel Hairston, Matthew Leggett, Christopher Mulalley, Brian Arsenault, Charles Strong, Michael Donahue, Stephan Byus, Rafel Celebudzki, Andrew Weathers, Jonathan Walker, Christopher Kalafut, Jordan Spears.

Totalachusetts

True to their Puritan heritage, Massachusetts busybodies are once again attempting to control the behavior of their fellow citizens through government.

THE SCARLET LETTER

On Wednesday, the Westminster, Massachusetts Board of Health will hear public comment on a proposed regulation that could make Westminster the first municipality in the United States to ban sales of all tobacco products within town lines.  AP

 

Thoughts to Ponder

CBS News

Who's Your Daddy

And a Hat Tip to Lisa at Who's Your Daddy

I don't normally reblog, but this was priceless.

Saturday Sessions: Gordon Lightfoot

Photo: Greenmars

Photo: Mikerussell

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank sometime after 7:10 pm on November 10, 1975 with the loss of 29 souls.

Calling all Czars!

Where is Ron Klain*?

* Ron Klain is President Obama's new Ebola Czar.

But where is he? He failed to show at the President's big emergency meeting last week.

My guess? He's behind the scenes setting up the grift, figuring out how to make the best political advantage of this crisis and use it to sluice grotesque amounts of taxpayer money into the pockets of politically-connected FOOs (Friends of Obama)

That's what DC bagmen like Klain do. He's a fixer. It's why he was hired. A serious president would appoint a serious doctor as 'Ebola Czar,' or better yet, a serious president would dispense with such transparent kabuki theater and rely upon government people already in place at HHS and NIH.

Anyway, how will Czar Klain spread around the government largess? Under what guise? Ebola sensors at all major airports, etc? Like the way Former Heimatland Sicherheit Kommissar Chertoff cashed in on the terrorist scare by selling his multi-billion dollar security scanners that didn't work to the federal government?

Manpower. Maybe we'll see some big contracts that employs hordes of people, kinda like the left's version of Halliburton, only unlike KBR, these workers will have no useable skills or clearly defined roles.

An expansion of Homeland Security? More swat teams for HHS and NIH?

The possibilities are endless. Can you come up with any ideas to help Ebola Czar Ron Klain cover Obama's keister while simultaneously helping FOOs loot the US Treasury?

Please, put your modesty aside. No idea is too outlandish for this merry band of swindlers.

The Thrill is Gone

Photo: David Shankbone

The thrill up his leg is apparently gone...


“The people, if you look at the polling, their problem is illegal immigration,” he said. “He says, ‘I’m going to fix the problem.’ He doesn’t mean he’s gonna stop illegal immigration. He’s not going to do anything to stop illegal hiring, which is the magnet for illegal immigration, really. He’s going to basically say, ‘I’m going to deal with them by giving them green cards.’”

National Review

Rejoice, Columbia's Sons, Rejoice

Dissatisfied with your performance last night?

Perhaps a little embarrassed this morning?

You might be a Democrat and...

You might be suffering from Electile Dysfunction

No, no...

A bag of little blue pills isn't going to help you

You need to get back to basics

The gloomy night before us flies,
The reign of terror now is o'er;
No gags, inquisitors and spies,
The herds of harpies are no more.

Rejoice, Columbia's sons, rejoice
To tyrants never bend the knee
Join with heart with soul and voice
For Jefferson and Liberty. 

Lift up your hands ye heroes,
And swear with proud disdain,
The wretch that would ensnare you
Shall lay his snares in vain

You'll have to forgive a little musical gloating for...

Betcha gonna wish you had that filibuster now!

As the saying goes...

What goes around comes around.

 

"I am not on the ballot this fall…. But make no mistake: these policies are on the ballot," Obama said of Democratic proposals such as raising the minimum wage. "Every single one of them."

These policies have been repudiated by the American voter, 

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM

Now I'm not so naive as to believe everything is going to change, or really that anything is going to change... but I do love poking fun at our liberal compatriots.

  

Is this the Winter of Our Discontent

Down to the Wire

As the election draws closer it seems Republicans are up in Colorado, Iowa, Georgia, Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Arkansas in the Senate race.  

The NYT give Republicans a 68% 70% chance of taking the Senate while The Washington Post gives them a 96% 97% chance, and now CNN is giving them a 95% chance. 

I wrote this article on Sunday, I've updated the forecasts and added CNN on Monday and left in the previous number just to illustrate the continuous state of flux.

Yesterday Nancy Pelosi warned this election could be a catastrophe for Democrats... of course she was trying to raise money.  What are your thoughts?

Play Baby Play!

Think of the Press as a Great Keyboard

on which the Government can Play.

Joseph Goebbels

The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests. 

"They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out," said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press.

You don't really need to find out what's going on
You don't really want to know just how far it's gone
Just leave well enough alone

Don Henley