England's national sport of Cricket seems innocent enough, providing a jolly good time for the players and spectators. What is little noticed, however, is the dark origin of the game.
The first clue may be found in the name itself, "Cricket", which is also the name of an insect, but, not just any insect. Walt Disney, a 33rd degree Freemason, renamed Pinocchio's companion of the century-old Italian tale from "Il Grillo Parlante" (the Talking Cricket) to "Jiminy Cricket."
The original story from 1883, The Adventures of Pinocchio, claimed that Pinocchio killed the cricket with a mallet, but that it appeared to him some time later as a spirit, warning him of impending doom. Who else do we know who was killed with a mallet? Oh, I don't know, maybe Hiram Abiff, the allegorical chief architect of King Solomon's Temple, the sequence of whose untimely demise is ritualized in the initiation of apprentices to the Freemasonic Craft, in which they are struck with a mallet!
The cricket has two associates in The Adventures of Pinocchio, a crow and an owl. The crow is well known to be a bird representing witchcraft and the dark arts, and the owl is a symbol of the Greek goddess Athena, as well as the mascot of Bohemian Grove. Can a creature in the fellowship of such demonic forces be a suitable namesake of the national sport of England?
Perhaps the actual equipment and rules of "Cricketcraft" will lead us deeper into understanding the underworld of European sport.
At a Cricketcraft match, the "bowler" must throw a ball to knock over three sticks (three being an occult number), each called a "wicket" (wicked, anyone?). The opposing team must have a man guard the wickeds with his bat, another animal of the underworld, often associated with escaping Hell. The batsman protects the wickeds from the bowler, whose act of throwing the ball is called the pitch, which is also a substance used in olden times to burn witches at the stake.
So, in essence, the game requires the bat to save the wickeds from falling to the pitch.
NOTICE: The preceding was entirely tongue-in-cheek. In fact, I literally had my tongue in my right cheek while writing some portions. While Cricket may not be evil, it is played in Britain and Canada, so it is fair game for this American to poke fun and ridicule. I have no qualms about persecuting Canadians and their ridiculous culture, which was hijacked from England and Scotland. Canadians don't have much (rocks, trees, meese... maybe some nice lakes), so I do feel a little guilty for being mean to their under-cultured nation. ... Actually, no I don't. They burned down the White House during the War of 1812, and that's not cool. They need to pay.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Sunday, November 18, 2012
As the Sunflower...
“It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
and thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear,
that the ferver and faith of a soul can be known,
to which time will but make thee more dear.
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
but as truly loves on to the close;
as the sunflower turns on [the sun,] when he sets,
the same look which she'd turned when he rose.”
~Thomas Moore
A Word to the Wise
I have hitherto led a quiet, peaceable life. Even now, I bear no burdens too heavy to carry. The Lord has dealt lightly with me. I don't always do or say the right thing, and I have occasionally been known to lose composure when I should have reacted with more thought or consideration, but I do try to keep an even keel, a tempered blade, and a level head.
I have been "wronged" by people before. I've lost loved ones. I've lost friends. But, such is life! The past should not control me, and I do not suffer from any ghosts from my past, nor am I "a victim" of any crime to my dignity. Behavior, attitude, and passive aggression from others, I know, can negatively impact your emotions. Even if it is one person on one occasion, it can affect the rest of your life.
Some use past events as excuses for otherwise inexcusable behavior. They may even be legitimate excuses; I have known people who have been truly harmed by others, and it is not my place to quantify their experience. What I do know, however, is that no matter what your story, no matter how many stripes are on your back or how many notches are on your gun, you can build off of them. Learn from them. Become stronger for them. Come closer to God because of them. The truest, purest reaction to trouble in this life is to use it as a reason to lean more on His grace.
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." ~Romans 8:28
I have been "wronged" by people before. I've lost loved ones. I've lost friends. But, such is life! The past should not control me, and I do not suffer from any ghosts from my past, nor am I "a victim" of any crime to my dignity. Behavior, attitude, and passive aggression from others, I know, can negatively impact your emotions. Even if it is one person on one occasion, it can affect the rest of your life.
Some use past events as excuses for otherwise inexcusable behavior. They may even be legitimate excuses; I have known people who have been truly harmed by others, and it is not my place to quantify their experience. What I do know, however, is that no matter what your story, no matter how many stripes are on your back or how many notches are on your gun, you can build off of them. Learn from them. Become stronger for them. Come closer to God because of them. The truest, purest reaction to trouble in this life is to use it as a reason to lean more on His grace.
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." ~Romans 8:28
Sunday, November 04, 2012
Whims Du Jour
"If a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant or bear a child, she has a complaint that’s deeply psychological and deeply physical—at least as physical as gallstones." ~Virginia Heffernan, in an article for Yahoo! News
So, every person on earth started-out in life with the medical worth of a gallstone? This woman, Virginia Heffernan, lacks some basic medical/biological understanding of what human life is.
The great statesman and prolific OB/GYN Dr. Ron Paul once said, “As an O.B. doctor of thirty years, and having delivered 4,000 babies, I can assure you life begins at conception. I am legally responsible for the unborn, no matter what I do, so there’s a legal life there. The unborn has inheritance rights, and if there’s an injury or a killing, there is a legal entity. There is no doubt about it.”
No matter how many cells a person has comprising their physical self, no matter the age, no matter what their disposition, all people everywhere deserve the equal protection of law. The unloved and the unwanted deserve the protection of their life by law as much as the loved and the wanted deserve it, perhaps more so. It is because of the tendencies in people to be cruel toward the powerless that we live in a republic, where the rights de jure of the individual person take precedence over the majority's whims du jour.
So, every person on earth started-out in life with the medical worth of a gallstone? This woman, Virginia Heffernan, lacks some basic medical/biological understanding of what human life is.
The great statesman and prolific OB/GYN Dr. Ron Paul once said, “As an O.B. doctor of thirty years, and having delivered 4,000 babies, I can assure you life begins at conception. I am legally responsible for the unborn, no matter what I do, so there’s a legal life there. The unborn has inheritance rights, and if there’s an injury or a killing, there is a legal entity. There is no doubt about it.”
No matter how many cells a person has comprising their physical self, no matter the age, no matter what their disposition, all people everywhere deserve the equal protection of law. The unloved and the unwanted deserve the protection of their life by law as much as the loved and the wanted deserve it, perhaps more so. It is because of the tendencies in people to be cruel toward the powerless that we live in a republic, where the rights de jure of the individual person take precedence over the majority's whims du jour.
Saturday, November 03, 2012
We're All Corporatists Now
Being a Republican is confusing, let me tell you. We are the conservative party; the party of principles and values. We believe in God, we uphold the Constitution, we support the military, we are conservative, we are old school. We are the party keeping the radical leftists at bay, right?
Wrong.
Not just wrong, entirely and completely wrong.
I don't know if we've conceded too much, compromised too much, or were just wrong to begin with, but the GOP is not where it should be politically or morally as a party. Our greatest and grandest example to date is the Presidential nomination of Mitt Romney. Allow me to introduce a basic concept about character.
The only way to know the truth about a man's degree of integrity is to know his past. Of what use is a man's word if he is known to go back on it? Obviously, a politician's track record is of ultimate importance when determining his character. If a man goes back on his word habitually, he does not deserve the privilege of public trust. This is not a conservative position, nor a Republican position, but a common sense position.
Mitt Romney is no new-comer to the political arena. He ran for and lost the Republican nomination for President in 2008; before that, he was the governor of Massachusetts for four years; and before that, he ran for U.S. Senate in 1994. He lost the Senate race to Ted Kennedy, who exploited Romney's inconsistent stance on abortion - to this, Romney replied that he believed "abortion should be safe and legal in this country," eliminating all doubt as to his actual stance in favor of abortion... until his stance admittedly changed in 2005 while he governed of Massachusetts. As governor, he also signed a state-wide assault weapons ban; he had previously supported the federal ban, and his campaign said on his website, "Mitt also believes in the rights of those who hunt to responsibly own and use firearms." Oh... hunting, is it? More on that later. Governor Romney also championed a state-wide health care bill, which is the epitome of statism.
On these three subjects, abortion, gun laws, and government healthcare, I rest my basis for Mitt Romney's disqualification for President. There are many issues and countless individual incidents which collectively amount to Romney being unfit to be the President of the United States, but I will focus on only these three.
To say that killing a child should be "safe and legal" is disgusting. To say that you then changed your mind... is ridiculous. What happened between the time he was in favor of protecting abortion and the time he opposed it? What made him change his mind? I think the political convenience of principles is at the root of his conversion. If it is his contention that it is a human being, as science proves it is a person at conception, why would abortion in any instance be tolerated? Even if the child is conceived via rape or incest, as he and many others say is a legitimate reason to abort, what kind of legal system would punish the child for his father's crime? An immoral system; and its adherents are therefore immoral people.
To say that "assault weapons" should be banned is purely statist and tyrannical. To suggest that the right to arms, guaranteed to us in our federal Constitution's second amendment, was conceived by its creators to preserve some sacred "right to hunt" is preposterous and indicative of a grave misunderstanding of the basic rights of the individual American. There is no stated reason for the people to keep and bear arms other than the security of freedom and sovereignty. Hunting, sporting, and self-defense are not even mentioned in the text of the Second Amendment, and the debates on its ratification mention self-defense only as an additional benefit to the preexisting right to defend the homeland. To use government as a force to disarm American citizens is a crime against the people and their liberty, and an affront to the founders.
Finally, Romney has touted the Massachusetts healthcare laws, nicknamed "Romneycare," as a system that should be adopted nationwide. He later denied saying it should be adopted nationwide when it became politically inconvenient to be a complete socialist, but the fact remains that Romney supports government-enforced healthcare. Many people, both Republicans and Democrats, say there is a difference between a state-enforced and a federal-enforced system; while this is true, and the concept is not without merit, the principle of free markets frowns on the idea of government enforcement of a service. When Obamacare became an issue, Republican candidates for every office everywhere vowed to do whatever they could, in whatever capacity they possessed, to repeal it. Romney is no exception. After all, it is politically convenient to be against Obamacare. However, as Romney has admitted on many occasions, he finds relatively little fault with the concept of Obamacare, and he changed his tune after being nominated by the GOP - now, instead of vowing to repeal Obamacare, he vows to repeal and replace Obamacare. "Replace?" We don't want it replaced, do we? I thought we wanted it erased. I thought we wanted to be a country of free markets, not a socialist utopia.
No, "we" don't want it erased. We Republicans want whatever Romney has to offer us, because he's our "savior," right? He's "saving" us from Obama, right? Well, the fact of the matter is, Romney is as interested in preserving the Constitution as Obama is... Yes, preserve and protect it, so long as it doesn't get in the way of their agenda. Obama will take us down the road to Socialism, and Romney down the road to Corporatism, and the parties backing either will immerse itself in whatever ideology their candidate chooses.
Romney is the standard behind which all Republicans have vowed to rally. He is the ship on which Republicans have decided to stay, whether he sails or sinks. This is evident in the attitude of those who admit they don't agree with him on much of anything, but will vote for him just to get Obama out. That is the kind of self-sacrifice the National Socialists of Germany hammered into the psyche of Hitler Youth. Forget your own preferences, forget your own values, forget your own beliefs and rally behind the man who will lead us. Progression toward what, it doesn't matter; just do as we say, or get out of the way.
After Obama's inauguration, Newsweek published the infamous headline, "We're All Socialists Now."
As for the GOP, it may truly be said, "We're All Corporatists Now."
Wrong.
Not just wrong, entirely and completely wrong.
I don't know if we've conceded too much, compromised too much, or were just wrong to begin with, but the GOP is not where it should be politically or morally as a party. Our greatest and grandest example to date is the Presidential nomination of Mitt Romney. Allow me to introduce a basic concept about character.
The only way to know the truth about a man's degree of integrity is to know his past. Of what use is a man's word if he is known to go back on it? Obviously, a politician's track record is of ultimate importance when determining his character. If a man goes back on his word habitually, he does not deserve the privilege of public trust. This is not a conservative position, nor a Republican position, but a common sense position.
Mitt Romney is no new-comer to the political arena. He ran for and lost the Republican nomination for President in 2008; before that, he was the governor of Massachusetts for four years; and before that, he ran for U.S. Senate in 1994. He lost the Senate race to Ted Kennedy, who exploited Romney's inconsistent stance on abortion - to this, Romney replied that he believed "abortion should be safe and legal in this country," eliminating all doubt as to his actual stance in favor of abortion... until his stance admittedly changed in 2005 while he governed of Massachusetts. As governor, he also signed a state-wide assault weapons ban; he had previously supported the federal ban, and his campaign said on his website, "Mitt also believes in the rights of those who hunt to responsibly own and use firearms." Oh... hunting, is it? More on that later. Governor Romney also championed a state-wide health care bill, which is the epitome of statism.
On these three subjects, abortion, gun laws, and government healthcare, I rest my basis for Mitt Romney's disqualification for President. There are many issues and countless individual incidents which collectively amount to Romney being unfit to be the President of the United States, but I will focus on only these three.
To say that killing a child should be "safe and legal" is disgusting. To say that you then changed your mind... is ridiculous. What happened between the time he was in favor of protecting abortion and the time he opposed it? What made him change his mind? I think the political convenience of principles is at the root of his conversion. If it is his contention that it is a human being, as science proves it is a person at conception, why would abortion in any instance be tolerated? Even if the child is conceived via rape or incest, as he and many others say is a legitimate reason to abort, what kind of legal system would punish the child for his father's crime? An immoral system; and its adherents are therefore immoral people.
To say that "assault weapons" should be banned is purely statist and tyrannical. To suggest that the right to arms, guaranteed to us in our federal Constitution's second amendment, was conceived by its creators to preserve some sacred "right to hunt" is preposterous and indicative of a grave misunderstanding of the basic rights of the individual American. There is no stated reason for the people to keep and bear arms other than the security of freedom and sovereignty. Hunting, sporting, and self-defense are not even mentioned in the text of the Second Amendment, and the debates on its ratification mention self-defense only as an additional benefit to the preexisting right to defend the homeland. To use government as a force to disarm American citizens is a crime against the people and their liberty, and an affront to the founders.
Finally, Romney has touted the Massachusetts healthcare laws, nicknamed "Romneycare," as a system that should be adopted nationwide. He later denied saying it should be adopted nationwide when it became politically inconvenient to be a complete socialist, but the fact remains that Romney supports government-enforced healthcare. Many people, both Republicans and Democrats, say there is a difference between a state-enforced and a federal-enforced system; while this is true, and the concept is not without merit, the principle of free markets frowns on the idea of government enforcement of a service. When Obamacare became an issue, Republican candidates for every office everywhere vowed to do whatever they could, in whatever capacity they possessed, to repeal it. Romney is no exception. After all, it is politically convenient to be against Obamacare. However, as Romney has admitted on many occasions, he finds relatively little fault with the concept of Obamacare, and he changed his tune after being nominated by the GOP - now, instead of vowing to repeal Obamacare, he vows to repeal and replace Obamacare. "Replace?" We don't want it replaced, do we? I thought we wanted it erased. I thought we wanted to be a country of free markets, not a socialist utopia.
No, "we" don't want it erased. We Republicans want whatever Romney has to offer us, because he's our "savior," right? He's "saving" us from Obama, right? Well, the fact of the matter is, Romney is as interested in preserving the Constitution as Obama is... Yes, preserve and protect it, so long as it doesn't get in the way of their agenda. Obama will take us down the road to Socialism, and Romney down the road to Corporatism, and the parties backing either will immerse itself in whatever ideology their candidate chooses.
Romney is the standard behind which all Republicans have vowed to rally. He is the ship on which Republicans have decided to stay, whether he sails or sinks. This is evident in the attitude of those who admit they don't agree with him on much of anything, but will vote for him just to get Obama out. That is the kind of self-sacrifice the National Socialists of Germany hammered into the psyche of Hitler Youth. Forget your own preferences, forget your own values, forget your own beliefs and rally behind the man who will lead us. Progression toward what, it doesn't matter; just do as we say, or get out of the way.
After Obama's inauguration, Newsweek published the infamous headline, "We're All Socialists Now."
As for the GOP, it may truly be said, "We're All Corporatists Now."
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