31 July 2011. Тебе пою, о, огурец! We Praise Thee, O Cucumber!

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Here’s an old Russian trick with cukes… find the biggest pickle you can find, hollow it out carefully, and fill it with… VODKA! What else, you boob, but the REAL THING? Drink it down and eat it up… now, that’s the ticket!

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Cukes rule! 140 million Russkies CAN’T be wrong! The cuke… the King of Vegetables… just as Kielbasa is the King of Meats. Hey, even the Polacks, Hunkies, and Krauts agree with us. Ukes for cukes! How’s that for a slogan?

Let’s SMILE at the GOODNESS of the world…

BMD

31 July 2011. A Point to Ponder: The Gosei (The Five Reflections)… and What They Tell Us About Our Church

Anyone who’s had contact with serving JMSDF officers knows of the Gosei. They’re very simple:

1. Were you straightforward?
2. Did you do anything dishonourable?
3. Did you act with character?
4. Did you do your utmost?
5. Were you lazy?

Japanese officers learn these simple precepts at Etajima; they’re the basis of their code of honour. If we were to judge Jonas Paffhausen, Bobby K, Dreher, Lyonyo, Potapov, Reardon, Gan, Mattingly, Lebedeff, Stokoe, Love BT, Silver, and Freddie M-G (amongst others) by this standard, it’s obvious that they’re dishonourable, disreputable, liars, layabouts, and slackers. It’s says a great deal about us as an institution doesn’t it?

You don’t attack homosexuality, and, then, wink at it in your colleagues. You don’t refuse to give details on why you sacked someone. You don’t attack those who tell the truth. You don’t report unimportant fluffy news in place of giving important information. You don’t transfer malefactors to another archdiocese so that they can avoid the consequences of their actions. You don’t savagely castigate laypeople who (rightfully) took a priest to the secular courts for a civil wrong (a breach of pastoral confidentiality is a violation of ordinary professional ethics that binds all professions, not merely the clergy… it’s a legal, not a moral, transgression).

In short, El Gordo’s fulminations about homosexuality this weekend are a hypocritical sham and a crook attempt to divert attention from his own crank actions and the doings of his nasty cronies. He’s taken the believers’ trust and smashed it on the floor, with no regard for what it means in future. If you think that’s unimportant, or that it’s easy to put right, do think again. Now, people’s confidence in the clergy of the Church is shattered, and it’ll take at least a generation to restore it. It’s like planting a crop or carrying a baby to term… you can’t rush it, and if you do try to hasten it, it not only won’t come out well, it’ll come out distorted and deformed.

Paffhausen and the First Families left THAT as a legacy for the future of the Church.

THANK YOU… FOR NOTHING.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Sunday 31 July 2011

Albany NY