Monday, August 24, 2009

Suppressing Saint Procop’s

Saint Procop is the patron of a formerly Czech (Bohemian) parish on the near west side of Cleveland, Ohio. He was alive a thousand years ago, and was an abbot. The nations coming to America, often gave names to their parishes after national saints. The Czechs often have churches of St. Wenceslaus, and St. John Nepomucene (Nepomuk). Procop was the first Czech canonised, but less well known. His calendraic day is the 4th of July. This Sunday, upcoming, Bishop Lennon will preside over the last mass, and the suppression of the parish will formally begin. Sunday, last, some of the parishioners gathered for ‘class pictures’, supra—are some beginning to assemble. The day before the last wedding took place in the church. Its sacramental records are ending.

The parish began some years after the failed war of southern secession. The cornerstone of the present, Byzantine-Romanesque structure was masoned in 1899. The parish demographics and economy mirrored that of the city. In 1962, the dome and two spires were removed. Now, with the further ravages of the statistics, and as a fall out of scandal, parishes are being suppressed, which is the canonical term for ‘forcibly closed’.

In addition to the nostalgic memories of all those who have fond recollections of their past, and their family
’s, the parish aided the greater community. A weekly meal for the indigent and others has been moved to Saint Augustine’s, which has been very noted for feeding the hungry. An AA programme has been moved to an UCC church. It is a sad end for a parish, an entity meant to be perpetual.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Cash to car dealers

Yesterday, the BBC reported on the american “cash for clunkers” programme, they had to translate ‘clunkers’ to ‘bangers’; I would say ‘beaters’. The programme was quite popular, so popular that, it has emptied the kitty set aside for it. A local television station (WKYC-3) has run a story with a stilted bias, a bias that is absurd. It purposely gives the impression, that it has been a hardship for the car dealers. The poor businessmen are breathlessly waiting for its end on Monday. This is our ‘liberal media’ in action. Quite often local ‘news’ stories are shills gratis, at other times they are disinformation propaganda.

Really, the whole thing has been a government dole to the owners of car dealerships! Business has been slow. Car salesman have been long, and loudly, whining about the dearth of customers. This has brought them in.

NO car dealer was forced to use the programme, they voluntarily did so. The money has been presented as a gift to the customer; it does not go to the customer, it goes to the dealer, and most certainly, the dealer will use it to his rhetorical and financial interest. The price of the vehicle, with the government incentive, will be higher than without the programme. No, the car dealer has not given a largess to the customer. No, the car dealer has not been cheated by the federal government.

Some car dealers have complained they have not received the government money, yet. It has been a short time, and how quick was your satisfaction in dealing with car dealerships. How often has your pay come immediately?

Remember, most car salesman are Republicans. This was a government gift to car dealers. A Republican candidate for US Senate, from Ohio, is Tom Ganley, a very successful car dealer. I do not know if he engaged in this programme. Perhaps, he could inform us, during the campaign, of his involvement, and whether he approved of such big government interference in the market. Perhaps, he can give a consistent answer in regards to how government benefits him.
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postscriptum: On 24 August, WEWS-5 ran a story featuring a Ganley dealership, which did participate.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Investigate this!

Nine members of the permanent opposition, of the US Senate, have objected to an investigation of torture. In December 2007 nine Republicans voted for torture:
-Wayne Allard - Colorado
-Christopher Bond - Missouri
-Tom Coburn - Oklahoma
-Thad Cochran - Mississippi
-John Cornyn - Texas
-James Inhofe - Oklahoma
-Pat Roberts - Kansas
-Jeff Sessions - Alabama
-Ted Stevens - Alaska
When the new attorney general was in the process of confirmation, Cornyn delayed the process, because he objected to the possibility that the Justice Department might consider torture a criminal offense. Eric Holder has now seen much evidence and is heavily considering to proceed.

Now nine senators are objecting:
-Christopher ‘Kit’ Bond - Missouri
-Richard Burr - North Carolina
-Saxby Chambliss - Georgia
-Tom Coburn - Oklahoma
-John Cornyn - Texas
-Chuck Grassley - Iowa
-Orrin Hatch - Utah
-John Kyl - Arizona
-Jeff Sessions - Alabama
The overlap is four: Bond, Coburn, Cornyn, Sessions.

Now this is the party that spent millions upon millions hounding in worthless investigations, a twice legally elected president, up to a failed trial after impeachment over a tawdry sexual peccadillo. A special prosecutor is needed for Republicans to cripple, or remove, a democratic administration, but for international crimes against humanity not so much? Who in America holds the scales of Justice?

Monday, August 17, 2009

Why are Cheney and Rove not imprisoned?

David Letterman’s show said, concisely, that Cheney is one big tub of evil. It is almost impossible for one to come up with an individual in the history of this country, whom has lied so shamelessly and continuously as Dick Cheney. If Cheney does not end up in Hell, then Hell is a very empty place.

Cheney, the war profiteer, the proponent of torture, the enemy of civil rights, the manipulator, the worshipper of Mammon and Mars, the enemy of mankind is unbowed. He is said to be writing a memoir to advance his agenda. Will the Justice Department read it? He has incriminated himself already, and the law, and the press, and the nation are uninterested.

Karl Rove, the architect of georgebushjr’s régime, thoroughly politicised the ‘Justice Department’. Congressman John Conyers has released papers, in the thousands, proving Rove’s machinations. Rove has the same spirit of remorseless mendacity as Cheney. He has refused subpœnas. He has laughed off accountability.

It has been announced that Tom Delay will be a ‘contestant’ on a television dance programme. He has skipped away from several prosecutions, why not waltz and jig to the music in primetime. James Trafficant, former congressman from Youngstown, O., is to be released after eight years in prison over a few thousand dollars of tax fraud. Are not the vivid, scarlet crimes of the Republican hegemony far greater transgressions against the nation, and world, than petty corruption?

Friday, August 14, 2009

Town hall charade

Insurance companies make money denying medical care. The uninsured may pay quadruple for the same service as does the insurance carrier for the same claim. Of all the western industrial democracies, the United States lags at the bottom for health care, as much else that is good, but number one for income disparity and military spending. The United States is not a caring country, but a vicious country.

Some people are carping on the possible cost and taxes, they did not carp about the greater cost of the iraqui war. These naysayers on health care are showing an inconsistency.

These (mostly) angry, middle-aged, white people, some with misspelled signs overlap with those whom hate both, Barack Obama and the Democracy. They intersect with the birth fraud crowd, the gun nuts, the teabagging racists and the audience of the lunatic mouthfoamers. They have threatened violence. They have equated a legally and popularly elected president with nazism, Hitler, socialism, and communism. When the bushevik régime did enact fascist tactics, they decried critics as 'bushbashers'. And now they have been joined with Larouche supporters, whom are another sort of crazy, that I can not fathom. Some have been plants of the Republican party, and the moneyed interests. This is the angry ersatz crowd. They have not come to listen, learn, inquire nd debate, but to yell and rant.

The cretinous senator from South Carolina, Jim DeMint showed the rationale of motivation, "If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him". The proposed legislation is addressing a long standing problem. The minority party is hell-bent on sabotage and obstruction, and has not attempted anything in good will, nor for the commonweal. Grassley, of Iowa, is supposed to be part of a bi-partisan committee on the legislation, yet he is making absurd statements against it. He says Senator Edward Kennedy would not get care under the health care proposal, since he is aged with terminal cancer. Other than this being completely false, Kennedy is a rich man from a rich family--no such situation would ever apply. Perhaps, Grassley is exhibiting a nasty form of senility. And of course, Sarah Palin is agitating rubbish to the dolts of hatred.