Tag Archives: Military

2013/04/26 · 10:44

Fisking the lyrics of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah with animatronic Sarah Palin and Larry King: taking on the most popular song of all time for the new evangelization

duel steven spielberg

From Steven Spielberg’s *Duel* — Shooting someone who outdrew you…

I have the opinion that http://holysoulshermitage.com boasts of some of the most incisive readers/commenters on the internet. I have a little project that needs some feedback, some tweaking of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.

Just before Christmas of 2010, when I was teaching at the Pontifical College Josephinum, I was invited by the seminarians to be one of the presenters for the popular culture night they put on, the idea of the event being to analyze a villainous point of culture.  Surprising many, I chose to critique Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, which is nearly the all-time all-time most popular song ever. Just the very first page of YouTube alone counts up hundreds of millions of hits.

The version I played for the seminarians is sung by Kurt Nilsen, Espen Lind, Askil Holm and Alejandro Fuentes. Another version was used in Shrek. It’s been an ultra favorite of the popular talent shows such as American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent, and dozens of television and stage and radio productions.

Here are the highly poetic words, extremely condensed statements which were continuously rewritten, Leonard Cohen says of himself, in great anxiety and agony. You really have to stare at each word for quite a while:

1. I heard there was a secret cord that David played and it pleased the Lord. But you don’t care for music do ya? Well, it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift. The baffled king composing, “Hallelujah!” Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

2. Your faith was strong but you needed proof. You saw her bathing on the roof. Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya. Well, she tied you to a kitchen chair. She broke your throne and she cut your hair. And from your lips she drew the “Hallelujah!” Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

3. Well, maybe there’s a God above. But all I’ve ever learned from love is how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya. It’s not a cry that you hear at night. It’s not somebody whose seen the light. It’s a cold and it’s a broken “Hallelujah!” Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

My analysis in part depended on an article by my friend, Father Louis V. Iasiello, O.F.M., retired Two Star Admiral, one time Head Chaplain for the entire Department of Defense, and now laboring in the Lord’s vineyard by helping out with the formation of the seminarians at the Pontifical College Josephinum. Here’s the *.pdf of the article of Father Louis V. Iasiello, O.F.M. on “Betrayal of Trust - David and Bathsheba Revisited” at the New Theology Review, 2008.2. (Betrayal of Trust–  David and Bathsheba Revisited – PDF).

Anyway, here’s the video critique of these verses of Leonard Cohen’s song that I created myself. You might have to watch it a couple of times to get all the nuances. The “text” voices of the characters aren’t always as clear as I would have liked them to be. You might have to adjust the volume a bit.

So, given that, I wonder if it would be helpful to tweak the words just a bit, just one or two, here and there, to readjust the theology to be a bit more in line with what is actually found in the books of Judges and Samuel. I have a rather mighty project in mind with a number of super-talented people. Heh heh heh.

Any no-secret-cords-attached suggestions to offer? Think about it. You can do it.

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2013/04/23 · 06:47

Saint George, awesome among the very saints of God

Outside of my great friend, Saint Philomena – the veracity of whose existence as a virgin and martyr of the early Church has recently been sustained by exhaustive scientific evaluations of the evidence — outside of her… there is perhaps no saint more scorned as being no more than a figment of pious imagination than Saint George, who, however, boasts of more archeological and historical evidence than most any other saint in the history not only of the early Church, but for some lesser known saints, right into our own day. Churches dedicated to Saint George sprang up in their dozens throughout the ancient world immediately after news of his martyrdom on 23 April 303.

Liberal warning: The most obnoxious denial of the existence of Saint George comes from a super liberal professor of “ecumenism” (which I put in quotes because he had no idea what ecumenism is). Many of my fellow priests today have had Father XXX as a professor in the various countries, seminaries and universities where he’s mislead people. Anyway, he had the idea that Saint George couldn’t possibly have existed because of the iconography of him slaying a dragon. His arrogant idea was that we’re so very smart today, and people of the past were so very gullible and stupid. He laughed his nervous, mocking laugh when I tried to explain a few things about the iconography:

  • Those in the first centuries, who were suffering under the severe persecutions of the dragon of the Apocalypse, namely, the possessed-by-Satan pre-Constantinian Roman Empire, understood the dragon to be the Roman Empire. Even so, such depictions only came later, but for this very reason.
  • The white horse, similarly, is the white horse of the Apocalypse 6,2, whose rider goes out conquering and to further his conquering.
  • In the early fourth century, after George was martyred, it is interesting to note that all martyrs in the Montefiascone/Bolsano region of Tuscany, whether male or female, with no regard to how they met their deaths, were all depicted as riding on the white horse of the Apocalypse.
  • The woman who is to be saved in the background of some Renaissance paintings is, similarly, Holy Mother Church, who is represented by her saints.
  • The point of all this wonderful triumphalism in the iconography is not that Saint George or the other martyrs successfully fought their way out of being martyred, that they slew the dragon by, for instance, assassinating the Emperor of the time, but rather that they conquered the demonically controlled world by witnessing to Christ Jesus’ goodness and kindness right unto their deaths, so hated is goodness and kindness by the demonically controlled world. Saint George and the other martyrs slew the dragon by being slain themselves.

None of this — or the archeological proofs — made any impression on this super-liberal priest, for the last thing he wanted to hear was faithfulness to the Church unto death. That’s not what his own life was about. Since he couldn’t answer in any reasonable way, he merely laughed his mocking laugh once again. I had to live with that kind of nonsense for… well… pretty much my whole priesthood. Yikes! This kind of thing can occasion an increase in friendship with Christ Jesus and the Saints!

This icon was given to me by Cardinal —. It’s from the Mount Zion crowd just outside the wall of the Old City of Jerusalem. There is great devotion to Saint George in Palestine until today, with about every third boy being called after Saint George.

George’s father, Gerontius, was well known to the Emperor Diocletian as one of his very best soldiers. When Gerontius’ son George applied to Diocletian to be in the military service of the Emperor, Diocletian quickly made him part of the Imperial Guard and gave him the rank of Tribune. These positions taken together made young George, perhaps in his early twenties, almost as powerful as the Emperor himself. Very few people would have ever had such power, both military and political, and at such a young age. George was an instant phenomenon. Everyone would have known exactly who he was in the entire ancient world.

Diocletian was persuaded by the might-makes-right Galerius to have all his soldiers offer sacrifice to the Roman gods. George, with the zeal of the saints, loudly and with great reason proclaimed his worship of Christ Jesus, so that he couldn’t possibly offer sacrifice to any Roman gods. Diocletian, distraught — for he had never intended this — offered George all sorts of bribes, all of which were scorned by our Saint. Diocletian then set out to make an example of him, first attaching him to a wheel of swords and then having him decapitated.

Saint George and Saint Michael the Archangel sometimes meld into one presentation with wings being granted to Saint George on his white horse. That’s O.K. I’m sure they were great friends!

By the way, George is the Name of God the Father: ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ γεωργός ἐστιν (John 15,1). “My Father is George.” O.K., so, a pedantic translation would be “My Father is the Farmer” or “My Father is the Tiller of the Ground.” Some translations have “Vinedresser.” Truth be told, it’s γεωργός, that is, George!

Just to be insistent about this: “Adam” means “Tiller of the Ground.” “Adam” = “George.” Jesus is the New Adam. Jesus is the New George. Yours truly is merely the old George, the old Adam. But Christ has conquered and goes out to conquer still. Thanks be to God our Father that Jesus sets about slaying me so that, dead to myself, I live for Him alone. Yikes!

Update: This just in from ObisCatholicusSecundus:

saint george flag

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2013/04/21 · 15:52

Psychological profiling of terrorists – Obama bans the truth to enable more terror

boston marathon terrorist bombing time magazine special report

There are plenty of psychiatrists / psychologists hired by the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Energy, and all sorts of competing agencies of other Federal organizations, not to mention all kinds of military and paramilitary and other kinds of actionable groups.

One of their jobs is to profile the psychology of a terrorist.

But these shrinks are missing the forest for the trees, indeed, for getting caught up in the moss on this or that tree.

Proof of this is their pitiable descriptions of depression, or anger, or being conflicted. A perfect example of this regards a psychologist’s description of the Muslim military shrink in Fort Hood who shot up his fellow soldiers in an act of terrorism that Obama declared was not terrorism (regardless of that terrorists involvement with known overseas terrorists).

Ooooo! It’s all so senseless, so unreasonable, a sign of mental illness, they say. 

These guys speak of being radicalized, which they equate with throwing spittle flecked tantrums. But that doesn’t speak to reality, does it?

As it turns out, Obama has forbidden profilers to delve into the truth of the matter. They cannot ask, “What do Muslims believe?” Robert Spencer has a great two page article on this: Page One and Page Two.

In that short article, Robert didn’t get around to mentioning, however, a broader point, which involves a perspective on reason from the point of view of Islamic belief. You can’t mention everything all the time, but it is the one aspect of all this that few, if any, talk about, and now talking about it, by those who should talk about it, is banned.

This aspect about reason and faith trumps all other aspects of the psychology of this or that individual. It’s what sets the stage for “radicalization” or other things to be successful. Understand this one, central, driving force, and you’re way ahead of the game. 

Remember Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Address, and why it was rejected by all ideological power brokers of Islam? Benedict asked for a dialogue based on reason. Reason in dialogue was explicitly rejected with the statement that our reason is useless, that Allah has a different reasoning than ours. The context of this was the Islamic spreading of faith by the sword, the political edge of Islam without which there is no Islamic belief.

Remember Pope Francis’ opening volley in dialogue? He recalled that Regensburg Address by asking for a dialogue based on reason. That request is still hanging in the air.

Once a Muslim accepts that there is no reason to be applied to religion, that religion doesn’t need to be reasonable, all bets are off. “There are no more values anymore,” as one of the Boston Marathon bombers said. Whatever Allah wants, that’s what Allah gets.

Read those two pages by Robert linked to above.

Whatever Obama says, intelligence community psychologists shouldn’t be looking for anyone spittle-flecked. As with most terrorists of this kind, they are as cool as cucumbers, more so than all others around them. Hey! There’s a point for a profile.

At any rate, the younger terrorist is soon to be questioned, if he survives. However, if the best that can be thrown at him is the Reid Technique, they’ll get nowhere fast.

Such a terrorist is not interested in claiming innocence. He will immediately say that he did what he did and proclaim that Allah is great. There’s no way to embarrass someone who proclaims that there are no values because reason is useless in the face of belief in Allah.

Sure, the Reid Technique is subtle, and can trick information out of someone, and perhaps questions about family and friends back in the old country and the refugee camp will bear some fruit. But, I would say, almost none.

I suppose that is why some Senators want this fellow to be called an enemy combatant. Military interrogators, I would think, have learned that the Reid Technique is basically useless for Islamic terrorists.

I can already hear the objections to this post. Before objecting, read the two pages of Robert linked to above. I agree with what he has to say.

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2013/04/12 · 20:10

Update: Why America can’t stop Korea’s atomic missiles from contaminating Japan

kim jong-un googled image

  • Let’s say Kim Jong-un actually does have two missiles, so far.
  • Let’s say he fires both.
  • Let’s say he fires them as low as possible over the water, due West.
  • Let’s say one is actually operational.
  • Let’s say he’s got the electronics shielded.
  • Let’s say that he’s got the warhead set to go off so many seconds after it is fired.
  • Let’s say he’s correctly over-compensated his calculations as to the timing of the would-be impact with anti-missile defense systems.
  • Let’s say he has zero intention of having the missiles reach Japan.
  • Let’s say he’s content with just so many miles out from North Korea.
  • Let’s say he’s waiting for strong West to East Winds, to carry the fallout.

Given all that, the warhead is detonated before the missile is destroyed, and fallout contaminates Japan, enough to annoy Japan, enough to make people suffer the hassle of taking potassium iodide, perhaps more because of hysteria than anything else, but enough fallout to make Kim Jong-un a hero to his sycophants.

That’s all, but that’s enough to stop it from happening.

But it can’t be stopped. Because destroying the missiles would be a declaration of war not from some hothead in North Korea (and who cares what he says), but from the United States. So, we won’t.

“Besides,” we exclaim, “we can blow his missiles out of the sky before they get anywhere near Japan! And then we’ll destroy his capabilities, and he knows it.”

Right. He doesn’t care. He knows that. He will detonate them long before the missiles can be taken out. And he will get what he wants. And he will rebuild. And he will have the chance because no one will stop him, for all will be urged to show restraint by the U.S.A., which, after all, will say that his missiles actually failed to reach their target, so that destruction of nuclear plants will ensue and sanctions will ensue and the North Koreans will starve to death, as usual. And that’s it. And that’s all of it.

Except that he’ll be sold more weaponry by those who applaud his “bravery”, and we’ll begin all over again, using diplomacy to stop a launch, but then watch as the launch proceeds, a detonation is executed, and yet another cloud of fallout heads out over Japan. Ad nauseam.

We’re fighting the wind over the waves pushed along by the hot air of politicians.

Did I ever tell you about my meeting with John Kerry after the funeral of Blessed John Paul II? It was frightening.

Update: The very best pilot in Asia, a good friend, sent in this video. The commentary is a bit over the top, although I very much enjoyed South Korea having a sense of patriotism. This was made last year, and I bet these guys are just soooooooo wanting to take out the missiles before they are fired. The last half really is quite amazing. Of course, we cut back on doing this kind of thing, not appreciating how this kind of show sharpens combat flight skills.

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2013/04/01 · 09:54

Close friend inside the cockpit of Alaskan F-22 hours before heading off to *Korea*

f 22 from fas

My father had plenty of impossibly spectacular landings in his USMC career spread out over Guam, the Philippines, Japan, China, (North) Korea and back in Washington, D.C.

He was shot down over Korea, but somehow slammed the burning wreck of his Corsair on a beach between razor edged rock cliffs jutting out into the ocean, making the enormous prop look like an egg-beater. As is the custom with the USMC, he was rescued by his buds before the North Koreans could capture him.

The F-22 is, of course, the pet project of the USAF. My friends exclamations about this technological marvel filled me with memories of my own father’s recollections.

Those memories are not about war-mongering, but rather, of his love for the (North) Korean people, of trying to save them from the war-mongering of a few communist individuals in the North. As he flew his little Corsair (heading up the famed Checkerboard squadron) so as to take out, not the populace, but rather military targets of bridges and munitions trains, loaded down with gargantuan bombs as he was, he would note the poor farmers out on their little plots of land and write poems in his mind about their agrarian life-style, poems full of respect and, indeed, awe before the beauty he witnessed, seeing their faces, mind you, flying, as he was, just above the land-scape, and with some of those poems making it into print. (I have no idea where that is now.)

War, in defense of others, can be about love. Sure, there are also chess moves being made on a world-scale. All war is hell. But there can be love amidst hell. All hell broke out on Calvary in the most epic battle that there will ever be in the history of mankind, and amidst that hell there was the greatest of all loves.

My own father had all the political aspirations of a Ronald Reagan, though, of course, he never made it so far as to be known outside of Minnesota and Washington, D.C. But the two of them had a great deal in common. I am reminded of this video:

We pray that the Korean situation will be taken-care-of forthwith.

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2012/12/29 · 18:33

The US Army’s jab at the USMC. The answering machine gag answered. Hah!

Ahem… Because of my father flying corsairs and such in Guam, the Philippines, Japan, China and Korea and training the guys in D.C. and Chicago afterward, I have a predilection for the USMC.

My response to this little video, sent in by a certain Master Sarge, and which has been making the rounds perhaps since YouTube started, is that the U.S. Army, which produced this little jab against the Marines, is a response which shouldn’t even have to be voiced. But I will…

Only the Army would have time to produce such a thing. The Army mans the phones, which is an indictment. Hah!

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2012/12/27 · 11:17

AGENDA – GRINDING AMERICA DOWN (Must see new documentary on the Marxism of the present U.S. Admininistration)

marxism obama googled image

Here’s the six minute trailer to whet your appetite. You will watch the entire film after seeing this.

The entire film for free for the moment only: http://vimeo.com/52009124

The website, at which there are reading lists, etc.

Comments: The documentary has two main ideas:

(1) The communist activity of the present administration was never wrapped up in conspiracy theories since everything they did was always in the open, published and broadcast and trumpeted, an agenda, not something secretive.

(2) The objectification, that is, the de-personalization of people is always the aim.

More on that in another post.

You owe it to yourself and to your fellow countrymen, wherever you are in the world, to watch this film.

Spread the word. It’s an education. Very worth while.

Nota bene: While I watched this film I felt myself becoming angry a number of times. You have to know that I’ve met out and out violent Marxists in my life, some of whom were priests. I’ve also met untold numbers of clergy and bishops who were, as Lenin called them, useful idiots. How much damage they’ve done. And for what? Bulldozing corpses into mass graves? That’s what they want. But, more on that in another post. For now, just watch this most excellent film.

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2012/12/20 · 12:46

(UPDATE [x2]: I.E.D.-E.O.D. people needed) “Always Ready! Always There!” — Lest we forget Afghanistan — Meet Humvee IED barely survivor

rb national guard turned army special forces googled image

That’s U.S. Army Spc. R.B, right, a Nuristan Provincial Reconstruction Team civil affairs soldier, that is, before being crushed in an I.E.D. attack on his Humvee, in which he was a passenger.

The explosion was quite a while back. At the present moment, he has such ferocious vertigo that he is strapped in a hospital bed, also strapped down because of such pain in his head that there is no medicine known to science that can reduce the pain or… or… even knock him out cold so that he can get some sleep. Consider that he has an extremely high threshold for pain, but that this is way, way, way over the top. One can die from sleep deprivation.

R.B. is the son of a reader of HSH who prays much for yours truly. I am indebted. Let’s say a prayer for her dear son and for all our injured and fallen soldiers. Remember, he was on a reconstruction team. Back home, he owned a fire-truck and got volunteers to help form an impromptu fire company. How great is that?! Hail Mary…

UPDATE: R.B. sustained a transorbital penetrating injury (T.P.I.) to the brain in @June 2011. No bleeding right now in December of 2012. And the M.R.I.s have always been  O.K. But, “white matter” has been discovered in the brain cells.

My conjecture: The white matter is likely a toxic chemical/dust mix from the explosion entering the brain by way of the injury. His doctors may not at all have I.E.D. experience. We need to know what the chemical/matter composition would have been with the types of devices used in the first half of 2011 in North-Eastern Afghanistan. If there are any I.E.D.-E.O.D. readers, or friends of readers, please, send me an email at holysoulshermitage using gmail dot com. Is there any chemical to counteract, cancel the effect in the brain, or a way to stop this matter from interfering with the brain. The matter, I’m guessing, has migrated down into the inner ear, which may be what is causing the vertigo so servere that he has to be hospitalized for it.

UPDATE: O.K. Some possible progress. I’m finding out that nobody but nobody knows this info other than one or two Israeli doctors. We’re trying to set up a meeting between a military specialist doctor in the USA or, because the info is so very, very classified, sending him to Israel. Prayers, please.

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2012/12/12 · 11:18

THE FAT LADY, THE BOY SCOUTS, AND AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. A shot in the arm we need today. Just. Wonderful.

boy scouts nypl

The Boy Scouts of America at the Court of Peace with the largest American Flag of the time. The year is 1940. God Bless America.

From an email to Holy Souls Hermitage as it makes the rounds.

This is the very first public singing of “GOD BLESS AMERICA”.

But before you watch, you should also know the story of the song.

The time was 1940. America was still in a terrible economic depression. Hitler was taking over Europe and Americans were afraid we’d have to go to war. It was a time of hardship and worry for most Americans.

This was the era just before TV, when radio shows were HUGE, and American families sat around their radios in the evenings, listening to their favorite entertainers, and no entertainer of that era was bigger than Kate Smith.

Kate was also large in size, and the popular phrase still used today is in deference to her, “Ain’t over till the fat lady sings”. Kate Smith might not have made it big in the age of TV, but with her voice coming over the radio, she was the biggest star of her time.

Kate was also very patriotic. It hurt her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the next day would bring. She had hope for America, and faith in her fellow Americans. She wanted to do something to cheer them up, so she went to the famous American song-writer, Irving Berlin (also wrote “White Christmas”) and asked him to write a song that would make Americans feel good again about their country.

When she described what she was looking for, he said he had just the song for her. He went to his files and found a song that he had written, but never published, 22 years before – way back in 1917. He gave it to Kate Smith and she worked on it with her studio orchestra. She and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be received by the public, but both agreed they would not take any profits from God Bless America. Any profits would go to the Boy Scouts of America. Over the years, the Boy Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties from this song.

This video starts out with Kate Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra and an audience. She introduces the new song for the very first time, and starts singing. After the first couple verses, with her voice in the background still singing, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie, “You’re In The Army Now.” At the 4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an office, reading a paper; it’s Ronald Reagan.

Frank Sinatra considered Kate Smith the best singer of her time, and said when he and a million other guys first heard her sing “God Bless America” on the radio, they all pretended to have dust in their eyes as they wiped away a tear or two.

To this day, God Bless America stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country. Back in 1940, when Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of her fellow Americans, I doubt she realized just how successful the results would be for her fellow Americans during those years of hardship and worry, and for many generations of Americans to follow. Now that you know the story of the song, I hope you will enjoy it and treasure it even more.

Comment: This is NOT nostalgia. Obama’s Blue Shirts have nothing on the great Boy Scouts of America. The Boy Scouts faithfully keep to their principles despite the draconian dislike of Obama and his administration. In watching this video, think the unthinkable about what is, in fact, happening, in America. The enemy is on our own shores. The enemy is shored up on other shores. But we will not personally be our own worst enemies if we follow the lead of patriotism and self-sacrifice and freedom of religion which is manifested by the Fat Lady, the Boy Scouts, and all who are truly patriotic. Faith has effects in the world if the faithful are faithful.

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2012/12/07 · 07:31

7 December 1941 – Pearl Harbor – 71 years ago today – Thank you for serving

Thanks to our men and women who gave their lives on our behalf. Thanks to those who served back in the day and still today. A wee prayer for them would be most appropriate: Hail Mary…

I don’t know where my father was at the time. He was a marine pilot in Guam, Philippines, Japan, China and, later, Korea.

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2012/12/05 · 08:22

Exclusive Report: Fiji quietly falls to Chinese backed Islamicist extremists at the end of 2012, a coup within the coup d’état

fiji coup detat destruction 2000 just me

I took this picture in Eastern Fiji during the coup d’état of 2000. Looks peaceful, right? You would be wrong on that. The house is cement with a tin roof. The inside is charred. Nothing left. Plenty of deaths and lots of destruction. The coup within the coup d’état of 2012 promises to be much worse in both the short and long term. This time, it’s all about Islamicist radicals and China.

There’s a news blackout in Fiji that is being enforced not only by terrorist censors of the “government” fining journalists with unpayable fines (six figures in USA$ for that poor country) and imprisoning them for two years, but also, as a lead up, smashing into their work places and violently trashing reporters’ homes. All communications are blocked or censored.

One reporter, risking life and limb (already violently smacked down by censors) smuggled out news of a coup within the present coup d’état. That news was given by personal courier to a mutual friend. I publish it here since no one else is covering this story of the fall of the Pacific to Islamicist radicals supported by, you guessed it, China.

But you won’t see any updated travel advisories. No, no. None of that. Obama is Islamicist friendly, didn’t you know? China’s not a threat to world stability. No, no. None of that. Obama is Asia friendly, didn’t you know?

A snippet:

“The reality is that China comes along and the USA is sleeping away. By the time you wake up the Pacific is going for good to China. My friend said is it a scary situation as the election is promised to be held in 2014. In the mean time we are living in fear.”

And another:

“The 2nd in command of the military is Muslim and he is running the show instead of the commander. I suppose he fears for his head. The 2nd in command apparently put all his fellow Muslims as heads of the government departments so everything is controlled in an Islamicist fashion. What a frightening situation to live with.”

Comment: Much of World War II was fought in the Pacific precisely over things like this. I wonder what our Veterans think. I wonder what the present Military thinks. I wonder what our spooky friends think, who have known all this for the longest time.

It’s politically correct not even to notice that it is taking place. This is what America voted for. This is what the world gets.

Look, I know Frank Bainimarama. I spoke with him at length about where Fiji was coming from, what he was trying to do with Fiji, and where he wanted to go with Fiji in the future. I spoke with him about their military and their U.N. “training”. I spoke with him about Marxist elements and the danger of ethnic cleansing, which was being promoted at a national level among all leaders of the Island group. I know, because I was there, and I personally know extremely well these Marxist elements and the ethnic cleansing they promote on a popular and political level. I know where they meet and what they say, because… they tell me, and I witness it firsthand.

My surmising of the situation: There will be… there is… violence in Fiji, which will fall into… which has already fallen into… Islamicist control. Ever so quietly. Unless you live in Fiji. Unless you want freedom of speech. Forget about any free and fair elections. China rejoices. A civil war is in the making. I personally know the “players.” They will brook no dissent in order to make it happen.

I have much to say about this. I have much to say about the complacency, even complicity, even direct involvement, even on the level of instigation of some few Catholic clergy in all this. But that’s for another post. I wonder if I should name names, you know, of Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops and priests, diocesan and religious, from the South Pacific all the way to a certain dicastery in the Roman Curia. That may be necessary in order to avoid an impending blood bath.

Oh, and reporting by MSM? Nah. It’s not politically correct. And they know nothing. And play down tensions. For instance, The New York Times, typical of their non reporting on violence and genocides  (like the Holocaust) downplays the slave trade bringing Indians to work the sugar cane as “cheap labor.” Really? Wars are fought over just that. Typical “Times.”

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2012/12/04 · 17:42

Honor those who survive by remembering those who do not. HSH supports our military.

An emotional video sent in by a reader, the mother of a son who is in the military and in the seminary. I’m sure you’ll love watching it. Perhaps you could take just a few seconds and join me in saying a Hail Mary for her. She’s terribly sick.

Also, in remembering those who made the sacrifice, let’s ask our Lord about the eternal repose of their souls. Hail Mary…

Which reminds me:

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Lest we forget: Thanksgiving in Afghanistan

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2012/11/22 · 16:39
2012/11/16 · 14:07

Obama the terrorist: testimony of Petraeus points to this, again

click to enlarge

Of course the memo was changed.

Of course Susan Rice got the changed version.

If it’s not terrorism, the U.S. won’t be allowed to bring to trial the terrorists, or, you know, the “folks” as Obama calls them.

But all this does not mean that Obama was not told about al-qaeda and the other “folks” of Libya from the get-go in the situation room.

In every way, it looks like the entire terrorist action in Benghazi was set up beforehand as a permitted “payback” for the taking out of Osama bin Laden.

Doesn’t it? Just askin’

Everything consistently points to this, doesn’t it?

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2012/11/15 · 02:25

Parsing Obama’s pro-Benghazi terrorists declaration

Here’s a flash-mob dancer waving nicely for the camera. Those watching in the Situation Room of the White House and over at the Pentagon were thrown into confusion, pre-empting any military intervention to save lives, for, according to Leon Panetta, one can’t send anyone into a confusing situation, because, you know, our guys are too easily confused in that kind of situation. Really?

Here’s a one minute video put together of the changing stories after the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate and CIA Annex in Benghazi:

  • Obama, who would have watched the drone video in the Situation Room on September 11, said, the next day, September 12, when asked if this was a terrorist attack:

“It’s too early to know exactly how this came about.”

I guess he was so shocked that there were no flash-mobs in the drone video that he didn’t know what to say. The flash-mob thing was on everyone’s lips. Was this all scripted beforehand, and the playscript wasn’t acted out the way it was planned?

  • Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (sigh) incredibly said on September 16,

“What happened initially is that there was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video.”

“The video.” And she might well be tapped to be Secretary of State?

She said this repeatedly five days after everyone knew it was a terrorist attack. Keep the video in mind.

  • Matt Olsen, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, on September 19, said, when questioned:

“Yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy.”

Well, that was refreshing. But watch what happens an entire day later:

  • Obama on September 20, incredibly, said:

“The natural protests that arose because of outrage over the video, were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they could also directly harm U.S. interests.”

Let’s parse that language. According to Obama’s account:

  1. There is a protest going on which sought to directly harm U.S. interests. For Obama, not only is the outrage natural, but the protest which sought to harm directly U.S. interests is natural.
  2. In that protest, there were extremists who also sought to harm U.S. interests directly. The actions of the extremists are also natural. He doesn’t call them terrorists, because what they are doing is natural.
  3. Obama does say that they were using the larger protest that sought to harm U.S. interests directly as a springboard for their more exteme actions to harm U.S. interests, but places those actions — let us repeat — under the same umbrella of “natural”. In other words, Obama is praising this act of terrorism, this direct attack on the U.S.A. in the person of the Ambassador, and three others, including two Navy Seal heroes.

Obama should be impeached, right here, right now.

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2012/11/10 · 13:46

Happy Birthday to the USMC — Just in time for All Veterans’ Day

A little less flashy, from my dad, who flew combat missions in Guam, Philippines, Japan, China and Korea, besides teaching the guys how to fly in Washington and Chicago:

Did I mention that Holy Souls Hermitage supports our Military? Here’s what Dad flew:

Of course, that one isn’t decked out with machine guns and bombs. But it does sport his squadron’s checkerboard detail, with the famous WR on the tail. Dad was the squadron leader.

Now, don’t forget the story about six marines and thirteen hands (an absolute must read).

Don’t forget that Sunday is Vets Day (Monday being an added day).

Thank the vets you see.

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2012/10/28 · 13:53

Father of murdered Navy Seal speaks to President Obama, asking him to fess up: very moving

Just a few minutes: Here

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2012/10/26 · 16:29

“This has to do with honor, integrity and justice” (not politics) — Father of murdered Navy Seal in Bengahazi

HERE

Why is anti-American Terrorist Obama still President of the United States?

Why? No, I mean, really?

And look… I’m not making this political, but it has political consequences.

Meaning that it has to stop now. We can’t be putting our men and women at risk like this.

Obama has got to go. And he’s got to go now.

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2012/10/24 · 20:55

MH-60K 160th SOAR Night Stalkers doing some spot checks. Way Cool!

Since my dad was a Marine fighter pilot in Guam, Philippines, Japan, China and Korea, and a trainer in Washington, Chicago, and back in Minnesota, I like all Military pilots.

It seems that the Night Stalker crowd are doing what they do best — at night — which is to protect the spooky crowd, of which there are plenty around here, perhaps even half the population which has moved in from elsewhere.

They’ve been hovering just a couple dozen feet over various homes of the intelligence community at night, just about shaking the houses off their foundations. I suppose they must think that there is some sort of terrorist threat, coming from them or against them. At any rate, I’m guessing that they are equipped with some ultra senstive equipment to see what’s what along the lines of… what… geiger counter stuff?

Perhaps this is the same crowd which has visited the hermitage a couple of times, once just ever so slowly making a pass by, but once hovering right overhead, just hanging there — forever it seemed — just high enough not to get caught too severly in the trees. Thunderous!

Happy to oblige. Perhaps it was a visit to the Blessed Sacrament! Holy Souls Hermitage supports our Military!

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· 16:24

Military Vote Down 70% — Massive Voter Fraud Favoring Obama

We’ve covered the sterling work that the Military Voter Protection (MVP) Project has done to focus on the shortcomings of the absentee ballot system for service personnel located around the world. Those shortcomings have resulted in significant drops in participation by military voters—as much as 70 percent in some states, according to one recent MVP project report.

HERE

Comment: So, let me get this straight… These men and women are at the ready to lay down their lives for us and we don’t even extend to them the possibility of voting?! Really?!

The present administration must be replaced. But it will be very difficult without the military vote. Every vote counts. Not voting is a vote for Obama.

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2012/10/11 · 12:51

nervous breakdowns: a note to the institute

کشتیرانی جمهوری اسلامی ایران

I bet you guys at המוסד and your righteous friends among the nations are still having some anxiety with this one more than a year later, and for some weeks more recently. Good luck. May God be with you. Don’t get a nervous breakdown. But, if you do, that’s alright. You did your best. You gave your all. That’s more than most do. Thanks for the efforts. Just keep people safe in their travels, O.K.?

To regular readers of HSH: I apologize for this post, which is rather cryptic, so to speak.

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2012/10/07 · 16:28

The politics of Attack Helicopters, Angels, rigged elections, and… and… a certain Laudie

A detail of the ad orientem window behind the altar of Holy Souls Hermitage, October 2012.

What looked and sounded like an AH64, the U.S. Army’s most awesome Attack Helicopter, paid a visit the other day. I tried to get a picture of it as it whizzed by the Hermitage, but, alas, it was too quick this time, just on the other side of the canopy. The army comes alone. The marines, with their super-cobras, come in pairs. Fighters can be alone or follow one another. As I say, with this being a practice area, this is surely the most protected airspace in the world.

Don’t think for a second that guardian angels don’t also use natural means to protect us — should that be God’s will — from harm’s way. Part of those natural means involve the military, those who go out of their way to put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf, to provide for us also the possibility of the freedom to practice religion (not just worship, but acting upon religious conscience in the public square). We owe not only our angels, but our military an eternal debt of gratitude. They take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, even though the president and his cronies do not. I love that.

I might have written on this recently, but I’ll repeat it here. There’s some talk of the black ops crowd supporting Obama more than any other previous president, including Reagan, for the reason that Obama gives them free permission to kill anyone and everyone they think they should kill. In other words, overtime pay, scalp hunting regardless of any connections to terrorism of whatever potential targets.

I doubt this. I mean, honestly… But should there be any such un-American people, I would ask them to consider this. There have been some events of recent weeks which would make one think that Obama is giving free reign to Islamicist terrorism. We have a dead ambassador. Obama rationalized the goodness of that act of war against the U.S.A. by saying that someone, somewhere in the world made an insulting youtube entry. Indeed, it would now seem that one is to protect terrorists from capture while not protecting their targets from harm. I’m thankful that there is much more chatter that finds any such talk of any such un-American black ops crowd to be insulting and dishonest. Great.

I wish the  Military would take charge of protecting us from a rigged election. Let’s do a test as the absentee vote begins in the next weeks. I was on the road with the neighbor  the other day from Asheville all the way up the mountains, dozens and dozens of miles. Of the hundreds of political signs, there wasn’t not even one Obama sign. Extremely few are for Obama. If he ‘wins’ here, you have to know that the election was rigged.

At least there is a certain Laudie to provide a bit of normality amidst the mayhem that would ensue. Another way, I think, that guardian angels work.

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2012/09/19 · 13:15

Two Zulu Cobras zip around Holy Souls Hermitage: Very, very cool!

They didn’t graze the tops of the towering white pines this time. They were up a respectable two or three hundred yards. They weren’t moving fast, so the turbulent chopping noise was LOUD! This, for me, is always great to see. HSH supports our military. Zulu Cobras. Very cool.

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2012/08/22 · 07:40

Flybys at the hermitage – the Spirits of the Air – Mary Immaculate – Saint Michael

I did not go out to see the fireball of the jet fighter that did a flyby of the hermitage before sunrise this morning. I did not see the jet. I heard it. That was enough for my curiosity so early in the morning! Besides last year here at the hermitage, the last time I heard such a scrape the tops of the trees painstakingly slow, almost stalling out flyby was decades ago at our religious house in Kentucky, which is just over a bit from Fort Campbell. I couldn’t believe my eyes, as the fighter seemed to be no more than fifty feet off the ground. Happy to hear these flybys, if not see them. They’ve been much less frequent, I must say, in the last while. I haven’t seen another Predator B since last year, you know, the MQ-9 Hunter Reaper Killer UAV super payloaded General Atomics version of what the drone kingdom should be like. However, I think there was another AH 64 again the other week. Yikes!

Neither John the Baptist nor Jesus had any difficulty whatsoever with the fact of a military, though they did insist on justice. When there is justice, there is no threat, neither at home nor abroad. This is what the U.S. Military strives to be all about. When Cromwell threatened Thomas More with justice, the great statesman replied that, therefore, he was not threatened. Holy Souls Hermitage supports our military.

Saint Paul (see Ephesians 6,12) says that we are not fighting flesh and blood, against each other, but against the fallen spirits. Trouble is, is that some people like to go after the ways of the fallen spirits. To remain just in such a situation demands that one be non-reactionary, but instead one who simply acts to re-establish justice, serving God, who is, as the USMC says, Semper Fi, that is, semper fidelis, that is, always faithful, that is, in such a way that the Marine might participate in that faithfulness in the re-establishment of that justice which is a service to all mankind.

Trouble is, is that there are those who are unjust, as Satan is unjust, and Satan wants people to fight against him (and them) on his own terms, that is, with injustice, overreacting, being evil in a violence which could otherwise be a contribution to the virtue of justice. Saint Paul says that we fight against the fallen spirits, but, the thing is, in this fight, we fight with God and for Him; we don’t just attack Satan as if we could do something on our own, depending on our fallen selves. If we thus – actually – fight against ourselves, Satan will taunt us into getting terribly upset, losing sight of God. This is captured in a great statue of Saint Michael slaying Satan in the Saint Michael Chapel (next to the Crypt Chapel) above the grotto in Lourdes. Satan seems to be positively enjoying getting slain by Saint Michael, as if to say that Saint Michael is having no effect, that this does not hurt him, that Saint Michael is finally “playing” on Satan’s terms. You know, the old “Nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah” type of thing:

Saint Michael, however, doesn’t fall for it. He simply does his job, with calm, serenity. After all, Michael, “Like unto God,” is acting on God’s behalf, not simply reacting to Satan. Here’s the rest of that statue…

Notice how terribly calm Saint Michael is. That’s the way he was always depicted, until more recently, when, now, people think that they have to do battle with Satan on their own, and thus get frustrated, and angry (with themselves), and then project the agonized face they make onto that of Saint Michael.  That’s just not right.

To prove the point, on this feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the Extraordinary Form, or the Queenship of Mary in the Ordinary Form, lets take a look at any image whatsoever of Mary crushing Satan beneath her feet. Is she frustrated and angry with herself? Never!

Our Immaculate Queen Mother simply does what she does by the power of the Holy Spirit, looking to him. The stained glass above is found in Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Hendersonville, NC, way, way, way down the mountain and to the South and East.

Conclusion: Whether your job is as ferocious as the daily life of any of the USMC, or as ferocious as day to day living while being Semper Fi, always, always, always faithful, do this so as to fulfill justice (upon which virtue mercy is built). In this, you’ll have to be looking to the Holy Spirit, and by His grace, ever so simply, as a child, however ferocious.

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2012/07/17 · 04:51

SIX boys and THIRTEEN hands

From an email. Note that my father was a Marine pilot at the time. Things like this are an occasion for me to cherish, in thanksgiving, the freedom that was won at such a great cost. I am also amazed that so many Americans no longer want this great freedom… Continue reading →

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