yes, this...

Sometimes you just need a little encouragement. 

something from Ernst...

'...it is never unequivocally clear who God is. The one for whom we live and die, whom we love or hate, who possesses us in our inmost being, yields the evidence. If this is so, then Christianity is not merely akin to conviction, even less a mere religious doctrine, or conversely a particular morality within a limited social sphere. Rather it is worldwide service in the discipleship of Jesus and in resistance to superstition. What is determinative is the tie to the Lord, who was crucified on Golgotha, ' Ernst Kasemann.

not a movie review...

     In a fit of melancholy, I watched Taken 2, and found it hilarious. Apparently, one can set off hand grenades all over Istanbul without anyone noticing a thing.

     Like I said, it's hilarious.

the elca never fails to disappoint...

     I see the ELCA continues its slide into both fully embraced apostasy and the bad sort of irrelevance. I've long since accepted that the ELCA's was a false promise. Still, it saddens me from time to time.

time to denounce the Left once and for all...

     Yes, when I say that the US Progressive Left is more dangerous, more Totalitarian, than Russia's Authoritarians, I mean just what I say. Soon, we will find the illusion of neutrality stripped away once and for all. For me and my house, we reject the Progressive Left and all its pomps and works.

     And what are those pomps and works? Well, behold the gifts of the Progressive Left in the US: eugenics (abortion; euthanasia; the elimination of the poor and unfit); a vast digital panopticon; war without end for revolutionary ends both vague and dubious; the destruction of the family (itself a product of an earlier, more truly progressive movement).

     That's all just the beginning of the end you know. 

yes, i wrote this...weird it all is...

     So, we're in Oppositeland - Russia seems more and more sane a place, even with its outbursts of violence (which are, perhaps, over-hyped by the Progressive West). Progressives in the US are, to my ear, the greatest threat to life and liberty at the moment. In fact, they are for all intents and purposes the new Fascists in this country. 
     It comes down to what is, at the moment, the only choice - Totalitarian or Authoritarian order. What's so hard to accept is that the US is rapidly moving in the Totalitarian direction, while Russia simply follows its Authoritarian ways. I really don't know what to do with that. 

damn, 'die hard' is taken...

     Through the first half of the sales season, I got my ass kicked repeatedly. There's no other way to put it. I could go into detail, but would thus quickly fall into a litany of Salesman's Excuses, and I hate those. Suffice it say, again and again, my ass hath been kicked repeatedly. For that reason, I found myself down for a couple of weeks. It was the lowest your factotum has been for many a year. 

     Well, the past week or so has seen a shift in momentum. Those insurance adjusters who were taking the most delight in kicking me up and down the road are gone. So far, I have outlasted the bastards. If there are more out there, then let them come. 

     Yes, I daresay things are getting back to normal. 

     Although sales for the year obviously track to the end of December, the season ends around the last week of November. I am determined to break my own record, and to do it between now and that November deadline. What's more, I have been asked to help carry the office through the end of the season so that we meet our goal for the year, and that is precisely what I'm going to do.

     Believe it or not, there is one good thing about taking a lot of real beatings while growing up - I know how both to survive and prevail. So, come the Christmas bacchanal round about the second week of December, I will come limping into the room, yes, but for all that I will win.

     There's a lesson in that somewhere, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is.

a poem...

A Request



Run, tell the one who killed my heart
that it might live again, They’ve lost
the life you gave them, tossed 
it aside, so only you,
who embraced them at the start,
can by terrible words accost
them, making them fearful of the cost
of flight and wringing their hearts anew -
such intercession may renew
a bond so strangely wrought for us
with one who, through illustrious,
lived with a flock all unaware
of who it was who found them so fair.