Happy Birthday, Dave!

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(“If I can just get myself out of this laundry bag in time for David’s party!”)

Birthday greetings today to our friend Dave, known to most of us here as TheWhiteRabbit! Byron the Quokka has organized a mighty celebration on Rottnest Island, which is going on even as we speak–in spite of him getting stuck in someone’s laundry bag. He’s managed two birthday messages in a row now without a hitch.

We love to mark your birthdays on this blog; it enhances our fellowship. So if you’d like to be part of the fun, send us a message and let us know when your birthday is. We’ll put it on the list.

There’s another birthday coming up in a few days. We’ve got it covered!

Demoting Jesus Christ

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Complete the sentence, if you can. “I send my children to public schools to be educated by Far Left Crazy dimwits because _________.”

For the latest example, we cross the Atlantic to a school in London where the headmaster, in order to make things more “inclusive,” has changed the lyrics of Away in a Manger, in the school’s Christmas pageant, to strip away the Lordship of Jesus Christ (https://www.foxnews.com/world/london-parents-upset-after-school-changes-lyrics-to-christmas-carol-to-be-more-inclusive).

So the kids can’t sing “Lord Jesus.” It can only be “little baby Jesus.” To make it more inclusive. So as not to express any Christian content to Muslims, Hindus, atheists, or people who worship trapdoor spiders.

But if Jesus is only a little baby, and not Lord of anything, then what the dickens are we celebrating? The birth of a nice guy? If Jesus is not the Christ, if He is not the Lord of lords and King of kings, then why do Christmas at all? As C.S. Lewis explained, if Christ is not who and what He says He is, then He is either a liar or a lunatic. And why should such a one be celebrated?

The more “inclusive” you try to make something, the more you thin it out–until whatever meaning it had has been diluted out of existence.

The nooze story quotes some angry parents, but apparently they’re not angry enough so that school big shots need have any fear of them.

But that’s how public servants become the masters of the public: when they lose their fear of the people.

My Newswithviews Column, Dec. 19 (‘Young Conservatives–Baloney!’)

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I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: the problem with conservatism is too many phony “conservatives” who aren’t conserving anything. But the nooze media are convinced that we don’t know that and will never figure it out.

‘Young Conservatives’—Baloney!

If they’re going to lie to us, could they at least come up with some believable lies? It’s insulting, the pap they expect us to believe.

“Young Conservatives”–hot dog!

‘Well, Then, Should I Just Change My Value System?’ (2014)

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Judge Bork had it totally right! That’s why Democrats and nooze media kept him off the Supreme Court.

Y’know what’s scary about this? The ease with which some people do change their “values.”

Well, Then, Should I Just Change My Value System?

I don’t believe those alleged polls that say the American people have come around to be fully in favor of “gay marriage.” If that were true, they wouldn’t be marching in and out of various courtrooms to impose it on us by force. They’d just pass legislation and that’d be that.

But certainly our “value system” isn’t what it was. I think it started with “values” replacing “right and wrong.”

Right and wrong are right and wrong for everybody. But any nit can declare his own “values.”

‘O Holy Night’ (A Capella)

Jessicafischerqueen posted this on my chess page. “There’s something unexpected about it,” she says–O Holy Night by MattNickleMusic.

Gee, only six days to Christmas! If you haven’t entered the carol contest yet–well, now’s a good time to jump in!

Kitty’s Got Mail

Well, at least they don’t answer the phone…

Oddly enough, I’ve never lived in a home that had a mail slot, so none of my cats ever had the opportunity to go postal over the post. I wonder if this would be a credible excuse for skipping jury duty: “The cat ate my notification.”

‘O Holy Night’ (John Berry)

I think this is my friend OhioChessFan’s favorite Christmas hymn–O Holy Night, sung by John Berry. He posted it on my chess page yesterday, and I want to share it with you here.

If you want to listen to the other hymns posted there yesterday, before I can bring them all here, visit http://www.chessgames.com/ , scroll down and click “Chessforums,” scroll until you find the little green dinosaur and “playground player” (that’s me), and click it. They’re all still there.

By Request, ‘How Many Kings’

Requested by Allison (“Weavingword”), How Many Kings, performed by Downhere.

The lyrics tell it all. The Son of God, the only rightful king, stepped down from His throne in heaven to be born a baby in a manger, and humbled Himself to the point of dying on the cross–for us. For us.

A Lot of Words for Saying Nothing

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For the sake of kindness and the Christmas season, I’ve decided not to mention the name of the bank that has provided this towering example of pure blather. Rather than link to their page, I will just quote extensively from it. Besides which, this kind of nonsense is endemic in American business today.

Got your Blather Bingo cards ready? Let’s go!

“Our family-like culture brings teams together where colleagues collaborate and are empowered to make decisions. From day one, we have been driven always to do the right thing…” (I feel safer already, don’t you?)

“Our core values not only represent the foundation of our company, but guide us in everything we do…” (Funny–I thought religion was supposed to do that.)

“We empower employees to work together with partners in the community and internal fellow teammates…

“We promote sustainable growth…” Yatta-yatta.

All this stuff about “core values” that guide them through all of life–but no mention of what those “values” might be, exactly. We infer from the subheads that they may be Engagement, Quality, Innovation, Relevance and Sustainability.

Relevance? What are they talking about? Relevant to what? To whom? Or is this just a lot of tossed word salad?

Somehow bankers have taken it into their heads that they ought to sponsor homosexual “pride parades” and other exercises in culture collapse. It doesn’t have anything to do with being good stewards of their depositors’ money, does it? But their ranks are full of recent college graduates for whom PC blather is the mother tongue. And they’d like to play a part in some “fundamental transformation” of America into God knows what–and pray we never find out.

Defund the universities.

Break the teachers’ unions.

Stop this stuff before it stops our country.

By Request, J.S. Bach: ‘Wachet auf, ruft uns die stimme’

OK, let’s get some of these hymns played. Requested by Heidi, a chorus from a Bach cantata, Wachet auf, ruft uns die stimme (“Wake, rise, the voices call us”).

This reminds me of a day when some of our family from the Old Country came to America to visit Grandpa. Everyone was sitting outside on the porch, conversing in German, when suddenly my cousin, Christopher, just a little boy at the time, started to cry.

“Why, what’s the matter?”

And he explained: “Everybody’s talkin’ Germany but me!”