Author: leeduigon(patty)

I have lived in Metuchen, NJ, all my life. I have been married to my wife Patricia since 1977. I am a former newspaper editor and reporter. I was also the owner-operator of my own small business for several years. I wrote various novels and short stories published during 1980s and 1990s. I am a long-time student of judo and Japanese swordsmanship (kenjutsu). I also play chess, basketball, and military and sports simulations.

Can They Tell You When to Speak and What to Say?

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Government: they always want you to worship their golden image

Laws used to mostly tell you what you couldn’t do. Now, increasingly, they tell you what you must do: including what to say and when to say it.

The state of Minnesota threatened a husband-and-wife videography team with fines and a jail term if they persisted in not filming same-sex “weddings,” which they would not do because it would violate their Christian religious beliefs. The couple sued the state, a court dismissed it–but now a federal appeals court has revived the couple’s lawsuit and ruled for it to go forward (https://www.saukvalley.com/2019/08/23/federal-appeals-court-rules-for-st-cloud-couple-seeking-to-deny-same-sex-wedding-film-services/aieyc6y/).

It is, of course, a First Amendment issue. Where is religious liberty, as guaranteed by our Constitution, if one can be forced to say and do things that are against one’s religion? Like, you have to obey the homosexual or else wind up in jail? What kind of country is that?

To the Far Left Crazy, homosexuality and other kinds of sexual aberration are sacred, holy, never to be questioned, and everyone must “affirm” and “celebrate” these abominable things or else be punished by the all-powerful State.

We reject this vision. We reject this false religion. We pray that the Minnesota couple’s lawsuit will succeed; but if not–

“O Nebuchadnezzar… If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou has set up.” (Daniel 3:16-18)

‘Dog Poop Bags Left Everywhere You Look’

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Where the country’s headed–San Francisco’s already there.

We’re seeing more and more of those little plastic bags strewn around the neighborhood.

Dog Poop Bags Left Everywhere You Look

It’s not just the dog poop anymore. People love to throw their fast food waste here, there, and everywhere. The coarsening of our culture proceeds apace. Soda containers, bags containing uneaten french fries with clotted catsup, and those little plastic bottles of vodka–the only people who will benefit from this are archaeologists.

This is the stuff that will tell them who we were.

‘Christ Triumphant, Ever Reigning’

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God knows it’s hard to be optimistic, striving toward things that can’t be seen as yet while the things that we do see are–well, you know what the world is like today.

So here, and we need it, is the Wells Cathedral Choir singing Christ Triumphant, Ever Reigning… His reign on earth began in a manger, and every day takes us closer to His glorious return.

Bulldog vs. King Kong

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Hey, if I had to watch this dopey remake of King Kong, I’d be barking, too. But I think what the bulldog is reacting to is seeing the human get attacked by these large, nasty animals that are obviously not dogs.

How smart does a dog have to be, to see two-dimensional images on a screen, the whole thing designed entirely for humans, and understand enough of what he sees to object to it?

As for me, I’ll stick with Fay Wray.

Lawsuit-Happy Scurveyshire (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Nothing much happens for several chapters, so let us move on to Chapter CCCXVI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney. This chapter is notable in that it is not able to provide us with any new crepuscularities. Oops…

The Marquess of Groan is suing Lord Jeremy Coldsore because he fell ill when the roof was blown off Coldsore Hall, Johnno the Merry Minstrel is suing the Wise Woman of the Woods for being wrong all the time, and the proprietor of The Lying Tart is suing the vicar for not getting rid of his backyard wading pool, under which quite a few of the pub’s most reliable customers have disappeared. It’s bad for business.

“Maybe I just ought to shoot all these dummies who want to sue everybody,” suggests the American adventurer, Willis Twombley. “We had a whole slew of lawsuits in Babylon once, so we put all the plaintiffs to death and that made the lawsuits go away.” Twombley believes himself to be Sargon of Akkad.

“You can’t shoot the Marquess because the Queen wouldn’t like it,” replies Lord Jeremy, “and you certainly can’t shoot Johnno because we need him to sniff out Black Rodney’s cuss-bags. He found another one just this morning–right under my bed, by Jove! Besides, we still don’t know what the Wise Woman of the Woods meant by warning us of ‘the clam before the storm.'”

“My six-gun’s gettin’ rusty, ol’ hoss,” Twombley complains. He suspects Lord Jeremy, his bosom friend, still harbors some resentment against him for accidentally shooting him in the foot, which is why he now has two left feet. He remains unable to dance properly.

Ms. Crepuscular suddenly shifts gears, subjecting the reader to her recipe for toothpaste icing for chocolate grass cake. “Mr. Pitfall will soon be released from the hospital,” she adds, “and I want to surprise him with it.”

My Favorite Prehistoric Fish

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I fell in love with this little critter the first time I saw its picture in a book–Pteraspis, a prehistoric armored fish that supposedly went extinct some 350 million years ago. I don’t think I could’ve been more than five years old.

Pteraspis looks like a dart come to life. British pubs had not yet been invented, so Pteraspis didn’t have to worry about being pressed into service as a projectile. Its armor probably protected it from most predators.

Just a thought: Wait’ll someone finds some soft tissue in one o’ these babies! The fat’ll be in the fire then. Heads will roll, I tell ‘ee….

Play It Smart with False Facts

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Did you know that the sound we call a “raspberry” was once a popular nickname in the ancient language of Arzawa? It translates as “Shorty.”

By popular demand we present a few samples of False Facts IV, published six months ahead of schedule because the world is going to end in 12 years unless we make government powerful enough to stop Climate Change–

And that’s just one of the False Facts you’ll get in this set! Here are a couple of the others.

In the Forest of Dean, in England, there are more gorillas per square mile than in the entire Congo rain forest.

There are still cavemen living in Sayreville, NJ.

President James K. Polk originally spelled his name “Poke” but changed it after he was mistaken for the James K. Poke who taught belly-dancing in Oofty Township, Tennessee.

Extraterrestrial pottery has been found in China.

Want people to think you’re smart? Shoulders back, look ’em in the eye, and recite a False Fact in a tone of unshakeable conviction–’cause now you know things that nobody else knows! Be the center of any family gathering!

False Facts IV–now on sale for only $679.99 at Foolburg’s Farmacies.

Top Jesuit: Satan Only ‘a Symbol’

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It seems Catholics are no safer than Protestants from the false teaching  that keeps seeping into the Church.

Last week the top-ranked Jesuit said Satan is not a person but only a symbol that is “formed” by man’s imagination (https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/jesuit-superior-satan-is-a-symbolic-reality-60691). In May Pope Francis said Satan is a person, and is real; but he has yet to respond to this most recent example of false teaching.

We think we know figures of speech when we find them in the Bible. Satan is never presented as a mere symbol but always as the active adversary of the human race.

You’d think this current era–when “Clergy for Choice” act as cheerleaders for abortion, and “transgender” types are given space in the pulpit–demonstrates with stark clarity the reality of Satan. When New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo–Democrat, of course–publicly “celebrated” live birth abortion, Satan danced a jig in Hell.

I have heard that the Pope himself has been waffling on this, lately, as he has waffled on other fundamental issues of orthodox theology, but I haven’t been able to find any news articles about that. A sharp public rebuke to this Jesuit honcho would seem to be in order. Does anybody see it coming?

Sick Again!

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I thought I was going to get through a weekend, for once, without an allergy attack. What ever gave me that idea? It found me in the middle of the afternoon and hasn’t stopped torturing me since.

I had a hellish night. Had no use of my nostrils until 5:30 in the morning.

This is at least the fourth weekend this summer that I’ve been afflicted. It’s gotten so I expect it. Can it be that I’ll be forced to sit and vegetate in yet another doctor’s office? I didn’t have any of this at all until mid-June.

And the tenant from Mordor has decided to build a “shed” for his motorized tricycle right outside my front door. The landlord lets him do anything he wants. I’m too sick to stop him.

‘When It Feels So Good to be Offended’ (2016)

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She just saw a white guy eating Chinese food…

If some of these college jidrools ever had to go a day without being offended, they’d feel like they’d had no day at all.

When It Feels So Good to be Offended

Some of it’s our fault, though: we’re the sad sacks who fund those colleges. We’re paying for the students to learn how to be addle-pated, snarling, upside-down nonentities. Not just in the exorbitant tuition fees we cough up without a murmur of protest; public money, our taxes that we worked for, comes pouring into colleges and looniversities.

I was going to say we deserve a better product than they’re giving us. But do we? Do we?