Category: Articles

Memory Lane: Sears-Roebuck Christmas Catalogue

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Here! Enjoy seven minutes’ worth of toys in the Sears-Roebuck 1960 Christmas catalog.

Oh, did I love those catalogs! I know it’s not quite what Christmas is about, and you can go too far–(Are you kidding? You can go way too far!) but come on, let’s get real: who doesn’t like to receive presents? Some of us like to give them, too.

I loved the “play sets” with mobs of little plastic figurines. Can I remember all the play sets that I had? Circus (I was, I think, five years old). Farm. Dinosaurs and Cavemen. African Safari. Cape Canaveral. Military Base (with spring-powered missiles!). The kid down the block had the Ben Hur set.

And then there were all the different construction sets with which you could design and build your own architectural fantasies. There was just no end to it. Sitting on the couch in the sitting room, watching the snow come down, and thumbing through the toys section in the catalog–was there ever a more pleasant way to spend a winter’s day?

Alas, there is no more Sears-Roebuck & Co., no more Sears Christmas Catalog.

Just memories.

[P.S.–That’s Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring in the background.]

‘It Is Well With My Soul’ (Special Christmas Narrative)

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Requested by Teddy Kiara–and you’re right, Teddy: it’s very hard to keep a dry eye while watching this.

Narrated by Hugh Bonneville, backed up by the Tabernacle Choir and a cast of re-enactors, It Is Well With My Soul was written by Horatio Spafford who, in 1873, after he’d lost most of his wealth in the Great Chicago Fire, then lost his four children in a shipwreck.

That was when he composed the hymn.

Mr. and Mrs. Spafford were to have further troubles in their lives (only two of their seven children survived to adulthood).

But as you will hear, they never gave up.

[16 minutes, but well worth your time: very inspiring]

 

‘Hey! Wanna Die?’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Patient gurney surgery hospital hi-res stock photography and ...

“Did he say we could kill him?”

Imagine you’re in the hospital for a mastectomy–no one’s idea of fun, certainly not yours: but your doctor tells you you’ll survive it–and as they wheel you into the operating room, you’ve got another doctor in your ear with a sales pitch–

–For assisted suicide (https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4271588/posts)!

Canada legalized “Medical Assistance In Dying” (MAID, as in “Everybody ought to have a maid…”) a few years ago and by 2022 there were over 13,000 cases and assisted suicide is now the fifth leading cause of death in Canada. Only the Netherlands has a higher rate of assisted suicide.

What does this say for our Western civilization… which once was “Christendom”? Did we ever fail to live up to that label! When we’re not sexually mutilating children, we’re talking adults into letting us kill them  when they might otherwise survive and get better. Is this a civilization or a death cult?

Pray hard, work hard, fight hard. It may be God will have mercy on us and save us from our sins and folly. He may even restore us to sanity.

 

Way Too Much Technology!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

AI Girl Generator For Free Online

Computer-generated, make-believe, and phony as a $3 bill–and she’s all yours!

Hey, check out the current Malwarebytes newsletter (https://clicks.malwarebytes.com/e/evib?_t=24fabbbc5c2c43578ed8469e4f452569&_m=6d18adbfaab8417ea23ea21e3d55fe76&_e=TGxpKV8tRBiJhp-BFb0ZhCVS4wyZ6nemazqTBv5r4mvYX9VvQ2zlXVmfS8wTOkfVCt-3H_aar9F156la0uo1Qg%3D%3D)! Anything with a web address that complicated has got to be good.

People thoughout The Land of the Free are getting frazzled by technology that they didn’t need in the first place–and now it’s driving them up the wall. Stoves, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners: all hooked up to the Internet.

Why does anybody need a “smart” vacuum cleaner? There’s a vac with a video feed. At last! I can film the dust-bunnies under the bed!

Best of all is the rise of the “AI girlfriend,” a make-believe, computer-generated sex slave… which hackers can hack, and blackmailers can use to bleed you dry… if you’re daft enough to go for this.

Why in the world do we want hi-tech everything? Settin’ ourselves up for a mighty powerful hurt, aren’t we? The whole world’s connected! And then something goes wrong with the connection. Oops.

‘Newsies Wonder, “Why Don’t They Love Us Anymore?”‘ (2016)

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381 Mobbed By Reporters Stock Photos, High-Res Pictures, and ...

Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah!

Newsies have been singin’ the blues, these past few years, completely mystified as to why the public doesn’t seem to like or trust them anymore.

Noozies Wonder, ‘Why Don’t They Love Us Anymore?’

Gee, you could have a contest! In 25 words or less, “I no longer trust mainstream media newsies because ________.” The answer that turns me on the most wins an autographed book.

By cracky, it is a contest! Yes, let’s do it! We could use some livening up around here. Submit as many answers as you like. I’ll share them, day to day, with the readership. Let’s vent, already! They’re trying to impose another Democrat presidency on us–they deserve to get it with both barrels.

The contest starts NOW.

‘Witch Doctor for Hire: Have Spells, Will Travel’ (2015)

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I can only listen to so much bilge from globalists, liberals, and other utopian nudnicks before I start thinking of societies held in thrall by witch doctors. That still exists in Africa today–only now they’ve got the Internet and cell phones.

Witch-Doctor for Hire: Have Spells, Will Travel

But don’t feel superior! America and Europe are every bit as credulous and superstitious as Africa. What can any witch doctor say that’s more preposterous than what we get from the World Economic Forum and the Democrat Party?

Yeah… but muti magic kills…

Tell it to the Ukrainians and Russians.

‘Bad Culture… Bad Politics?’ (2018)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of couch potatoes

The couch potato doesn’t even know he’s under attack.

I wrote this in 2018 and it only seems more applicable with the passage of six years–not less.

A fouled culture breeds more Democrats, who befoul the culture they’re born into. Or, as I say, Kill the culture and the culture will kill you back.

Bad Culture… Bad Politics?

That so much of this garbage is pitched to us and consumed by us–indeed, sought out by us!–as “entertainment” leaves one almost speechless.

If the Democrats win this one, next month… I think we’ve had it. Hasta la vista, baby.

‘Knowing Things That Aren’t True’ (2013)

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Woodcuts and Witches — The Public Domain Review

It wasn’t quite the way they tell it, was it?

This article appeared some years before leftids, aka compulsive liars who would break out in hives if they ever told the truth, went on a jihad against “misinformation” on the Internet–but it’s only fake if you hear it from someone other than a Far Left screwball.

Knowing Things That Aren’t True

Where do we get all this phony “knowledge”? Used to be we had to rely on popular culture–TV, movies, comic books. But now it comes belching out at us from schools, universities, and government: everyone’s a politician.

A very sorry state of affairs.

‘They’re Still Getting Away With It’ (My Newswithviews Column, Sept. 19

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Public education! Ain’t it the berries?

The abuses of public education that we suffer and take for granted today, were not tolerated once upon a time–as late as the 1970s. They never, never, never would have been able to do these things to us… once upon a time.

They’re Still Getting Away With It

Yes, there was a time when communities owned the schools that they paid for. There was no State Dept. of Education. Nor any federal Dept. of Education. Holy moly, there was freedom! And the people who had it vigorously defended it.

I was there; I saw it. I was a reporter; I reported it.

But I still don’t understand what happened to it.

Fooey on ‘Change’

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Photo of Stop & Shop - Edison, NJ, US. Tight shot of customer picking up a Nature's Promise item off the shelf.

They’re taking away our Stop & Shop supermarket, and of course no one has any say in it,  no one but “corporate” someones who really don’t give a ****. So today we had to find another store.

“Change”–how hard do our politicians try to sell us that? And of course all they really mean is “change” that benefits them and their fat-cat donors and leaves the rest of us out in the cold.

Lots and lots and lots of things have changed in my lifetime, and very few of them for the better. That beautiful town I used to live in–and I haven’t moved!–they’ve trashed it but good. You’d never recognize it.

I wonder if I have time for a cigar… before they change that, too.