‘Saint Brigid’s Bones: A Celtic Adventure’ and a Literary Crime

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

You’d think a guy with a Ph.D. in Celtic Languages and Literature, author of a biography of St. Patrick, would do pretty well, writing a novel set in ancient Ireland a few years after Patrick’s death. But Dr. Philip Freeman is here to prove you wrong.

St. Brigid’s Bones is a mystery novel set in an ancient Ireland in which everyone has 21st century attitudes. It seems Ireland in 500 A.D. was a Blue State–who knew? Any moment, I expected the characters to go to Wal-Mart and text each other about it. He shows us the stern old abbess loosening up to have afternoon tea with her good friend, the local Druid wise-woman. All that was missing was the Starbuck’s.

The mystery genre has a rich history of clerical detectives. Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton, Father Dowling by Ralph McInerny (the novels–not the TV show), Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters–there’s meat to these books. They make you think.

The heroine-detective of Brigid’s Bones is that worn-out, done-to-death cliche, the Street-Smart Nun–or she would be, if they had any streets in ancient Ireland. She is young, liberated, has sex with single guys, and probably votes Democrat.

At one point in the story, she confronts the corrupt, evil abbot with evidence of his guilt. He gets the drop on her with a knife; and then, instead of just killing her and winning the reader’s gratitude, he makes the Classical Movie Villain Mistake and blabs all about his various crimes and how he did them, what he’s gonna do next, yatta-yatta… and he’s so busy yakking, the Street-Smart Nun grabs the knife and beats the stuffing out of him. And do you know what she says, after she has him stretched out on the floor? She says, “I’ll come back and finish this, if you ever again mess with the sisters of St. Brigid.”

With dialogue like that, who needs satire?

Finally, the mystery itself, that has Sister Whatsername traipsing all over Ireland trying to solve it, turns out to be…well, not much of a mystery at all. In fact, it’s a shaggy dog story. It’s the kind of thing that gets a stand-up comedian booed off the stage.

Do yourself a favor, and don’t read St. Brigid’s Bones.

So You Still Believe in Public Education?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I dunno, maybe Americans want their kids to be educated by clowns.

Well, for anyone who might actually be swayed by evidence, here is Exhibit 906 million in the Case Against Public Education: “School Forces 5-Year-Old Girl To Sign ‘Suicide Contract’ After An Incident With A Crayon” ( http://2ndamendmentinsider.com/youll-be-disgusted-when-you-discover-the-reason-a-school-forced-a-5-year-old-to-sign-a-suicide-contract/ ).

Yup. A little girl, feeling playful, pointed a crayon at another kid and said something like “poo-poo.” So of course the idiots running the school dragged her off and first “made her take a questionnaire to evaluate her for suicidal thought”–what???–and then had her sign a “safety contract” promising to contact an adult if she was thinking of suicide or homicide. “This all happened while her mom waited in the lobby to pick her up, the upset parent told WPMI,” a radio station in Alabama.

Alabama? But that’s a red state!

The same teacher unions control the public schools in all 50 states. Your child might as well be going to school in Massachusetts.

The child’s mother said “school officials recommended the 5-year-old see a psychiatrist,” WPMI reported.

These are the people you want educating your children? Really? You know, don’t you, that now this child has been marked up as “a suicide risk,” which is going to stay on her record until Doomsday?

More than any other single factor, more so even than what we shamelessly call our politics, public education is responsible for the shambles that America is turning into.

There is no acceptable excuse, morally, for sending one’s child to the public schools.

Britain Moves to Abolish Adulthood

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Hey, what if your brain was aging faster than the rest of you? Uh-oh–dementia’s just around the corner, right?

Well, they’re gonna do something about it–in England, at least. As the Telegraph put it yesterday, “The new system of screening, devised by Public Health England (PHE) means patients will be told how their brain is aging, compared to those with healthier lifestyles, in a bid to shock them into changing their ways” ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/11203786/Middle-aged-to-be-told-brain-age-in-war-on-dementia.html ).

Well, gee, what’s wrong with that?

“Officials behind the idea say they hope the warning will encourage people to make major changes in their lifestyle, which will reduce their chance of dementia. But critics said the plans were ‘heavy-handed and intrusive’ and would frighten millions of people–without giving them an accurate forecast of their true risk of dementia [emphasis added].”

This new scientific technique–lying to people to get them to do what you want them to do, because, after all, it’s really good for them and they’re just too stupid to appreciate your wisdom–was first given respectability in the Great Global Warming Hoax, and is now spreading throughout science. It has been borrowed from politics.

Remember how I asked, a few days ago, at what point will these people feel they have enough power over us, and won’t want any more? And the answer was, of course, that they will never, never reach that point. They will never have enough.

I guess the British government could say to its people, “Well, you leeches and deadbeats, you’ve made us responsible for your healthcare, so you’d jolly well better do as we say! If you think we’ll sit idly by while you all develop dementia because you didn’t run laps and do push-ups when we told you to, you’d better think again!”

And so the English people, once one of the great nations of the earth, are reduced to perpetual childhood by their own government and its hired Experts. Eat this, don’t eat that. You can’t smoke anymore. Hands off that cupcake! Get up from the couch, you lazy sod, and run 15 laps around the block.

That’s where they’re heading.

And we, poor fools, are right behind them.

They Don’t Know Shinola About Ebola

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

The headline says it all, right? First they tell us you can’t catch it, Then they tell us you can catch it from a sneeze. They tell us there’s nothing to worry about, no need to ban incoming flights from Ebola-land, and anyhow quarantines don’t work–and then they won’t let a U.S. Army unit come home from Ebola-land, but ship it to Italy and quarantine it there.

If you can’t make head nor tail of it, well, neither can the CDC. Not even with President Barack Ebola’s new Ebola Czar, the guy from Solyndra, who was last seen making half a billion of our taxpayer dollars disappear.

If nothing else, this crisis does reveal the vast incompetence of Big Government and Big Science. These leaders, these experts, who insist they are qualified to interfere in our lives and micro-manage our affairs, these anointed idiots, have imported Ebola into our country and don’t know how to contain it. They do not know what they are doing.

Look at Obamacare. Does that look to you like they know what they’re doing? Or even care?

These people aren’t competent. They are also without morality.

Tuesday, Election Day, we have a chance to punish a lot of them by voting them out of office.

But you can’t do that by staying home or voting third party. And please, spare me the bromide about what a bad guy I am by voting for the lesser of two evils. Does it make me a better person if I vote for the lesser of three evils instead of two?

It may already be too late to prevent Ebola from establishing a permanent foothold in our country.

But if it does, please remember that it was the Democrats who insisted on importing it, and refused to do the absolute basic Job No. 1 of any government–to protect its citizens from harm.

Meanwhile, it must now be abundantly clear to even the most limited intellect that neither Big Government nor Big Science can live up to its advance billing. They must both be cut down to size. They have too much of our money and only know how to make mischief with it.

How Libs Want You to Celebrate Halloween

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

When I was a kid, Halloween was fun. Now a lot of corrupt grownups have gotten involved in it, blood ‘n’ guts, the occult, Halloween displays that get mistaken for real mayhem, and real mayhem that gets mistaken for Halloween displays, etc. So the day has taken on a darker tone.

And now, to finish off whatever innocent enjoyment remains in Halloween, we have–ta-da-dah!–the University of Wisconsin’s helpful hints for trick-or-treaters and costume party-goers ( http://hotair.com/archives/2014/10/31/welcome-to-your-politically-correct-halloween/ ).

You won’t believe this dreck. Let me give you a verbatim sample.

WEARING A FUNNY COSTUME? Ask yourself: Is the humor based on “making fun” of real people, real human traits or cultures? Though intended to be funny, the “Mental Patient” costume by Disguise was considered demeaning, dehumanizing, and humiliating to individuals struggling with a mental illness and their families… the costume reinforced stereotypes and fears about persons with mental illness.

Similar paragraphs get on your case for wearing a scary costume, a historical costume–forsooth! don’t even think about letting your kids be costumed as Native Americans!–or wearing “a ‘beautiful’ costume,” because the whole idea of “beauty” just isn’t fair, yatta-yatta.

Each of these begins with the admonition to “ask yourself”–and by the time you’re done asking yourself, Halloween is over and you missed it.

Here’s a helpful hint about understanding the behavior of liberals: their fun is to spoil somebody else’s fun. They really can’t be happy unless they’re making you feel miserable or guilty.

So You Think the Fight is Over?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

As of today we learn that the lesbian mayor of Houston has withdrawn her subpoenas of Houston pastors’ sermons, assorted writings and communications, and anything else resembling the exercise of free speech and religious liberty in opposition to her now-infamous “bathroom law” that allows mentally disturbed men who claim to be women to use women’s rest rooms.

Has she had a change of heart? I doubt it. But she did have a national uproar on her hands, plus pastors mailing her copies of their sermons, and people mailing her Bibles, from all over the country. She may be a villain, but she isn’t stupid. She realized that she had gone a step too far, too soon, and had to retreat.

For the time being.

America is not quite ready yet for “gays” to dictate what may or may not be preached from the pulpit in a church.

But if you think they’ve given up on it, you’re wrong.

Two contradictory moral codes may not reign supreme over one society. Either American Christianity must re-assert itself, awake, and reconquer lost ground; or else Gaydeology will conquer it and reign supreme. “Sexual liberation” will become America’s highest moral value, and faithfulness to the Word of God her most severely punished crime.

And if you think any of Organized Sodomy’s triumphal progress so far has been achieved without the fervent, unwavering support of the Democrat Party…

Please think again.

‘The Village of the Damned’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I had never seen this classic horror (or is it science fiction?) film. My parents wouldn’t let me see it when it came out in 1960. Something somebody said recently made me want to try to watch it on my computer. That turned out to be harder than I expected, but eventually we managed it.

And it turned out to be two for the price of one: the original 1960 black-and-white British production starring George Sanders, and John Carpenter’s 1995 color remake starring Christopher Reeve. Both are based on The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), a novel by John Wyndham.

And both are quite good, too. You won’t get a lot of blood and guts thrust under your nose, and neither version tries to be “realistic” by depicting all the characters in the story as fools or degenerates, or both. The 1995 edition features truly gorgeous cinematography. The more subdued 1960 film is a little creepier. John Carpenter used the old screenplay for his model, and named it in the credits.

So what’s the story? For no reason that we can ever find out, everybody in the town of Midwich suddenly faints and is out for several hours before just as suddenly waking up again. A little later, it is discovered that practically all the women in the town are pregnant. This is awkward, as you can well imagine. The children who are born all have pale blond hair and freaky eyes, but are otherwise normal… not.

We soon learn that these children share a group mind which makes them more intelligent than adults and endows them with certain deadly powers. They are right scary little fiends. Think about it the next time you read a fantasy by some fat-head who thinks it would be cool if children had magical powers.

If I told you any more of the plot, I’d spoil the story for you. Both versions are excellent, and we enjoyed watching them on consecutive nights.

Unlike the news, the horror of a scary movie stops when the movie stops.

 

I’m on the Radio Tomorrow

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I’ll be the guest of Mike and Tim tomorrow on RIGHT Spokane Perspective, 9 a.m. Pacific Time, 12 noon Eastern, discussing my books and the need to sock it to the Dems in the coming election.

To listen on your computer, go to http://www.acn.cc at the appropriate time and click on the Liberty Bell to get a media player.

My voice isn’t much for aesthetic quality, but I hope you’ll be interested in what I have to say.

Libs Wouldn’t Like You to Buy My Books

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

You folks should see the comments I refuse to display. They’re all from libs and progs, they’re all chock-full of cusswords, most of them express the wish that some tragedy should overtake me, and besides which, half the time, they’re so inarticulate, it’s all I can do to figure out what they mean.

I guarantee they would be unhappy if they thought a lot of people were reading Bell Mountain and its sequels. They’d be even more unhappy if they were to read these books themselves and see what’s in them. And they would gnash their teeth over what is not in them! I leave the rest of this thought to your imagination.

Look, I have to do this from time to time because this is the only advertising I’ve got. Besides, Christmas is coming and my books would make good presents for children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews–and adults, too. And right now amazon.com is selling the paperbacks at big discounts.

If you like high adventure, sharply-drawn characters, way-out-there settings, and plenty of action, all wrapped up in a Biblical worldview, these are the books you ought to be buying–and not just for yourself.

I know, I know–here’s this guy talking about his own books, isn’t it disgraceful? Betcha didn’t mind when Frank Purdue did it, or that old guy who owned Wendy’s. It is sort of embarrassing to do it, though.

All right, then–as long as you’re here, click “Books” and visit the amazon.com page of each of the six books, and check out the Customer Reviews. They’re almost all five-star reviews.

This concludes the commercial. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

A Rat as Big as a Car

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Hi! Mr. Nature here, this time via the “Believe It Or Not” Dept.

What would you say if you saw a rat (or hamster or guinea pig, you get the general idea) as big as your car? Well, OK, probably I couldn’t print it. But it seems there really is, or once was, such a creature. In 2008 its skull turned up in Uruguay. Scientists named it (good luck, pronouncing this) Josephoartigasia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephoartigasia_monesi ).

Joe the Giant Rat, scientists estimate, was 10 feet long and five feet tall, with a 12-inch-long incisor tooth in a skull 21″ long. They estimate the animal weighed up to 3,382 pounds: that’s as much as two adult male polar bears, or a full-grown female white rhinoceros. And that’s the conservative estimate: when it was first discovered, they were thinking 5,000 pounds-plus. They reckon it fed on soft water plants, cheese having not yet been invented. They say it lived from four to two million years ago, for what that estimate is worth.

It makes me wonder what else is out there waiting to be discovered.

Behold the works of the Lord. No, I don’t know why He created this Josephoartigasia and then didn’t keep it around for us to see. No, I have no theological explanation for extinction: the subject is not discussed in the Bible.

All I know is that God created a vast number of really cool animals that were also probably really dangerous, and that they aren’t with us anymore. He created them for His pleasure and they were, by definition, perfect. It’s my personal belief that, with a whole universe at His disposal, God simply took these creatures off the earth and moved them somewhere else–

Leaving their fossils here for us to marvel at.

Wow.