Here is a wonderful medieval chant of the Salve Regina as it was said to have been recited by the real Knights Templars.
Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our Life, our Sweetness and our Hope. To Thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to Thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us, and after this our exile show unto us the Blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary, pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen
When trying to explain political reality to some people (usually Democrats who are used to controlling everything in this State and do not any longer), it sometimes feels as though one is dealing with a group of preschoolers, and that in order to get certain points across to them you have to sing songs in the same vein as Barney or Mister Rogers' Neighborhood ("the buttons in the booth go beep beep beep..."). Unfortunately for a few of our former county election administrators, they became entirely too accustomed over the years to hearing "I Love You, You Love Me" from the Legislature and from former Secretary of State Riley Darnell's office.
"All we're trying to do is update the code to clarify what the duties of an administrator of elections are," Representative Dunn told The Examiner, "if passing this legislation impacts these court cases, that is incidental. This bill is based on reality, on the truth." Dunn further stated that the legislation is not about firing anyone, and that he believes members of the House Democratic Leadership are being less than honest when they say that they didn't know anything about Dunn's election bill or Monday evening's impending vote on it in the House of Representatives. "[House Democratic Leader] Gary Odom sits on the Calendar and Rules Committee, and this had to pass through Calendar and Rules to make it to the House floor. For Odom to get in the papers and say he knew nothing about this before now is a bit of a stretch."
Mae Beavers' race involves a lot more money and time and personal investment than mine does, I understand that. However, Senator Beavers needs to ask herself the same question that I did in the depths of my heart on what is now the two occasions in my life where I have had to make a political decision about an election: "Who, and what, am I in this for?" I don't know how Senator Beavers would answer that question, but my personal answer is "I am here to serve my community, and to be of service to my neighbors (and in the case of the SEC, of course, my neighbors and the party)." If Mae Beavers made her decision because it became clear that she could not win the Mayor's race in Wilson County so she is shifting back to the Senate because she will have an easier time being re-elected, is that truly done with a mind to service? Is it with service that she has upended everyone else's plans and hard work because she changed her mind after having ample opportunity to do so before causing anyone else major headaches?
One of the things we know about my mother's side of the family is that quite a few of them came to this country back in the mid-1700's from County Antrim.
For one day a year, the minds of much of the world turns to Irish politics, and to all things Irish, especially to the Irish Question-namely, whether there should be one united Ireland free of any political connection with Great Britain, or whether the six counties of Northern Ireland partitioned in 1921 as a result of the Government of Ireland Act should continue to remain a part of the United Kingdom.
To those of us outside of the sphere of Irish political life, it appears to us to be a simple matter of whether someone favors a united Ireland or whether they do not. The religious stereotype, of course, is that Catholics support Irish unity while Protestants support unionism, and that the conflict is an entirely religious one. While it is statistically true that a super-majority of Catholics in the North of Ireland are nationalists, and the overwhelming majority of Protestants identify with Loyalism or Unionism, the notion that the conflict is only religious in tone ignores the critical reality that while the six-county state may have been a creation of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and even physically divided Ulster itself, four generations of people have grown up living in a society that went from repression, to unease, to war, and now to peace. Further, Northern Ireland has been its own entity, for better and (often) for worse since 1921, while the 26-county Irish Republic has developed separately since that time, and has slowly but methodically been able to move on from its conflict with both Britain and the Unionists in the North.
I never believed that I would see a workable peace in Northern Ireland in my lifetime, some government there which all sides regard as acceptable and legitimate. I never believed that would see the IRA agree to lay its arms down and accept sitting in government with unrepentant Unionists, nor that I would see any of the Unionists agree to sit in a parliament with Sinn Fein as one of the two governing parties, which does contain within its ranks those who engaged in terrorist activities against not only the British or the Unionist authorities, but against everyday civilians. The Unionist parties and political groups have within their numbers those who aided and abetted discrimination, thuggery, and even terror against Catholics and nationalists.
Yet, both sides have agreed to sit in Government, and both sides now believe they have the upper hand. Unionists believe that they have won because as a concession for shared power, nationalists have had to accept the principle of consent, the idea that there can never be a united Ireland without the consent of the majority of people in the six counties of Northern Ireland. Republicans, they say, have indirectly accepted the Union. Conversely, Unionists have had to accept that nationalists have a right to full political representation and are forced to concede that a united Ireland could happen at some point in the future, and that if it were ratified in a free vote of the people of the North of Ireland, they would be obliged to accept that.
There is no easy answer to 500 years of strife and over 30 years of war. Perhaps the next generation can find the best way to solve the Irish Question.
Instead of sticking to business, the Greater Knoxville Chamber of Commerce has decided to attack State Representative Frank Niceley for bothering to listen to his constituents:
As for the election of school superintendents, Niceley is correct that in Jefferson County support for electing the school superintendent is overwhelming. Even among people not prone to support Niceley, one hears that they believe in electing the local education chief. The fact that the Chamber of Commerce does not favor that measure (something that doesn't impact their ability to conduct day-do-day business) just shows that they aren't all that fond of popular elections. What, pray tell, is the Chamber afraid of, election of someone with a mind of their own, or that we might have a Director of Schools in Jefferson County who is on the job for more than a few months.
Planned Barrenhood has become, of course, the leading provider of both birth control and aborticides in America and one of the leading providers in the world. I'm quite sure Sanger would approve of locating the Planned Barrenhood clinic in a predominantly black neighborhood, since that would further the Sangerian goal of using birth control and aborticide as a long-term means of exterminating "inferior" people. To be fair, Sanger didn't just think blacks were inferior, so were some Whites as well-as author Jonah Goldberg points out, much of the liberal elite has accepted some form of the eugenics doctrine whether they realize it or not.
A conservative journal of social, cultural, and ecclesiatical affairs grounded in a realistic Catholic Christian worldview. It is my hope that this site will be a reflection of Christ,the teachings of His Holy Church, and of the basic vision of a Christian social morality.
