Red, White, and Blue in the Face!

My wife has been searching for skin care products and makeup that would be suitably non-allergenic yet affordable. Being an up and coming techno-geek she turned immediately to Google for help in finding what she sought. 

I confess to being fairly oblivious to all things related to women’s skin care, makeup, clothing etc. especially when my wife is glued to the long-armed shopper that is the computer but within half an hour of starting her search she managed to get my attention.

It was her first “This is just horrible!” that got my attention. Thinking to myself, “Makeup? How horrible can it be unless what she likes has turned out to be more than 6 months take home pay”, then I thought “Maybe she’s digressed from searching for makeup and started looking through the local obits and found a lost acquaintance listed there”.

Nope. Nothing that simple, nosiree. What she’d stumbled across was a website dedicated to documenting hazardous materials used in producing women’s products. Huh? Yup. You got it. All sorts of dangerous, harmful, carcinogenic, cell and gene altering junk is used to make women’s beauty products. Much to my extreme surprise what was one item that figured high on the lipstick line? Lead. Can you believe it? In this day and age lead is being used in women’s lipstick. Un-be-lievable! What ticked her off mightily was finding out that to limit the use of lead in lipstick was proposed in California but the industry lobbyists swarmed all over ‘em and nipped that baby in the bud before it could eat into any of their profits.

She was scrolling through an endless line of well-known (even I knew some the names) companies and products and exclaimed repeatedly at the list of harmful ingredients and frightened because she had used many of these products most of her adult life.

She got my attention.

You can read what she found:

Cosmetics Database

“Biggest Bunch Of Cry Babies I’ve Covered In 30 Years-Updated”

Chris Wallace is right – The White House crew is nothing but a bunch of whining, crybabies.

“What I think is fair to say about Fox — and certainly it’s the way we view it — is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party,” said Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on CNN. “They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is.” 

Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente, who likens the channel to a newspaper with separate sections on straight news and commentary, suggested White House officials were intentionally conflating opinion show hosts like Glenn Beck with news reporters like Major Garrett. 

“It’s astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming,” Clemente said. “It seems self-serving on their part.” 

(Foxnews.com)

 The White House, including President Obama himself, just can’t seem to stop blubbering about how “unfair” and “biased” Fox News is towards them. If that is the case why are so many abandoning the so-called “news networks”, like CNN for instance, and heading over to Fox? It’s simple – any human being with a desire to hear what’s going on (the news) without a generous slathering of opinion (commentary) to cover it over only has one place left to go – Fox News. If you don’t want any opinion at all and just want the news it isn’t difficult to separate the two on the Fox network. Fox maintains a clear division between their “news” and the “commentary”. I, for one, just can’t listen to Glenn Beck a whole lot. Sean Hannity, well, he isn’t bad, but he’s a tad monotonous, and Bill O’Reilly – well, he’s getting a little soft I think. But the really nice thing is that on Fox I know when I can hear the news and when I can hear commentary and opinion. There’s no mistaking one for the other on Fox.

Finally – the ratings tell it all. Fox News simply dominates the ratings – whether you’re talking about news or commentary – a broader range of our population watch Fox than any other TV outlet. Conservative, Liberal, Republican, Democrat – you name it they watch Fox. Why? Because any human being (whether you’re in the tank or not) with a mind that can still function knows the difference between bias and fair-minded reporting. It’s simple.

Mr. President your administration is treading on thin ice – not to mention doing a little tap dance on our Constitution!

Take a good look at the face in the photo – that look speaks volumes about the White House attitude toward me and you. (Photo Fox News)

Wednesday, October 7^th is a Memorial date in the Roman Catholic Church that typically passes quietly and with little notice. Very many of us have completely forgotten the origins of it despite the fact that it records an event that affected the entire Western world then and now.

October 7^th on the Roman calendar is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and might well have been named “The Day Western Civilization was Saved”.

From the missal’s introduction for that day’s Mass:

The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary was instituted in 1573 as a special commemoration of the victory gained at Lepanto on Sunday, October 7, 1571, when the forces of Islam that were threatening to invade Europe were hurled back and broken – a favor attributed to the recitation of the Rosary. Prescribed by Gregory XIII for certain churches, it was introduced into the Roman Calendar by Clement XI in 1716 and assigned to the first Sunday of October in thanksgiving for another triumph over the same enemy in Hungary that year by the Emperor Charles VI. Leo XIII increased its rank to obtain our Lady’s help amid the present trials of the church, and in 1913 it was assigned to October 7^th.

As the Preface of every Mass begins – “Father, all-powerful and ever-living God, we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In our parish (Our Lady of Peace) on this date we offered a “Living Rosary” where the people who have come together to pray the rosary become the rosary beads themselves – we literally stand together and form a living chain of rosary beads before the altar. Afterwards, we celebrated Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Together the Rosary and Benediction are perhaps, for me, the most beautiful acts of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication possible. My intentions during this Rosary included very many family and friends and also included a general intention for a conversion of Western civilization to God, rejection of the sins we have made a part of normal living, and true repentance.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us!

Pope Awards Highest Honor to EWTN Founder Mother Angelica and Chairman

Now there’s an award that’s well deserved! Way to go folks!

Tell me, in this country, founded under God’s law, how we have become so brazen in our impiety; cold-blooded in our relations with our neighbors; hardened against our consciences?

So much is happening so quickly in the United States but lately 3 things stand out for me:

• Roman Polanski, accused of drugging and then raping a 13 year old girl in 1977 fled this country when he believed he was going to put in prison for years, perhaps life. In Switzerland this week Polanski was arrested when he showed up to receive an award. Many have come to his defense but Whoopi Goldberg has taken the cake with what I can only call the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard come out of her mouth. Defending Polanski on “The View” Goldberg said “I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape.” Huh?  Rape-rape? God help us, now theres rape, and rape-rape – what’s next – consensual rape? What in heaven’s name is the woman talking about?
• In Chicago this week 16 year old high school student Derrion Albert was beaten to death after he happened upon a gang fight. He was hit over the head by an animal wielding, of all things, what appears to be a 4 x 4 or 4 x 8 piece of wood. Derrion, knocked senseless and lying helpless on the ground was then stomped on, kicked, and punched – he died. All of this was caught on video which has enabled police to arrest some of his attackers. Still, the shock of the video was too much to bear. Like mindless savages the gang members attacked whoever was nearby. Knocking Derrion down with what would probably have been a mortal blow in and of itself, others simply piled on and stomped on his head and kicked and punched him while he lay helpless. It made me sick to my stomach and sick at heart. How can we be this way? How can human beings be so cold-blooded and blood-thirsty?
• Finally, in a connect-the-dots scenario, yet another scandal is being raised in the Obama administration. We’ve seen clearly that the President is not surrounding himself with good people but with people who evidently have a “Chicago” style mentality. In the wake of the news that he and Mrs. Obama have travelled to Denmark to lobby for selection of Chicago as the site of the 2016 Olympic Games we find Valerie Jarrett, another highly-placed White House staffer has some not-so-sparkling clean ties to Chicago, the Obamas, and others who’ve already been shown to be less than ethical. The Democrats sure raised enough stink about the so-called “Culture of Corruption” in the Bush administration – it seems though that they’re turning a blind eye to Obama’s connections – some of which are pretty smelly.