Good Morning Friends from across Locals! You Digital Neighbors frequenting Padre's, The Bigots, Fascinating People and Triggeratti that hustle & bustle around the Triggernometry, Phamily, Phriends and the Dawn Patrol that joined the circus at Phetasy and finally the Refugees that rode the wave out of Big Tech and gave life to the idea of Locals at Rubin Report. Love you all!
While I choose not visit Malice and Scott Adams, I do support their efforts. I watch enough of their content and it seems only just to offer something in appreciation. I have sampled the Gutter, visited Tulsi and Timpf, tried out New Discourses and the Babylon Bee and often see other communities that look so inviting and promising, but one only has so much time. Not enough time to be a member and usually not enough funds to be a supporter, but I do appreciate the gathering of like minded creators that Locals has brought together.
The internet offers us a unique experience of friendship with people we may never meet in person but have already experienced some of their character and personality. I don't think they are any less real that meeting in person, just more difficult and slower moving because we cannot see the non-verbal's and nuances that form interpersonal communication in person. However, we have all met and have been in relationships with others where the only things connecting them was geographical proximity. Not a very human experience of friendship or community, we have an spatial relationship with everything else, 99.9% of which are just things. Critters and people are different, and not even all critters, it is hard to say one has an emotional bond with a reptile, but maybe it is possible. Anyways, on to some thoughts about friendship, one of my favorite topics. You don't need many, but most of us benefit from a few close ones.
We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. - James Boswell
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. - President George Washington
We shall never have friends, if we expect to find them without fault. - Thomas Fuller
SNOLLYGOSTER - A dishonest, corrupt, and unprincipled person, especially a politician. 19th Century American Slang.
And finally, an Autumn Hillside along one of the river roads in MO. Happy Sunday to all of my Locals Neighbors and Friends! A busy day at the parish with our Sausage Dinner, I'll be posting photos over at Padre's.
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
https://teams.live.com/meet/93792382189049?p=DiBHsYfuECPgDrG7vO
2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
6:00 AM - 8:00 AM (CST)
Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
White Pilled Wednesday - A break from the heaviness of news and current events to focus upon things more personal & positive for the first hour of Coffee Talk.
Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Other chats as posted in the community.
Good morning, digital neighbors! Blessed Labor Day to all! To all the tradesmen and tradeswomen out there—everyone who works with the artistry of manual labor and refined skill—thank you for making this nation so great through your dedication and daily commitment. My family was mainly machinists, and it seems a common trend how trade skills run in families: everyone is a carpenter, electrician, pipefitter, or some other trade among parents, children, and cousins. Some break out of the mold, but many seem to see it as simply part of who they are.
Have a great day with whatever plans you have. I host a large potluck with daily Mass-goers, staff, and anyone who is alone. About a hundred people come for gourmet hot dogs, delicious bratwursts, and whatever side dishes they want to share. It’s a fun few hours out on the lawn; there is ample shade, and if a breeze is present, 90 degrees won’t seem too hot after a week of 100. I leave you with a little prayer from Rita Snowden—I like a number ...
XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
