Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Friday ADD Irregulars, WSN Aficionados, Friends & Refugees, PHAM & Dawn Patrol, Triggeratti, Wonderful Bigots, Fascinating People, Seekers of Sanity & Civility and all you Common Sensers in the Iversen-verse. Of course I have forgotten about all you other Early Birds & Later Dayers, Conversants & Lurkers at Locals, these communities and other I just don't have the time to visit and explore.
JANUARY 6th - Epiphany for many - Pearl Harbor II for Wokenstiens
The Magi brought gifts of gold, frankincense & myrrh to the newborn Christ. I imagine they might have been expecting more than a baby, but the Mysterium does enjoy surprising us mortals. What that baby will be is the core of the message of the Gospels. Not all subscribe, and even those who do wrestle with the meaning, practice and "whatness" of it all.
In other part of the world, the SWAMP, this is the worst day since Pearl Harbor, worse than 911, Remember the Maine! and others assaults on our Republic because of a ill planned and implemented rally turned riot. It is one of the things I really fault #45 for failing to realize. He knew the PermaState, the Careerist, and their Cabal were against him and always looking for ways to destroy him and the MAGA movement. (BTW I consider the MAGA movement bigger than President Trump, it is the next generation of the Tea Party movement of '10 and movements for smaller and more accountable government before the Tea Party Movement.
Watching McCarthy flounders in his bid for Speaker is one of the best things I have seen since the election of 2016. I hope it is the beginning of the ENOUGH movement. I have had enough of frauds we elect and the PermaState that supports and utilizes them. I know the process of reform is going to be long and difficult, and perhaps impossible because Bureaucracy have longer staying power that the public does for prolonged attention and sacrifice needed to break the bureaucracy. But it needs to be broken, shattered into so many pieces that Humpty Dumpty would have better odds at recovery.
Quotes about politics seem fitting for the day. How about some fun quotes from The Portable Curmudgeon to mark this momentous day? By nature curmudgeon quotes tend to be more skeptical and cynical than most. I am fine with the skeptical side of curmudgeon but more cynical resistant. I would rather know the motive and intentions of others before I prejudge them. Once you make you intentions/attitude know to another, they have every reason to question and judge them. That is life in the sandbox of reality, many are unable to handle to rules of sandbox and make terrible playmates. Anyways, off to some of the quotes!
Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men. - George Jean Nathan
All politics is based on the indifference of the majority. - James Reston
It makes no difference who you vote for—the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people. - Gore Vidal
Since Gore made that quote, it has decreased, some might say less than even 1%. The cult of the Cabal wants adoration, recognition and the adulation of the masses they generally hold in contempt. For the record the Cabal consists of the Enemedia, DC Careerists, Academia, Wokertainment, Big Tech & Big Pharma. Many card carrying members of the Cabal hold the public in contempt, but also cannot live without it. It is a strange relationship. Reston's quote is very telling of the current state of the Republic. Indifference supported by self-absorption is a tough shell to crack. It may be our ruin as we miss the Nation die while busy scrolling on our phones.
It will be a long climb out of this valley of self-absorption and mindless distraction, but we are already in the process, one mind at a time. There will be many incapable of being stirred into action, but good leaders can arise and have that will do their best to stir the citizenry, not claim to think for it or continue the parental role many want the government to be. Blessed Epiphany fellow Disciples, Happy New Year fellow neighbors and buckle up all you Local's Supporters.
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 ...
At Padre's TEAMS CHAT. Join your Digital Neighbors for some informal and unscripted conversation. No set subjects—just don’t be a jerk. Always invited, never expected. They usually run an hour, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Hope you can join us! Please note: This is not sponsored by The Rubin Report, Phetasy, or Outspoken. Those are all communities in which Padre (Fr. Tom Miller) participates. There has been some confusion in the past when sharing these invites. Have a great Friday!
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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.
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.”
