From Doug Giles..and a request from readers

And I add, what were you like on your wedding day?

This is a great set of bullets on ladies in marriages. From working with women in the past whose marriages were on the rocks or had failed, I know these are real obstacle to peace and love. A Catholic woman of virtue would have enough prudence to avoid such faults, or at least repent and change. Would a reader like to make a column of ten points for husbands? Sadly, I know some men in the last category of a slow emotional tortuous death. Women will answer for these sins on the day of judgement, and, yes, we are judged on such. Remember, only the perfect gain heaven. 

http://townhall.com/columnists/douggiles/2012/07/10/10_ways_women_can_wreck_their_marriage

If some of you ladies want to know how you can suck the life out of your marriage and drive your good husband to insanity, or to the bar, or into the arms of another woman, or to a divorce attorney, or just shrivel him up into a conquered quail who inwardly loathes you as he dies a slow, emotionally tortuous death, well then . . . this is your lucky day.

.......

1. Nag your Husband. One way to torture your hubby is to be a nerve grating, contentious, non-stop dripping faucet of faultfinding and finger pointing.

2. Criticize your husband in public. Yep, publicly shame him. Become an expert at unveiling anything about your spouse that’ll cause him to want to jump in front of a speeding bus.

3. Keep Him On a Short Leash. By short leashing your mate with insane limits your man will quickly feel like a stupid son, controlled by you, his new petulant mommy.

4. Become a Drama Queen. Make the atmosphere of your home tense. Make it crazy. I mean … crazy.

5. Hate his Friends. Sever the ties your companion has with those who have walked to hell and back with him because now . . . it’s all about you. You especially want to steer him clear of friends who feel the liberty to shed light on you, the interesting wife.

6. Hate his hobby. Your goal is to joy steal any pleasure that can be had by the poor schlep. And anyways you don’t want him to enjoy anything that you don’t like. [take away fishing pole]

7. Cut him off sexually. It’s not enough to rag and ridicule him and then run his friends off. No, you must go the second mile and turn into the Sex Nazi. No sex for you!

8. Get your family involved in your marriage. Forget this leave and cleave stuff the Bible dictates. If you want your union to unravel then you’ve got to gang tackle your husband with “The Family.”

9. Never apologize. If, in the odd event you do something that hurts your husband never, I mean never, apologize. You . . . apologize? Please.

10. Do we really need a number 10?

One Victory for Free Speech in Denmark

There was one victory in Denmark on a free speech issue and you can translate the article here. Although not brand new news, it is significant. Lars Hedegaard was acquitted of hate speech. However, the fact that this case even went to the Danish Supreme Court shows the seriousness of the issue. Here is the penal code and a list of links. Tomorrow, I shall have a list of threats to free speech across the globe.

PENAL CODE SECTION 266 B

A person who publicly or with intent to disseminate to a wider circle makes statements or any other communication by which a group of persons is threatened, insulted or degraded on account of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation shall be punished by fine or imprisonment for up to 2 years.

DOCUMENTATION Read the decision here by the district court

DOCUMENTATION Read the decision here from the Court of Appeals

DOCUMENTATION Read the decision here from Supreme Court

Non-Cat-lovers can skip this post

One of my young friends sent me these. He is twelve. I was fooled, for a minute...

Well, we know our Papa loves cats... and the cat is Gracey...

I am so glad I am a Catholic....thanks to Andrea for these....

How about some dog shots?

Important Link--Paul on the Life at Conception Act

http://nationalprolifealliance.com/rlacw_petition.aspx?pid=th2b&npla=I1ACAQ12I

Check out this link. Rand Paul is trying to overturn Roe v. Wade. Listen to this video. Please.

The End of France... will happen under Hollande...

Ah, the Hollande effect. In case you missed this, France will most likely see the passage of, not civil unions, but marriage. This means that the traditional definition of marriage will be irrevocably destroyed. Here is a snippet.

REUTERS - France’s new Socialist government is to legalise same-sex marriage next year, a junior minister said on Friday, reflecting a shift in public attitudes in the majority Catholic nation.

President Francois Hollande, who took office last month, had pledged to legalise gay marriage and adoption during his election campaign but had given no timeframe.

Since Hollande’s Socialists won an absolute majority in parliamentary elections two weeks ago, the conservative UMP party, which had opposed the measure under former president Nicolas Sarkozy, can do little to stop it.

"Within a year, people of the same sex will be able to marry and adopt children together," Dominique Bertinotti, junior minister for families, told the daily Le Parisien. "They will have the same rights and duties as any married couple."

A law granting full marriage status to gay couples would bring France, which currently provides only for same-sex civil unions, into line with fellow EU members Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden.

It would also mark a profound change in French society, where more than two-thirds of people still describe themselves as Roman Catholic, according to a 2010 survey by pollster Ifop.

Hollande is being true to his socialist agenda which is strongly anti-religion, as all true socialists are. He is particularly keen to be the next great socialist tyrant of Europe. He is on his way. I believe he is a communist, not merely a socialist.

There is some objection, but I am afraid that it is a small minority.

"We are convinced that young people’s development requires the presence of a mother and a father," said Thierry Vidor, head of the Familles de France umbrella group, which represents some 70,000 families, and campaigns for traditional family rights.

"We will take action to try to show that this measure is ultimately dangerous for society."

A Gramsci win for France...

The Ekdromoi

As a history teacher, a long time ago, I taught Classical History, Greek and Roman, both at an advanced high school and at the college level. Today, because of a conversation, I am thinking about the Battle of Marathon. The interesting thing is that there is a bit of a mystery as to how the Athenians won that battle against many, many more Persians. Some historians believe that a small group of men from the army of the Persians defected and told the Athenians of the battle plans. Another historian wrote that the superior Persian cavalry left, tired of a stalemate and the Athenians only had to fight the ground troops. Whatever the reasons, the victory was established by the hoplites in the phalanx position, the first soldiers who met the resistance. Now, all hoplites were freemen and middle class as they had to bring their own armor. They were called "iron men" because of the breast plates and helmets. Spears were the main weapons and the first attack, followed by hand to hand sword fighting.

A hoplite was not a slave. He was well-trained and very strong. He had to run into battle with heavy gear and he had to be accurate.

The light runners were called the ekdromoi. They were the out-runners, with only spear and shield. They did not have the breastplate or armor. The drawing above shows the iron men. It is hard to find a drawing of an ekdromoi and the only one I found, on a Greek vase, was a bit too graphic for this blog. I am fond of this group of hoplites, as they were very fast runners and went first, having to be extremely accurate and yet in an irregular formation in order to confuse the enemy.

These hoplites would clear the way for the iron men.

One of the books I taught was the adventures of Xenophon and this book, Anabasis,  or The Persian Expedition, was always a class favorite. In his story of the Ten Thousand, the ekdromoi played a key role. If you have not read the book, do. I love to teach this book.

My point of all this is that some of us in the battle for souls are the hoplites. We are not the generals, nor the strategists. We are the freemen who bring our own weapons into the battle, fighting freely, winning over great odds.

This is the spiritual warfare of the Church Militant. We have all the armor and skills we need through the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. We have all the strategy from the Teaching Magisterium of the Church. We have grace and the virtues. We only need to respond to wherever we are called.

I love Gimli's line in The Return of the King, "Certainty of death, *small* chance of success... What are we waiting for?"


for NS