Nice idealized version, with all three of our kids little again. On my very best days, perhaps, within shouting distance of reality. On others, however:
The usual Open Thread rules apply: be concise, be charitable and, above all, be amusing!
Open Thread
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Here’s an image inspired by your postings on X, Paul (@Poeticise). Drawing from your micropoetry on contradictions and depth (“Life is hard, it / Gives us depth, and / From the depth, comes / Our gentleness”), your self-description as an old street kid & crazy poet with an avid interest in tribalism, your nods to Rimbaud/Voltaire, and the recurring themes of dogma, noise, silence, and remembering what’s forgotten—I envisioned this:
remember that Marvel movie where that gunship in the sky was built to target certain people based on AI profile … we’re there.
(pictures aside, most here are on the naughty list.)
If I were Briggs, I would be supremely proud of the image it generated, and I have no doubt he is.
It’s a good thing I don’t do a lot of posting on social media and I don’t know how to use AI. I’d be afraid of the result.
I choose not to have the street artist named AI sketch me.
If others choose for me, that is on them.
Another option;
https://nypost.com/2026/08/07/tech/new-ai-chatbot-chattjb-is-actually-just-one-very-tired-guy/
In his 12 year pontificate, Pope Francis did more to harm the credibility of papal authority than the vast majority of his predecessors and the overt enemies of the Church. Pope Leo XIV is not only continuing this wretched legacy, he’s augmenting it.
The ancient Greeks believed that the gods on Olympus came down and raped young human maidens with the result being Hercules and Achilles. The best thing that the ancient Greeks did was have an altar to an unknown God. This acknowledged their limited knowledge while offering their religious expression to God.
St. Paul used this altar to an unknown God to preach Jesus Christ.
I have heard some individuals tell me that God, the Father raped a young Jewish maiden and forced her to carry His Son, Jesus Christ in the same manner as the Greek gods did on Olympus.
Mary’s soul had completely and fully informed consent to give because Mary’s soul was never darkened by Original Sin. Whereas Mary maintained her Original Innocence into which all souls are created by God. (Lucifer and his rebellious angels invented the Original Sin because they hated God.)
Mary maintained her Original Innocence and willed to do the will of God for all eternity. Mary became the Perpetual Virgin and when conceived Mary became the Immaculate Conception worthy, innocent and pure, to bring the Son of God into the world when invited by God. Mary was invited and Mary said “Fiat”. God asked the human being to give His Son a human nature, innocent, worthy and pure and only an innocent and perpetual virgin had the capacity and sensibility to say: “Fiat”.
The immense ocean of love that Mary had for God, her Creator. was the love that Mary gave to Jesus Christ. When Jesus gave His Mother to mankind from the cross Mary gave her immense ocean of love to each and every soul ever created.
The altar to an unknown God in Greece brought an ocean of love to all mankind.
In the trial of Saint Thomas More, More said that “silence gives consent”.
Applied to Roe v. Wade, when Associate Justice Potter Stewart asked Sarah Weddington, the lawyer for Roe that if the unborn child was a person would she have case. Weddington embarrassingly laughed and said “NO”
If silence gives consent, then the silence of the law, precedent of the law, answers Justice Potter Stewart’s question with a resounding “YES”; the unborn child is a person. Simply because the state does not imbue the unborn with sovereign personhood. God does. God infuses the newly fertilized oven, when two become one with an immortal, rational soul with intellect and sovereign personhood. The soul is the source of life. When the soul leaves the body death occurs. The soul leaves the body when it can no longer abide in the body. The soul leaving the body is called death. True death occurs when the body begins to corrupt.
===
Roger B. Taney | Biography & Dred Scott Decision | Britannica Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote the infamous 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford Supreme Court majority opinion. He ruled that black people—enslaved or free—were not U.S. citizens, could not sue in federal court, and that Congress could not ban slavery in federal territories. This decision fueled sectional tensions and pushed the nation toward the Civil War.
Congress may not have had any authority over federal territories. If all free lands and waterways belong to each and every citizen in joint and common tenancy and Congress is the will of the people, the people who own the free lands and waterways, Congress most certainly has authority over federal territories.
===
I found:
Landmark Religious Freedom Dissents School Prayer (Engel v. Vitale, 1962): Stewart was the lone dissenting vote when the Court struck down a short, non-denominational prayer in New York public schools. He argued that voluntary, non-coercive prayer did not establish a state religion, but rather protected the free exercise rights of students. New York Times
===
Now the fun part:
The devil painted green has a face on his gluteal muscle. Individuals who serve the devil kiss the devil’s face on the devil’s buttocks.
YouTube.
Jim Thorpe won two gold medals at the 1912 Olympics. A jealous competitor told the people that Thorpe had taken money and therefore was a professional not an amateur. The Olympic Committee took the 2 gold medals back and banned Thorpe from competition.
Recently the gold medals were retuned in 2022 to Jim Thorpe posthumously.
Only profit can describe a professional.
Jim Thorpe, a native American Indian was dirt poor, very.
Taking money to survive, for food, shelter and charity is a corporal work of mercy. If Thorpe had not had sufficient sustenance, he would not have excelled at anything.
The difference is the need to survive and the profit margin…and there is a great difference.
Jesus asked “What does it profit a man…” Profit is excess, more than a person needs to survive.