Deus ex natura?

As we've established, a miracle has taken place. Now, a question arises: God of His own power or Deus ex natura?

Attempted Regicide

Cardiff

 Penarth. Kilka kroków dalej omal nie znalazłem się - jak (jako?) idiota - pod wodami przypływu, jednego z największych na świecie

Cardiff i jego okolice to jedno z najważniejszych miejsc w moim życiu. Będę tam wkrótce znowu po latach zaniedbywania naszej relacji. Coś mnie chwyta za gardło i serce bije szybciej.

Is This Me?

I dust off my vinyl collection in London and the first batch of albums I grab includes a Bryan Ferry compilation. I immediately go to Love is the Drug, follow it up with Slave to Love and calm things down with Avalon. However, it's only This is Tomorrow that stops my embarrassing dance and makes me think, rather than just get over-emotional.

The simple track fills me completely and fits me absolutely. I can't recall hearing it before, but I know that in one way or another, in one song or another, in one pub or another - I have, thousands of times before. And I have taken it in, it immediately touches my internal organs - it must be circulating in me alongside my blood now.

And even more: the primordial sequence of chords, the PIE tune, the ultra-Western arrangement  - they are all like that big old oak tree that marks the end of Greater London and the proper beginning of Kent, like Stonehenge, like the Moon, like the Sun. I (nearly) believe Bryan Ferry too must have always been around and is an indispensable ingredient of this universe.

And just like to the other ones, I absolutely relate to this song - it's my planet, my land, my upbringing, my memories and for a moment I think: it's me.




PS And that thought that I once thought comes back: if I had to be a pagan, I'd want to be a Jethro Tull pagan by day and a Roxy Music pagan by night.

Satan (shopping?) in Oxford Street

Very strange incident in Oxford Street involving a picture of Jesus and an evil/mad black man - more tomorrow...

Does your optimism count?

Justify your optimism.

Where does it come from? And don't give me nature, tradition, custom, upbringing, duty,"my dad told me to", intution, a general inclination (my cousin's dog is optimistic;so what?) - just spell it out, clearly and logically.

Or it doesn't count.




(Illustration: The Absinthe Drinker by Viktor Oliva)

Paris

 Paris - the energy is breath-taking; and disquieting.

PS Moving on to details, Rue de Rivoli is a long, boring mistake; the Chaillot Theatre would seamlessly fit in the Stalinist Moscow; and generally excessive central planning has spoiled a lot of the ambiance. Some of it is still there, though, so do go. (And those Parisian girls.... I was so dazed I just couldn't remember whether I was still in love or not).

top photo by Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

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Courage...

... to orientate yourself towards the truth

Picking up the watch that Willam Paley dropped, I'm telling a French scientist from Bordeaux to be bold: he's still a scientist* when he claims that completely invisible and undetectable black holes are responsible for the disappearance of everything that gets near them; that I'd still consider him a reasonable guy if he happened to believe that some invisible evolution is responsible for a lot of things in his body;that he should still be able to get papers published if he claimed it is some invisible, primitive and (now) dead people rather than wind that are responsible for thin, sharp stone objects found here and there by archaeologists;

or that behind all of the above cases there is someone intelligent, powerful, invisible and yet, oh, so living.

The man, a devout Catholic, isn't convinced. Somehow, as a scientist, he's ready to defend the first few contingent conclusions, but not the last, necessary one.

Why not? He can't really say, except that allegedly 'A Creator' cannot be involved in science.

Says who? Le Grand Orient de France? Richard Dawkins? The conformist scientific mainstream? Or those who sponsor it?

You know what?  Bless them.

The M.

             

                Margaux. (Oh!)

PS The chateau itself is rather boring (I could take a close look at it, because when I turned up Paul Pontallier was too busy showing around a group of loaded - money, not wine - Japanese guys to remind me that acces is interdit). 

But ...  Margaux... oh!

Boring illustrated techincal info from: winebid.com

Intelligent

Just one word today: 
Intelligent Design




intelligent (adj.)


3. having the faculty of reasoning and understanding;possessing intelligence: intelligent beings   in outer space.

4. Computers . pertaining to the ability to do data processinglocally; smart: An intelligent terminal can edit input beforetransmission to a host computer. Compare dumb ( def. 8 ) .


Origin (for 3): the Lord

via:
1500–10;  < Latin intelligent-  (stem of intelligēns,  present participleof intelligere,  variant of intellegere  to understand, literally, choosebetween), equivalent to intel-  (variant of inter- inter-) + -lig- (combining form of leg-,  stem of legere  to pick up, choose;compare lection) + -ent- -ent



* definitions and etymology by: http://dictionary.reference.com

A Person-to-Person Universe

There are doubts, anxieties, fears, damages, pains with which nothing - no wisdom, no system, no money, no amonut of alcohol (which does help, though), no Ferrari, not even the truth itself - can help you. Only a person.

(Like on that day - or was it a month; or a year? - when I must have been listenting to 'Child In Time', sulking in my room and contemplating messing things up*. Then my mom opened the door and said to me: "Someone's here to see you, son; a person from Galilee.")




*which I did.

Creation (don't overlook it!)

I wanted to double-check how awesome what the Lord makes was, so I leaned out of a 9th-floor window. I surveyed a small park and an adjescent plaza. A pretty girl with long free-flowing hair was walking at a brisk pace past a group of twelve women. The women must have been in their 60s or 70 and were doing some funny Chinese moves. All of them wore bright red T-shirts. I noticed them only when the girl had disappeared from sight among the trees.

Go talk to him

(... seven...)

The other day I talked to my daughter about her friends, music, gay rights*, fashion and death. I spoke like I was some kind of guru, until the conversation got a bit difficult. Then I remembered what I am and that she has known me for a while. There was only one thing for me to say not to look like a complete idiot: "My child, it's complicated. Go and talk to your dad".



PS Re: The song; I feel a bit awkward posting such straightforward, charming pop (it sounds like one of the songs that have been around for decades, if not centuries;  I guess though that Mme Dion's lawyers have done their homework), but I like the song a lot and it popped up on the radio soon afterwards, so I thought why not - it's my blog and I'll play what I want..






*actually, we talked about some gays' outrageaus usurpations; my use of 'rights' here shows how effective      the indoctrination by liberal media is.




c

one... Mellow Blue... two... Mellow Blue... three... Mellow Bule... four...

(...five...)

...it's OK now, Mellow Blue... (six...) easy, Sunday morning, low taxes...

d

Another Philosopher* Bites the Dust

(If this isn't taking the argument to the extreme I don't know what is; but you knew it was coming)


DRIVING THEIR TRUTH HOME, I.E. TO THE GROUND

No wonder materialists, naturalists and hordes of reductionists of various denominations muddle in matter looking for the truth, hoping to find answers to the biggest questions among the smallest particles, picked directly from dirt.

It was said “you will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust”. Although it was Satan who heard it, aren't they his intellectual offspring? And isn't he still their chief philosophical adviser?

So, along with their bellies, those lost philosophers drag their minds through the dust - and see nothing but dust.



* let scientists stay out of this!

...nothing doing - too small; just like their perspective...

Illustration: Satan As A Serpent, Enters Paradise In Search Of Eve, the first philosopher (from Milton's "Paradise Lost"), by Gustave Dore




e

f

Lincz/zombie

Rozmowy, wywiady, dyskusje? To nie jest dobry moment na gadanie o Amber Gold (zadłużeniu państwa, stanie armii, prawie podatkowym, kratce za tylnym siedzeniem w samochodach osobowych...). To jest dobry moment na lincz.

PS Jak elokwentnie, elegancko i logicznie p. Seremet dowodzi, że nie zawiódł system tylko ludzie. Czyli to coś jest na zewnątrz zbudowane poprawnie, tylko wnętrze nie gra? Państwo zombie.

A poza tym: dobry system powiesiłby teraz kogoś (i nie chodzi mi o p. Plichtę; ten niech spokojnie siedzi).



Illustration: bluewallpaper.org (keep it cool, OK? It's a non-commercial blog).

Laughing out loud

On a brilliant August afternoon, sitting under some canopy in a garden, I was reading Don Quixote and laughing loudly. Suddenly I stopped.



.

Sorry, Carl

 

On my way out of Nowy Sącz (or Neu Sandez when Franz Joseph was still around) through the coach window I notice a school plaque: Oscar Lange Economic Secondary School. "What the - laissez moi  faire foul-  f....?", I begin to muse. "An economic school in Nowy Sącz not named after the great and illustrious Carl Menger?"

Oskar Lange may have written something, and some of what he wrote may have been interesting stuff, but even forgetting for a moment his involvement in the criminal and bloody communist regime in Poland (and we are not forgetting), who - don't be fooled by the 'subjective value' thing - outweighs whom, when you compare Oskar Lange to Carl Menger?

It's a no-brainer. It's as clear that Menger is worth more than Lange as that your third Wiener Schnitzel is worth less (to you) than your second Wiener Schnitzel. Actrually, never mind one school - the whole place should be called Carl Menger Town.

Meine Brueder, fellow Austrians - if there are any reading this - I know I can marginally exaggerate, but, by Kaiser!, we must do something about this.

And till we do something about it - accept our apologies, Carl.

Because of Faith (or Mammon)

I'm telling my brother about a sermon that I heard a good while ago at All Saints' Church in Warsaw and a piece of information that made me sit up: an Italian priest takled about a few Italian families who had volunteered to leave their country, jobs, relatives, friends (Lord, give me more faith!) and go - with their kids - to settle in Estonia, where the Catholic Church is almost non-existent. Their job would be to try and build a Christian community around them. The priest himself was to join them in Tallinn.

"Maybe the taxes are simply lower there?", says my brother; which could mean that he's undergoing a crisis of faith of sorts. Or that, at long last!, my own sermons on the merits of the small, efficient state have started to make an impact.

Tofik, ctd.

"Good news: Tofik in blind in both eyes now.", someone who had also been (nearly) mauled by the beast informed me when I arrived in Obsendorf.

I didn't even know he was blind in one eye, I just thought the strange look was the evil eye.

The next day I met the small, off-white dog. He was moving slowly in the middle of the road, heading my way. When he heard me, he veered at a strange angle towards the side of the road. He didn't bark; it seemed he didn't even think of it, not to mention biting. He reached the grassy verge and stopped momentarily; it was clear he knew it was the edge of the road only by the different feel under his feet.

He stood there with visible anxiety, waiting for me to pass. His head turned in the direction of my footsteps, the pupil of one of his unseeing eyes aiming north-north west, the other one - almost at me, missing just by a few degrees.

But it did hit the target: my heart. Suddenly I felt for the beast. Now that his malice had been pacified by the weakened body, I finally saw him as a fellow being, part of the same creation, a work of the same person - a kind of brother.

And I understood that the character may be the Devil's, but the existence is always the Lord's.





PS A little earlier I talked about Tofik with my mom who can be a bit self-ritghteous at times (but has more reason than most to be self-righteous). "Strange", she said, "Tofik has never been nasty to me".  A shiver went down my spine and I moved a little away from her.

Jedno pytanie

Jedno pytanie: czy ta prokurator z Gdańska związana ze sprawą Amber Gold została już aresztowana?


(I pół rządu, prokuratury i sędziów).

Dread (yourself)!

 

 Trying to take over the world? There is a lot to dread, then...

Browsing through the Book of Pslams, I come across these two mind-boggling lines:

There they were, overwhelmed with dread,

where there was nothing to dread. 

'Don't dread anything', would be an understandable exhortation of faith, but 'There is nothing to dread'? It must be the most profound statement regarding this world I've ever heard.

(Then I realise that this is a breath-takingly pithy summary of what Tanakh, Jesus and my Church have always taught - and they teach one and the same thing: that there is nothing to dread out there, except what is in our heads. And what is being whispered into our heads).

PS I have read the Psalm and this awesome message many times yet, without noticing it properly. I must keep reading.

Szkoła, honor i ojczyzna?

Patrzę z okna swojego mieszkania na rodziców prowadzących dzieci na rozpoczęcie szkoły, w której - oprócz wielu drugorzędnych szczegółów technicznych - nauczyciele będą im mówić o honorze i ojczyźnie.

Zastanawiam się czy wspomną też o tym, że jeśli nie dodadzą do tego Boga, to te pierwsze dwa nie mają sensu* (jak i wszystko inne).




*a jeśli Bóg jest (a jest) to honor i ojczyzna nie tylko mają sens, ale także istnieją.

A wise man

I want to be a wise man. I pour myself some brandy, take a cigarette, put a pen and a piece of paper in front of me. I'm not going to let my trespasses drag me down, I'm no fool - I'll take them and cleverly build something. So I look back and want to make a first draft. But then I see I don't have to look back - I notice them all sitting close around me. And suddenly I know there's nothing I can do with my sins. Except confess them. (And cry).

Employers and workers of the world, unite!

WORKERS AND EMPLOYERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! - 
AGAINST THE OPRESSION BY POLITICOS* 

*I.E. AGAINST THE OPPRESION BY DEMOCRACY!

Not that I wasn't in the revolutionary mode anyway, but Daniel Kahn and The Painted Bird performing during the festival of Jewish culture in Warsaw did nothing to mollify me.

And I've decided we need two revolutions: one to overthrow the leftist folk understanding of how wealth is made and force the working class and the barely-thinking Intelligentsia to take a course at the Austrian school.

The other revolution we need is one that would overthrow those who abuse people's stupidity and opress workers' best friends: employers and industrialists, i.e  the political class.

Moving In The Right Direction (The Thrill Must Go On)

"One step closer every day at a time"

 (Reaching the truth the existential way)

“Ben! Listen!” The woman wanted to shake me, and she did. Her voice carried the same energy as it did in the distant past, then highlighting her youthful vitality and adding to her sex-appeal, now making her age shut up for a moment and go sit in the corner of the room.

 „All you have is being taken from you!", she went on, her eyes pressing me against the wall, as they sometimes did nearly 40 years ago, "Step by step, one thing after another." 

Back then I knew the vibrant voice to talk about lesser things, life attributes; now she spoke to the point: of the very core of life, i.e. of dying. But with what thrill! "It simply must go on, somehow", I thought. But does she herself register what's she's sending?

Then it struck me: even if for some reason she's unable to get the point her energy is making - and I was concerned that she may not have got the point yet - she's going to reach the regeneration gateway in another way: All you have is being taken from you.

“Oh, God!”, now I was excited, “How you care! Not only do you drop hints all around (and most importantly - in us) that lead our intellect to you, but also gradually let us be stripped of all we have and of most what we are, every loss moving us closer to the truth, so that finaly we end up motionless and helpless  right before it with nothing except our bare existence and have no choice but to acknowledge your existence... 

... then we notice our faintly beating hearts on the palm of your hand and realise they've always been there and it was this very hand, the hand of the Overlord of Existence that has been squeezing them gently 60 to 100 times per minute, all life long.

(And if we willingly say three magical words - it'll go on doing so even longer. I believe.)"