Dealing With Spilled Milk

I arrived home from the grocery store this morning, and as I was carrying the groceries into the house I lost my grip on one of the bags and dropped the gallon of milk onto the foyer floor. The milk explosion that followed the impact was, thankfully, more or less contained to the front hallway and half-bath.

Dead Soldier

The exploded milk mess was a novel experience for me, and I had to improvise in a quick cleanup to keep the white river from spreading via the rivulets in my tile floor. In case you ever find yourself in a similar situation, keep these points in mind.

Dealing With Spilled Milk

(1) Go ahead and turn off the house alarm first. No the noise isn't going to hurt anyone, but it is a distraction. In addition, in less than a minute the alarm company will be notified, and it would be best to avoid having to explain to the arriving police officer that he had to check on your safety because you were cleaning up spilled milk.

(2) Grab some paper towels to lie down as an impediment in the course of flowing milk. Even an entire roll of paper towels is unlikely to be sufficient to keep the white flood at bay, but it is a quick and accessible remedy to stop the progression until you can grab more serviceable implements.

(3) Remove your shoes and socks. You're going to be treading all over a milky mess in a confined space, which means you *will* be stepping in it. Soiled footwear is just not helpful in any imaginable way.

(4) If you have a yarn mop, you can get busy sopping up milk. I tried to make some headway with my sponge mop, but its business end was too small to contend with the task at hand, so I had to abandon that remedy for number 5 below.

(5) Retrieve several bath towels and lay them down; this will stop the flow and sop up the liquid. Being in a hurry I managed to grab a pair of hand towels as well, so I went ahead and included them in the mix, but they really were superfluous.

The Ratio of 4:1

Body-Length Bath Towels:Gallon of Milk

Worked for Me

(6) After sopping up all the milk with the towels, mop the floor with hot soapy water.

(7) Promptly launder the towels. The reek of spoiled milk is not for the weak of stomach, so you won't want to leave the soiled towels in the hamper until the next weekend. Fortunately for me Saturdays are already laundry days, so I was able to work this task into my schedule in stride.

Hopefully you'll never need to apply any of this knowledge. If the scenario should arise for you, however, you won't be caught off guard.

Safety Decals

Mark is the chap in my office in charge of office tech support, facilities, and local beer recommendations. This morning he sent around a brief email:

"In order to help make the office a safer place to work (for us and for our clients), the Action Team has posted new safety decals in the team rooms."

Mark is referring to the sliding glass doors on several of our office meeting rooms: we've had a few unfortunate accidents involving people careening into closed sliding glass doors.

With the new state-of-the-art safety decals, hopefully glass door smashups will be a thing of the past.

Chris
The hand was interposed too late to save the face

Brian
Note the astonished look of shock and pain

Kelly
Grateful survivor of a closed sliding glass door incident

Mark
Mr. Tech Support, recovering nicely

Poor China

Source

The handiwork of Chinese mass murderer Mao Zedong -- whose 65 million dead was more people killed than Stalin and Hitler combined -- is in the news a good bit this month.

Red Party propaganda would have it that Chairman Mao was an oppressed hard working peasant dedicated to fighting injustice. In truth he was a loafer who took a job as a party agent to receive “a comfortable berth as a subsidized professional revolutionary.” It's like being a vagabond with a pension.

Like all secular rulers Mao rationalized the unjust and needless death of millions of innocent people, but he added to the mix a policy of deliberate terror to secure his rule: suspected enemies were tortured, forcibly re-educated, brainwashed, and put to death for the flimsiest of excuses, such as using sarcasm (this blogger wouldn't have lasted ten minutes) or telling jokes (make that two minutes). The official government disdain for human life continues today -- e.g. population control through forced abortions is still allowable policy to be exercised at discretion of the local party official.

It leaves one to wonder why:
* White House Director of Communications Anita Dunn praised Mao Zedong’s political philosophy and called him a great defender of individualism.
* The Empire State Building was lit up in red and yellow to commemorate the birth of the PRC.
* A NY Times columnist described the totalitarian regime as "enlightened."

Then again, no, I suppose one doesn't have to wonder so much after all.

The prevailing sentiment of the age favors secularism, which minimizes and removes spiritual and religious considerations from all public policy. Massive numbers of dead and suffering people is the necessary consequence of the policies implemented by secular forms of government.

In a discussion once I was challenged for pronouncing this conclusion. My critic remarked, "What, you prefer all the horrors of the inquisitor's wrack? What about all the religious wars of the Middle Ages? You have no room to pass judgment."

Well, if we go by body count, one has plenty of room to form an objective judgment. The Spanish Inquisition, which is generally perceived to be the most severe tribunal, produced a few hundred dead over the entire life of the tribunal. And if you take the sum of all people killed in several centuries of medieval battles with their crude swords and spears and bows, you'll still arrive at a far smaller number of people killed in one of our modern civilized wars conducted with its guns, bombs, and weapons of mass destruction.

So yes, give me a form of government that publicly recognizes the right of God to rule over the affairs of men. I much prefer that to modern secular, liberal, brutal forms of government any day of the week. And twice on Sundays.

Libera nos a malo.

Colleague's Last Day

The other day a colleague in the Seattle office sent out a note that it was her last day -- she'd accepted a position with another company, it was time to move on, etc.

Lydia and I started on the exact same day a little over five years ago. We worked on a project together when I was in Seattle (beautiful city!) for three weeks. Though we got along great, I felt obliged to point out to her one day that because I was on the east coast and she was on the west coast, being three hours ahead of her I technically had seniority. She took it well.

Natural History

Last week my friend Patti of Minnesota sent me the note below:

"Okay, city boy, time out for a refreshing look at nature.

"For a view alone see: http://shots-of-the-wild.blogspot.com/

"And for a learning experience see: http://the-outdoor-kid.blogspot.com/

"The first one has a couple of pictures that I got this morning and the second one has an awesome picture of a deer standing on its hind legs, so take a moment from your computer work to see what you think. Nothing like a look at nature to refresh the brain, eh?"

Though I normally describe myself as a guy with a green thumb that can kill kudzu, I will hazard a "yep - delightful" in response.

You Have the Freedom to Do As I Say

Source

The Obama administration on Thursday tried to make "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg available for interviews to every member of the White House pool except Fox News.

The Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks decided that none of their reporters would interview Feinberg unless Fox News was included; the rules of the news network pool simply prohibited it.

To which I say: hooray the networks!

"I'm really cheered by the other members saying "No, if Fox can't be part of it, we won't be part of it,'" said Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik, calling the move to limit Feinberg's availability "outrageous."

"What it's really about to me is the Executive Branch of the government trying to tell the press how it should behave..." he said.

Rep. Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said conservative commentators speak more for Americans than the national media outlets that have targeted them for criticism.

"Goaded on by a White House increasingly intolerant of criticism, lately the national media has taken aim at conservative commentators in radio and television," the Indiana Republican said on the House floor. "Suggesting that they only speak for a small group of activists and even suggesting in one report today that Republicans in Washington are 'worried about their electoral effect.' Well, that's hogwash."

Crusade, Kolbe, Council

In today's installment I've posted the recent Letter to Friends and Benefactors of Bp. Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society Saint Pius X (SSPX), a traditional Catholic missionary society.

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SUPERIOR GENERAL’S

LETTER TO FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS #75

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

The enthusiastic response to the Rosary Crusade we encounter throughout the world fills us with consolation and prompts us to take up this theme once again with you. If we are petitioning Heaven with this multitude of Aves, it is because the hour is indeed grave. We are sure of Our Lady’s victory because she herself foretold it, but the events that have been unfolding for nearly a century -- since this triumph was announced at Fatima -- oblige us to suppose that all kinds of other woes could yet befall mankind before this victory.

Yet the rules given at Fatima by the Mother of God were quite simple: if the world does not convert, it will be punished: “There will be a second war, more terrible than the first.” The world did not convert. And God’s answer was not long in coming. Since the Second World War, the world still has not converted. And if people think Russia has converted, they will have to explain to us in what it has converted, and to whom -- economic liberalism?

Almost one hundred years later, we observe that the world has surely not become better; quite the contrary. The war of the unbelievers rages harder than ever, but it has taken an unexpected turn: the demolition of the Church is being carried out especially by subversion, by infiltrating the Church. Our holy Mother the Church is in the process of being transformed into a pile of spiritual ruins while the exterior façade remains more or less intact, thus deceiving the multitude about its real condition. And it has to be admitted that this subversion acquired an unexpected increase of efficacy on the occasion of the Second Vatican Council. It doesn’t take an advanced degree in theology to figure this out; today it is an historical fact.

What part of the responsibility should be attributed to the Council itself? This is a difficult question, but it is clear that this Council was not without effect, and its consequences have been well and truly disastrous. Because of it, the Church fell in step with the world. “We, too, in fact, we more than any others, honor mankind,” said Paul VI at the Council’s conclusion. And the man-centered orientation of Vatican II was harped on by John Paul II. But this orientation is indeed odd for the Church of God, supernatural in its essence, having received from Our Lord Jesus Christ not only its constitution and means, but first and foremost its end, which is nothing else than the continuation of His own redemptive and salvific mission: “Go into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be condemned.” (Mk. 16:15-16).

And now, here is the tragedy: the divine mission of the Church has been replaced by a purely human one. It is a great mystery that leaves one astounded. Salvation now comes second, to say the least.

Few men -- very few men, unfortunately -- understand that the terrible crisis of the Church since the Second Vatican Council is a chastisement more terrible than any other, for this time the catastrophe is spiritual: what is wounded, what is noiselessly killed in the midst of an indifference worse than death, are souls. The loss of grace in a soul is the most terrible harm that can happen to it because it makes no noise, it is not felt. And the voice of the watchmen has fallen silent. The call to conversion, to penance, to the flight from sin, temptations and the world has given way, if not to indulgence, then at least to sympathy with the world. There is a real will to make peace with the modern world.

The mission of salvation has given way to a new sort of humanitarian mission; it is a matter of helping men of every condition and religion to live well together on earth.

There is no doubt that everything connected in the message of the Blessed Virgin of Fatima, what is referred to as the Secret of Fatima, has not yet come to an end. Certainly, what we are living is per force part and parcel of the events that will end one day, eventually, with the triumph of Mary. What will happen? How will we recognize it? In any case, it will at least entail the conversion of Russia according to the very words of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In 1917 at Rome, the foes of God were celebrating the 200th anniversary of Freemasonry and the 400th anniversary of Protestantism with parades of special violence against the Holy See. The demonstrators boisterously proclaimed the reign of Satan over the Vatican and the Sovereign Pontiff. Maximilian Kolbe, still a seminarian, witnessed these painful events and said:

This mortal hatred of the Church, of Christ, and of His Vicar on earth is not just an outburst of misguided individuals, but rather a systematic action that proceeds from the principle of Freemasonry: the destruction of all religion, but especially the Catholic religion... [Pisma Ojca Maksymiliana Marii Kolbego franciszkanina, Niepokalanow, maszynopsis, 1970; English tr. from The Immaculata Our Ideal, by Fr. Karl Stehlin (Warsaw, 2005), p. 39].

Is it possible that our enemies should deploy so much activity so as to attain superiority while we stay idle, or at best apply ourselves to prayer without getting to work? Might we not have more powerful arms—the protection of Heaven and of the Immaculate Virgin? The Immaculata, victorious and triumphant over all heresies, will not yield to the advancing enemy if she finds faithful servants obedient to her command: she will bring off new victories even greater than can be imagined. We have to put ourselves like docile instruments into her hands, employing all lawful means, getting the word out everywhere by the diffusion of the Marian press and the Miraculous Medal, and enhancing our action by prayer and good example. [Testimony of Fr. Pignalberi reported during the process of canonization].

He founded the Militia of the Immaculata just a few days after the October 13th apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, when the great miracle of the sun took place. It was in fact on October 16, with six fellow seminarians, that he consecrated himself to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the purpose of leading the whole world to God by the Immaculata.

One cannot but be struck by the affinity between the message of Fatima and the response of the Polish Franciscan while reading his act of consecration:

O Immaculata, Queen of heaven and earth, Refuge of sinners, our most loving Mother, to whom God deigned to entrust the entire order of mercy, behold I, N., an unworthy sinner, cast myself at Thy feet and humbly ask Thee to deign to accept me completely and utterly as Thy property and possession; and do with me as it pleases Thee: all the faculties of my soul and body, my entire life, my death and my eternity. Dispose of me as Thou willst, so that what has been said of Thee might be fulfilled: ‘She will crush the head of the serpent,’ and also, ‘Thou alone hast vanquished all heresies throughout the world.’ Make of me an instrument in Thy immaculate and merciful hands, which serves Thee, in order to increase reverence for Thee as much as possible in so many fallen-away and lukewarm souls. Thus the benevolent reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus will spread more and more. For whatever place Thou enters, Thou shalt implore upon it the grace of conversion and sanctification, for all graces come to us from the Sacred Heart of Jesus only through Thy hands. [Scritti di Massimiliano Kolbe, new ed. (Rome: ENMI, 1997), Vol. I; Eng. version, The Immaculata Our Ideal]

Very dear faithful, it is in this same spirit that we launched the Rosary Crusade. But prayer is only a part of it: let us not forget the other two very important elements, penance and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. By mortification, we wish to make reparation for the insults given to Mary, and in union with her sorrowful Heart we wish to associate ourselves as closely as possible to the sacrifice of the Cross of our Lord, because by it our salvation is effected. Thus we are at the heart of the message of Fatima: "God wishes to introduce devotion to my Immaculate Heart." Perhaps not enough emphasis is given to this aspect, which seems to us even more important than the consecration of Russia and which is the second condition indicated by Mary to the pope for her triumph: consecrate Russia and promote devotion to her Immaculate Heart.

In this month of October we are going to enter into a new phase in our relations with the Vatican, that of the doctrinal discussions. What is at stake is very important, and we recommend them to your prayers. Undoubtedly that also is a part of our Crusade, and obviously this intention is included in the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary we all desire. That also completely outstrips all our own powers, and it would be folly pure and simple to undertake such an enterprise were it not sustained by the power of the supernatural means such as prayer and penance.

We do not want to conclude this letter without also thanking you for your generosity, which enables our work to develop throughout the world. There is one thing, though, that slows us down: the harvest is abundant, but workers for the harvest are lacking. Our Lord has already said it and has shown the remedy: pray for vocations! How we should like to come to the aid of all the faithful who only have the Mass once a month, or only on Sundays, unable to benefit from normal pastoral care...Yet the good Lord has gratified us this year with 27 new priests, and we expect an even slightly larger number next year. But even that is not enough, so great is the demand worldwide.

You are deeply thanked for all your efforts. May God reward you with the abundant graces and blessings we implore on you all, your families, your children. May Our Lady of the Rosary, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, protect you.

On the Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, October 11, 2009.

+ Bernard Fellay

Superior General