WHY I LISTEN TO PUBLIC RADIO --- YES, EWTN DOES FLUSTER ME

COMMENT FROM ANOTHER BLOG OF MINE:

Why do you still listen to Public Radio? To keep up with what the Evil one is saying? Switch your radio/internet to EWTN or other Catholic radio. It will never fluster you. It is AWESOME!

FIRST: WHY I LISTEN TO PUBLIC RADIO

1.  I appreciate news reporting from Africa

2. I appreciate listening to news analyses about the hardships vexing Africans

3. I appreciate listening to news reporting from the BBC, rather than from the 

     USA news outlets

4. I enjoy the human impact analyses of life in the United States that do not get 

     presented on the USA commercial or cable airwaves -- like the story I wrote 

     about concerning the young lady who had escaped from child prostitution to 

     finally reach the position of tenured professor at UCLA.  (Work of the evil one?)

                      More on the "Evil" one later.

Second:  WHY I DO NOT LISTEN TO EWTN

1. I spend at least 15 hours per week preparing Bible and Theology classes

2. My sources for these syllabi are the following:

             a) The Jerome Biblical Commentary

             b) The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

             c) The Catechism of the Catholic Church

             d) The Code and Commentary of Canon Law of the Catholic Church

             e) The "Osservatore Romano" official newspaper of Vatican City

3. Aside from the intellectual exercises that the above list represents, my daily 

     prayer life consists of the following:

              v. Listening to the daily reading and following meditation from USCCB

             w. 30 minutes a day of community prayer with my spouse taken from the 

                 Breviary, other wise know as the Book of Christian Prayer

             x. Not less than 30 minutes per day of praying the Bible in meditation

             y. Reading and considering the articles of Catholic bloggers from around 

                  the world

             z. "Breakfast with God" from ParishWorld.net

4. EWTN has not been exempt from succumbing to the wiles and the influence 

     of the "Evil one."  

5. When you get to know as much about the Catholic Church as I do, you will 

     have many reasons to get flustered by EWTN.

SMALLER GOVERNMENT or MICROMANAGEMENT GOVERNMENT?

"The land of the free, and the home of the brave."
I'm from Massachusetts where, fittingly, for today and this thought, the state motto is "Sub ense, libertas."
That's right, "Under the sword, liberty."
We have recycled our swords into "Colts".
We have intellectualized them into laws, sub laws, rules, regulations and tribunals.
We have organized them into moneyed special interests.
We have hacked them dull in the deterioration of our educational system through our pandering to the personal demands of the educators rather than honoring the needs of the students.
We have bent then into corkscrews of dishonor, discord, disrespect, dissimulation, disingenuity, contumely and slander.
We have ceased looking for the "quiet peace" mentioned in the uncut, unedited statement of the motto:
         "Manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam 
                        sub libertate quietem,"

We keep a sharp sword at hand, shoulder high and threatening those whom we perceive to be nuisances intruding upon our thirst for complete control over the behavior in which we find comfort.  

The sharp sword comes in handy for carving out sections of the citizenry that are different from whom and what we are.  

We seek to excise those who feel entitled; those who even through no fault of their own, are less well endowed, physically, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and economically.

We use the flat side for those on our side and the sharp edge for the weaker ones.

These are times when the sword is not a unifier but a divider; not a peace maker but a fomenter of discord.  It is not a tool for the lessening of organized government's intrusion into our personal lives, but a wedge driving government deeper and deeper into our individual private space.  

This sword knows no political favoritism.  It cares not whose hand squeezes the haft.  It cares not whether the hand is right or left.  All it cares is whether there is enough blood on it to show one and all that it knows its purpose and is able and willing to achieve it.  No matter what.

Happy Independence Day.