winter frost

Patterns on the window of my car. Magic in the everyday.

christmas at the chateau

The perfect day.

Lovely sheen of frost over everything.

As far as I'm concerned that's a white Christmas.

Spent the morning following a robin around the garden trying to get a picture.

Rather pleased with the result.

Afternoon zipped into Naas for coffee at the Costa Cafe.

I was nearly there when I realised MC Hamster was still snuggling up my sleeve.

I decided to chance going into the cafe anyway.

Life is too short to worry about health regulations.

It seemed possible that if the staff saw Hammy, I would be thrown out.

They might think she was a rat.

Or just a hamster.

Onward.

I was sitting ensconced in the corner with a ham and cheese panini and a caffe latte, when Hammy's head emerged from my sleeve.

She likes paninis.

And ham.

And cheese.

I pushed her head back in.

There followed an hour of pantomime with Hammy's head appearing out of various sleeves, and at my neck, and just for divilment from a hole in the jumper near my waist.

Occasionally I slipped her a piece of panini, or a piece of ham, or a piece of cheese, and she would retire to consume it, before reappearing moments later.

Between times my eyes scanned the cafe warily.

I could see an elderly lady sitting opposite me.

I had no wish to cause her a heart attack.

Three teenage boots girls were on my left.

They'd have definitely had great larks if they caught sight of the golden mouse.

And some little kiddies were perched on high stools at the windows.

Hammy would have been vintage entertainment for them too.

But I managed to keep her in check.

Drunk with success I marched up to the counter.

Hammy was immobile, resting on my spare tyre.

That is to say, resting on a comfortable fold in my belly.

I ordered another caffe latte and began to chat to the Hungarian waitress.

"Lovely weather for this time of..." I was saying.

At this point Hammy, the hamster who never bites, sank her teeth into my spare tyre.

I said: "Aiiieee... year, I always like it when it's not raining."

Miss Hungary eyed me strangely.

The rest of our transaction was processed in silence.

Back to the chateau.

Our neighbour Cathy Anne had dropped in with her daughter Katie to see the Mammy before Christmas.

I showed them the budgies.

The green budgie came out of the cage and conversed politely with everyone.

The blue budgie refused to budge.

Bluey still has a canniptian if anyone tries to handle her.

She doesn't mind being fed but after that she has no desire whatsoever for human contact.

My cousin Frances ducked in as night was falling.

She's the teacher who can kill a charging yob at fifty paces with a blow of her tongue.

"I loved what you wrote on your blog about Doctor Barn's Christmas present," quoth she.

A woman of taste and discernment is our Frances.

Just don't run at her.

Time for a quick spruce up of the Heelers bod.

Shower.

Shave.

Teeth brushed.

The confessional style!

Do you like it gentle reader?

And I'm lying about the shower and the shave.

Life is too short.

Then up to Kilcullen Church for midnight mass.

Midnight mass in my town is at 9pm.

Very Irish.

The noble Heelers is doing his holy Joe routine in a forward pew where everyone can see him.

The choir are tootling away infernally from an elevated gallery at the rear of the church.

Heelers turns to look at the scene.

I always do this.

I love looking at the choir.

The choir singers are rosy cheeked and cheerful.

They are like Dickens characters.

The faces of the congregation are like a living history of my town.

Every year I drink it all in.

This year is a little different.

The fantasy has been spoiled for me a little by a rumour that there is dissension in the ranks of singers.

Some of the choir singers are not so fond of other choir singers.

I in my innocence had believed a choir could not be prone to such divisions.

So I am looking at them tonight and thinking rather rumly:

"Wouldn't it be funny if they sang Abide With Me when they can barely abide each other!"

After mass I linger in the church to chat with some fans.

You know.

Saint Therese, Saint Peter, Saint Paul. Saint Gemma Galgani, Pope John Paul The Great, Saint Father Slavko.

The usual bunch.

Fans indeed.

They loved my humour column in the Leinster Leader but haven't bought it since I got fired.

Arf, arf.

I am the last to leave the church.

In the car park I find my Uncle Jim and Aunty Pat standing shivering beside their Jaguar XJ8.

The doors are frozen shut.

I unlock my car and start the engine.

Aunty Pat lets out a cry.

"Look," she says to her husband. "James's car is better than yours."

Uncle Jim does not appear even faintly amused.

I haven't seen such a glower since...

Well, not since Doctor Barn's BMW conked out when its engine flooded in a puddle in the heavy rain last November, and then the next night I was driving him home, and we hit deep water on the road at the Curragh, and I said "Sorry Barn we're already in it," and he said "The same thing is going to happen to yours as happened to mine," but my car just rolled through the water and came out the other side still running and ready for more.

Ah yes.

You can't beat the 1998 Nissan.

It's the little car that could.

Sure it's virtually a classic car at this stage.

Back to the present.

Wind and moon and stars above the carpark at Kilcullen church.

I waited to see if the relatives would be able get into their Jag. I offered to try breathing on the locks to warm them up. Uncle Jim, because he knows me, was of the opinion that if I breathed on his car, I might break it. Instead he heated his key with a lighter and inserted it in the lock. It worked.

Who would have thunk it.

No one was more surprised than me.

I thought he was going to melt the key and make the thing completely inoperable.

You should have seen the fascinated look on my face as I watched him do it.

Back at the Chateau de Healy, my Yogic sister Marie and her husband Edward were rustling up a fry.

Rashers, eggs and sausages.

Now this is what Christmas is all about.

As we munched, I brought up the subject of Medjugorje, the town in Bosnia where there have been claims of divine apparitions.

"You were there Marie," I said. "Did you see anything?"

Her husband fielded the question.

"She saw a vision," he chortled. "A voice from heaven told her: You must play lots of golf. Follow the little white ball. And if you get tired, start playing Bridge."

So folks it looks like the visions at Medjugorje are genuine after all.

It would explain at a lot.

Before they departed Marie slipped me fifty quid.

I was speechless.

A fry and fifty quid in the one night.

Her finest hour.

And I hadn't even gotten her a Christmas present.

I hurried down to my room, grabbed an unwanted present someone had given me, a book actually, and scribbled on the inside cover: "Happy Christmas Marie and Edward, and thank you for the fifty. Ho, ho, ho, James."

Bunged the book into a Newbridge Silverware bag.

Presented it to the Yogic sister at the front door.

It was a moving moment as she read the inscription.

What Christmas is all about really.

hero nuns from the planet zorg

1. When my Aunty Eileen was training as a nurse at Saint Vincent's hospital, one of the nuns was being hard on her. Finally my aunt confronted the nun. My aunt said: "Why are you doing this?" The nun replied: "Because as soon as I saw you I knew that some day you'd be running this unit. And you'll need to be tough." So it transpired.

 

2. An artist friend who was formerly a teacher in Newbridge told me that the nuns who ran a school there had an extraordinary commitment to the children in their care. "The sort of help they gave to families was unbelievable," said the teacher. "People have forgotten all this. The story is largely untold. The nuns knew all the background, all the circumstances. If a child was doing badly in school, the nuns often knew about some family problem and would endeavour to get the child help. They gave a level of care that doesn't exist now. I remember being at a parent teacher meeting when I worked at the school. One of the parents, a single mother but living with a new boyfriend, told me that her new boyfriend had flung the baby across the room the previous night. I told the nuns. The nuns moved heaven and earth to try and get Social Services to take the baby out of that situation. Then as now the Social Services moved very slowly. After six months the baby was taken into care. The baby had to take his chances for six months with the fellow who threw him across the room. Anyway, after a while the mother gave an assurance to Social Services that she had severed contact with this particular boyfriend. Social Services returned the baby to her. The last I heard was that she had married the boyfriend."

 

3. When Kilcullen Primary School became coeducational in 1979, a certain disparity in the educational levels of boys and girls in the town came into the public domain. Up to that time, the girls had been educated solely by nuns. They were almost all able read and write and do maths. The boys had been educated at a primary school with lay teachers. About thirty percent of us could barely write at all. Teachers had traditionally made a pragmatic attempt to educate all the boys but it seemed like a fait accompli that a significant number would be left behind. My brother Bernard was in the class taken over by Sister Lelia. This class was preparing to move into Post Primary Education. Sister Lelia was horrified to discover that around a third of the boys could not write properly. She junked the curriculum. That is to say she stopped everything, and took action to teach every boy in the class to do joined up writing. The result is that to this day, among young men of a certain age group in my town, some tough, some rich, some poor, some soft, some city boys, some farmers, all of em, all of them I say, have beautiful clear flowing hand writing. They are Sister Lelia's boys. She may have been as tough as old boots. But she didn't leave anyone behind.

 

4. Mother Angelica, an American nun, founded the international Catholic broadcaster Eternal Word Network Television, EWTN. She set it up in a garage in Atlanta. There is a story told that at one point while trying to raise funds, she approached some mafiosi for donations. A mafia man supposedly told her: "Sister, we're not the sort of people you would want to take money from." Mother Angelica replied: "I'll take your money and I'll pray for you." Mother Angelic is also famous for musing publically on national television: "I don't know how I became a nun. When I was a child, most of the nuns I knew were bitches."

 

5. Sister Brid MacKenna claims to have been healed of crippling arthritis in 1971 while praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament. (Communion bread which Catholics teach contains the real presence of Jesus.) She also claims to have received a gift enabling her to heal others at this time. She has spent the past four decades preaching the real presence of Jesus in communion. She claims that limitless healing is available to all in front of the blessed sacrament.

merry christmas

Robin in the garden on Christmas Eve.

on stopping by the naas costa cafe on a christmas evening

whose cafe this is i think i know

his corporate headquarters is in london though

he will not see me stopping here

to watch his cafe fill up with proles

my little hamster must think it queer

to stop without our chateau near

between the grocery and bookshop with the scruff male counter staff

the darkest evening of the year

she gives the spare tyre on my belly a nip

to remind me to leave our new acquaintance the hungarian waitress a tip

the only other sound's the shriek

i unleash at the sight of my own blood

this cafe is obviously built to last

but i have a biting hamster up my vest

and budgies to clean out before midnight mass

and budgies to clean out before midnight mass

(With apologies to Robert Frost. No really, I'm very sorry.)

great moments in poignancy

Doctor Barn arrived at the chateau this afternoon.

With great care he arranged small heaps of presents under the tree in the hall.

He mumbled something along the lines of: "Not to be opened till Christmas day."

I watched him wryly.

I had the oddest feeling that as soon as he left the house any presents marked James would be ripped open immediately.

So it proved.

Spying my name on a package I ripped it open.

The brother had been gone a full thirty seconds.

I'd managed to resist that long.

A new record.

The package contained a bunch of objectionably violent Clint Eastwood videos.

I searched through the videos.

The Good The Bad And The Ugly.

A Fistful Of Dollars.

For A Few Dollars More.

Hang Em High.

That meant three objectionably violent films with a certain artistic merit, and one useless objectionably violent film with no merit at all.

I checked the interior of the video case.

Far more objectionable than anything the movies might contain themselves, was the fact that no secret wodge of cash had been placed in the case.

I checked again just to be sure.

But no.

Nothing.

Could the brother be turning his back on one of the great Christmas traditions?

I turned back towards the tree.

My features were dark.

Another package with my name on it called for attention.

Ah.

Here we go.

I ripped it open.

A book by someone called Bill Bryson about someone called Shakespeare.

Never heard of either of em.

I thumbed through the pages.

Several times.

On the final time, my thumbing was a tad frantic.

I do believe I cried: "No, no, no."

No cash fell forth.

Suffering sagotash.

This is shaping up to be a bad Christmas.

But lo!

There's a third package with my name on it.

A large one.

I rip off the wrapping.

It's a coat.

I check the sleeves and interior.

No money has been placed there.

Woe is me.

Worst Christmas ever if there's no moulah from Daktari.

Somewhat grudgingly, I try on the coat for size.

Blooming coats.

Who needs em.

Paddy Pup busies himself ripping the already ripped wrapping paper to shreds.

The ghost of Mobies Past appears beside the tree singing:

"Oooh Lordy, troubles with God,

Oooh Lordy, troubles with God,

Don't nobody know my troubles with God.

Don't nobody know my troubles with God."

It was quite poignant.

But I prefer the version with the Johnston Press in it.

I put my hands in the coat pockets.

Oh Lordy.

It's a Christmas miracle.

Bingo.

My fingers feel a snug nest of dollar bills.

Hurrah for Doctor Barn.

Hurrah, I say.

Christmas is saved.

christmas at the chateau de healy

 

seasonal tweetings

Woken at midday by budgies squawking something like: "Take this bloody blanket off our cage."

Frost on the fields.

Cleaning Lady ducked in the door and presented the Young Squire with socks.

The Young Squire did his best to be gracious.

Ah yes.

What do you get the man who has nothing?

Socks apparently.

Sean Landers dropped in for a visit. He's on a trip home from Taiwan where he teaches.

He joined the Mammy and me for tea in the kitchen.

He said: "I can't believe how upset the Irish get about a little flooding. We had two earthquakes in Taiwan the night before I left. People die in floods over there. The weather can be really extreme. Here everyone reacts to the least thing as if it's never happened before. For crying out loud, we've had snow before. Snow isn't any colder now than it ever was."

I replied: "They're all watching idiot climate change disaster movies and they believe them."

Popped into Newbridge.

Yelena the Russian waitress in the Cafe Des Beaux Parvenus at Newbridge Silverware presented me with a wrapped package.

I checked under the wrapper to make sure it wasn't socks.

Scones.

The noble Heelers licked his cherubic lips.

"Those are for my Lily," she advised warningly.

This is her name for the Mammy.

Headed for the town of Naas for coffee with the Brezzer in the Costa.

She may be singing at midnight mass in Kilcullen on Christmas eve.

I hope she is.

Found a book by Saint Thomas Akempis while browsing.

A passage caught my eye.

It went: "Why do you worry so much about what people think of you? It is because you do not worry enough about what God thinks of you."

This hit most nearly upon my heart.

Posted off some Xmas greetings.

Actually postcards made from photos I took at the Mammy's 80th birthday.

Surrealistic, moi?

Well they make quirky greeting cards.

They've got buckets of quirk.

Quick trip to Dublin.

Met Giovanna for coffee in the Cafe Insomnia near Trinity College.

She gave me socks.

Savile Row socks.

I never knew Savile Row produced socks.

I've heard of Savile Row suits alright.

But these were definitely socks.

Paddy Pup is going to have a field day.

These are a good deal classier than the socks he normally masticates.

I had no Christmas present for Giovanna.

Serve her right for giving me socks.

Rendezvous at evening with Jinwoo from Korea.

She gave me a diary.

Thank heaven.

Anything but socks.

Back home to give the hamster cage a pre Christmas cleaning.

Felt demotivated and couldn't force myself to do it.

Watched a Seinfeld instead.

"Don't worry Hammy," I told her, "I'll clean your cage tomorrow."

MC Hamster's whiskers twitched reproachfully.

"I'll believe it when I see it," she muttered.

Walked Paddington through the midnight air.

Chicken and chips from the Chinese.

Sat in the hall in the wee small hours contemplating our Christmas tree.

An odd peace touched my heart.

May it touch yours also bold traveller of the internet.

Whoever you are.

the monica leech laugh in

There's a Jesuit writing for the Leinster Leader.

I kid you not.

He writes about spiritual matters.

The Jesuits have been famous through five centuries for their concern about social issues.

I find it hard to understand how any Jesuit could work for a newspaper owned by the Johnston Press.

Perhaps I'll drop him a line.

obitcheries

Ayatollah Bill Montazeri kicked the bucket in Iran this week. He was 87. Having first helped legendary Islamist psycho Ayatollah Khomeini seize power thirty years ago, he is said to have become disillusioned at the sheer level of mayhem that went with Khomeini's rule. Still, he never quite could bring himself to admit that he and Khomeini had done anything wrong by plunging Iran into its present nightmares. Montazeri eventually found himself marginalised for refusing to endorse the ongoing execution of dissenters under the Islamist dictatorship he had helped invent and impose. I suppose anyone who has faced a similar moral dilemma, and has behaved better, may judge him. The CNN brigade think he was the nearest thing the enslaved Iranian nation had to a focus for its desire to rejoin the civilised world. Maybe. To me it just looks like the Iranian people are being stampeded between varying sets of Islamist psychos. Roll up, roll up. Choose your Ayatollah folks. Not much of a choice. The wheel is rigged and it's the only game in town. Short of divine interevention there will be war in and from Iran shortly. I just hope American President Michael Moore knows who he's appeasing. And I hope some of us survive this Islamic apocalypse.

pardon me archbishop diarmuid martin but your brother is in my soup

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has acquiesced in the media manufacture of wrong doing against some of his Bishops. I have been curious about Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's willingness to admit contrived retrospective wrong doing on the part of men who had done no wrong. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is a brother of former Irish Times political editor Seamus Martin. Seamus Martin's coverage of international politics at the Irish Times was marked by a blatent pro Soviet, crypto Communist, anti Americanism. I believe Seamus Martin was part of a cabal of journalists and editors at the Irish Times who were being directly run by the KGB Soviet secret service as agents. I have a question for Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. When the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was attempting to infiltrate the Catholic Church in Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and England, did that same Communist Party of the Soviet Union ever try to infiltrate the Irish Catholic Church? Are you a Marxist like your brother Seamus? Were you at any time part of a Soviet conspiracy to undermine Christianity in Ireland?

what hath god wrought

 

moment aria

the heat descends on the city

the city towers and teems

with a million heartless miracles

that the vain say last forever

a man and a woman on a bridge

kiss once the sky unfurls

oh the beauty of that kiss

and the briefness

thus passes the glory of the world

afternoon

Coffee with the Doctor.

He says: "Do you think the McCanns did it?"

I shake my head.

"I never thought they did it," I tell him. "Not even for a moment."

He knits his brow.

"Heelers," he says. "You are so predictable. You only think they didn't do it, because they're Catholic."

I lean forward.

"I don't consider the McCanns to be Catholic," I say. "I'm not their judge. But that's not how I see them. They had children through in-vitro fertilisation. That would make them non Catholic as far as I'm concerned. My reason for thinking them innocent relates to something else. I took one look at them. I listened to what they said. My every instinct proclaimed that they were innocent and that their daughter had been abducted. If I knew anything about anything, I knew that. I took one look at the investigating police officer, and I was seriously disquieted. I suspected instantly that he was a bad man. Then there was the man living in the area with the dungeon in his house, who tried to attach himself to the media groups reporting from the scene. And then there was another paedophile who was found dead in the woods in Switzerland a few weeks later who had also been present in the area around that time. That part of Portugal was Paedophile Central the day Madeline was taken. I feel in my heart her parents have been the subject of a most evil attempt to incriminate them. There you go. It's not the most scientific method. Or is it?"

The doctor nodded slowly.

"They left their kids unsupervised Jim," he said.

There was a tear in my eye.

"Jesus and Mary were three days out of Jerusalem before they noticed Jesus was missing," I said softly.

the results of the heelers enquiry into apparitions of the virgin mary at medjugorje

Since 1981, six individuals have been claiming to receive visions of the mother of God at Medjugorje, a Croatian town in Bosnia.


Reasons to give credance to the visions:

1. The testimony of Heather Parsons, a former magazine editor in Ireland. She states explicitly that she saw the risen Lord in the sun at Medjugorje.

2. The testimony of Randall Sullivan, a writer working for Rolling Stone magazine. He claims also to have experienced certain supernatural phenomena at Medjugorje.

3. I am unable to conclude at the moment that the visionaries are lying.

4. The writings of Sister Emmanuel on Medjugorje have a genuine quality.

5. Vicka's physical appearance. I find her appearance suggestive of one who has been touched by the light. I have had a similar feeling looking at Mirjana.

6. There are significant reports of healings taking place at Medjugorje.

7. The testimony of my Uncle Jim Berney who says he has seen supernatural phenomena at Medjugorje.

8. The testimony of Doctor Marco Margnelli who claims he went to Medjugorje as an atheist in the 1980's. He says that the factor which made the largest impression on him, was the gathering of birds in trees at dusk in the town square. At the moment the supposed visions began, the birds would fall silent. Doctor Margnelli, like Heather Parsons, has been received into the Catholic church.

9. The message of the visions seems generally positive.

10. Pray, pray, pray.

****************************

Reasons to doubt the claims of visions at Medjugorje:

There have been some inconsistencies in statements by the visionaries. If the visions are false, we must ask ourselves how the whole charade was constructed and maintained. Remember this would then be a charade that enables drug addicts to give up their addiction overnight. The only postulation I can come up with for a conspiracy at Medjugorje is the following...
I have been unwilling to conclude that the children themselves are lying. There have been psychological tests carried out on them, and the children have been observed closely for 28 years right up to and including their years of adulthood. They do not act like liars. If the visions are faked, I believe someone or some group, has manipulated the children. If the visions are faked, a way has been found to fake them, in such a manner that the visionaries themselves believe they are having visions. Somebody must have hypnotised the children (as they were in 1981) into accepting that they would see the Virgin Mary in visions at a particular time each evening. This would have been done through some form of autosuggestion, the implanting of mental triggers in their minds. The content of the visions could have been programmed into them in a similar way. Disparities between the children's accounts of their visions might then be explained by the action of their own disparate imaginations in providing subjective and individualistic outcomes for their imagined vision experiences. The only candidates for the hypnotising of these six children, would be found among local clergy, who are members of the Franciscan order. One of these Franciscans, Tomas Vlasic, has been regarded by critics as the chink in Medjugorje's armour. I know nothing ill of Tomas Vlasic. If I did, I would state it. Nor can I exonerate him. He has recently relinquished his priesthood. In his youth he fathered a child with a nun. Neither of these facts discredit him in my view. I would honour him and the nun for bringing the child to the world. Erasmus was born of such a union and raised by nuns. The child will save the world every time. But Tomas Vlasic remains the number one suspect for those who doubt the visions are genuine. A local Bishop has asserted that Vlasic was "a magician." If we look for a conspiracy involving hypnosis we probably must start with him. It gets more difficult with the other Franciscans. Some of them must have been involved if such a group hypnotism took place and if repeated hypnotisms were necessary. Father Jozo Zovko might be a candidate. Father Jozo, according to one piece of testimony written by a priest claiming the visions are genuine, had been holding meditation sessions for women and children in the church at Medjugorje during the months prior to the commencement of the supposed apparitions. The meditation sessions would take place after mass with Father Jozo telling the men they could now leave. This would certainly by the circumstantial evidence we're looking for that might suggest an opportunity for the selection and programming of vulnerable individuals and/or the inducement of fake visions. But at the moment I shouldn't call it evidence. It's merely my best guess. Another figure we would have to look at among the Franciscans is the now deceased Father Slavko who appears to be held in high regard by many who have met him. I am postulating that if a conspiracy has taken place to fake visions at Medjugorje, it seems necessary that some one or all of these three, Vlasic, Jozo and Slavko, must each have been involved.


In the New Year I will be travelling to Medjugorje. I will report what I discover there, on these pages.

the monica leech laugh in

On Friday six Eurostar trains running between Paris and London broke down at the same time.
Five of them broke down in the channel tunnel itself.
For the past three days, incredibly, the train company has been unable to get its trains running again.
Some commentators have suggested the trains broke down because of snow and ice.
Ha, ha, ha.
In spite of what the global warming brigade tells you, snow and ice have been a feature of winters in Europe since long before the invention of the train.
We've never had six simultaneous break downs before, anywhere.
During copious media coverage of the unprecedented simultaneous break down of six Eurostar trains, (cf: the inexplicable inability of the train company to get trains running through the channel tunnel again and the unaccountable three day cessation of all train services on the route), not one mention has been made of the possibility that Muslim Al Qaeda agents working in Eurostar maintenance crews have sabotaged the trains.
Here.
I'll mention it.
It is now a distinct possibility that Muslim Al Qaeda agents working in Eurostar maintenance crews have deliberately sabotaged the six trains in order to paralyse the channel tunnel rail link and create travel chaos at Christmas.
This possibility will not be mentioned on Sky News because Sky News has only one major advertising revenue stream which comes from the (Muslim) royal family in Qatar who also, by the by, finance the pro Al Qaeda (Muslim) Al Jazeera news station.
Lovely people.
Nor will the possibility that the Eurostar train stoppage is the result of Al Qaeda sabotage be mentioned on CNN, because CNN has spent the past eight years attempting to discredit President George Bush's warnings about Al Qaeda and has instead invested heavily in the appeaserish delusionism of President Groovy Obama.
Sleep now in the fire, as we radicals always say.
And whatever you do, don't mention the Muslims.
I mentioned them once but I think I got away with it.

Copy to: The Times of London, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Compost, Newsweek, Time Magazine, Channel Four, the BBC, The Irish Times, Le Monde, ABC, CBS, NBC, and all the other appeasers.

a christmas card for the johnston press

I have destroyed you.
Your newspapers are worth nothing.
Your printing companies are worth nothing.
You are worth nothing.
Now. Get.Out. Of. My. Country.

can such things be

At a convent on the island of Hawaii, a group of nuns had gathered around the bed of one of their sisters who was ailing and not expected to survive the night.

The dying sister was very old.

Also present in the room was the Eucharist, the communion bread which Catholic tradition teaches contains the real presence of Christ.

The dying nun sat up in her bed, looked at the Eucharist and said: "Oh my beloved."

She then became young and beautiful.

The other nuns around the bed saw her transformed before their eyes.

The nuns who witnessed this felt their own spirits soar into ecstasy.

The beautiful girl sat back on the bed.

She became an old nun again.

She died.

The other nuns emerged from their elevated spiritual state.

They thought a few minutes had passed.

They checked the clock.

They had been in ecstasy for thirteen hours.