The Pure Michigan Statewide Singalong

I had the pleasure of living in Michigan in 1998, on Sanford Lake, and this is a fun reminder of what a very beautiful state it is.  You may be surprised to learn that Michigan has a coastline longer than that of California.

Hillsdale College Launches Major Educational Outreach to 50 Million Americans

Pat Caddell: Romney Campaign Worst in My Lifetime

"... this is Romney's election to lose and by God he's losing,"

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is running a poor campaign against a weak incumbent and is losing, longtime Democratic political operative and pollster Pat Caddell said in an appearance on the Fox News web show “Campaign Insiders.”

Caddell, who was a pollster for President Jimmy Carter and is now a Fox News contributor, laid into the Romney campaign during the appearance.

"I swear to God, everything we have been saying for months, and I know a lot of the audience doesn't want to hear this, this is the worst campaign in my lifetime," he said, adding, "Obama's fighting for his life, his party is fighting for their life, and they're winning. This is, I've said all along, this is Romney's election to lose and by God he's losing," reports Real Clear Politics.

Read the rest of this entry at Newsmax >>

The Second Vatican Council: A Revolution and Its Wreckage

The article below from The Sydney Morning Herald is an interesting overview of the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath.  

Those of us just old enough to remember the Church before "the tornado," can recall our local parish church offering hourly Masses on Sunday mornings, with one of the four or five priests assigned to the parish saying Mass for the overflow crowds in the parish school gymnasium, while latecomers stood outside the church's front entrance because there was no room inside.  We remember schools fully staffed by religious sisters and brothers.  We remember the beauty of May devotions around a lovely grotto at our Xaverian Brothers' school, where every evening, during the month of May, we prayed the Litany of Loretto, recited the Holy Rosary and sang Marian hymns.  We remember the long lines for Confession on Saturday afternoon and the awesome solemnity of Benediction on Sunday afternoon.  We remember too, that within a few years of "the tornado," the number of Xaverian Brothers was halved and their numbers have declined ever since.  The school campus, a military school patterned on Annapolis, with 100 year old traditions, was sold to the county government.  In high school where the word "Catholic" was never mentioned but replaced by "Christian," we dedicated ourselves not to learning doctrine, the Church Fathers, theology, Sacred Tradition and Scripture, but to the work of collage making.  The professed religious we loved and admired left the religious life in huge numbers after the end of each school year.  

Every Catholic family has been affected by it, every funeral and wedding is a reminder of loved ones who no longer practice the Faith.  The calamity, whose fiftieth anniversary the Church will celebrate next month, was like an Emperor's triumphal procession; many cheered and celebrated, but others felt for decades like the defeated army being marched in review.

Thanks be to God for our present Pope and his predecessor for beginning the work of restoration, for restoring the beauty, joy and confidence we knew before the cold winds blew.  While much wreckage remains, the Church is beginning to look outward again.  There is desperate need for Her salvific mission in our families, our country and around the world.

The Vatican's very own revolution

 The Vatican II council, which began 50 years ago next month, was the most momentous religious event in 450 years.

From The Sydney Morning Herald

By Barney Zwartz

ON JANUARY 25, 1959, the newly elected Pope John XXIII invited 18 cardinals from the Vatican bureaucracy to attend a service at the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. He told them he planned to summon a global church council. The horrified cardinals were speechless, which the Pope mischievously chose to interpret as devout assent.

But, in reality, the Vatican bureaucrats, known as the Curia, were aghast. The Pope, 77, had been elected purely as a caretaker, but here he was indulging a novel, unpredictable, dangerous and, above all, they believed, unnecessary notion.

In their view it would create ungovernable expectations and might even lead to changes. And if there were to be changes - always undesirable - then the Curia would manage them without any outside intervention, as they had for centuries.

Eternal Rest Grant Unto Them, O Lord, and Let Perpetual Light Shine Upon Them

From Our Mail: Grassfire Nation Outraged Because a Leopard Hasn't Changed His Spots

Shock, horror, outrage -- Mitt Romney has betrayed the conservative cause, flip-flopped on his pledge to repeal ObamaCare, and isn't who he recently claimed to be!

Grassfire Nation wants Romney to "clarify his position."   Did they happen to notice his record as Governor ... or the statements he made while running for the United States Senate?  He repudiated Ronald Reagan, proclaimed himself pro-abortion, imposed the prototype for ObamaCare, and did more than any single American to bring same-sex "marriage" to the United States.  His campaign manager even told you to expect this; remember "Etch-A-Sketch"?

Well, dear friends at Grassfire Nation, we're not the least bit disappointed in Mitt Romney.  He is showing himself to be exactly who we know him to be.  The outrage is that you, who claim to be conservative Republicans, did nothing from the time Rick Santorum suspended his campaign to resist the tragedy that is the nomination of this phony, fraud and charlatan.  You compromised principle, you averted your eyes, you convinced yourselves that a leopard can change his spots.  Now you're stuck with him.  Good luck.

Many of us who have been fooled by liberal, Establishment Republicans in the past will not be suckered again.  We're supporting the Constitution Party candidate, Virgil Goode.  You have a choice -- go down with the ship or fight for your purported principles with those who put principle above the acquisition of power.  No, we don't stand with you or your very flawed candidate.  You made a bargain with the devil.  We want no part of it.

Grassfire Nation Update

Dear Daniel,

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney no doubt induced a strong sense of uneasiness among many conservatives on Sunday. During an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," he told host David Gregory that he would preserve the best parts of ObamaCare!

Refusing to call it ObamaCare or even The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Romney said his plan wasn't "getting rid of all of healthcare reform ... there are a number of things I like in healthcare reform."

Did Romney "bite" the liberal-media bait dangled by Gregory and actually flip-flop on ObamaCare?

Following the Supreme Court ruling in favor of ObamaCare, back in June, Romney said, "What the Court didn't do on its last day in session, I will do on my first day if elected President of the United States. And that is, I will act to repeal ObamaCare."

At no time prior to yesterday has the Republican candidate mentioned preserving the best parts of an unconstitutional healthcare overhaul that will put the U.S. in the fast lane to bankruptcy!

Daniel, please go here now to see this surpising one-minute "Meet the Press" segment. Then join conservative Americans from across the nation who are using Grassfire's just-launched pledge to remind Mitt Romney that he must REPEAL AND FULLY DEFUND ObamaCare!

+ + Urgent Pledge Delivery to Romney Election HQ

Join thousands of other conservatives who are demanding Mitt Romney clarify his position on ObamaCare and confirm publicly his intention to completely REPEAL The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act when elected!

Grassfire is moving quickly to mobilize tens of thousands of like-minded patriots and will present the Romney campaign with the pledge signatures THIS WEEK.

Don't wait!

If repealing ObamaCare is a keystone item for your support and you want Romney to publicly clarify his intentions, then add your name to the pledge by going here now.

www.grassfire.com/208/petition.asp

+ + Thursday, September 13, Deadline

We're moving quickly to gather names for this important pledge delivery to Romney's election headquarters. So after watching the video segment and adding your name to the pledge, please forward this message to your conservative friends and family members. Urge them to join you in taking immediate action by going here.

Remind them that to be included in this urgent delivery they must sign the pledge no later than noon on Thursday, September 13.

Don't allow Romney to flip-flop on ObamaCare. Sign the pledge and demand he publicly clarify his position to REPEAL Obamacare as president!

Thank you for standing with us.

Your friends at Grassfire Nation  

BBC Last Night of the Proms and Finale

Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?
Wider still, and wider, shall thy bounds be set;
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet!

Truth and Right and Freedom, each a holy gem,
Stars of solemn brightness, weave thy diadem.

Tho' thy way be darkened, still in splendour drest,
As the star that trembles o'er the liquid West.

Throned amid the billows, throned inviolate,
Thou hast reigned victorious, thou has smiled at fate.

Land of Hope and Glory, fortress of the Free,
How may we extol thee, praise thee, honour thee?

Hark, a mighty nation maketh glad reply;
Lo, our lips are thankful, lo, our hearts are high!

Hearts in hope uplifted, loyal lips that sing;
Strong in faith and freedom, we have crowned our King!