UnintentionalMentor

Raced neighbor home & won. Every. Single. Time. Seems I encouraged him. He made it to Olympics.

[UnintentionalMentor @CsonTicket]

@pvtjokerus They’re everywhere right now. I’ve been following so many stories.

[UnintentionalMentor @CsonTicket]

When there is black and white, there will always be those that go gray.

Not posting much lately, but reading many posts you all make. 💜

This one - I’m happy to see addressed…..finally.

[Bishop Robert Barron @BishopBarron]

In a recent interview, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, former grand chancellor of the John Paul II Institute on Marriage and Family Life, confirmed the worst suspicions that many of us had.

He admitted that the changes he made at the Institute during the Pope Francis years were designed to initiate a "very profound" reform of the idea of the natural law.

Instead of absolute moral norms grounded in a keen understanding of the basic goods, he and his colleagues were proposing a moral theory rooted in historical discernment of subjective and cultural experience--not an "armchair theology" but one operating "within history and within people's lives."

This, of course, is the language of trendy postmodernism, and it is dangerous indeed.

Allow me to illustrate the principle with one example. Is slavery wrong?

Intrinsically wrong? Wrong no matter what public opinion polls say about it, no matter what the current consensus on it might be? I imagine any decent person would say yes.

But that yes is predicated upon precisely what the tradition calls the natural law and the basic goods. There are some values so fundamental that acts repugnant to them are by their very nature wicked.

If you want a highly articulate presentation of this idea, go to St. John Paul II's Veritatis Splendor.

If we say that this is just "armchair theologizing" and that morality is a function of ever-shifting cultural and experiential data, then why couldn't slavery be justified?

One of the very smartest persons that ever lived, the philosopher Aristotle, thought it was; extremely bright and morally upright persons in our country, well into the 19th century, thought it was permissible.

Who is to say whether the consensus might shift back again? Who is to say that "lived experience" might come to justify it?

What any truly coherent moral program requires is the very thing that Archbishop Paglia and his colleagues were endeavoring to eliminate, namely, absolute moral norms.

Ridding ourselves of these in the name of freedom or pastoral sensitivity actually renders moral discourse dysfunctional, just as relativizing the basic principle of logic would render any rational conversation impossible.

The Archbishop's interview, frankly, reminded me of the discussions I had at the Synod on Synodality with some of my German colleagues. Under the rubric of the development of doctrine, they were eager to relativize or radically change the principles undergirding classical morality. If this was and is truly the game, we have ventured onto perilous seas.

Link to the article below.

[Story Web @Ezekle1]

He fed all 150 of us before he made himself a plate.

Friday the 13th. United flight 2480, San Francisco to Houston.

Somewhere over New Mexico, a passenger collapsed in the bathroom. The plane went quiet in that particular way, the kind where strangers who will never know each other's names start silently praying for the same person.

We made an emergency landing in Albuquerque. An ambulance was already waiting on the tarmac.

That should have been the story.

But the delay pushed our crew past their legal flying hours. FAA rules. Nobody's fault, just the math of safety regulations meeting a long, hard day. A new crew had to fly in from Chicago. We weren't leaving until almost 10:30 that night.

Seven extra hours. In an airport. With cranky kids, empty stomachs, and the particular exhaustion of watching a short delay quietly turn into an entire evening you didn't plan for.

United sent meal vouchers. Eventually. 7:15 p.m.

Every restaurant in the terminal was already closed.

150 people. A stack of useless paper. Nowhere to spend it.

That's when our captain picked up his phone.

He didn't ask corporate. Didn't wait for approval. Didn't make an announcement to the gate so everyone would know what he was about to do. He just called a local pizza place and ordered 30 pizzas.

Out of his own pocket.

When the boxes arrived, he didn't hand them off to a gate agent and walk away. He organized a line, by seat number, the only fair way to do it, and stood there in his full captain's uniform, serving slices to exhausted strangers one at a time. When a box ran out, he broke it down and opened the next one.

He fed all 150 of us.

Then, and only then, he made himself a plate.

Before we finally boarded the replacement flight, he stood at the door and shook the hand of every single passenger as they walked past him to their seat. Every one.

I've flown more flights than I can count.

I have never seen anything like this.

Nothing about that night was in his job description. Nobody would have faulted him for handing out vouchers and disappearing into the crew lounge to rest. He had every reason to be as tired as the rest of us.

He chose to be the one still standing, still serving, still making sure 150 strangers felt like someone in that building actually cared whether they ate.

That's not customer service.

That's just who he is when no one's required to be.

To the captain of Flight 2480, somewhere out there, you probably don't think this was a big deal.

It was. 🍕✈️

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

I know some people roll their eyes when I publicize my wife's posts, but I want to do it again because I watch her every day pour her heart and soul into these daily scripture posts, and IMO they are incredibly meaningful and deeply insightful.

She is not monetized. She does these daily early morning posts solely out of sheer love for God and to help others.

If you are a Christian, please consider following her.

Thank you.

(She also reposts cute animal and beautiful nature stuff every night too.)

[UnintentionalMentor @CsonTicket]

🙏

[Edwards Air Force Base @EdwardsAFB]

Update- 12:48 PDT: The airfield has been closed, and all inbound aircraft are being diverted.

All non-commercial visitor passes have been suspended until further notice to allow the installation to focus entirely on emergency response operations.

[UnintentionalMentor @CsonTicket]

@M_Wuchevich Perhaps “non sequitur” ?

[Everest Today @EverestToday]

BREAKING: Missing climber Dawa Sherpa is found alive on Mt Everest.

[Fr Joseph Hudson @acloudofsaints]

A man crashed a stolen car outside St. Joseph Shrine. Then he bolted.

The Rector heard the crash and someone yelled "stop him."

So Rev. Jean-Baptiste Commins — in full cassock — tackled him, and held him until the police came.

Never underestimate a priest in a cassock.

[UnintentionalMentor @CsonTicket]

@SenWarren No, Joan of Dark, all anyone has to do is scroll through your posts to see you were running victory laps from stopping the merger in 2024.

[UnintentionalMentor @CsonTicket]

“Not because Judas deserved it. Because the eleven men watching needed to see what love looks like when it’s aimed at something that will never love you back.”
Indeed!
Pure Love

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

Judas ate with God for three years and never flinched.

Sat at the fire. Said the prayers. Watched blind men see. Watched dead men stand up. Watched lepers get clean skin back. Saw all of it. Touched all of it.

And it did nothing to him.

That should make you sick.

Because you know men like that. You’ve sat next to them in church. They sing the hymns. They say amen. They put the money in the plate. And they go home and do things in the dark that would get them killed in any century but this one.

Jesus called him a devil. Not after the betrayal. Before it. John 6:70. He looked at twelve men and said one of you is a devil. And then He let the devil stay.

He let him hold the money. Let him sit at the table. Let him hear every parable. Let him watch Lazarus walk out of a tomb.

And Judas saw resurrection with his own eyes and thought, what’s that worth in silver?

That’s not weakness. That’s not a man who lost his way. That’s a creature wearing human skin at the table of God, calculating the price of the blood on his plate.
Jesus washed his feet.

Read that again.

God kneeled in front of the thing that was about to murder Him and washed the dirt off its feet.

Not because Judas deserved it. Because the eleven men watching needed to see what love looks like when it’s aimed at something that will never love you back.

That’s the sermon your pastor won’t preach.
That Jesus didn’t die confused. He didn’t die betrayed. He sat across from a devil, broke bread, and said what thou doest, do quickly.
He gave evil permission to finish.

Because the cross was never Plan B.
And the son of perdition was never a surprise.

He was a prop in a story written before the foundation of the world. A creature who thought he was the predator and turned out to be the instrument.

The tomb didn’t stay shut.

But the field Judas bought with his thirty pieces? His guts are still in the dirt.

[The Civil Rights Lawyer @johnbryanesq]

Look what I found... An original Rev War tricorn hat. First real one I’ve ever seen. Came out of the Lake Champlain region of NY.

[Fr. James A (Faith-Chat Platform) @frjamesa]

She did a great job. 👏🏽

©️ 🎥 mariemazzanti

[UnintentionalMentor @CsonTicket]

@Paul_L_OBrien You’re doing everything right.

It’s unbelievably draining, as I recently went through this with my father, and understand how incredibly powerless it feels to watch a loved one go through it.

[UnintentionalMentor @CsonTicket]

@ArnulfoCarden17 @nypost This is what I was going to say.
It looks like it might be at an upward angle. 🤷‍♀️

[DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican]

Hello Dr. Snyder,

You have a DPhil from Oxford. You were the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale. You speak five languages and read ten. You have written sixteen books. You are, by your own positioning, the historian who has Seen This Before, who knows Where This Leads, who has Read The Right Books.

You wrote one of those books (126 pages) in approximately two weeks. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. It started as a Facebook post. It has sold 1.4 million copies. It inspired a graphic novel, a punk song, a rap song, and an opera. It made you a very wealthy man. Lesson 20 is "Be as courageous as you can." You wrote that in two weeks.

Your predictive track record: Trump would do a coup instead of the 2020 election. He didn't. American democracy would collapse under Trump 1.0. It didn't. And now: Trump will start a war with Iran specifically to manufacture a terrorist attack specifically to cancel the midterms.

You can't even be original in your own predictions!

Your 2018 book The Road to Unfreedom argued that Vladimir Putin's ideology is primarily driven by Ivan Ilyin, an obscure Russian fascist philosopher. Serious Russia scholars called it speculative. The Reddit history community, which is not exactly right-wing, wrote: "The closer you get to the present, the more of a pundit he is over a historian per se." You are a pundit who charges historian prices.

In September 2022, you held a two-hour private meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky... at a conference funded by Victor Pinchuk. Victor Pinchuk is the son-in-law of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. You are now the inaugural holder of the Temerty Chair at the University of Toronto... funded by James Temerty, a Ukrainian-born billionaire. You chair the academic council of the Ukrainian History Global Initiative... funded by Victor Pinchuk. Carl Bildt chairs the board. Anne Applebaum is on the council. You testified before Congress in April 2024 that Republican narratives on Ukraine constitute Russian disinformation.

A historian paid by Ukrainian oligarchs telling Congress that Ukraine skeptics are Russian assets. Definitely no conflict there.

In April 2024 you testified before the US House Oversight Committee, characterizing Republican members' questions about Ukraine as "Russian and Chinese propaganda themes." Historian? You're starting to sound much more like oppo research.

Summing it up.

A two-week pamphlet sold as historical scholarship. Predictions that didn't land, now recycled today. A private meeting with a head of state, a chair funded by that state's billionaires, congressional testimony on their behalf... and a scholarly independence claim maintained with a straight face.

And today: Trump is going to war with Iran so that Iran attacks us so that he can cancel the midterms. (Again.)

"Be calm when the unthinkable arrives." ~ Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, Lesson 18, written in two weeks, 1.4 million copies sold.

You are calm, Dr. Snyder. Very calm. And also a huge grifter off your gullible audience who eats up your nonsensical prophecies.

[Sassy Devil Dog 🔥 @VinoNStrosGal]

Politics have no place in patient care.

Today at my local infusion center covered by VA community care, a new RN, who was assigned to me, came over, no greeting, no warmth. Just:

“What arm do you want?”

I tried to make the moment human. I asked how her day was going.

Her reply stopped me cold:

“It’s another day in hell because Trump is still president.”

Let that sink in. I’m sitting there, waiting to have fluid pumped directly into my vein, and the first thing out of her mouth is a political insult.

I calmly told her, “I support Donald Trump. And since you already knew that from the other nurses, why would you say that to me?”

She went beet red and started walking away. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t curse. I just said:

“I don’t care what your politics are. But we’re in a medical setting now, and I need to be able to trust that you can separate your personal opinions from your professional duty. That’s part of the oath you took as a nurse.”

The charge nurse came over, apologized, and asked if I wanted to write it up.
I said no. I wasn’t there to get anyone fired, I was there to get better.

But this is exactly what’s wrong with our culture right now.

People have forgotten that some spaces are supposed to be sacred.

Healthcare is one of them.

When you’re hooked up to an IV, you’re vulnerable.

You’re trusting a stranger with your safety, your bloodstream, your life.

The last thing anyone should have to worry about is whether their nurse dislikes them because of who they voted for.

It’s not about left or right. It’s about right and wrong.

You can disagree with me on policy, but when I’m your patient, your only job is to do no harm, physically, emotionally, or politically.

And if that’s too much to ask, then the problem isn’t who’s president.
The problem is who we’ve become!

[Interesting things @awkwardgoogle]

The kid in blue was raised right 😍

[UnintentionalMentor @CsonTicket]

@Crimsontider There are so many ways they can save money, yet look the other way.
If this were to happen to my parents, and all the others who are on it, I will be walking away with you!

[Debbie Dooley @Crimsontider]

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
The Republican Leadership in the House put a pay raise for themselves in the Omnibus, while at the same time, after meeting with the DOGE Committee, some GOP House members are talking about cutting Social Security and Medicare.

If that happens the Republican Party needs to be burnt to the ground and a new party formed.

I am on Social Security and on Medicare. It is NOT an entitlement. It is our money we paid into the system relying on promises made to us.

I have been a Republican since 1976, but will walk away and watch the GOP burn to the ground if Republicans do this. I can promise I won’t be alone.. There will be a mass exodus.

https://t.co/rwS8SsaB1j

They need to cut out foreign aid, corporate giveaways, etc

#HandsOffMySocialSecurity

[Paul Sperry @paulsperry_]

DEVELOPING: US Capitol Police are withholding from House investigators paperwork for three of the six referrals for disciplinary action against Ashli Babbitt's killer officer Michael Byrd, claiming they are "missing." Destroying them would violate USCP's records retention policy.