News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Independence Hall Tea Party Association is having its 4th Annual Christmas Tea Party and After Party, Saturday, Jan. 5 from noon to 3 p.m. at the Independence Visitors Center Ballroom, 6th and Market streets, Philadelphia, Pa. 19106.
The tea party is free. The after-party which starts at 1 p.m. is $20 or $10 for college and high school students or $5 for children 13 and under.
For information call Teri Adams at 215-620-3055 or visit here.
On this 9th Day of Christmas we offer this column by Father Frank Pavone
Christmas is God in human language.
It is about a God who, in loving us, knows how to speak to us.
The Letter to the Hebrews says, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb. 1:1-2).
Christmas is revelation, manifestation, showing what was hidden. The Advent cry, “Open up, ye heavens from above!”, expresses the human need for meaning, and for the answers to basic questions: Why are we here? What is this life about? Where are we going? Is there life after death? How are we supposed to live? Does God exist, and if so, is he friend or foe? How does he want to be worshipped?
All the philosophers of history, though coming to certain conclusions correctly through human reason (which, though wounded by sin, is not destroyed) nevertheless could not reach the full answers to all these questions. God needed to speak, and he needed to speak in human language.
So the Son, who reveals the Father, has come, and Christmas celebrates that coming. Continuing that passage from Hebrews, which is used by the Church for Christmas Day Mass, we read, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (v. 3).
So, thanks to Christmas, we know who God is, what life is about, what God expects us to do, and what awaits us beyond the grave. We know how to obtain eternal life. We have found what the human heart has always sought. St. John writes, “After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven” (Revelation 4:1). Christmas opens that door and shows us God in human language!
Christmas destroys the “tyranny of relativism,” the confusion of indifferentism, the idea that each person can create his or her own morality, or that one religion is as good as the next. As we welcome the birth of this child, we welcome the one who will preach the Sermon on the Mount, instruct us by parables, and establish his Church to continue making his teachings clear.
To welcome the Divine Child today is to welcome all that he will do and teach, the easy and the difficult, the comforting and the challenging, without considering ourselves authorized to pick and choose among those teachings.
It makes no sense to welcome the child but reject his teachings. It is inconsistent to prepare for and celebrate Christmas but refuse to accept the fullness of the Gospel that this child proclaimed.
That Gospel has taught from the beginning that life must be protected, including life in the womb. There can be no such thing as a “pro-choice Christian.” A rejection of even a single life is a rejection of Christ himself.
This Advent and Christmas, let us welcome Christ and all that he teaches, and all whom he loves.
By William W. Lawrence Sr
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Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: Happy Birthday, Mom Mom
By William W. Lawrence Sr
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Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.
Mark Twain
Courtesy of Judy McGrane
“;Fiscal Cliff” put in a much better perspective.”;
Lesson # 1:
* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000
Let’s now remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:
* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts so far: $38.50
Got It ??…….OK now,
Lesson # 2:
Here’s another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:
Let’s say, You come home from work and find
there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood….
and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.
What do you think you should do ……
Raise the ceilings, or remove the shit?
There are at least 67 people who were born in the 19th century who lived to see the arrival of the 21st. Two of them, Bessie Cooper and Dina Manfredini died this month on Dec. 4 and Dec. 17 respectively at the ages of 116 years, 100 days and 115 years, 257 days.
Courtesy Cathy Craddock
I
will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not
believe it is the government’s right to know what I own. Nor do I think
it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a
group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the same a
crime. You ma’am have overstepped a line that is not your domain. I am a
Marine Corps Veteran of 8 years, and I will not have some woman who
proclaims the evil of an inanimate object, yet carries one, tell me I
may not have one.
I
am not your subject. I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your
servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the
flesh and blood of America.
I am the man who fought for
my country. I am the man who learned. I am an American. You will not
tell me that I must register my semi-automatic AR-15 because of the
actions of some evil man.
I
will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the
media and your misinformation campaign against the American public.
We, the people, deserve better than you.
Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua Boston
Cpl, United States Marine Corps
2004-2012
Union Organizers “sent a message” to small businesses throughout the Delaware Valley…and beyond…when a competitive contractor building a $3.5 million Quaker Meeting House in Chestnut Hill was told: “Unionize…or else!”
Lt. George McClay of Northwest Detectives said that he was certain the small Quaker building on East Mermaid Lane was targeted for arson because it is being built with nonunion labor.
This tried-and-true mob-tactic works. The union-goon torches equipment valued at half-million dollars. And the small business gets the message. Hire union and your property is safe. Don’t hire union…well. The Mob calls it “protection”; law enforcement calls it a “racket.”
And this violence occurred in our own neighborhood. If they can do it to one of us, they can do it to any of us. If we business people are not scared, then we deserve what happens to us.
Contractors are opposed by a well-funded Leviathan union-monopoly that forces workers to pay dues to get a family-sustaining job. Unions portray themselves as if engaged in a life-and-death struggle against capitalist exploitation of the little-guy, even as they target the little-guy with violence and—oh, by the way—prevent the little-guy who is black from getting a well-paid job.
In Philadelphia, the Black power-elite has sold-out its own people to the segregated unions which blatantly discriminate against Black workers, preventing them from being trained for very well-paid union jobs. In return for not challenging the segregated unions, Black political insiders get other contracts, political favoritism and, of course, welfare of all kinds.
Monopoly-control of labor means high salaries for union bosses, generous pay to unionized workers, but no work or menial work for those excluded; in Philadelphia, that means “Black people.” Particularly impacted are young Black men who, probably, have a better chance of going to Harvard than becoming union electricians.
It’s not just Consumers and Taxpayers who pay more for union- monopolies-at all income levels—because everyone suffers from a culture that perpetuates backroom deals that perpetuate poverty.
It is time Philadelphia’s Unions to embrace affirmative action.
For further information regarding what happened, read in both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News Inga Saffron’s excellent reporting:
Mr. Guzzardi is a resident of Ardmore, Pa. while and Dr. Sklaroff lives in Abington.
By William W. Lawrence Sr
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Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun
Saint Paul