Mainstream Media Fire Panic-Stricken Fuselade at All Things and Anything Connected WithTrump; Down-Bound Stocks Get a Hand-Hold in Their Free Fall, Rebound Gets Going; Burnley Shakes Off Blues, Stops Brentford to Gain Three Points; Scripture From St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians; Comments on Truth and Humility by St. Bernard of Clairvaux; Poetry by John Cleveland

BALTIMORE, Maryland August 24, 2015 - Over this past weekend, the New York Times and CNN led an illustrious but embarassing parade of pernicious media folk hell-bent on trashing Donald Trump as the GOP frontrunner stormed into Mobile, Alabama to speak to a throng of people gathered at the football stadium at South Alabama University.  Law Enforcement spokespeople said that some 30,000 people were in the facility, impressive when you consider that the election for President is still 15 months away.  The figure is also impressive when you realize that the event was originally scheduled at a Hotel Conference Room.  When tickets for that venue flew out the window, Trump's folk moved it to a convention center.  Even that wasn't enough, and at the last Mr. Trump's planned remarks were re-located to the football stadium.

Leave it to CNN and the New York Times to yellow-up these facts.  CNN's stunt was so slimy it made me wash my hands (no hand-sanitizer would begin to handle this goo).  Early in the evening the CNN camera crew on site took pictures of the venue as it began - began! - to fill.  Even when the University of Michigan's legendary football stadium (it seats well over 100,000) is sold out, there is a point when only 10,000 are inside.  Anyway, CNN makes all of these pictures of the South Alabama stadium with 10,000 people inside.  Then, later, the CNN reporter continually says that only 10,000 people are at the speech, and viewers are shown pictures of the stadium with 10,000 people inside, the same ones they made when only 10,000 people were there.  The folk at Pravda would be proud.  And then the CNN dogs wonder why no one watches their awful channel.  The New York Times was almost as bad.  They underestimated the crowd at 20,000, and captioned their coverage with the headline "Trump fails to fill stadium.'  Now, you know and I know that Hilary was not filling college lecture halls at some of her awful events, but in the minds of the New York Times, it is news that 15 months prior to an election, a hurriedly planned speech by a northerner only drew 30,000.  To me, an even bigger and much more profound question is what kind of depraved mind (or, in this case, minds) believe that electing Hilary president is anything but the worst kind of debauchery.  Think about it.  This abjectly failed person is incapable of original thought, incapable of human leadership, fully capable of criminal acts and fully capable of engaging in the kind of debauched behavior demonstrated in the Benghazi affair, including the sinister behavior at the Andrews Air Force Base when the coffins of four massacred Americans lay on the tarmac and Hilary tells the families of the dead that she will bring the man who made the film that caused the deaths to justice.  Except she knew full well that no film had anything to do with the four deaths.  The deaths were caused by filthy Islamic Terrorists carrying out a planned attack that Hilary knew of in advance and did absolutely nothing to prevent.

Over at the left-wing Politico web page, a breathless Sunday dispatch informed readers that Trump is just like George Wallace.  Oh, Please!  Like I said, the election is still 15 months away and you're already into this kind of scum.  Get comfortable in your seats, because it is only now getting started, and if the gang is already using this kind of yellowish unjournalistic space-fill, imagine if you dare what is looming.

New York Stock Exchange Free Falls Another 1,000 Points, Then Halts Slide and Rebounds 200 Points by 11 am
Fox News reported at 11 am that the New York Stock Exchange free fell another 1,000 points after opening Monday morning, but then managed to catch itself and rebound some 200 points by 11 am.   The Guardian and NBC also put the plunge at 1,000 points before the rebound began.  The Guardian said that the Chinese Market experienced its biggest drop since the start of the current imbroglio.  A Philadelphia analyst advised The Guardian that the free fall of stock prices would continue until "policy" makers "get a grip" on the current problems (whatever that means).  On Wall Street, a reporter for The Guardian, Rupert Neate,  wrote, "US stock markets collapsed on Monday, continuing a global stock market rout that has wiped hundreds of billions of dollars off shares across the world.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 6.4%, the S&P 500 dropped 4%, and the Nasdaq lost 8.5%, raising fears that a fresh tech bubble has burst. The drops followed already-heavy falls last week.  Technology stocks were the hardest hit with Facebook losing 14% at one point and Apple off 11%....."

Michael Keane Heads In Match-Winner as Burnley Beats Back Bees, 1-0
Burnley had but two points - coming on two draws- while Brentford was undefeated.  Burnley, on Friday, reportedly paid a club-record 9 million pounds for Brentford striker Andre Gray, but the closest Gray got to the Turf Moor pitch was the stands. Burnley's long struggle to find the kind of consistent offense they enjoyed during the 2013-2014 campaign seems to have no end. No matter.  Defender Michael Keane, once of Manchester United, headed in a corner kick taken by David Jones, and Burnley grabbed three precious points by stopping the Bees, 1-0.  The win left the Claret, 1-2-1 in 13th place, five points behind the leader, Ipswich Town (3-1-0), which has ten points. Recall that in the Championship, the first and second place finishers in the 24 team league are promoted to the Premier, while the third, fourth, fifth and sixth place finishers enter into a playoff for a third promotion to the Premier.  The 22nd, 23rd and 24th place finishers are demoted to League One.

Throughout the long stretch of offensive difficulties, Burnley has continued to play competitive and exciting soccer due largely to the wonderful play of Keeper Tom Heaton and a defense led by the likes of Michael Duff, Keane, Ben Mee and Michael Kightly.  Despite being demoted out of the Premier last season, Burnley at one point played three straight scoreless draws, while also winning at Arsenal and Chelsea and drawing with Manchester United.  Heaton came up big again on Saturday before a crowd of almost 15,000 at Turf Moor.  According to the BBC, Heaton "pushed away Alan Judge's free-kick, then kept out two shots from Lasse Vibe," keeping the match even until Keane scored to give the Claret the victory.

From The Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians, Chapter 1, Verses 3 through 10: 
Verse 3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, Verse 4: even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.  Verse 5: He destined us in love (other sources say: "Before him in love, having destined us) to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, Verse 6: to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.  Verse 7: In him we have redemption through his blood,  the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace Verse 8: which he lavished upon us.  Verse 9: For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ Verse 10: as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

From Bernard of Clairvaux, Essential Writings (translated by Dennis E. Tamburello, O.F.M., The Crossland Publishing Company, New York, 2000).  Fr. Tamburello quotes from St. Bernard's writings on attaining true humilty.  I believe that humility is the great overlooked and underemphasized trait of Christians.  The Bible returns to the subject endlessly, so often, I believe, that we allow our eyes to blur is studying the Scripture on  it.  According to St. Bernard and Fr. Tamburello, humility has truth as a base and jumping off point.  

St. Bernard, who was born in 1090 in Fontaines-les-Dijon in Burgundy, France, once wrote a letter to a new Abbot who had complained to the Saint that he was new to his office and, thus, inexperienced.  "Barren modesty is not acceptable nor is humility praiseworthy when it is not in accordance with the facts.  Attend to your duty.  Put aside false modesty by considering youor position...You say you have no capacity for these things.  As though you would have to answer for what you cannot do as well s for  what you can!  No, prepare yourself to answer for the one talent entrusted to you, and set your mind easy about the rest.  If you have received much, then give much; if little, then give little."

About truth and its relationship to modesty, St. Bernard wrote: "There are three degrees in the perception of truth...We must look for truth in ourselves; in our neighbors; in itself.  We look for truth in ourselves when we judge ourselves; in our neighbors when we have sympathy for their sufferings; in itself when we contemplate it with a clean heart.  It is important to observe the order of these degrees as well as their number.  First of all, truth teaches that we must look for it in our neighbors before we seek it in itself.  You will then see easily why you must seek it in yourself before you seek it in your neighbors."

John Cleveland was an English poet who lived between 1615 and 1658.  The emminent and essential scholar on all things poetical, Harold Bloom (b. 1930), the Sterling Professor at Yale, says that Cleveland enjoyed quite a bit of fame during his life, when he was viewed as a kind of last stand "of John Donne's metaphysical wit." Today, Bloom concedes, he is mostly known only to scholars.  Too bad, because he was an outstanding and memorable poet.  But what do I know?  This is his poem "The Scot's Apostasie."

Is't come to this? What shall the cheeks of fame
Stretch'd with the breath of learned Loudon's name,
Be flogg'd again? And that great piece of sense,
As rich in loyalty and eloquence,
Brought to the test be found a trick of state,
Like chemist's tinctures, proved adulterate;
The devil sure such language did achieve,
To cheat our unforewarned grand-dam Eve,
As this imposture found out to be sot
The experienced English to believe a Scot,
Who reconciled the Covenant's doubtful sense,
The Commons argument, or the City's pence?
Or did you doubt persistence in one good,
Would spoil the fabric of your brotherhood,
Projected first in such a forge of sin,
Was fit for the grand devil's hammering?
Or was't ambition that this damned fact
Should tell the world you know the sins you act?
The infamy this super-treason brings.
Blasts more than murders of your sixty kings;
A crime so black, as being advisedly done,
Those hold with these no competition.
Kings only suffered then; in this doth lie
The assassination of monarchy,
Beyond this sin no one step can be trod.
If not to attempt deposing of your God.
O, were you so engaged, that we might see
Heav'ns angry lightning 'bout your ears to flee,
Till you were shrivell'd to dust, and your cold land
Parch't to a drought beyond the Libyan sand!
But 'tis reserv'd till Heaven plague you worse;
The objects of an epidemic curse,
First, may your brethren, to whose viler ends
Your power hath bawded, cease to be your friends;
And prompted by the dictate of their reason;
And may their jealousies increase and breed
Till they confine your steps beyond the Tweed.
In foreign nations may your loathed name be
A stigmatizing brand of infamy;
Till forced by general hate you cease to roam
The world, and for a plague live at home:
Till you resume your poverty, and be
Reduced to beg where none can be so free
To grant: and may your scabby land be all
Translated to a generall hospital.
Let not the sun afford one gentle ray,
To give you comfort of a summer's day;
But, as a guerdon for your traitorous war,
Love cherished only by the northern star.
No stranger deign to visit your rude coast,
And be, to all but banisht men, as lost.
And such in heightening of the indiction due
Let provok'd princes send them all to you.
Your State a chaos be, where not the law,
But power, your lives and liberties may give.
No subject 'mongst you keep a quiet breast
But each man strive through blood to be the best;
Till, for those miseries on us you've brought
By your own sword our just revenge be wrought.
To sum up all ... let your religion be
As your allegiance--maskt hypocrisie
Until when Charles shall be composed in dust
Perfum'd with epithets of good and just.
He saved--incensed Heaven may have forgot--
To afford one act of mercy to a Scot:
Unless that Scot deny himself and do
What's easier far--Renounce his nation too.