![Representative-Elect Mark Green Of Tennessee | made w/ Imgflip meme maker]()
Representative-Elect Mark Green Of Tennessee Is Wrong About Vaccines And CDC Fraud
↧
Representative-Elect Mark Green Of Tennessee Is Wrong About Vaccines And CDC Fraud
↧
Borowitz Report: "Trump Says He Has No Idea Who FBI Informant Is"
"Trump Says He Has No Idea Who FBI Informant Is"
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump said on Monday that he is “a-hundred-per-cent positive” that an F.B.I. informant infiltrated his 2016 campaign but that he has “absolutely no idea” who that mole might be.
“I’ve been trying to figure out who would have the opportunity and the motive to do something like this,” he said. “But I keep coming up empty.”
“Opportunity-wise, you’d need to be someone who’s in my inner circle and who could get close to me without raising suspicions,” he said.
“But, then again, the person would have to be able to suddenly disappear for periods of time and report back to the F.B.I. I can’t think of anyone in a position to do that.”
“As for motive, you’d really have to be out to get me,” Trump added. “Now, I have enemies like anyone else. But I can’t think of anyone I’ve given a reason to really, really hate me.”
Trump said that he would “keep trying to figure out who it is,” but he admitted that, at this point, the informant’s identity was “a total mystery.”
“I’m kind of an amateur detective,” Trump said. “I watch ‘Law & Order,’ I watch all the ‘Law & Order’s. I watch all the shows. But, I’ve got to say, this one has me stumped.”
↧
↧
Borowitz Report: "Millions Of Americans Demand $130,000.00 For Not Having Sex With Trump"
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Millions of Americans on Wednesday demanded that Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, issue them checks in the amount of $130,000 for not having sex with Trump.
After Cohen revealed that he had issued such a check to Stormy Daniels, a porn star who he claims never had intimate relations with his client, there was widespread outrage among other Americans who had also not had sex with Trump but had not been paid for not doing so.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for Stormy Daniels,” Tracy Klugian, a florist in Santa Rosa, California, said. “I just want my check, too.”
Harland Dorrinson, a bank teller in Akron, Ohio, said that he had already e-mailed Cohen to demand payment. “I have never come close to having sex with Trump, and that should be worth something,” he said. “Specifically, $130,000.”
But, even as millions of Americans clamored to be compensated for abstaining from sex with Cohen’s client, others, like Carol Foyler, of Tallahassee, Florida, took a different view. “Never having sex with Donald Trump should be a reward in itself,” she said.
"My Gripe With Christianity"
The Christian Doctrine Of Damnation... And The Destruction Of Christ-Spirit
The Christian Doctrine Of Damnation... And The Destruction Of Christ-Spirit
Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On Organized Religion And The Everyday Validation Of Violence
The Obsolescence Of God:Good Religion And Bad
"Has America Lost Its Mind?" 1A's Brilliant Interview With "Fantasyland's" Kurt Andersen
Televangelist Jim Bakker Resurrected: If This Doesn't Scare The Bejesus Out Of You, Repent For Your End Is Near!
Many Christians Live In An Unbreakable Bubble Of Biblical And Theological Dunderheadedness
James' Epistle: "Judgment Without Mercy Will Be Shown To Anyone Who Has Not Shown Mercy"
It Is Important To Know These Things So Religion Doesn't Do You More Harm Than Good
What Too Many Christians Get Wrong
Jesus: Festive Tippler And Friend Of Whores, Publicans, Tax Collectors And Sundry Sinners
Christians Are Their Own Worst Enemy: Wrecking The Brand
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/04/this-modern-world-cartoon-christians.htmlCompendium Of Christianity Posts
http://paxonbothhouses.
"Trump Gets Into Holiday Spirit by Settling Scores On Twitter," The Daily Beast
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/12/trump-gets-into-holiday-spirit-by.html
Ted Nugent was Trump's special guest at his last campaign rally in 2016.
Since election Nugent has been Trump's White House dinner guest.
What happened to the old chestnut, "We are known by the company we keep?"
Since election Nugent has been Trump's White House dinner guest.
What happened to the old chestnut, "We are known by the company we keep?"
St. Paul The Apostle Comments On Trump's Greed
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/07/st-paul-apostle-comments-on-trumps-greed.html
![Image result for "pax on both houses", trump really good christian]()
![Image result for "pax on both houses", trump really good christian]()
![Giving W**remonger A Mulligan Is Like Giving Larry Nassar A Weekend Pass To A Girls' Gymnastics Camp | made w/ Imgflip meme maker]()
![Image result for "pax on both houses", really good christian]()
The Last Time Christians Had Balls They Believed In Martyrdom
![Image result for "pax on both houses", really good christian]()
![Image result for "pax on both houses", gun christian]()
![Image result for "pax on both houses", really good christian]()
![Related image]()
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/07/st-paul-apostle-comments-on-trumps-greed.html
Christians Ignore Jesus' Direct "Commandments" But Are Punctilious About Things He Never Said
American Divorce: Mainstream Christians Divorce More Often Than Mainstream Atheists"http://paxonbothhouses.
The Last Time Christians Had Balls They Believed In Martyrdom
http://paxonbothhouses.
The Civil War: White Christians Slaughtering One Another On A Scale ISIS Can Only Dream Of
↧
America's Least Visited National Parks (In Descending Order Of Visitation)
Mesa Verde
America's Least Visited National Parks
In Descending Order Of Visitation
Petrified Forest, Arizona
Annual visitors: 627,757
It’d be hard to find a more extreme change in climate than to go from Denali to here, a small park in Northeast Arizona which offers a variety of activities for visitors. In the northern part of the park, the Painted Desert Inn, a 1930s adobe building, is open for exploration, offering stunning murals painted by the native Hopi people. In the center of the park, petroglyphs, dating back millenia, cover Newspaper Rock.
But it’s the southern portion of the park that most visitors come to see, for it's the location of the extensive petrified wood, fossils of the forests that once stood in the desert. Petrified wood is not just of geologic interest; it’s also quite beautiful, the wood’s organic material replaced by minerals of varying colors.
Just don’t be tempted to tuck a piece in your pocket – the visitor center includes a display about the supposed “curse” on those who do, complete with letters of abject apology from those who claim to have felt its effects...and who mailed the wood back.
Petrified Forest, Arizona
Annual visitors: 627,757
It’d be hard to find a more extreme change in climate than to go from Denali to here, a small park in Northeast Arizona which offers a variety of activities for visitors. In the northern part of the park, the Painted Desert Inn, a 1930s adobe building, is open for exploration, offering stunning murals painted by the native Hopi people. In the center of the park, petroglyphs, dating back millenia, cover Newspaper Rock.
But it’s the southern portion of the park that most visitors come to see, for it's the location of the extensive petrified wood, fossils of the forests that once stood in the desert. Petrified wood is not just of geologic interest; it’s also quite beautiful, the wood’s organic material replaced by minerals of varying colors.
Just don’t be tempted to tuck a piece in your pocket – the visitor center includes a display about the supposed “curse” on those who do, complete with letters of abject apology from those who claim to have felt its effects...and who mailed the wood back.
Wind Cave, South Dakota
Annual visitors: 619,924
South Dakota’s Mt. Rushmore is a more famous, and visited, NPS property, but Wind Cave, also located in the state, is worth a visit, too. It’s one of the oldest National Parks, established in 1903 by President Teddy Roosevelt, and only about an hour’s drive from Mt. Rushmore.
As you may have guessed, Wind Cave is named after its principal attraction, an enormous, underground cave. It sits below the South Dakota prairie, and runs for at least 147 miles, making it one of the longest caves in the world. Wind Cave is particularly notable for the unusual calcite formations within it, called boxwork.
Why is it called Wind Cave? Because, like all caves, it seeks to balance the pressure inside the cave with the barometric pressure outside, creating a passage of wind that can feel like the cave is breathing.
Mesa Verde, Colorado
Annual visitors: 613,788
The Rocky Mountains might be what you associate with Colorado, but the state offers a more varied climate than just mountains. Mesa Verde, located in the southwest of the state, makes that clear, offering a more desert feel. Another park established by President Roosevelt, Mesa Verde is the largest archeological preserve in the U.S., with over 500 distinct sites and 600 cliff dwellings.
Those dwellings were once the homes of the native peoples, used for several centuries. Today, visitors can explore the homes, learn about the native culture, and marvel at both the safeties and dangers offered by living several hundred feet off the ground, in structures tucked into small openings on the cliff face.
Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico
Annual visitors: 520,026
The third cave or cave system on our list of least-visited parks is the most southern, located in New Mexico beneath the Chihuahuan Desert. Carlsbad is not just one cave; more than 100 caves form the park, Carlsbad Cavern itself forming the natural entrance to the park as the tallest cave. Unlike many other caves around the country, visitors can hike into this cavern on their own, without a ranger’s guidance.
Calcite formations are again a draw for visitors. The Big Room, a large limestone chamber, is also a popular attraction. It’s nearly 4,000 feet long, 625 feet wide and 255 feet high, making it the fifth largest chamber in the U.S. Visitors who want to get out into the sunlight will enjoy hiking and picnicking in the Rattlesnake Springs Picnic Area, a natural oasis within the park.
Lassen Volcanic Park, California
Annual visitors: 507,256
Another oft-overlooked national park is Lassen Volcanic Peak, which gets lost in the splendor of the other national parks in California. Lassen Volcanic Peak is in the northern part of the state, and it’s best known for the astounding hydrothermal sites within its bounds.
Hiking is the most popular activity here. Many established trails will take you past (and through) those bubbling springs, including Bumpass Hell, an area with acres of bubbling mud pots. As the name implies, Lassen Peak is a volcano. On the side of the mountain, visitors can observe lava rocks left by its last eruption, in 1917, and the top offers a tremendous view.
Great Sand Dunes, Colorado
Annual visitors: 486,935
Southern Colorado is the location for one of the most unusual national parks on this list: the Great Sand Dunes, which, yes, are located hundreds of miles from any ocean. The dunes, up to 750 feet tall in some places, are the tallest in North America, and were formed by a lake that once covered much of the valley floor there.
Sand sledding – pretty much what it sounds like, and just as fun as you’d guess – is a major attraction at this national park. Interestingly, unlike parks that close for part of the year or at night, Great Sand Dunes is open every day, 24 hours a day, so star-gazing from the dunes is possible and encouraged. Rangers say the night sky is astounding.
Biscayne, Florida
Annual visitors: 446,961
In Florida, within sight of Miami, is Biscayne National Park, a celebration and preservation of the waterways in the area, specifically Biscayne Bay. The park offers a combination of unpolluted waters, islands and coral reefs, open to visitors’ exploration by boat, snorkeling and scuba diving. In fact, you’ll need a boat to explore here: There’s a visitor center on the mainland, but the rest of the park is only accessible by water approach.
Human history is a focal point for visitors to Biscayne as well. The park lays claim to 10,000 years of human history, from ancient peoples to pirates to pineapple farmers. Shipwrecks provide opportunities to combine interests in the waters and peoples of the area.
Interestingly, Biscayne was once scheduled to be part of the Everglades National Park, and, once pulled from that proposal, was the site of several power plants, causing major pollution. Now that the park has been restored to its former glory, it’s well worth a visit.
Redwood National Park, California
Annual visitors: 445,000
This California park is commonly referred to as “the Redwoods,” after the majestic trees that are the principal attraction here. Redwoods can also be seen at the more popular Sequoia National Park, but Redwood is stunning, too. It’s more remote, and northerly, composed of a string of protected beaches, forests and grasslands, not far from the Oregon border.
The tallest trees on earth are reason enough to visit Redwood, but there’s hiking, picnicking and camping as well. During your time there, you’ll get up close and personal with 45% of the world’s remaining Redwoods, located within the park’s boundaries. They’ve been in this part of the world for nearly 20 million years, and can grow up to 370 feet tall. They’re believed to be between 800 and 1,500 years old, making them easily the oldest living creatures on the planet.
Big Bend, Texas
Annual visitors: 440,276
Deep in the heart of Southwest Texas lies the well-known, but rarely visited, Big Bend National Park. The remote location, miles from any city, is likely the reason, but Big Bend is worth the effort it takes to visit it. The entire Chisos Mountain Range, a portion of the Chihuahuan Desert, and the Rio Grande form spectacular scenery here.
The Rio Grande also runs along part of the boundary between Mexico and the U.S., so the park has an unusual constraint, actually including only half the river; the Southern part belongs to Mexico. Extremes in temperatures – with hot days in the summer and cold nights in the winter – form another challenge for park rangers and employees.
Still, visitors enjoy hiking and backpacking here, and the park is a certified dark-sky park, offering an unparalleled view of the night sky.
Channel Islands, California
Annual visitors: 383,687
Channel Islands is another confusingly named national park. As you’ve probably guessed, these are not the British dependencies, but rather an archipelago of five islands and their ocean environment off the California coast. Isolated for thousands of years, the islands now offer a diverse ecosystem with many species of both plants and animals not found elsewhere, including the island fox and island deer mouse.
The Channel Islands were once a military training ground for U.S. forces, as well as a weapons testing site. These days, the National Park Service promotes the islands as a place to see the California coast as it once was. The only ways to get to the islands are by boat or licensed private plane, but opportunities to hike, camp and boat are numerous once you make it here.
Black Canyon Of The Gunnison, Colorado
Annual visitors: 307,143
This national park is in strong contention for most awesome name, and has much to recommend it beyond that as well.
The Gunnison River formed the deep canyon, having worn away the distinctive black rock to do so. Now the western Colorado park is best known for those unique, steep-walled cliffs, visible on a drive through the relatively small – just 231 acres – park. At one time the depth and narrowness of the canyon prompted fear in travelers’ hearts; these days, it still unnerves.
Wildlife is another major draw for visitors to the Black Canyon: elk, mule deer and golden eagles are just a few of the animals that might be glimpsed here. The park is quiet enough that even those who only have time to drive through might spot an animal or bird.
Virgin Islands National Park
Annual visitors: 304,408
Readers may be surprised to learn that the U.S. Virgin Islands boast a national park – but despite its relative obscurity, it is well worth a trip. Principally located on the largest of the islands, St. John, this park offers the stunning beaches the Caribbean is known for, as well as the opportunity to visit sugar cane plantation ruins and learn about that abandoned trade.
Two-thirds of St. John Island is the park, so there’s a wealth of jumping-off points for snorkeling and diving, and plenty of coral reefs to view while doing so. Cruz Bay is the main gateway to the park, and ferries from St. Thomas operate frequently.
Voyageurs, Minnesota
Annual visitors: 237,250
Located in Minnesota, very close to the Canadian border, Voyageurs is a stunning park filled with waterways and woods that just doesn’t get as many visitors as it should. Forty percent of this park is water, so bringing or renting watercraft is a must. Boat tours are also offered.
Voyageurs is a particularly welcoming park to campers, with dozens of pristine spots to set up a tent and enjoy the peaceful sound of lapping waters as the sun sets. You’ll be one of the few, so expect some solitude.
Pinnacles Natonal Park, California
Annual visitors: 233,334
California has so many well-known national parks, from Yosemite to Redwood, that its smaller parks like this one tend to be overlooked. But Pinnacles should be on your must-visit list. Its unique landscape of towering rock formations (that form, yes, pinnacles) is the result of volcanic activity in the area some 23 million years ago.
Pinnacles offers hiking and climbing, with spectacular views; come during spring to see blankets of colorful wildflowers, and stay after sunset to take in the star-studded sky.
Guadalupe Moutains, Texas
Annual visitors: 225,257
This 135-square-mile park offers a bounty of riches, from fossils to evidence of ancient peoples. The four tallest mountains in Texas are located within the park, and when the weather permits, hiking and climbing offer rewarding views. The park is particularly diverse in its ecology as well, making it a must-see for those interested in flora and fauna.
Great Basin, Nevada
Annual visitors: 168,028
It’s a mystery as to why this park in eastern Nevada is so little-visited. There may not be well-known sites here, but the park offers unforgettable vistas and the opportunity to explore the region around Great Basin Desert. Wheeler Peak is a 13,000-foot mountain in the park that can be hiked or driven, making for stunning photographs. And the park even offers underground exploration, in the form of the distinctive Lehman Caves.
Congaree, South Carolina
Annual visitors: 159,595
Central South Carolina is the location of this national park, which offers the opportunity to explore the largest intact expanse of old growth bottomland hardwood forest in the southeastern U.S. The park includes the area where Congaree and Wateree Rivers join, making it particularly biodiverse. Canoeing, hiking and fishing are all popular pastimes here, and may be enjoyed in peace thanks to the sparse number of fellow travelers.
National Park Of American Samoa
Annual visitors: 69,468
This park is an American territory located far afield of the continental states: on the islands of Tutuila, Ofu and Ta'u in Samoa, a chain of islands in the South Pacific Ocean southwest of Hawai’i. In fact, this is the only national-park-service holding south of the equator!
These gorgeous islands are volcanic and covered in rainforest, and a significant portion of the national park is underwater. Snorkeling is, not surprisingly, superlative, thanks to some 950 species of fish and over 250 species of corals.
Dry Tortugas, Florida
Annual visitors: 54,281
Located 70 miles west of Key West, Florida, is the incredible Dry Tortugas National Park. Getting there is not easy, but the trip by boat or seaplane is part of the fun. The mostly-water park consists of seven small islands and the preserved Fort Jefferson, one of the United States’ largest 19th century forts. Learn about its fascinating history, and camp overnight.
North Cascades, Washington
Annual visitors: 30,326
Northern Washington state is where you’ll find the North Cascades, boasting an alpine landscape that offers breathtaking views for hikers and campers. (You may even spot the elusive Grizzly Bear.) Located just three hours from Seattle, the park is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, making it the perfect time to visit.
Isle Royale, Lake Superior, Michigan
Annual visitors: 28,196
As its name indicates, this national park is an island, completely surrounded by Lake Superior in Michigan. Solitude is this national park’s selling point, since it offers a nearly complete break from civilization, as it’s only accessible by private boat, ferry or seaplane. There’s lots to do here for campers, backpackers, scuba divers and boaters of all kinds.
Lake Clark, Alaska
Annual visitors: 22,755
Also located in remote Alaska, Lake Clark combines striking natural features – steaming volcanoes, staggering mountains, tranquil lakes – with spectacular wildlife, including brown bears, moose and wolves. There are also ample opportunities to learn about the Dena'ina people who have called this extraordinary region home for thousands of years.
Kobuk Valley, Alasda (Half Million Strong Herds Of Caribou)
Annual visitors: 15,500
Situated in the Arctic region of Alaska’s northwest, this park's major attractions include sand dunes (yes, really!) and half a million strong herds of caribou. The opportunity to see these animals roam across the dunes is truly astounding. Centered on the Kobuk River, this park would be filled with tourists if it wasn’t so remote.
Gates Of The Arctic, Alaska
Annual visitors: 11,177
No shock here: Another national park in Alaska’s Arctic region is the least-visited in America. In addition to its isolated location, Gates of the Arctic doesn't include any roads or trails, instead preserving portions of the Brooks Range of mountains. If you do make the trip, majestic scenery awaits you: six rivers, herds of caribou and, at certain times of the year, the aurora borealis’ otherworldly glow.
↧
Anthony Bourdain: "Don't Eat Before Reading This"
Monday's fish has been around since Monday, and God knows under what conditions.
Don't Eat Before Reading This
A New York chef spills some trade secrets
Anthony Bourdain
Good food, good eating, is all about blood and organs, cruelty and decay. It’s about sodium-loaded pork fat, stinky triple-cream cheeses, the tender thymus glands and distended livers of young animals. It’s about danger—risking the dark, bacterial forces of beef, chicken, cheese, and shellfish. Your first two hundred and seven Wellfleet oysters may transport you to a state of rapture, but your two hundred and eighth may send you to bed with the sweats, chills, and vomits.
Gastronomy is the science of pain. Professional cooks belong to a secret society whose ancient rituals derive from the principles of stoicism in the face of humiliation, injury, fatigue, and the threat of illness. The members of a tight, well-greased kitchen staff are a lot like a submarine crew. Confined for most of their waking hours in hot, airless spaces, and ruled by despotic leaders, they often acquire the characteristics of the poor saps who were press-ganged into the royal navies of Napoleonic times—superstition, a contempt for outsiders, and a loyalty to no flag but their own.
A good deal has changed since Orwell’s memoir of the months he spent as a dishwasher in “Down and Out in Paris and London.” Gas ranges and exhaust fans have gone a long way toward increasing the life span of the working culinarian. Nowadays, most aspiring cooks come into the business because they want to: they have chosen this life, studied for it. Today’s top chefs are like star athletes. They bounce from kitchen to kitchen—free agents in search of more money, more acclaim.
I’ve been a chef in New York for more than ten years, and, for the decade before that, a dishwasher, a prep drone, a line cook, and a sous-chef. I came into the business when cooks still smoked on the line and wore headbands. A few years ago, I wasn’t surprised to hear rumors of a study of the nation’s prison population which reportedly found that the leading civilian occupation among inmates before they were put behind bars was “cook.” As most of us in the restaurant business know, there is a powerful strain of criminality in the industry, ranging from the dope-dealing busboy with beeper and cell phone to the restaurant owner who has two sets of accounting books.
In fact, it was the unsavory side of professional cooking that attracted me to it in the first place. In the early seventies, I dropped out of college and transferred to the Culinary Institute of America. I wanted it all: the cuts and burns on hands and wrists, the ghoulish kitchen humor, the free food, the pilfered booze, the camaraderie that flourished within rigid order and nerve-shattering chaos. I would climb the chain of command from mal carne (meaning “bad meat,” or “new guy”) to chefdom—doing whatever it took until I ran my own kitchen and had my own crew of cutthroats, the culinary equivalent of “The Wild Bunch.”
A year ago, my latest, doomed mission—a high-profile restaurant in the Times Square area—went out of business. The meat, fish, and produce purveyors got the news that they were going to take it in the neck for yet another ill-conceived enterprise. When customers called for reservations, they were informed by a prerecorded announcement that our doors had closed. Fresh from that experience, I began thinking about becoming a traitor to my profession.
Say it’s a quiet Monday night, and you’ve just checked your coat in that swanky Art Deco update in the Flatiron district, and you’re looking to tuck into a thick slab of pepper-crusted yellowfin tuna or a twenty-ounce cut of certified Black Angus beef, well-done—what are you in for?
The fish specialty is reasonably priced, and the place got two stars in the Times.Why not go for it? If you like four-day-old fish, be my guest. Here’s how things usually work. The chef orders his seafood for the weekend on Thursday night. It arrives on Friday morning. He’s hoping to sell the bulk of it on Friday and Saturday nights, when he knows that the restaurant will be busy, and he’d like to run out of the last few orders by Sunday evening. Many fish purveyors don’t deliver on Saturday, so the chances are that the Monday-night tuna you want has been kicking around in the kitchen since Friday morning, under God knows what conditions. When a kitchen is in full swing, proper refrigeration is almost nonexistent, what with the many openings of the refrigerator door as the cooks rummage frantically during the rush, mingling your tuna with the chicken, the lamb, or the beef. Even if the chef has ordered just the right amount of tuna for the weekend, and has had to reorder it for a Monday delivery, the only safeguard against the seafood supplier’s off-loading junk is the presence of a vigilant chef who can make sure that the delivery is fresh from Sunday night’s market.
Generally speaking, the good stuff comes in on Tuesday: the seafood is fresh, the supply of prepared food is new, and the chef, presumably, is relaxed after his day off. (Most chefs don’t work on Monday.) Chefs prefer to cook for weekday customers rather than for weekenders, and they like to start the new week with their most creative dishes. In New York, locals dine during the week. Weekends are considered amateur nights—for tourists, rubes, and the well-done-ordering pretheatre hordes. The fish may be just as fresh on Friday, but it’s on Tuesday that you’ve got the good will of the kitchen on your side.
People who order their meat well-done perform a valuable service for those of us in the business who are cost-conscious: they pay for the privilege of eating our garbage. In many kitchens, there’s a time-honored practice called “save for well-done.” When one of the cooks finds a particularly unlovely piece of steak—tough, riddled with nerve and connective tissue, off the hip end of the loin, and maybe a little stinky from age—he’ll dangle it in the air and say, “Hey, Chef, whaddya want me to do with this?” Now, the chef has three options. He can tell the cook to throw the offending item into the trash, but that means a total loss, and in the restaurant business every item of cut, fabricated, or prepared food should earn at least three times the amount it originally cost if the chef is to make his correct food-cost percentage. Or he can decide to serve that steak to “the family”—that is, the floor staff—though that, economically, is the same as throwing it out. But no. What he’s going to do is repeat the mantra of cost-conscious chefs everywhere: “Save for well-done.” The way he figures it, the philistine who orders his food well-done is not likely to notice the difference between food and flotsam.
Then there are the People Who Brunch. The “B” word is dreaded by all dedicated cooks. We hate the smell and spatter of omelettes. We despise hollandaise, home fries, those pathetic fruit garnishes, and all the other cliché accompaniments designed to induce a credulous public into paying $12.95 for two eggs. Nothing demoralizes an aspiring Escoffier faster than requiring him to cook egg-white omelettes or eggs over easy with bacon. You can dress brunch up with all the focaccia, smoked salmon, and caviar in the world, but it’s still breakfast.
Even more despised than the Brunch People are the vegetarians. Serious cooks regard these members of the dining public—and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans—as enemies of everything that’s good and decent in the human spirit. To live life without veal or chicken stock, fish cheeks, sausages, cheese, or organ meats is treasonous.
Like most other chefs I know, I’m amused when I hear people object to pork on nonreligious grounds. “Swine are filthy animals,” they say. These people have obviously never visited a poultry farm. Chicken—America’s favorite food—goes bad quickly; handled carelessly, it infects other foods with salmonella; and it bores the hell out of chefs. It occupies its ubiquitous place on menus as an option for customers who can’t decide what they want to eat. Most chefs believe that supermarket chickens in this country are slimy and tasteless compared with European varieties. Pork, on the other hand, is cool. Farmers stopped feeding garbage to pigs decades ago, and even if you eat pork rare you’re more likely to win the Lotto than to contract trichinosis. Pork tastes different, depending on what you do with it, but chicken always tastes like chicken.
Another much maligned food these days is butter. In the world of chefs, however, butter is in everything. Even non-French restaurants—the Northern Italian; the new American, the ones where the chef brags about how he’s “getting away from butter and cream”—throw butter around like crazy. In almost every restaurant worth patronizing, sauces are enriched with mellowing, emulsifying butter.
Pastas are tightened with it. Meat and fish are seared with a mixture of butter and oil. Shallots and chicken are caramelized with butter. It’s the first and last thing in almost every pan: the final hit is called “monter au beurre.” In a good restaurant, what this all adds up to is that you could be putting away almost a stick of butter with every meal.
If you are one of those people who cringe at the thought of strangers fondling your food, you shouldn’t go out to eat. As the author and former chef Nicolas Freeling notes in his definitive book “The Kitchen,” the better the restaurant, the more your food has been prodded, poked, handled, and tasted. By the time a three-star crew has finished carving and arranging your saddle of monkfish with dried cherries and wild-herb-infused nage into a Parthenon or a Space Needle, it’s had dozens of sweaty fingers all over it. Gloves? You’ll find a box of surgical gloves—in my kitchen we call them “anal-research gloves”—over every station on the line, for the benefit of the health inspectors, but does anyone actually use them? Yes, a cook will slip a pair on every now and then, especially when he’s handling something with a lingering odor, like salmon. But during the hours of service gloves are clumsy and dangerous. When you’re using your hands constantly, latex will make you drop things, which is the last thing you want to do.
The fact is that most good kitchens are far less septic than your kitchen at home. I run a scrupulously clean, orderly restaurant kitchen, where food is rotated and handled and stored very conscientiously. But if the city’s Department of Health or the E.P.A. decided to enforce every aspect of its codes, most of us would be out on the street. Recently, there was a news report about the practice of recycling bread. By means of a hidden camera in a restaurant, the reporter was horrified to see returned bread being sent right back out to the floor. This, to me, wasn’t news: the reuse of bread has been an open secret—and a fairly standard practice—in the industry for years.
It makes more sense to worry about what happens to the leftover table butter—many restaurants recycle it for hollandaise.Finding a hair in your food will make anyone gag. But just about the only place you’ll see anyone in the kitchen wearing a hat or a hairnet is Blimpie. For most chefs, wearing anything on their head, especially one of those picturesque paper toques—they’re often referred to as “coffee filters”—is a nuisance: they dissolve when you sweat, bump into range hoods, burst into flame.
What do I like to eat after hours? Strange things. Oysters are my favorite, especially at three in the morning, in the company of my crew. Focaccia pizza with robiola cheese and white truffle oil is good, especially at Le Madri on a summer afternoon in the outdoor patio. Frozen vodka at Siberia Bar is also good, particularly if a cook from one of the big hotels shows up with beluga. At Indigo, on Tenth Street, I love the mushroom strudel and the daube of beef. At my own place, I love a spicy boudin noir that squirts blood in your mouth; the braised fennel the way my sous-chef makes it; scraps from duck confit; and fresh cockles steamed with greasy Portuguese sausage.
I love the sheer weirdness of the kitchen life: the dreamers, the crackpots, the refugees, and the sociopaths with whom I continue to work; the ever-present smells of roasting bones, searing fish, and simmering liquids; the noise and clatter, the hiss and spray, the flames, the smoke, and the steam. Admittedly, it’s a life that grinds you down. Most of us who live and operate in the culinary underworld are in some fundamental way dysfunctional. We’ve all chosen to turn our backs on the nine-to-five, on ever having a Friday or Saturday night off, on ever having a normal relationship with a non-cook.
Being a chef is a lot like being an air-traffic controller: you are constantly dealing with the threat of disaster. You’ve got to be Mom and Dad, drill sergeant, detective, psychiatrist, and priest to a crew of opportunistic, mercenary hooligans, whom you must protect from the nefarious and often foolish strategies of owners. Year after year, cooks contend with bouncing paychecks, irate purveyors, desperate owners looking for the masterstroke that will cure their restaurant’s ills: Live Cabaret! Free Shrimp! New Orleans Brunch!
In America, the professional kitchen is the last refuge of the misfit. It’s a place for people with bad pasts to find a new family. It’s a haven for foreigners—Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Chinese, Senegalese, Egyptians, Poles. In New York, the main linguistic spice is Spanish. “Hey, maricón! chupa mis huevos” means, roughly, “How are you, valued comrade? I hope all is well.” And you hear “Hey, baboso! Put some more brown jiz on the fire and check your meez before the sous comes back there and fucks you in the culo!,” which means “Please reduce some additional demi-glace, brother, and reëxamine your mise en place, because the sous-chef is concerned about your state of readiness.”
Since we work in close quarters, and so many blunt and sharp objects are at hand, you’d think that cooks would kill one another with regularity. I’ve seen guys duking it out in the waiter station over who gets a table for six. I’ve seen a chef clamp his teeth on a waiter’s nose. And I’ve seen plates thrown—I’ve even thrown a few myself—but I’ve never heard of one cook jamming a boning knife into another cook’s rib cage or braining him with a meat mallet. Line cooking, done well, is a dance—a highspeed, Balanchine collaboration.
I used to be a terror toward my floor staff, particularly in the final months of my last restaurant. But not anymore. Recently, my career has taken an eerily appropriate turn: these days, I’m the chef de cuisine of a much loved, old-school French brasserie/bistro where the customers eat their meat rare, vegetarians are scarce, and every part of the animal—hooves, snout, cheeks, skin, and organs—is avidly and appreciatively prepared and consumed. Cassoulet, pigs’ feet, tripe, and charcuterie sell like crazy. We thicken many sauces with foie gras and pork blood, and proudly hurl around spoonfuls of duck fat and butter, and thick hunks of country bacon. I made a traditional French pot-au-feu a few weeks ago, and some of my French colleagues—hardened veterans of the business all—came into my kitchen to watch the first order go out. As they gazed upon the intimidating heap of short ribs, oxtail, beef shoulder, cabbage, turnips, carrots, and potatoes, the expressions on their faces were those of religious supplicants. I have come home. ♦
↧
↧
Christmas Cartoons /// Christmas Songs
Mis queridos,
Some Christmas merriment!
If you haven't listened to Bruce Cockburn's Christmas album lately, here is the YouTube link. https://www.
Bruce's self-composed Christmas song, "Shepherds," is one of my favorites.
"Cry Of A Tiny Baby" is another of Bruce's Christmas songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
And although the following song (by America's most (?) underappreciated composer-musician, Tom Russell,) is not a Christmas song, it comes close...
"California Snow"
Pax et amore
Alan
↧
Noone Has Presented The $1.5 Billion Winning Lottery Ticket Bought In South Carolina
Noone Has Presented The $1.5 Billion Winning Lottery Ticket Bought In South Carolina
What does "winning The Big One" do to people?
↧
"Banishing Truth": Chris Hedges Explores The Life And Work Of Seymour Hersh
by Chris Hedges
The investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, in his memoir “Reporter,” describes a moment when as a young reporter he overheard a Chicago cop admit to murdering an African-American man. The murdered man had been falsely described by police as a robbery suspect who had been shot while trying to avoid arrest. Hersh frantically called his editor to ask what to do.
“The editor urged me to do nothing,” he writes. “It would be my word versus that of all the cops involved, and all would accuse me of lying. The message was clear: I did not have a story. But of course I did.” He describes himself as “full of despair at my weakness and the weakness of a profession that dealt so easily with compromise and self-censorship.”
Hersh, the greatest investigative reporter of his generation, uncovered the U.S. military’s chemical weapons program, which used thousands of soldiers and volunteers, including pacifists from the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as unwitting human guinea pigs to measure the impact of biological agents including tularemia, yellow fever, Rift Valley fever and the plague. He broke the story of the My Lai massacre. He exposed Henry Kissinger’s wiretapping of his closest aides at the National Security Council (NSC) and journalists, the CIA’s funding of violent extremist groups to overthrow the Chilean President Salvador Allende, the CIA’s spying on domestic dissidents within the United States, the sadistic torture practices at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by American soldiers and contractors and the lies told by the Obama administration about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Yet he begins his memoir by the candid admission, familiar to any reporter, that there are crimes and events committed by the powerful you never write about, at least if you want to keep your job. One of his laments in the book is his decision not to follow up on a report he received that disgraced President Richard Nixon had hit his wife, Pat, and she had ended up in an emergency room in California.
Reporters embedded with military units in Iraq and Afghanistan routinely witness atrocities and often war crimes committed by the U.S. military, yet they know that access is dependent on keeping quiet. This collusion between the press and the powerful is a fundamental feature of journalism, one that even someone as courageous as Hersh, at least a few times, was forced to accept. And yet, there comes a time when reporters, at least the good ones, decide to sacrifice their careers to tell the truth. Hersh, relentlessly chronicling the crimes of the late empire, including the widespread use of torture, indiscriminate military strikes on civilian targets and targeted assassinations, has for this reason been virtually blacklisted in the American media. And the loss of his voice—he used to work for The New York Times and later The New Yorker—is evidence that the press, always flawed, has now been neutered by corporate power. Hersh’s memoir is as much about his remarkable career as it is about the death of investigative journalism and the transformation of news into a national reality television show that subsists on gossip, invective, officially approved narratives and leaks and entertainment.
Investigative journalism depends not only on reporters such as Hersh, but as importantly on men and women inside the systems of power who have the moral courage to expose lies and make public crimes. Writing off any institution, no matter how nefarious the activity, as filled with the irredeemable is a mistake. “There are many officers, including generals and admirals, who understood that the oath of office they took was a commitment to uphold and defend the Constitution and not the President, or an immediate superior,” he writes. “They deserve my respect and got it. Want to be a good military reporter? Find those officers.” One of the heroes in Hersh’s book is Ron Ridenhour, who served in a combat unit in Vietnam and who initiated the army’s investigation into the My Lai massacre and generously helped Hersh track down eyewitnesses and participants.
The government’s wholesale surveillance, however, has crippled the ability of those with a conscience, such as Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden, to expose the crimes of state and remain undetected. The Obama administration charged eight people under the Espionage Act of leaking to the media—Thomas Drake, Shamai Leibowitz, Stephen Kim, Chelsea Manning, Donald Sachtleben, Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou and Edward Snowden—effectively ending the vital connection between investigative reporters and sources inside the government.
This government persecution has, by default, left the exposure of government lies, fraud and crimes to hackers. And this is the reason hackers, and those who publish their material such as Julian Assange at WikiLeaks, are relentlessly persecuted. The goal of the corporate state is to hermetically seal their activities, especially those that violate the law, from outside oversight or observation. And this goal is very far advanced.
Hersh notes throughout his memoir that, like all good reporters, he constantly battled his editors and fellow reporters as much as he did the government or corporations. There is a species of reporter you can see on most cable news programs and on the floor of the newsrooms at papers such as The New York Times who make their living as courtiers to the powerful. They will, at times, critique the excesses of power but never the virtues of the systems of power, including corporate capitalism or the motivations of the ruling elites. They detest reporters, like Hersh, whose reporting exposes their collusion.
The Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal was held in 1967 in Europe during the Vietnam War. It included the testimony of three American soldiers who spoke of watching soldiers and Marines routinely pump indiscriminate rounds of ammunition into villages with no regard for civilian casualties. Most of the American press dismissed the findings of the tribunal. The Times foreign affairs columnist, C.L. Sulzberger, launched a venomous attack against the Noble Prize-winning philosopher and mathematician, who was then 94 years old. Sulzberger, a member of the family that owned the paper, wrote that Russell had “outlived his own conscious idea and become clay in unscrupulous hands.” The tribunal, Sulzberger went on, “cannot fairly be laid at the door of the wasted peer whose bodily endurance outpaced his brain.”
Hersh, however, tipped off by the testimony at the tribunal, eventually uncovered the My Lai massacre. But no publication would touch it. Magazines such as Life and Look turned down the story. “I was devastated, and frightened by the extent of self-censorship I was encountering in my profession,” Hersh writes. He finally published the story with the obscure, anti-war Dispatch News Service. Major publications, including The New York Times, along with Newsweek and Time, ignored the report. Hersh kept digging. More lurid facts about the massacre came to light. It became too big to dismiss, as hard as the mainstream media initially tried, and Hersh was awarded the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. The only officer convicted of the war crime, which left 106 men, women and children dead, was Lt. William Calley, who spent three months and 13 days in prison.
Papers like the New York Times pride themselves on their special access to the powerful, even if that access turns them into a public relations arm of the elites. This desire for access—which news organizations feel gives them prestige and an inside seat, although the information they are fed is usually lies or half-truths—pits conscientious reporters like Hersh against most editors and reporters in the newsroom. Hersh, who at the time was working for the Times, describes sitting across from another reporter, Bernard Gwertzman, who was covering Henry Kissinger and the NSC.
“There was a near-daily ritual involving Bernie that stunned me,” Hersh writes. “On far too many afternoons around 5:00, Max Frankel’s secretary would approach Bernie and tell him that Max [the Times’ bureau chief in Washington] was at that moment on the phone with ‘Henry’ and the call would soon he switched to him. Sure enough, in a few moments Bernie would avidly begin scratching notes as he listened to Kissinger—he listened far more than he talked—and the result was a foreign policy story that invariably led the paper the next morning, with quotes from an unnamed senior government official. After a week or two of observing the process, I asked the always affable and straightforward Bernie if he ever checked what Henry was telling him with Bill Rogers, the secretary of state, or Mel Laird at the Pentagon. “Oh no,’ he said. ‘If I did that, Henry wouldn’t speak to us.’”
The Washington Post broke the Watergate story, in which operatives for the Nixon White House in June 1972 broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex in Washington while Hersh was at the Times. Kissinger’s assurances—Hersh writes that Kissinger “lied the way most people breathed”—that it was not an event of consequence saw the top editors at The New York Times initially ignore it. The paper, however, finally embarrassed by the revelations in The Washington Post, threw Hersh onto the story, although the paper’s executive editor, Abe Rosenthal, called Hersh with a mixture of affection and wariness “my little commie.”
Hersh left the paper after a massive expose he and Jeff Gerth wrote about the corporation Gulf and Western, which carried out fraud, abuse, tax avoidance and had connections with the mob, was rewritten by cautious and timid editors. Charles Bluhdorn, the CEO of Gulf and Western, socialized with the publisher Arthur “Punch” Sulzberger. Bluhdorn used his connections at the paper to discredit Hersh and Gerth, as well as bombard the paper with accusatory letters and menacing phone calls. When Hersh filed his 15,000-word expose, the business editor, John Lee, and “his ass-kissing coterie of moronic editors,” perhaps fearful of being sued, neutered it. It was one thing, Hersh found, to go up against a public institution. It was something else to take on a private institution. He would never again work regularly for a newspaper.
“The experience was frustrating and enervating,” he writes. “Writing about corporate America had sapped my energy, disappointed the editors, and unnerved me. There would be no check on corporate America, I feared: Greed had won out. The ugly fight with Gulf and Western had rattled the publisher and the editors to the point that the editors who ran the business pages had been allowed to vitiate and undercut the good work Jeff and I had done. … The courage the Times had shown in confronting the wrath of a president and an attorney general in the crisis over the Pentagon Papers in 1971 was nowhere to be seen when confronted by a gaggle of corporate con men. …”
His reporting, however, continued to relentlessly expose the falsifications in official narratives. The Navy intelligence official, Jonathan Pollard, for example, had been caught spying for Israel in 1985 and given a life sentence. Hersh found that Pollard primarily stole documents on how the United States spied on the Soviet Union. The Israeli government, Hersh suspected, “was trading Pollard’s information to Moscow in exchange for the emigration of Soviet Jews with skills and expertise needed by Israel.” Pollard was released, after heavy Israeli pressure, in 2015 and now lives in Israel.
The later part of Hersh’s career is the most distressing. He was writing for The New Yorker when Barack Obama was elected president. David Remnick, the magazine’s editor, socialized with Obama and was apparently wary of offending the president. When Hersh exposed the fictitious narrative spun out by the Obama administration about the killing of Bin Laden, the magazine killed the story, running instead a report about the raid, provided by the administration, from the point of view of one of the SEALs who was on the mission. Hersh resigned. He published the account of the raid in the London Review of Books, the beginning of his current exile to foreign publications. When we most urgently need Hersh and good investigative reporters like him, they have largely disappeared. A democracy, at best, tolerates them. A failed democracy, like ours, banishes them, and when it does, it kills its press.
↧
"Away In A Manger" - 2018 Parody
"Away In A Manger"
2018 Parody
Trump's America Is A Deliberately Cruel Place & "Christian""Conservatives" Are The Cruelest
↧
↧
What Ronald Reagan Actually Said About Border Security - Not What Trump Bloviated
| |||
↧
Bruce Cockburn Christmas Music (With A Tom Russel "Chaser")
On this Christmas morning, I encourage you to check out Bruce Cockburn's "Christmas" album: https://www.
Bruce's self-composed Christmas song, "Shepherds," is one of my favorites.
"Cry Of A Tiny Baby" is another of Bruce's Christmas songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
And although the following song by America's most (?) under-appreciated composer-musician, Tom Russell, is not a Christmas song, it comes close...
"California Snow"
More Cockburn:
↧
“How to Grow Old” By Bertrand Russell
In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow
old, which, at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My
first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Although both
my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my
other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the
flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three
grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can
only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a
disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off. A
great-grandmother of mine, who was a friend of Gibbon, lived to the age
of ninety-two, and to her last day remained a terror to all her
descendants.
My maternal grandmother, after having nine children who
survived, one who died in infancy, and many miscarriages, as soon as she
became a widow devoted herself to women’s higher education. She was one
of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the
medical profession to women. She used to tell of how she met in Italy an
elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She asked him why he was so
melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two
grandchildren. ‘Good gracious,’ she exclaimed, ‘I have seventy-two
grandchildren, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I
should have a miserable existence!’ ‘Madre snaturale!,’ he replied. But
speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age
of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep, so she
habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m. in reading popular
science. I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was
growing old. This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young. If
you have wide and keen interests and activities in which you can still
be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely
statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, still
less of the probable shortness of your future.
As regards health, I have nothing useful to say as I have little experience
of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep
awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health,
though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.
Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age.
One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in
memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends
who are dead. One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to
things about which there is something to be done. This is not always
easy; one’s own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to
think to oneself that one’s emotions used to be more vivid than they
are, and one’s mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten,
and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.
The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of
sucking vigour from its vitality. When your children are grown up they
want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in
them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden
to them, unless they are unusually callous. I do not mean that one
should be without interest in them, but one’s interest should be
contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional.
Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can
look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy,
find this difficult.
I think that a successful old age is easiest for those who have strong
impersonal interests involving appropriate activities. It is in this
sphere that long experience is really fruitful, and it is in this sphere
that the wisdom born of experience can be exercised without being
oppressive. It is no use telling grownup children not to make mistakes,
both because they will not believe you, and because mistakes are an
essential part of education. But if you are one of those who are
incapable of impersonal interests, you may find that your life will be
empty unless you concern yourself with your children and grandchildren.
In that case you must realise that while you can still render them
material services, such as making them an allowance or knitting them
jumpers, you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.
Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young,
there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to
fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in
the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has
to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and
has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is
somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it -so at least it
seems to me- is to make your interests gradually wider and more
impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life
becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human
existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained
within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over
waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the
waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break,
they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual
being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not
suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will
continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the
thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still
at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and
content in the thought that what was possible has been done.
[from “Portraits From Memory And Other Essays”]
↧
We Three Kings of Orient Are
We Three Kings of Orient Are
We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts we traverse afar
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star
O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to thy Perfect Light
Born a King on Bethlehem's plain
Gold I bring to crown Him again
King forever, ceasing never
Over us all to reign
O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light
Frankincense to offer have I
Incense owns a Deity nigh
Prayer and praising, all men raising
Worship Him, God most high
O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light
Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes of life of gathering gloom
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb
O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light
Glorious now behold Him arise
King and God and Sacrifice
Alleluia, Alleluia
Earth to heav'n replies
O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light
Bearing gifts we traverse afar
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star
O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to thy Perfect Light
Born a King on Bethlehem's plain
Gold I bring to crown Him again
King forever, ceasing never
Over us all to reign
O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light
Frankincense to offer have I
Incense owns a Deity nigh
Prayer and praising, all men raising
Worship Him, God most high
O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light
Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes of life of gathering gloom
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb
O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light
Glorious now behold Him arise
King and God and Sacrifice
Alleluia, Alleluia
Earth to heav'n replies
O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light
↧
↧
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men
From heavens all gracious King!"
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.
Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.
O ye beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heaven and earth shall own
The Prince of Peace, their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men
From heavens all gracious King!"
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.
Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.
O ye beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heaven and earth shall own
The Prince of Peace, their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
↧
O Little Town of Bethlehem
O Little Town of Bethlehem
O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight
For Christ is born of Mary
And gathered all above
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love
O morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing to God the King
And Peace to men on earth
How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.
O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born to us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight
For Christ is born of Mary
And gathered all above
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love
O morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing to God the King
And Peace to men on earth
How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.
O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born to us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel
↧
Good Christians All Rejoice
Good Christians All Rejoice
Good Christians all rejoice
With heart and soul and voice!
Give ye heed to what we say
Jesus Christ is born today!
With heart and soul and voice!
Give ye heed to what we say
Jesus Christ is born today!
Ox and ass before Him bow
And He is in the manger now
Christ is born today!
Christ is born today!
Good Christians all rejoice
With heart and soul and voice
Now ye hear of endless bliss
And He is in the manger now
Christ is born today!
Christ is born today!
Good Christians all rejoice
With heart and soul and voice
Now ye hear of endless bliss
Jesus Christ was born for this
He hath opened heaven's door
And we are blessed for evermore
Christ was born for this
Christ was born for this
Good Christians all rejoice
With heart and soul and voice
Now ye need not fear the grave:
Jesus Christ was born to save
Calls us one and calls us all
To gain His everlasting hall
Christ was born to save
Christ was born to save
And we are blessed for evermore
Christ was born for this
Christ was born for this
Good Christians all rejoice
With heart and soul and voice
Now ye need not fear the grave:
Jesus Christ was born to save
Calls us one and calls us all
To gain His everlasting hall
Christ was born to save
Christ was born to save
↧
O Come All Ye Faithful - Adeste Fidelis
O Come All Ye Faithful
Adeste, fideles,
Laeti triumphantes,
Venite, venite in Bethlehem!
Natum videte,
Regem angelorum
Venite, adoremus!
Venite, adoremus!
Venite, adoramus Dominum!
Venite, adoramus Dominum!
O Come All Ye Faithful
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him,
Born the King of Angels;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.
O Sing, choirs of angels,
Sing in exultation,
Sing all ye citizens of heaven above.
Glory to God, all glory in the Highest;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.
Hail! Lord, we greet Thee,
Born this happy morning,
O Jesus! for evermore be Thy name adored.
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him,
Born the King of Angels;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.
O Sing, choirs of angels,
Sing in exultation,
Sing all ye citizens of heaven above.
Glory to God, all glory in the Highest;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.
Hail! Lord, we greet Thee,
Born this happy morning,
O Jesus! for evermore be Thy name adored.
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.
↧
↧
I Saw Three Ships
I Saw Three Ships
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day?
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas Day in the morning?
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
Wither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
Pray, wither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas Day in the morning?
They sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
They sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the souls on earth shall sing,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the souls on earth shall sing,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
Then let us all rejoice again,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
Then let us all rejoice again,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day?
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas Day in the morning?
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
Wither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
Pray, wither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas Day in the morning?
They sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
They sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the souls on earth shall sing,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the souls on earth shall sing,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
Then let us all rejoice again,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
Then let us all rejoice again,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
↧
Hark The Herald Angels Sing
Hark The Herald Angels Sing
Hark the herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled"
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
"Christ is born in Bethlehem"
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"
Christ by highest heav'n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin's womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"
Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"
"Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled"
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
"Christ is born in Bethlehem"
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"
Christ by highest heav'n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin's womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"
Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"
↧
The First Noel
The First Noel
The First Noel, the Angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep
On a cold winter's night that was so deep.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
They looked up and saw a star
Shining in the East beyond them far
And to the earth it gave great light
And so it continued both day and night.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
And by the light of that same star
Three Wise men came from country far
To seek for a King was their intent
And to follow the star wherever it went.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
This star drew nigh to the northwest
O'er Bethlehem it took its rest
And there it did both Pause and stay
Right o'er the place where Jesus lay.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
Then entered in those Wise men three
Full reverently upon their knee
And offered there in His presence
Their gold and myrrh and frankincense.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
Then let us all with one accord
Sing praises to our heavenly Lord
That hath made Heaven and earth of nought
And with his blood mankind has bought.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep
On a cold winter's night that was so deep.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
They looked up and saw a star
Shining in the East beyond them far
And to the earth it gave great light
And so it continued both day and night.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
And by the light of that same star
Three Wise men came from country far
To seek for a King was their intent
And to follow the star wherever it went.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
This star drew nigh to the northwest
O'er Bethlehem it took its rest
And there it did both Pause and stay
Right o'er the place where Jesus lay.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
Then entered in those Wise men three
Full reverently upon their knee
And offered there in His presence
Their gold and myrrh and frankincense.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
Then let us all with one accord
Sing praises to our heavenly Lord
That hath made Heaven and earth of nought
And with his blood mankind has bought.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!
↧