244 St. Michael and All Angels: Dancing on the Waves
244 St. Michael and All Angels: Dancing on the Waves
“You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day; a thousand may fall at your side, but it shall not come near you because you have made the Lord even the Most High your dwelling place.” ~ Psalm 91
While Rev Fisk is a bit waylaid, we’ve re-published this gem from 2022…
Dancing on the Waves
If you haven’t noticed, just about everyone is on edge.
The modern world is an endless chain of unresolved inputs. The idolatry of novelty has not evolved but collapsed into infinite self-centered expectations. We can’t all have it all. But we all think that we each can.
What our grandfathers overlooked now is coming home to roost. Their subsistence family lives sold out to this industrializing paradise because, frankly, life on earth was hard. Several solid generations into the sell, this traumatization project has left us all with fracture neighborhoods and atrophied psyches. The religion of believing that the present world is somehow different from the past world is not only false, but it is fraying at an alarming rate.
Only now as the foundations shake beneath our feet can the true depths of what we sold to get here begin to show. The normalization of wickedness as entertainment has borne some serious blowback. The lasting impact will not be turned around by a few blog posts. The disaster will not be fixed by the next election cycle. Overriding, demonic social programming that cannibalizes infants is not the kind of thing God deals gently with.
Being on edge is only to be expected.
What makes you unique is your knowledge that your understanding doesn’t end here. Nor will your life be here forever. This will pass, but you will go on. This will bring death, but you will rise. You know that cosmic horror unleashed with all the powers of the gates of hell can’t stop you because you didn’t put yourself here.
He did.
“I write to you because you are strong, and because you have overcome the evil one.”
What are you waiting for? This is your time.
Till angel cry and trumpet sound,
R.J.M.F
Births, Deaths and Marriages
A Vermont pedophile group is crying “discrimination” after local journalists reported a planned gathering in a camp ground right next to a school. The Twinfield School shares facilities with the camp ground and students often use the trails in nearby woods. The activist group said the “extreme stigmatization and oppression” of pedophiles needs to stop after outrage from parents lead to the cancellation of the event. (KUTV)
Texas’ Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the Department of Health and Human Services over a new rule which forces foster families to affirm a child’s stated gender or sexual identity. The ruling requires federally-funded agencies to only place children with families who will conform to the LGBTQ agenda. (WNG)
A new survey has found that Americans, even those professing to be Christians are increasingly watching pornography. “Roughly half of those viewing pornography said no one knew of their habit. More than 40 percent of Americans said viewing pornography did not affect their lives, even though research shows pornography negatively impacts users’ mental health. Many did not admit their use was a negative experience.” (WNG)
Five inmates have been put to death in five states in an unusual concurrence of events. Use of the death penalty has been in decline for decades, but last week’s news brought the issue to online debate once again. A long article from the progressive A.C.L.U. railing against the death penalty was circulating in liberal social media and it is interesting to read their reasons against killing criminals: it’s barbaric, the cost is high, black people are disproportionately killed, the procedure can be botched and it is irreversible. All this is also true of abortion, but that seems lost on the A.C.L.U. It is jarring to read their emphatic statement that “a society that respects life does not deliberately kill human beings”, yet they will not defend a life taken in the womb. “Murder demonstrates a lack of respect for human life. Because life is precious and death irrevocable, murder is abhorrent, and a policy of state-authorized killings is immoral.” (AP, ACLU)
A new study claims that suicides by poison are being underreported. (Epoch Times)
Crime and Punishment
A survey from a consumer advocacy group claims that two out of three customers will look for a product elsewhere if what they need is locked up. “This is a no-win situation,” one consumer expert said. “If you leave all the stuff there, from what I hear, they’re being robbed blind by shoplifters; if you lock it up, you’re annoying customers and losing sales. Either way, the retailer loses.” One tech company is even working on an app which would unlock cabinets for customers who had accounts or prepaid. Perhaps, stiffer penalties and better enforcement would be better? What would we know. (Retail Brew, The Week)
There are not enough good men; be one! Writer Evita Duffy-Alfonso observes that rapper Sean Combs’ depraved [alleged] crimes “reveals the rot” in our elite and political classes. As if to illustrate her point, Rep. Thomas Massie claimed last week that taxpayers have forked out millions to deal with sexual abuse claims within Congressional offices. Liberty is seen as freedom from things, not responsibility to things, as Duffy-Alfonso writes: “There is a troubling conflation of liberty with decadence, a message that’s relentlessly pushed on us by our morally depraved elites. These powerful individuals manipulate our culture and politics, leading the masses into a state of moral disarray. The result is a populace with diminished standards, unable to govern themselves and therefore unable to hold its leaders accountable.“ (Thomas Massie via X, The Federalist)
Prosecutors plan to charge Ryan Routh with attempting to assassinate Donald Trump after the discovery of a letter allegedly outlining his hope to do so. Routh currently faces two firearms charges, but he had apparently been following Trump’s movements for a while. Secret Service agents fired on him two weeks ago, while he lay in wait near Trump’s golf course. Meanwhile, Routh’s son has been charged with possession of child sexual abuse material. (CNN, AP, ZeroHedge)
A new Senate report into the Secret Service’s performance at Donald Trump’s Butler, P.A. rally has found “foreseeable" and "preventable” mistakes. The agency's counter-drone system was out of action for a while, allowing Crooks to surveil the site hours before. The report revealed that Secret Service had “credible intelligence” of a threat against Donald Trump but failed to warn the agent in charge of the Pittsburgh Field Office. (The Blaze, Axios)
New York Mayor Eric Adams is facing corruption charges after being indicted by a grand jury last week. Charges include bribery and receiving campaign contributions from foreign nationals. Adams has been receiving gifts from Turkey for many years, even when he was in a more lowly office. The fact that Turkish government allegedly helped fund Adam’s mayoral campaign bodes ill: “foreign regimes are no longer interested just in federal elections—they now have their eyes on local, municipal elections as well.” Given the difficulty in tracking campaign finance currently, Adams “may well be the canary in the coal mine for how foreign regimes will target American politicians moving forward.” We say it also doesn’t help that intelligence agencies seem more intent on prosecuting “domestic terrorists” than keeping politicians accountable for their foreign entanglements. Adams protested his innocence and has refused to step down from his job. (Just the News, The New Republic)
The Southern Baptist Convention will sell its Nashville headquarters to help pay for their eye-popping $12 million investigation into sexual abuse. (WNG)
The colleague of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison has been sentenced to two years for her involvement in a multi-billion dollar crypto fraud. Ellison received leniency for testifying against Bankman-Fried but will forfeit $11 billion from the scheme to help repay victims. (CNBC)
Coming to America
A report released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week revealed the agency is finding it difficult to apprehend “non-citizens” (which includes some in the U.S. illegally as well as those here legally, but are not citizens) due to the obfuscation of law enforcement in “sanctuary cities”. What is worse is that the data show that thousands of convicted rapists and murderers have been admitted through the southern border. (The Blaze, Not the Bee)
Arizona’s supreme court has ruled that around 98,000 residents can vote without meeting new citizenship requirements. An error lead to driver’s licenses issued before 1996 to be granted without proof of citizenship and renewed automatically. (WNG)
Thunderdome 2024
While Vice President Kamala Harris has not elucidated much by way of concrete policy goals for her potential administration, she told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that she would like to eliminate the filibuster in the U.S. Senate. Harris said it is her aim to force the restoration of Roe, however there is no reason she could not also lift bans on fracking or impose gun control. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pointed out that doing away with the filibuster might come back to bite Dems when next Republicans are in charge. (WPR, The Federalist, Politico)
Politics
President Joe Biden gave his final address as president to the United Nations General Assembly, which met last week. (WNG)
Transcripts obtained by House Administration Oversight Subcommittee reveal that then-president Donald Trump told the Pentagon that they should do whatever they needed to keep the Capitol safe on January 6th, 2021. The new information casts some doubt on the idea that Republicans blocked security from containing the riot. (Just the News)
Republican gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina, Mark Robinson, has denied reports that he masqueraded as a Nazi in adult forums. (BBC)
The Digital Age
Telegram founder, Pavel Durov has reversed course, agreeing to share I.P. addresses and phone numbers with authorities when requested. Tech bros were a little black-pilled: “Turns out no matter how hard you work, the bureaucrats work harder. ‘Private’ messaging apps were always a useful fiction.” (Reclaim the Net, Pirate Wires via X)
Newly-released documents show the extent to which social media platforms (Meta, TikTok and Google) reduced the visibility of millions of “potentially hazardous” posts and pieces of content during recent European elections. (Reclaim the Net)
TikTok is in court defending its presence in the U.S. after the House ruled earlier this year that it must divest from its Chinese ownership or face a ban. A clause in the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) seems to protect certain Chinese companies, which TikTok’s defense seized upon, arguing that unnamed companies (perhaps Temu and Shein) collect as much, if not more data than the beleaguered social media app. (Wired)
ChatGPT parent company, OpenAI plans to restructure from non-profit to for-profit company. The news comes alongside a number of resignations among its leadership were announced. The non-profit part will retain a minority stake in the company and C.E.O. Sam Altman would receive equity in the company, reportedly worth $150 billion. (Reuters, CNN)
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has proposed ending a bunch of burdensome password regulations which are placed on most organizations, from government agencies to private companies. “Frequently, the rules—ostensibly to enhance security hygiene—actually undermine it.” (ArsTechnica)
A new study has found that Large Language Models such as ChatGPT answer less accurately as queries got more difficult. Also, rather than pass on questions it didn’t know, “the researchers found no strong trend in this direction. Instead, some models, such as GPT-4, answered almost everything. The fraction of wrong answers among those that were either incorrect or avoided rose as the models got bigger.” (Nature)
The once mighty Intel may have fallen. Semiconductor giant Qualcomm has offered to buy the chip maker outright. Tech industry observers say Intel missed the mobile phone revolution and failed to run with A.I., which has left them struggling financially. (Tedium)
Money, Markets and Jobs
The Federal Communication Commission is reportedly fast-tracking its approval of the purchase of the Audacy media company by George Soros. Soros hoovered up Audacy’s massive debt, becoming a majority stakeholder in the company which owns over 200 radio stations. The deal has been slammed by F.C.C. commissioner Brendan Carr who accused the body’s Democrat members of ignoring rules around foreign ownership in American media. Soros used foreign investment to buy the stake in Audacy. Carr also derided the F.C.C’s decision to delay the building of internet infrastructure in rural areas. (more of foreign influence in ed, politics, etc) also ties with free speech concerns, five eyes etc wanting to shut down free speech. (New York Post)
The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a lawsuit against Visa for its debit card payments system which it says is a monopoly. The D.O.J. says the credit giant pushes retailers into offering it exclusively, and that its fees to banks trickle down to customers, which affects the price of “nearly everything.” (CNBC)
U.S. lawmakers are proposing a ban on Chinese-made hardware and software used in vehicles. While there are currently not many Chinese-made vehicles on America’s roads, the Biden administration expresses its desire to tackle what it sees as a particular national security threat while it achievable. (Reuters)
Market watchers are warning that a dockworkers union strike could cripple ports up and down the east coast of the U.S.A. in the next couple of weeks. (ZeroHedge)
Boeing has made its “best and final offer” to almost 30,000 striking workers, but the machinists’ union says the proposal “does not go far enough to address..concerns.” (AP)
Amazon’s C.E.O. Andy Jassy wants everyone back in the office, five days a week and to “bring back assigned desk arrangements”. In a memo to staff, he also said he wants less managers and has set up a “bureaucracy mailbox” where employees can flag bloat which could break impeding growth. (Amazon)
From the Mad☧Tank
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Religion and the Church
Tributes have poured in for Lutheran apologist, John Warwick Montgomery who died in Christ last week, aged 92. (The Riddle Blog)
Luther on the Sign of the Cross. (Lutheran Chronicles)
They don’t want to hear it: A lefty magazine editor is convinced there is a “creeping Christian Nationalism” about to engulf the country after a flight attendant wished passengers a “blessed” day. (Not the Bee)
Scientists have grown a tree from an ancient seed they think is a good candidate for the source of the Balm of Gilead. (Biblical Archaeology)
India’s version of a televangelist may be the YouTube astrologer. “YouTube has allowed [astrologers] to make a direct case to viewers about how astrology can be reconciled with religious tradition. The embrace of light elements of Islam also blends with a more ubiquitous New Age spirituality that seems to respond to the impulses of the algorithm and its tendency to flatten global culture into something more marketable.” (Rest of the World)
Health, Medicine and Food
The sick care system: Republicans have joined with R.F.K jr to lay out a new focus for the next G.O.P administration - food, farming and Pharma. A recent Senate roundtable has proposed that fixing the American diet would go a long way to reducing the cost of healthcare in the U.S. “If America fails,” Kennedy said, “the chief reason will be because we let our country get sicker, more depressed, fatter, more infertile at an increasing rate while crippling our national security, bankrupting our national budget with health care costs.” The national media shrugged (The Atlantic referred to the roundtable as “the woo woo caucus”), but Senator Ron Johnson posted the full video of the event at his website, if you care to watch and judge for yourself. (The Federalist, Chef Gruel via X, Ron Johnson)
A 25-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes has started producing insulin on her own after receiving a transplant of reprogrammed stem cells, according to a new study. Researchers are waiting a few more years before they declare the process a success, but using tissue made from the patient’s own stem cells may reduce the incidence of rejection and the need for immunosuppressants, they said. (Nature)
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a self-administered nasal ‘flu vaccine. (FDA)
Hearts and Minds
You don’t need to leave home to have a rich thought life, live out virtues or fulfill your vocation. Writer Beatrice Scudeler contemplates culturing an intellectual life as a stay-at-home parent. “Reading and writing can become a form of contemplation, at times even a form of prayer. Whether you’re a parent or not, as long as you find joy in learning, you can have an intellectual life.” What’s more, the Word of God is an education by itself and contains all we need for life and godliness. (Plough)
“Adult pacifiers?” Why do we check our phone all the time? “We’re so used to constant stimulation that we feel uncomfortable when we’re not doing anything, even for just a few seconds.” (Time)
Neuroscience is trying to understand how a person can feel two conflicting emotions at one time. “Brain regions in the cortex that carry out more advanced functions appear to represent much more complex states, allowing someone to truly feel a mixed emotion.” (The Conversation)
When MadMondays arrives on a Tuesday.. 
Arts, History and Sport
Live music festivals are facing a slump in enthusiasm, with rising costs and perhaps saturation from too many options for concert goers. The availability of streaming may also be a factor and one analyst believes that streaming has reduced interest in hearing anything new. A more disquieting theory of why young folk are less interested in heading out is that they are anxious and risk-averse, particularly after pandemic lockdowns. (NPR)
There was a time when darkrooms were featured as hotel amenities. Travelling photographers would choose loading where they could develop their films on the go. (Schneider)
Researchers have used an A.I. algorithm to discover hundreds more glyphs in Peru’s Nazca desert. The Nazca Lines – large drawings made by ancient peoples – were known of for centuries but weren’t understood as pictures until one surveyor flew over in the 1940s. (France 24)
Last week in history:
1066 After delaying his invasion on account of bad weather, William, Duke of Normandy sets off to conquer England. (Britannica)
1846 Neptune first observed by Johann Gottfried Galle (Britannica)
1889 Nintendo is founded as a playing card company. (Nintendo)
From Hidden to Brazen
How Pop Culture and Children’s Books Are No Longer Hiding Their Dark Side
Once, the moral failings of Hollywood were carefully hidden from public view, masked by polished PR and a facade of decency. Now, those same transgressions are proudly paraded in the open, with no need for pretense. But the real question isn’t how we got here—it’s why we’re surprised.
From music and movies to the books in our children’s hands, what once lurked in the shadows is now celebrated in the light. And the impact? Far more profound than we’d like to admit. Read more at Screen it First.
God’s Green Earth
Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, claiming the lives of almost 40 and leaving millions without power. Even in the midst of destruction, Florida men have been doing Florida man things. Pray for those left homeless and bereaved. (Time, Not the Bee)
Oof. Scientists have projected what they believe to be the trajectory of the earth’s climate over “half a billion years”, only to reveal that the earth has been much warmer in the past. As Professor Emeritus of Physics at Princeton University, Dr. William Happer says: "CO₂ is actually good for the world, so people ought to be encouraged to make more of it." (ZeroHedge)
But that hasn’t stopped the climate doomsayers from spoiling perfectly good things.. A sprawling housing project in France, which would see 2,300 homes and many offices built on a strip of unused industrial land by the River Orne, will be shelved after a “group of experts tasked with determining the impact of climate change on the Normandy region” concluded that projected rises in sea levels will make the area unliveable in decades to come. (Phys)
The Sahara Desert has seen a flurry of growth after “really exceptional rainfall events.” (ABC News)
A vertical farm in Richmond, V.A. is designed to produce 4 million pounds of strawberries per year. The plants, grown in a highly-regulated environment in 30-foot towers, will provide strawberries year round. (New Atlas)
“150 Years of Corn, Wheat, and Soy Yields in America”. (Visual Capitalist)
Octopuses in the wild have been observed hunting with groups of fish and punching opportunistic hangers-on. (Nature)
The kinda creepy Dead Man’s Fingers fungus. (try saying that fives time fast!) (PopSci)
Science
The U.S. Coast Guard has launched an investigation into the Titan submersible accident which claimed the lives of all five passengers, 16 months ago. The aim is to identify factors which contributed to the implosion and propose safety recommendations to prevent similar tragedies. (The Week, MadPxM)
Microsoft has signed up to buy energy from Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 reactor, to help power hungry data centers. (TechRadar)
M.I.T. engineers have made glass bricks which are as strong as concrete ones and can be re-used at the end of a building’s life. (MIT)
How do you blow up a space station? (Science Focus)
War and Rumors of War
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited with a bi-partisan group of U.S. lawmakers last week, while President Biden has pledged a further $8 billion aid package. (The Hill)
The U.S. will send a small number of additional troops to the Middle East “in light of increased tension” in the region. “Major General Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, would not say how many more forces would be deployed or what they would be tasked to do.” (AP)
Israel has vowed to keep hitting Hezbollah after a drone strike on a navy base in southern Israel earlier last week. Thousands of people are leaving southern Lebanon region around the cities of Tyre and Sidon, after an Israeli strike killed over 500 people. Israel claims it has killed the head of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile program as well as longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah. (ZeroHedge, NBC, Just the News)
Japanese military jets have fired flares at a Russian reconnaissance aircraft to warn it to leave Japanese airspace, according to defence ministry in Tokyo. (The Guardian)
Stories from Far Away
🇨🇭Swiss police have arrested four people after an American woman died using a “suicide pod”. Switzerland distinguishes euthanasia, which is illegal, from assisted suicide, which is not. “Swiss law allows assisted suicide as long as the person takes his or her life with no ‘external assistance’.” The man who invented the pod, Philip Nitschke, has designed many killing machines over the decades, and watched the woman die via a video feed. Writing at Mercator, Michael Cook wrote of assisted suicide as blasphemy: “It’s blasphemy against life itself. It’s the worship of nihilism. In Nitschke’s worldview, life has no special value. It’s not worth fighting for; it’s not worth treasuring; it’s not worth defending.” Lord, have mercy. (WNG, The Guardian, Mercator)
🇹🇭 Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn has signed same-sex marriage into law. Thailand is the first south-east Asian nation to do so. (WNG)
🇸🇩 Sudan's army has launched a major offensive as it tries to take Khartoum back from paramilitary group, Rapid Support Forces. This current conflict, which began last year has claimed over 100,000 lives and displaced millions, according to reports. (BBC)
🇲🇽 Mexico’s lawmakers have approved outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s plan to hand over more tasks to the military. While the plan doesn’t represent a complete takeover by the nation’s generals, “these things have a way of happening incrementally”, as WashPo pointed out. (Semafor, Washington Post)
🇯🇵 The world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been acquitted after 46 years. Iwao Hakamada, who is now 88 was found not guilty of a quadruple murder after a retrial found that investigators had fabricated evidence. (BBC)
🏴 A U.K. group of men is hoping to get attention for their request for longer paid paternity leave with a novel campaign. The Dad Shift has put baby slings and carriers with doll babies on statues around London. (NPR)
🇬🇧 A tricky situation: A ship carrying tons of volatile ammonium nitrate fertiliser is seeking repair work after running aground in a storm and taking damage to its hull. The ship has been rejected by several ports unless it offloads its cargo first. (BBC)
👖 A neat clothing trick that may help you stay afloat if you fall into water
🧩 See world champion jigsaw puzzlers in action
🏍️ Ride ‘n’ fly: because one extreme sport is never enough
🪺The marvelous engineering of bird’s nests
🤨 We have yet more emojis
🚏 One photographer documents remote Soviet bus stops
📻 Radio Shack catalogs, 1939 to 2011
🚲 Sweet Lego animation of Caleb Holonko taking his bike off a sweet jump
🏀 Every basketball court in America
🙈Gibbons dancing like no one’s watching
🐈 A lost cat travelled from Wyoming to California to find his owners
🐿️ Some squirrely passengers get trains cancelled
🥹 A man abducted when he was 6 years-old has been reunited with his family, 70 years later
A discussion about “disaster fascism” and hope featured on Starfall2029 last week. You can catch Jonathan and Meridith bringing wisdom and focus to life in this white noise! Watch on YouTube or Rumble, or listen here. Show links:
The book of Romans: it’s all good
Ladies, you can pray with other Daughters of Wisdom
If you missed it, Meridith put out a call for anyone who would like to make a quilt for men who stay at the Hebron Collegium. If that is something you would be interested in helping out with, please reply to this email or send a message through madpxm.com/contact.
Our disclaimer: These are some resources the Fisks have found edifying, but when dealing with human-authored texts, apply discernment liberally!
This Week Preached:
Podcast Release:
Let us pray. Everlasting God, You have ordained and constituted the service of angels and men in a wonderful order. Mercifully grant that, as Your holy angels always serve and worship You in heaven, so by Your appointment they may also help and defend us here on earth; through Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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