Nothing New Under The Sun (Parable Of The Ten Virgins, Seven.)

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. ~Ecclesiastes 1:9

...

The wind whispers of fear and hate. The war has killed love. And those that confess to the Angkar are punished, and no one dare ask where they go. Here, only the silent survive. ~Dith Pran, The Killing Fields

...

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13

So I just got up, after sleeping for about 12 hours, and this is what I saw.

Meet the New Year, same as the old year.

Are you tired of this shit yet, because I sure am.

"Conservatives" are going around threatening people, trying to overthrow America, trying to suck all the joy out of everything that isn't stomping on someone's face with their jackboots...and yet somebody repeats back to them what their actions amount to, what they're physically doing in the real world (rather than describing in glowing, oozing platitudes the valiant battle they think in their own heads that they're fighting) or even simply point out that someday these fucking people will have to answer to a power that isn't Donald Trump...and these motherfuckers get mad.

Goddamn, that really should tell you something, I think.

It's a cult, and these fucking people are obsessed with death (both their own and yours, and I'm not sure it matters to them how the order of operations works out here) and they're obsessed with every possible flavor of simply being an asshole, for its own sake...mostly because they think it's funny or something.

My last customer at work last night was some angry-looking, pinch-faced old guy wearing a shirt that said "Kill your local pedophile" (as if such people aren't also their preacher, Republican politician or the local Sheriff) and as I'm leaving, I'm just thinking "Ya know, I don't like those people either, but I've never gone around wanting to kill people and I have actually been trained to do so and had to face the possibility. All the people that I know who've been in combat have ended up with PTSD.

And let me tell you, PTSD sucks.

And a couple of those people couldn't hack it and committed suicide because they couldn't get their mind to come back from Afghanistan or Iraq or where or whatever the fuck else and if you don't understand how shitty that is, I can't explain it to you. Personally, I didn't see combat but I'll never unsee some of the shit I saw in Bosnia...or the miles and miles of war wreckage I saw in Kuwait, for that matter.

But in These Fucking People's World, Highways of Death would be a feature, not a bug.

Being an asshole and whacking off to the idea of violence (without consequence) is an unbelievable luxury that goes away the first time somebody pulls the trigger of a weapon aimed at another human being. And I'm going to guess when the shit hits the fan, the same fucking people who see murder, violence and war as part of a game or a political statement now will start finding refuge at the bottom of a bottle or a plastic tube full of drugs or some shit. (And at the top end, a lot of them are already like that, in case you think their "movement" is righteous.)

Why not? They've never faced anything else they've ever done, why should they start now?

And that includes the fact that their allegedly-arch-Capitalist Godhead goes about quoting Communist dictators. Yes, Republicans are basically Communists now. But they're the Putin kind for whom Communism is just Gulags, endless ideological indoctrination and war, and where everybody's an informer, a political operative, or a spy...even if they're just asking you if you want fries with that, your answer will be weighed on its political merits RE: the fortunes of the Red (or is it Orange?) Banner Potato-farming Collective. Yes, I used to be a conservative and since you asked, my brain hurt just typing that shit. 

These idiots basically want to live in the Empire from Star Wars.

So the world these fucking people want to live in is not only violent...it's tedious as hell, too. Count me the fuck out. If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen, and this is not the way.

But I'll tell you what. It's New Years Eve, and every new year is a chance to make a new world.

So get after it. It's not so much that there's going to be a test, it's that that is the test.

Слава Україна!

Six

Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them?

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"

Worshiping The Dragon (Parable Of The Ten Virgins, Six.)

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear.

He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon.

And he exercised all the power of the first beast before him, and caused the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

And deceives them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13.

I saw this yesterday. Far-right nut-bag Laura Loomer, saying she'll never vote for anybody but Trump, and that she'll encourage her followers to do the same. As if she thinks Trump is going to live forever, or not facing criminal indictments, or that he is some sort of a god or some shit.

Honey, don't threaten me with a good time. If the Republican Party has become that much all about Donald Trump, as far as I'm concerned it doesn't deserve anybody voting for it!

This Trump shit is getting hella creepy, it done got creepy a long damn time ago. What the fuck is wrong with these fucking people?? When I see people like Laura Loomer talk like that about Trump...it's the words of St. John of Patmos that echo in my head. I'm sorry, I actually have a background in this stuff.

I mean, I get it, sort of. Laura Loomer is a dishonest mentally-ill freak who could have been a lot of things in life, but she became...this. Apparently, by choice.

Trouble is, it's not just an attention-whoring ass-clown narcissist like Laura Loomer anymore. This is what the Republican Party has become. "Reagan Wept" doesn't even begin to cover it.

And here we have Jack Posobiec trying to say that America needs its own Francisco Franco.

You know, the Opus Dei-connected fascist Caudillo who was...so widely hated by the end of his time that within a year of his death, the vast majority of Spanish society had told him, his memory, and his remaining supporters to fuck right the hell off. People who had been leaders in Franco's own party went right ahead and worked with King Juan Carlos I in moving Spain away from fascism, and in the first free elections in 1977...still less than two years after Franco's death...the Socialists swept the board.

Yeah, sure, there's a fair number of people who missed that motherfucker, for awhile. Some of them are even still around, but they're very much the minority in Spanish politics. Aside from FOX News, the New York Times and the Republican Party, it's mostly the same here. Most Americans, and even entire states now, are rejecting Trump. MAGA appears to be getting nervous, and doubling down yet again. Because they know...oh yes, they do, how it's going to go if they can't cheat, lie and steal their way into Power because that's all they have. Well, that and a bunch of threats that will, in the end, be nothing but empty bovine flatulence.

But I'm here to tell you...the only people around here who support Trump are the same fucking people who have supported him all along, but not all of them have stuck with him, either. I suppose, given the age of the average person I see in a MAGA hat these days, that at least some of them have simply died.

So, sure, they'll threaten Civil War and probably end up with some half-baked right-wing insurgency and yes, people will die unnecessarily...but this whole thing is going to fail.

The thing that legit scares me, though, is that the Right is very much becoming its own ecosystem. Emotionally, mentally these fucking people are already not living in the same country as the rest of us. And yes, these people are the majority in some places. I see it as unfortunately likely that if they can maintain international far-right and Russian support...and can attract the Tankies to support them? Yeah, given the current state of the United Nations (*Cough* Actively collaborating with Hamas *Cough*) if they manage enough "Propaganda by deed" (to use the Russian Anarchist term) they might just fail their way upwards into a Banana Republic like the FLN did in Algeria. Most likely the American "Empire" will be more 1980's El Salvador, but backed by the Russians, not us. 

Or, if Laura Loomer gets her way about it...it'll be Trumpist North Korea.

And, if Trump doesn't win next November...or hell, if he gets bored or his ego gets sufficiently scorched before that (or for that matter if certain international situations continue to go badly for the Russians, Hamas, and for the Authoritarian International) I think that's the backup plan. Why?? Because the person ultimately behind all this shit...Vladimir Putin...knows that 75% America will be 25% less able to support Ukraine. It's a numbers game, war in the margins, only thing Putin and all his compromised political hangers-on seem to continually forget is that the Ukrainians aren't backing down.

Thing that pisses me off, is that the 25% of Americans who support this bullshit or who want an "American Franco" or think Trump is "god" will be all for it if they get some kind of macho Dictator cosplay bullshit out of it, get to steal old people's pensions and get to take food out of the mouths of poor children. You know, it's funny how these fucking people think they're making some last heroic stand against "Liberalism" but it really amounts to...canceling summer lunch programs for poor kids.

The Cruelty is the goddamn point. They jerk off to the idea of inflicting all the torments of Revelation on the rest of us...without even thinking about the fact that if their claimed religion is the least bit true, it's themselves they're damning.

That's literally the quality of these fucking people that we're dealing with, their religion and all that shit is nothing but a lie.

The only true thing about these morons is...their cultic worship of a scumbag like Donald Trump.

They worship the Dragon...but it's a rather more corpulent version of Mushu the self-serving, tiny dragon from Mulan and not the great red dragon of Revelation.

And they spit in the face of the same all-powerful God they want to use as a club against the rest of us.

One of these things is not like the other one, something has to lose.

Remember that, when the time comes.

Five

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13

Слава Україна!

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Not Of This World (Parable Of The Ten Virgins, Five.)

In the bullshit department, a businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman. 'Cause I got to tell you the truth, folks: when it comes to bullshit - big-time, major-league bullshit - you have to stand in awe, in AWE of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest! Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it: religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time... But He loves you! He loves you, and He needs MONEY! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise - somehow, just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story... Holy Shit! ~George Carlin

...

Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?

Jesus answered him, Say thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?

Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?

Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou say that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth hear my voice. ~John 18:33-37

I saw this last night.

Apparently Leonard Leo (of Federalist Society infamy) is trying to foist Sectarian (specifically, Catholic...and doubtless his Fundamentalist Medieval "Traditionalist" variety of Catholicism, at that) Public Schools on America. (You know, this is the kind of shit that the Pope fires people for.)

Bitch, your hyper-sectarian Ancient Regime Unga Bunga In Nomine Patrie bullshit is a tiny minority among practicing US Catholics (despite the outsized presence of such people online and in the Republican Party) much less among Americans in total. Right or wrong, Christianity is declining in America, especially among White people. Yes, this is about 90% the fault of 40 years of "Moral Majority" political bullshit from White Conservative "Christians" whose main beef with the rest of the world is that their kids might have to go to school with Black people. (And probably the other 10% is people just realizing "Hey, this is America, we don't have to be like that, here.)

Oh, sure, there's lots of Christians of Color and those groups are growing, if more slowly (and they're also joining diverse church communities that include White people, too, or getting White people to join them. Anti-Trump conservative David French comes to mind.) Arab Christians of all sorts, Black Baptists or Pentecostals, Asian, Latino and various other Catholics, Pacific Islanders whose classical Christian Fundamentalism descends directly from 19th Century Victorian missionaries, the list goes on. Way back in the day, I had a good friend who was a Korean Calvinist. There's also LGBT Christians, liberal Christians, leftover mainstream Protestant denominations, etc. The list goes on.

Most of these people can (and usually do) do the whole Christian thing without being assholes about it, in my experience. It's safe to say, I think...that those people ain't Leonard Leo's intended audience nor what nor who he's pandering to. His whole bit seems to be focused mainly on "Evangelizing" elites, Republicans, and the wealthy. (And then claiming that "Traditionalist" Catholics are persecuted or suppressed somehow. How that works when most of the few who are for real...and not scammy bitches shaking their boobs on Instagram or Twitter Theo-Bros who've never been laid...are in politics and/or fantastically wealthy, I have no idea.) I suppose he thinks they'll impose Feudalism on America for him, too, from the top down? Motherfucker somehow forgot we don't work that way here.

The Knights Of Malta would be hard-pressed to raise an Infantry Platoon on their own (although they'd probably have the wealth to support such quite well) but somehow they own like a third of the Republican Party, and despite the fact that throughout the world Opus Dei is primarily a Catholic sub-sect of the lower classes and more poorly educated people...those mooks had an outsized presence in the Trump administration.

Especially, and no I don't give a shit if this sounds judgmental, in a place like Oklahoma, where if you have a Rosary and don't have an Irish or Mexican last name, people look at you funny. Shit, last I knew, half the people in Oklahoma were Baptists of the sort who think the Catholic Church is basically the Antichrist and/or the False Religion of Revelations to start with, but of course this entire scenario is designed to provoke a Federal case because these fucking people are all lying fanatics who think they're too good to have to persuade anybody of their point of view, anyway. 

So they probably selected a hostile environment (and may well be trolling for a bad reaction from the local Fundamentalist Protestants, I don't know and I don't live there but I wouldn't put it past these motherfuckers to do exactly that) specifically for the reason of getting some flaming dumpster-fire of a scenario that's specifically designed to manipulate emotions in front of a jacked Supreme Court where four of the Justices are specifically Leo's little pets and one or two more are at least sympathetic and also grabbing a bunch of whiny media soundbites.

I'm sorry, but I happen to be more familiar with America's religious history than most people, and Medieval Catholicism quite literally doesn't have a history or place here. 

There's not a bit of malice in this, it's simply a function of who came here and for that matter who sent people here, back when that kind of shit was more important. We were the place outcasts tended to wash up. Our colonizers were Protestant (or at least Anglican) The people who were the ancestors of many Traditionalist Catholics were by affiliation and ethnicity a lot more prone to end up in Latin America than what became the US, or they stayed in Europe. At that time, they certainly didn't have to leave. 

Hell, Jose-Maria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, was from Spain. People like him never got ran out of Europe at gunpoint or shipped off to the "Colonies." Outside of post-Revolutionary France, at least, they had power and wealth enough, why leave?? 

As regards America's religious history and political and/or social beliefs, Calvinist Puritanism has had a whole hell of a lot more influence than Catholicism ever did...and there was a fair amount of malice in that. Among other things, the KKK was both Anti-Catholic and Anti-Semitic as well as being racist.

We didn't even have a Catholic President until 1961. Yes, the Kennedys were Diversity, such as it was at the time. And the people who pine for that time period, who think RFK Jr. is something, are far more likely to be MAGA Republicans who worship Trump than they are to be Democrats. 

Think about that for a second.

Also, as far as that history is concerned; There's a reason a guy like Malcolm X could say, regarding Black people; "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us." Yet, you want to find a faithful Christian who isn't constantly trying to impose their politics or their religiosity on everybody else? Chances are, a lot of the more noteworthy examples you'll find are Black. For example, think of Barack Obama;

It was right here, in the waters around us, where the American experiment began. As the earliest settlers arrived on the shores of Boston and Salem and Plymouth, they dreamed of building a City upon a Hill. And the world watched, waiting to see if this improbable idea called America would succeed. More than half of you represent the very first member of your family to ever attend college. In the most diverse university in all of New England, I look out at a sea of faces that are African-American and Hispanic-American and Asian-American and Arab-American. I see students that have come here from over 100 different countries, believing like those first settlers that they too could find a home in this City on a Hill—that they too could find success in this unlikeliest of places. ~Barack Obama

There's nothing Biblical, historical, or even natural about this bullshit...let alone about these fucking people's project to do it here...except that they're probably too racist to do try this shit in any Catholic country like, say Mexico or the Philippines where they wouldn't automatically be arrested by the local authorities for trying to undermine the secular government. But most of the heavily practicing-Catholic countries where the actual traditional beliefs thrive also aren't White and if I had to guess that's an important part of this whole goddamn mess.

And I'm here to tell you, if These Fucking People succeed in their quest to break America in half (and undermining secular government is a part of this) the Medieval Catholics are going to shank their Evangelical and Fundamentalist Protestant "Allies" right in the back, and probably a fair number of them will get shot for it too. The only things, functionally, keeping these two groups from killing each other now are the Constitution and a strong legal system. Take that shit away, leave these fucking people living in a banana republic with a weak government (and no military except raggedy-ass militias and whatever crap is provided by the Russians) in parts of the South and the lower Midwest, and guess what? 

The very first thing the religious nuts will do is start jockeying for power...the second is they'll start murdering each other over it. There's a non-zero chance that a rump United States, along with the EU, the United Nations, etc. would have to invade that shit just to make sure that there was people left who could surrender to any invading force. Trust me, I'm somebody who's crawled through the underbelly of American Christianity and who's made the mistake of fucking a couple religious fanatics. You do not ever want to see American Wars Of Religion, let alone have to do Peacekeeping or rebuild after such a thing. There wouldn't be anything left! The only good outcome here is to not let it happen in the first place! If you think their ideal of the Killing Fields with a mall...effectively demonstrated by their response to COVID-19...is nuts, wait until they tell you "It's not the Mark Of The Beast when We do it!"

Look at history, extremist religiosity and a zero-sum mentality is always a bad combination. Our Founders knew that. Europe's wars of religion were still then in living memory. That's why they started the United States as a secular country with a Constitution and did not follow after their European ancestors in establishing a national church that oppressed religious minorities. That's why we have Presidents and not Kings. You don't have to guess at this or need an Archaeologist to figure it out. They said so, they wrote it down, the documents in question still literally exist. You can see this history for yourself and I've made an effort in this life to do so.

And the only reason somebody like Leonard Leo doesn't see the obvious answer here (Hint; It's a "No.") is that he doesn't want to.

But these assholes already started out thinking they know better than Jesus Christ...but that's because they want it to be their Kingdom. Jesus doesn't have one damned thing to do with it.

The whole point of America is Citizenship, not religious belief. We already decided this. That's actually why these fucking people hate America.

Freedom isn't free, and sometimes you have to fight for it.

Слава Україна!

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Four

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13

Who Is Like Unto The Beast?? (Parable Of The Ten Virgins, Four.)

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? ~Revelation 13:4

...

The wind whispers of fear and hate. The war has killed love. And those that confess to the Angkar are punished, and no one dare ask where they go. Here, only the silent survive. ~Dith Pran, The Killing Fields

...

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

I just saw this a little bit ago.

I just have to say, I love how the American news media and the Republican Party have jointly decided that America, the Constitution, and Freedom are all basically outdated. To corporations, religious nuts and various right-wing rich elites, America as it is has simply become inconvenient.

So much for conservatism...you know "Things as they are."

And if they cannot suborn the whole thing...they're going to try and break off a piece. If they can't have Trump as President-For-Life...they'll damned sure have him as an excuse. It's really that simple.

Fuck these motherfuckers.

This is America, you know, that country founded in rejection of dictators and kings and various and assorted capricious rulers...that thrived for so much of its history because it was a nation of Laws, not Men...and because people could predict what the State was going to do with some degree of certainty and the answer was something other than "Hate." 

Put it that way and...well, it's no wonder These Fucking People hate America.

And of course they want American Revelation; That shit had them at "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." Meaning the average person just barely survives, if that, but rich people are unharmed.

I live here. I'm a United States Air Force veteran and I swore an Oath to the Constitution we have. More to the point, I'm not some famous person or rich elite who can imagine that they can count on some bullshit complex equation of privilege, social class and wealth to protect them from dictatorship and fascism if Trump wins...or, far more likely in my view...from the Civil War and privation we're most likely to get and that people like me will suffer the most from if all the trajectories of current events are allowed to continue on their way as they are, and Trump loses. Or if America continues to reject him before there's an election. 

To MAGA, it's all the same shit. If Trump isn't your "God" they want to kill you.

I'm sorry, but I used to be a conservative Christian and I really believed in all that stuff. I'm no more going to bow down and worship a golden idol of Donald Trump (based on upbringing alone) than I am to dance around a fire (in my current physical condition) shouting "Unga Bunga."

And in these fucking people's world, economically, I'm far more likely to end up on the table trussed up like a turkey and covered in Thai Sauce than I am to be seated at it. 

And this is by design, on purpose, with malice aforethought. The world these people want is the Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, but with an Applebee's and a Mall and shit.

You see why I don't have any interest in your bullshit, NYT??

Unlike the New York Times, I didn't make a shitload of money off the Trump years. I spent four years not getting enough sleep because I was up following news and shit all the time, figuring I needed to be aware in case my own government was gonna shank me right in the back.

(And by the way, as a veteran, I'm used to that shit in the best of times. You do the fucking math how it was for me then. The fact that Trump is even being allowed to run again pisses me off to no end.)

Right before the election, I felt like I sensed a lot of bad spirits in the air around us.

After Trump lost, I slept like the dead every day for weeks (I worked Third Shift at the time) and it was to the point I'd set an alarm just to get the ferrets out. I don't want to go through another four years like that. Hell, I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I quit my job, moved, and got another one.

It really is that simple, "Conservatives."

You can have the Cross of Christ, or you can have Golden Idols. You cannot have both. One of these things is not like the other one.

It's like the same fucking people calling Russia a Christian nation as Putin's armies march under the Hammer And Sickle. 

Are people just not seeing this shit??

And worse, the whole reason these fucking people think this about Trump is because he allows and encourages them to be the absolute worst people they can be. There's no higher reasoning, it's not about the internal logic of Christianity or conservatism no longer holding up to scrutiny (although they don't) most of these fucking people don't care about that kind of stuff or even think that damned much.

And that's the fucking problem.

A nation by and for and of The People is only as good as *Checks Notes* The People.

If you want a better nation, you have to be a better citizen.

And this? This ain't that, bro.

Слава Україна!

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13

Three

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Golden Images And Turbulent Priests (Parable Of The Ten Virgins, Three.)

Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
~Daniel 3:14-18

...

“When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water (he cups his hands) and if he opens his fingers then, he needn't hope to find himself again. ~Thomas More, as depicted by Robert Bolt in A Man For All Seasons.

...

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

I just saw this.

Trump is apparently threatening the Maine Secretary of State after Maine became the second state to kick his ass off the ballot in next year's election.

I'm sick of this. Lock Trump Up before he gets somebody killed, or tries to start a Civil War in his name because his bloated narcissistic ego cannot accept that all of America doesn't bow down and worship the shit that falls out of his goddamned stinky ass, let alone the fact that a majority of We The People said "No" and meant it...and that our saying No is beginning to bite, legally.

And yes, before this shit is over Trump will try to instigate a civil war. 

He'll lose, but people will still die unnecessarily...and I maintain that it's very possible that with Russian and other Authoritarianism, Inc. countries' international support, the current state of the United Nations and the rise (again) of fashionable Anti-American "Radical Chic" Tankie-ism since Hamas vs. Israel started up in October (nor the fact that elements of the United Nations and the Russians are balls-deep in supporting Hamas) Trump could very well lose and still get a piece of America for some kind of bullshit Banana Republic via negotiated settlement...like the FLN did in Algeria.

And I'm not going to lie...I don't trust the average safe Blue State liberal, much less all those "Progressives" out there to put their ass on the line to keep America together when it's much easier to just say "Bye, Whore" and "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" so long as it doesn't affect them and whatever Red State groups they care about are allowed to become the Pieds Noirs of the 21st Century. 

Maybe most of the MAGA's get--or are gotten--out of their faces, and I'm afraid those people would call the breakup of America a win, even though that's Vladimir Putin's explicit goal. And considering that Blue State Liberals are often openly willing to throw Red State liberals under the bus when these kind of subjects come up, no, I don't trust them to say "No, we can't abandon Houston, or Jim Clyburn's district in South Carolina, or the Mississippi Delta" or whatever. I just don't.  

And yeah, we'd keep many or possibly even most places in the end...but go ahead, ask the average Berliner my age how they liked growing up surrounded by walls and basically under military administration, I dare you. 

Or ask the average Israeli, or South Korean, or Taiwanese or (now) Ukrainian person. Nobody should have to live X-number of minutes from the possibility of instant death. Note I say this as a United States Air Force Bomb Wing veteran who did that for a while, even if it was a receding possibility at the time. And in a divided America (especially with Trump or somebody like him leading the bad guys) it's gonna be like that for some people.

 Perhaps more appropriately, ask yourself what life might be like for those who get left behind, or who go over to the other side willingly?

These fucking people have already, literally, raised up and worshiped Golden Idols of Donald Trump. Sorry, MAGA's but ya know I already did my time as a borderline-Fundamentalist Christian.

If you wanna go to hell, have at it. I couldn't do that shit, I wouldn't do that shit...and I've been an Agnostic for sixteen years, now, and was on the way out of Christianity for four more before that. I've hated Donald Trump as long as I've been aware of him, and a big part of why is I used to be an actual conservative, and I have a church background, and what part of "Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me" don't you understand??? Doubt isn't a Sin, Idolatry is pretty much the worst one.

So when this dude has the balls to do the online equivalent of saying "Will no one rid me of this troublesome Priest" it really pisses me off.

Murder is a Sin too, whether you're the guy who pulls the trigger or you're the guy who sets it up.

Trump basically thinks he's a god.

And there's dumb motherfuckers out there who believe in this shit so much that they'd kill for Donald Trump, on January 6th, 2021 they already did during the Insurrection.

A hell of a lot of MAGA's and Republicans don't want to live in America, they want to live in the Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia...but with a mall and shit.

And these stupid assholes want to go out and fight the whole damn world for this shit!

You cannot reason with this bullshit. You can only fight against it...and the sooner a lot of us internalize that, the better.

Because that's how more of us stay alive.

I can't put it any more simply than that.

Слава Україна!

The wind whispers of fear and hate. The war has killed love. And those that confess to the Angkar are punished, and no one dare ask where they go. Here, only the silent survive. ~Dith Pran, The Killing Fields

Two

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13

Lost Cause (Parable Of The Ten Virgins, Two.)

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors...

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.

...

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Yesterday, Nikki Haley was asked about the causes of the Civil War by a reporter.

The cause of the Civil War...as explained by the Confederates themselves, in their attempted founding documents and various political speeches and shit at the time...was Slavery. The Antebellum South was a society of Slavers, by Slavers and for Slavers...forced labor and human bondage for profit. And the common free White people in the South at the time were fine with this, even though the slavery system depressed their own wages and devalued their own labor. And all they were offered in return for...fundamentally, submitting to feudalism under our own flag was racism.

You don't need anthropologists, archaeologists, complicated analysis and this, that and the other damn thing to determine this, these fucking people said so, in plain language. They wanted people to know why. There only even was this whole Lost Cause bullshit mythos of courage, honor, and nobility because the sons of bitches lost and because the memory of Slavery and wartime defeat wasn't something most basic white Americans...or even most Southerners, for a good long time, wanted to hear or talk about. 

The South, for most of the post-Civil War 19th century, was considered a violent, backward, impoverished shithole. and then, as now (and for that matter, before the Civil War) negative stereotypes about rednecks or Southerners were very much a thing. I mean, fuck, Dixie...the unofficial Confederate national anthem...was written to make fun of the goddamn South! 

Rehabilitating the image of the Confederacy and of its armies was a multigenerational and mainly early-to-mid-20th century project. They had to wait until most of the Civil War veterans had died off, for reasons that should be obvious. 

Like seriously what the fuck do you think Gone With The Wind was really about??

I'm a lifelong student of Civil War history as was my Dad before me. I don't need Joe Biden to tell me that the Civil War was about Slavery or that Slavery was bad. 

Nikki Haley might be a Republican...but she's of Indian Sikh heritage (which is cool as hell in its own right) and at the time of the US Civil War her ancestors were living under the British Raj or its assorted princely bootlickers in India, she really has no dog in this fight and would have been much better served by simply answering "Really?" or "No Comment" except that a lot of these Republicans are hell-bent on trying to appeal to hard-right assholes and racist motherfuckers who'll never vote for them, no matter what...and won't vote for anybody else as long as Donald Trump is still alive. Like seriously, why the fuck even is there a Republican primary?

What do any of these idiots think they're going to accomplish other than embarrassing themselves??

Not that anybody in the post-shame "We Hate American Because It's Too Liberal" Republican Party even gives a shit about that...or ever will, ever again. That's the one thing they have learned from Donald Trump. 

Civilization depends too much on everybody following the rules, and they just don't want to. 

And everybody from Chris "Please Clap" Christie to Donald Trump himself to Nikki Haley to Vivek RamaRamaDingDing has internalized this and decided "Fuck the rules" but is too chickenshit to say that shit out loud, openly, and without equivocations. Except Trump, who will obfuscate it (badly) by talking a lot, following up his Dictatorship comments with a lot of talk about foolishness and stupidity, and then Republicans and the Media will try and say he doesn't mean it. But Trump doesn't joke, lies poorly and was never that clever. 

He means it.

Republicans want to say it, and want to mean it, or at the very least want to be seen as good little Fascists by the Republican voters...but are desperately afraid that any of the above would mean they don't get invited to the Met Gala next year and they've seen now that the "Society" people mercilessly have kicked Trump-Land to the curb. 

(So they pull this kind of craven shit like Nikki did yesterday and wonder why The Base still hates them?)

You cannot reason with this kind of backstabbing, malicious cowardice, you can only defeat it.

And Nikki Haley involved herself in this shit not by culture or heritage (which I might violently disagree with, but from a historical perspective as an American it's at least a thing I can find to be understandable) but simply because she's too much of a coward to say "No" despite a reasonable case in terms of family history for doing so...and trust me, she could have done it and made herself be seen as more conservative.

Because she fears what a mob of racist Southerners will do to her already nonexistent Presidential campaign more than she respects her own self.

And this is what Republicans are now, there is no more "Lost Cause" than the Republican Party. That's with or without...but especially without...Trump.

Even those running against him won't say shit against the racism that is the one thing Trump really does stand for.

When somebody tells you who they are, believe them.

If you think these motherfuckers who won't even stand up for the American experiment at the most minimal level of saying "Slavery Was Bad" (thus defending how it was saved the first time) would say something disparaging about civil war, ethnic cleansing, killing fields, the sundering of the United States into multiple political polities or the establishment of a fascist Neo-Confederacy (itself almost certainly a Russian satellite-state) in part of the former USA...you have another damn thing coming. They'd rather live in darkness than see everybody get a bit of America to show for having lived here and contributed to our civilization.

Open your eyes, before we sleepwalk right into American Revelation and the judgment of God for all the shit we've done...which will include questions about Slavery.

Pro-tip, Nikki, trying to bullshit God ends badly.

Слава Україна!

One

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13

Demon-Haunted Worlds (Parable Of The Ten Virgins, One.)

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Generation Of Swine.

...

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

I just saw this a little while ago.

Some motherfucker refused to accept his transgender daughter, citing his "Christianity" and she ended up hospitalized for Depression.

Whoever this dude is, they're a Christian like I'm a damn Chrome-plated toaster and don't you forget it.

Not that you'd know that "Love Thy Neighbor" is supposed to be the basis of Christianity from looking at the Christians these days. If you ask me, it's all fake bullshit.

A vast majority of these fucking people are simple-ass Patriarchal, Prosperity "Gospel"-believing folk-religionists whose ancestors found it expedient to adopt (and then not to teach) an outward form of the beliefs and terminologies of Christianity. These fucking people, however, got tired of worshiping basically nothing (except maybe themselves) and are desperate for a "god" that they can see, and thus "believe" in...for an idol to worship, because that's not what belief even is. They believe in Angels and Demons, endless Conspiracy Theories and "Magic" in a sort of stupid primitivistic Supernaturalism that basically thinks all that shit out of D&D is real and that people are gay because of demons and shit. 

The sick part here is, these fucking people want to live in a Demon-Haunted World. Carl Sagan had it right.

Worse, all that's sort of slowly combining with Internet Horseshit to form a weird synthesized form of Techno-Gnosticism driven, as much as anything, by the sheer narcissism of racist Calvinism-inflected billionaire assholes like Elon Musk and assorted Silicon Valley tech bros who are in an endless quest to try and reinvent the wheel for basically no goddamned reason other than trying to force the Universe to generate an endless narcissistic hand-job to keep jacking off their egos forever.

Trouble is, a lot of rural White American Idiots look at this and go "Sign me up!" simply because they don't know anything, either.

And there's not one damned thing in their church community or whatever inner life they might happen to have that either gives them a sense of anything greater than themselves nor even the desire to look for such a thing.

They already think they know everything worth knowing, because that's what their small, vengeful religion says they do and they're trained to confuse confirmation bias with intelligence, anyway, so why even bother??

And then you wonder why these motherfuckers look at people like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin like they're hot shit??

Same fucking people are so addicted to bloody-minded fury, instant-gratification "Solutions" and learned helplessness after generations of having that crap shoved down their throats that it simply doesn't compute to a lot of them that they even have agency or could make their own lives better. And yes, this was done by various rich bad actors over generations in the hope that people like Putin and Trump would arise, gain power and then be able to be manipulated by said bad actors.

And all you, the average working White American, get out of the deal is endless fear, LGBT-phobia and a little racism...or some combination of Alcohol, Cigarettes and pop-culture distractions and escapism.

(And of course, who owns all that shit?)

Like, what's the upside here for anybody who doesn't have a higher net-worth than some small countries??

We're probably lucky that Putin and a bunch of the other power-mad pigs bit off more than they could chew when Putin invaded Ukraine...a lot of the sense of inevitability of these fucking people's program died on those battlefields.

Likewise a decade ago, people thought Elon Musk would die having colonized and been elected the President of Mars. Now he'll be known forever as the guy who trashed Twitter and flushed $44 BILLION down the toilet, and as the guy whose 100-years-out-of-date contempt for best practices, labor laws and quality control let the entire *Checks Notes* rest of the conventional auto industry pull way ahead and beat him at his own game.

People in the future will study this period of the absolute debasement of everything and wonder just how the hell it took so long for everybody to get sick of this shit and why so many of us fiddled while half the world burned, saying "Fuck you, pay me."

Or, ya know, we could stop listening to patriarchal assholes, rich morons and transphobic dick-bags and actually support the young people forging something new or maybe even just trying to be themselves?

Just a thought.

If people cannot be bothered to Love Thy Neighbor...or even their own child...what makes them think they'll even recognize Jesus when he comes back and doesn't look like a rich white man or tell them what they want to hear??

If there's anything at all to anything that the Bible and a bunch of the other holy books say, a lot of people are in for a big surprise, and they ain't going to like what happens.

Слава Україна!

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Last Post

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13