Category Archives: family

The Mental Ferment for Men (and Women) who Might Foment an American Revolution: Part Four

In the previous three parts of this posting I have, in very brief form, showed that our system of governance is neither so honest about many of its basic principles, so true to its heritage nor  so worthy in its administration that a revolution is out of the question.  In general there is a rule that if one is going to go a distance in political action which is beyond the norm and involves risk then it is actually less risky to undertake greater changes than are absolutely necessary (without going too far) because a society that does so will have to risk fewer constitutional transformations and is more likely to live long and prosper than is one which must go back twice as  often to those borderlands of “the state of nature” where constitutional changes are created. So I propose the elements of this fourth section as reasonable and perhaps in a certain sense necessary but not as minimalist unavoidable necessities. These are changes which cannot be undertaken lightly. The new regime I have laid out for our consideration reasserts a more affirmative social structure which would enable many social problems to be addressed more directly and comprehensively than in our current society. It is a white supremacist constitution obviously but it also redistribute wealth in the form of public lands transfer from States, counties, municipalities and the federal government to non white constitutional jurisdictions. Further, these lands would also be comprised disproportionately of lands seized in tax  and other actions –thus while not all lands in the new Jurisdictions would be owned by the new Juris dictions much of the land in many of them would be. Some would be restricted in use but much would be available for sale into the private sector and lease. In addition while I favor cutting off programs to elevate these racial groups into the middle class within the states, cutting off the cost of integrating schools (without allowing public schools to be de jure 100% segregated either), cutting off the cost of imprisoning the unemployed and hopeless masses caused in part by many of our social polices I would create a single simple rule. Half of one percent of all revenues of any State government would go to aid programs for the needy in all of its neighboring non-State  Constitutional Jurisdictions and one and a half percent of all state revenues will be divided among the capital improvement programs of all neighboring non-State Constitutional Jurisdictions. The Federal Government would also be obliged to fulfill ten percent of all its contracts from non-State Jurisdictions. In addition to this there would be the horse-trading aspects of the legislative and electoral process and the access to the military among other forces to promote greater racial equality. However, There would also be a countervailing system of set-asides to accentuate the social structure. There would be some few named high offices only available to State citizens, a citizen of a Possession could not rise above the rank of Colonel in the US military and no citizen of a Territory could rise above the rank of a two star general. The residents of Colored Districts in States could not stand for election to any statewide elected office and State Citizens of the North East Asian Districts of a State could not succeed another such citizen as governor or chief magistrate nor serve more than two total terms nor could they hold more than one US Senate Seat from any state for more than one year.  These things are controversial, But they are nothing compared to where I am headed in this part of this posting.  I am so far pressed by what I view as extreme circumstance to urge these changes. The writing and declaring of these goals and opinions is more likely to do irrevocable harm to me and to what little reputation and fortune I may still have than they are to result in the achievement of the objectives described.  

So in the first three parts I suggested the creation of Censors and Electors for Life, the expansion and transformation of the Congress of the United States and the redrawing of the map to include Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands as well as creating fourteen new Territories and seventeen new Possessions. Those are radical changes to which I added the Major Compacts and Minor Compacts with their governments and new zones on the map as well. Much more ambitious change than is ever proposed by anyone serious.  A working out of the details of the Governments of the Major Compacts begins to push us into the changes that really go against the flow of events in our Union for a very long time. The Major Compacts should be governed by an Executive and Judical Board (and of which I will only mention here that these Boards will have equally voting seats and only a few members and that the Elector for Life of the Compact will be one of those seated) to which we shall return and a Compact Legislature which we have already begun to discuss. Compact Legislatures would be formed by A Council of Nobles in the Upper Chamber and a Compact Assembly in the Lower Chamber. Half the seats of the Lower Chamber will be filled from the Roll of Kindreds for the Compact but the means of filling those seats shall be diverse including both wide and limited elections, random selection among all Family Associations, ex-officio seats in the Roll’s Administration, rotation among family associations and seats auctioned off to qualified family associations. The other half of the seats in the lower chamber will be appointed by the legislatures of all member Constitutional Jurisdictions in the Compact.  The Upper Chamber should be a Council of Nobles divided more or less into three blocks composing 25% of the seats each and two blocks composing 12.5% of the seats each. The three larger blocks would be the Ordinary Nobility, the Nobility of the Sword and the Nobility of the Robe.  The two smaller blocks would be the Nobility of the Chamber and the Nobility of the Games.  All seats would vote equally and each Major Compact would in its charter state with clarity the manner in which each block seats it members but all those entitled to sit in a block are to be subject to a process of changing ratios — in other words the number of Nobles of a type may change but the number of seats will be constant. No more seats will be added unless added to all blocks according to their proportion and approved by the entire legislature. Leave the Ordinary Nobility aside for now except to say  a portion of these seats will go to Chiefs of the Name certified by the Roll of Kindreds and to other familial leaders of similar rank so certified. The Nobility of the Sword will be all general officers and retired general officers in the militaries of the member Constitutional Jurisdictions in the Compact and all those of the Rank of Colonel or higher in the US military.  Nobility of the Robe will be made up of high-ranking academics, clerics and judiciary officials as described in the Charter of each Compact. The Nobility of the Chamber will be made up of the Governors or other chief political executives and their immediate inferiors as well as leader of the legislative chambers of all Jurisdictions and any and all US Senators, Tribunes and Censors from member Jurisdictions of the Compact. The Nobility of the Games will be made up of the Olympic Medalists from the Compact as well as other who have been elected or selected from among lists of other types of competitive champions. Despite the name this would not only includes athletics and Games but other competitions as well.  Later in this posting I will return to a special function of this chamber alone.     

Now I have gotten to the final part of my four-part posting on the American Revolution.  If the revolutionary changes described up until this point were carried out in the context of an American Revolution that would create a much stronger and more just country than we have today. Such changes are vastly out of sync with what is discussed and proposed in Washington and in most of the United States of America as political options.  However, I think that I general our Founding Fathers  and the responsible leaders among the Revolutionary leaders thought that in time our republic ought to evolve into an Empire but that it should do so in a good and free way (they never equated freedom and democracy). I assert (AND YES I AM ABSOLUTELY SERIOUS ABOUT THE GENERAL THRUST OF THIS ALTHOUGH IN LIFE AND WRITING I AM SOMETIMES KNOWN FOR SARCASM) that the next large constitutional transformation of this society ought to be into an empire. I propose that this reconstitutionalized country should have two official names “The United States of America” and “The Federal American Empire of the United States”.

Eventually my proposal for a transition from Republicanism to Royalism will have to have a separate post on “American Royalism” or “Fulfilling Plans of Empire” that are not part of this blog post in four parts with deals with new revolutionary change in and of itself.  The mere basics can be mentioned here but all of the votes I propose would still exist, the federalism would still exist, the Censors and Electors for Life would exist as described. The Electors for Life would now elect the Emperor as well if we went all the way to royalism. Yes, an elected Emperor could be fully royal. The Holy Roman Emperor was elected, the Pope ( who is a Royal Monarch of an odd kind) is elected, the Kings of England before the Norman Conquest were elected, The King of Poland in recent centuries was elected,  Numerous Royal Chiefs and High Kings of Scotland and Ireland have been elected. There is also this dirty little secret which doubtless the United Kingdom would feel the need to deny if this were an official US document — QUEEN ELIZABETH’S FATHER AND PRINCE PHILIP’S GRANDFATHER WERE BOTH ELECTED KINGS. Thus if Charles become King of England then he will have a grandfather and a great-grandfather who were elected kings of different countries.  However this system would be like the Holy Roman Empire and Poland and the Pope and ancient England in that the elections would be regular and a matter of course not exception.

There would be a change in the title of the Executive elected every four  years and some of his powers and duties would be reduced but mostly the Emperor would fill a different role. Emperor would have a fulsome executive power over a central governance outside the Constitutional Jurisdictions and the Federal government per se. Even this government would have two broad types of land in its sway. First, the District of Columbia and the Federation of Compact Zones  would be  in the Direct Imperial Government category along with a substantial one time grant of lands currently owned by the Federal Government and administered by the federal Land Management bureaucracy.  This would consist of several components all governed under the same and independent body of law and procedure. However, this law and  procedure would acknowledge yet another subdivision of  the lands involved there would be the Fiefdoms made up of lands bought or granted from the Federal governments and State Governments and organized as estates of various kinds.  There would be a seventy-five yard band of Royal Fiat Zone around the land borders of every Territory and ten percent of its coastal boundaries that would be added to the lands taken from the States where these are created from State Lands. The  same basic rule would apply to the Possessions except that these would be one hundred and fifty yards wide. These interior bands would occur along with another set of lands.   In addition to these  buffers between constituencies  there would be a cession  of bands of five hundred yards to Royal Fiat Zones along all land borders between the United States and Mexico as well as between the United States and Canada. There would also be a cession of the same band width for ninety percent of each State’s riverine borders and fifty percent of each state’s Great Lakes borders with these countries and where the States retained coastal lands they would grant a very extensive Continuity Right of Way for infrastructure projects. There would only be a small base granted on Texas’s  southern Gulf Coast some where near the end of its land border  with Mexico.  For those living outside of either the Direct Imperial Government lands or the Royal Fiat Zone the Emperor would not rule or govern very much but rather he would reign and be Head of State while operating a few bureaucracies and a serving as Judiciary of Last Resort for the Federal system.    He would appoint the Special Vice President  for each Major Compact who would preside over the Executive and Judicial Board of each Compact.  Each Executive and Judicial Board would be composed of the Speaker of each chamber of the Compact Legislature, the Elector for Life for the Compact and the Commander of the Compact’s Cavalry Honor Guard. There is a lot which will be left out of this post about a royalist regime but one thing that must be addressed for such a post as this to be in any way genuine as a serious piece of revolutionary literature which is what I intend it to be. To do this  I need to discuss the royalist tradition which is relevant in America and tied to America. 

In the empirically unlikely event that the United States converts to a royalist system within a short time the Monarch if they are to be in any very good sense a Monarch and in any very good sense both royal and royalist will have a lot to do in terms of creating and restoring, both renewing and establishing royal and royalist culture. Hawaii can certainly still be restored to a royalist culture it can both influence a new regime and it can be influenced to conform to the New regime. Using the Councils of Nobles which I have mentioned the ideal Ordinary Nobility would be a mix of new titles and some renewed from worthy preserver of such color of right to those titles  as French, English, Spanish and other powers have left in good families of committed Americans upon our shores.  However, while I am constrained by space and unable to really do a decent job of presenting these ideas I am going to suggest that there is a royal line, tradition and apparatus which has pre-eminent claim to an American Empire for many reasons and that is the Arcadian — Acadian royal line.

This line is almost entirely unknown for a variety of reasons. There is a great deal to take in and almost no chance to weave it in coherently in this post. Yet it is imperative that we try to do so.      

the first really key point is that the real roots of the American Revolution occurred in a larger colonial context.  I am going to recommend a book that does not declare ( as I do here and now) that the Acadian expulsion (loosely described in Longfellow’s epic poem Evangeline)  were a principal cause of and stimulus to the American revolution.  But it does show the connections of this event to the revolutionary ferment in a broad contest. In this regard I recommend Leach’s book.  http://www.amazon.com/Roots-Conflict-Colonial-Americans-1677-1763/dp/0807842583#noop 

Secondly, I want to show that the destruction of Acadie was a large and significant act. That it had everything to do with creating a British profile and character the Americans could distrust and that in their early history the Acadians had both elements the Americans were eager to restore to their experience of the British Constitution and also the chivalric and aristocratic values which I argue that we need to restore today. In which regard there is a recent book by John Mack Faragher:  http://www.amazon.com/Great-Noble-Scheme-Expulsion-Acadians/dp/0393051358  to understand the British view of how great and wealthy a land the Acadians had created and how eager they were to have its wealth for themselves.  The Acadian experience is deeply tioed to the American experience as a whole.

Two men whom I know (one much better than the other and neither all that well) have also written books that are relevant to this theme and discussion Carl A. Brasseaux has written The Founding of the New Acadia and Acadian to Cajun.  Meanwhile Warren Perrin has handled the appeal for the Apology from the Queen of England and Scotland and has discussed this journey and its partial success in the book Acadian Redemption. Le Grand Derangement or the Great Upheaval brought Acadians to all parts of the Thirteen Colonies before they were settled in Louisiana successfully in 1765 by the King Joseph Broussard Dit Beausoleil. During their scattering they did not get on well with the general population and there times were sad and bad mostly. But that does not mean that they did not have a powerful influence in turning the minds of their fellow North American Colonists against the English Government.  Even if it had only been the example of their suffering they would be the most likely true proximate cause of the Revolutionary ferment in America. But in fact we know they had vast network of communications and logistics with which they reassembled small groups of survivors from many parts of the world to found the New Acadia in South Louisiana. Res ipsa loquitur — the thing speaks for itself and although they have been cheated of that recognition and sought to conceal it just as they have been cheated and concealing of many other things  the American Revolution is profoundly tied to and rooted in the Acadian experience and expulsion. It can also play a role in the new American Revolution if it comes.

 In the Acadian Constitution is the resource for a royalist Empire that is truly American the Kings of the Acadians are not directly mentioned as such in any of these books but the Basileus Arkadion (or Arkadios) is elected from those most eligible in a complex line of succession. Tests of merit, election and heredity are all required. The Arcadian Bouletherion would have to be fully and openly re-established but it has in its ancient history been hybridized. They would supply the majority of electors but the US Electors for Life and other Peer Electors could also vote. Thus Americans as a whole would always have some voice in their Sovereign’s selection without doing violence to his tradition which would be very difficult to achieve anywhere else from existing options. The Keys to the Line of the Basileus Arkadios have always been known to very few as have the remnant of Acadian government in the Ethnos Arkadios (or Arcadian Tribe translated fully into English). These elements of Comites, Ridelles, Courires, Loups Garous, Gran Famille and Prince Chef de Gran Famille are very seldom mentioned by anyone. They are almost ignored in the public works of the Acadian Renaissance in recent decades. Nonetheless the Acadian royalist system might still be saved to come to America’s aid should it desire a royalist system. There is no European descended culture more North American than the Acadian and Cajun culture.  The Acadian system would also have some of the advantages of cost from both systems. In a royalist system the cost is contained if it works properly because a few facilities and people are paid  a lot for their role and this is not done away with so that over time one build up great capital with limited expense in royal hands. Ina republican system costs are contained over time if it works well because standards are lower for all the executive accoutrements. In Acadian lines since 1604 no great fortune has ever been in Kingly hands ( nor for hundreds of years before by the terms of European Royalty) and Arcadian and Spartan royals were often austere in the mists of time’s long past. This has not usually been so much deliberates it has been part  of the historic reality. Nonetheless, compared to other precedents one could bring to a truly Imperial USA this set of traditions has  the most apparent low price tag.

The Titles of the Emperor would include “Emperor, Supreme President and Extraordinary Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America”. Among the perquisites of the Emperor he would have the White House as his Imperial residence. Some duties of the current Presidency would go to him but many would remain in the hands of an official to be titled “First and Executive Vice President, ordinary Commander-in-Chief and High Imperial Political Minister” of the United States of America”. This person would become a Censor on retirement by right, would have a Deputy First Vice President elected on his ticket and doing many of the same things in the same ways as the current Vice President. The First and Executive Vice President  would reside in the Naval Observatory and would have a country residence as well provided by his office.    The Emperor should be part of a royal house and an imperial house but should be elected by a conclave and this conclave would include all of the ninety-four Electors for Life already described as well as an entirely random selection of a standard size Grand Jury of US citizens and Forty Peer Electors not guaranteed to be part of the Elections of the eight-year President. These Peer Electors would be seated in the Electoral College should the eight-year President not be elected on the second ballot.  They would vote for three more ballots before the Presidency would pass to the House of Representatives. The Peer Electors would include the long secret Princely Chiefs of the Acadians — The Prince Boulet, The Prince Theriot, The Prince Broussard, The Prince Mouton and The Prince Leblanc as well as some more tenuous titles new to the Regime in the form they would take but tied to the Acadians. They would include the King or Queen of Hawaii but they would largely include scions of old families with claims who were selected for this special honor partly because given their claims they had agreed to conform to the Acadian three-part succession system of heredity trials of merit and election. They would also include some key leader of religious, academic and at least one Masonic organization who have played a large role in the Republican era and have the qualities to pass things on with a title over generations. 

This essay is open to thousands of instances of many kinds  attack and has little chance of success if not attacked. Yet it is my heartfelt opinion that its four parts provide the best map of a way forward. I also believe doing nothing is always making a very big set of big and small choices that can be costly.

Slacking Off and Carrying On

I am not sure whether I am winding down this blog or just going through a period where I post fewer blog entries.  I am sure that I am slacking off  a bit and am not too concerned about it. However, in general I honor and encourage both industry and enthusiasm. I am therefore  posting a Facebook about perseverance and the triumph over apathy even as I myself may be a bit more apathetic than usual.

 Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at 10:05am | 
We have all had days when we felt like staying in bed all day. Those of us who are privileged enough to spend time on Facebook probably have at least come close to spending a day in bed feeling weary and sorry for ourselves. A great deal of modern culture tends to make us feel that life spent doing whatever we can to make ourselves comfortable is a life well spent. So why not just stay in bed?

Of course in theory many of us will starve if we don’t get out of bed. But while a minority of people get paid for staying in bed in some sense or another — none of us (that I know of) get paid much just for getting out of bed. Still, we sort of know that our survival chances are statistically better if we get out of bed. Is it that statistical analysis which gets folks out of bed in the morning?

Staying in bed is at worst a very low risk and low pain way of channeling self destructive tendencies. In bed we find time to think and dream of a path to a better future. So why not just stay in bed?

Doctors have given orders for complete bed rest a vast number of times in history. If such behavior was right for their patients why not for us this morning?

There are serious cases of torture and homicide that go unreported, a worldwide web of unregulated slavery, land being deforested and turned to desert, species disappearing and millions of people starve. Very few of us will effectively address these problems in whatever it is we do each day. On the other hand in our bed we may feel we are doing nobody much harm. If we are fortunate, we may either have the consolations of the newlywed or at least the memory of such consolations in our beds. Why not just stay in these havens and burn less fuel moving around?

I have a pretty dark view of the world over all and I feel largely unable to help those I care about to make a better passage through this cruel world, Yet I am not in bed as I type this. If I listed all the bad things I have found waiting for me in the non-bed cosmos it would make this a book instead of a note. Yet out of bed I roll.

I think a lot of us get out of bed, pay taxes, work, get married, go to worship services, vote and shave because, whether we are Christians or not we sort of believe the teaching that hope is a theological virtue. We sort of know that humans are meant to try, to struggle, to love and to laugh even in the darkest times. We sort of hum along to songs like “Anyway” sung by Martina Mcbride, “The Impossible Dream” from Man from La Mancha and even tunes as different as Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” and George Michael’s “Gotta have Faith”. We may not see very many good options but we proceed not only out of fear or inertia but partly out of courage.

I believe that in every human I have met there is a bit of a fool, an oaf, a coward and a scoundrel. I have known lots of people I would readily identify as very bad folks. Yet I would encourage you to remember that next time you drag yourself out of bed to meet the challenges of the day you have my vote for hero of the day. Likely at least part of what gets you going every morning is that part of you which is a hero self daring to do the right regardless of the cost. It probably isn’t most of who you are, but if your first thought is usually “Arrghuuuuhhhhhmmmm–****—moorning” then maybe remembering the hero in there will help a little bit. I bet he or she is right there somewhere pushing those feet to the floor.

End of Facebook Note–

I wish all of ye few, ye brave, ye proud — ye readers — a good day out in the big world. I am feeling weary but am still sort of here.

Thanksgiving Thursday Round-up…

1.Monday I had Sarah, Kevin, Anika and Soren as well as my nephew Eli (Mary’s son)  over for a large thankful dinner. I really enjoyed it.

2. Mom, Dad, Alyse, Joseph, Brooke, Simon and many others are celebrating the Family Missions Company Thanksgiving down in General Cepeda, Coahuila, Mexico.

3. Sarah, Kevin, Anika and Soren are down in Pensacola, Florida with Kevin’s family who are reuniting with a son of Kevin’s brother whom they never knew before recently.

4. I went by my maternal grandfather’s house and my maternal aunt Rachel’s houses yesterday for a Thanksgiving Day related visit.

5. Yesterday’s post on this blog gives some ideas and thought about the history of this holiday.

6. I sent out 41 e-cards for the holiday yesterday and my first response was from my dear niece Alyse.

7. Some notes about the holiday:

i. Most Roman Catholic missalettes have a mass for Thanksgiving Day in the missa of readings, antiphons and themes on the datel even though it is not quite an utterly official holiday in this Council of Bishops domain but it has often been proposed and much of the basic work has been done. It is complicated.

ii.The Thanksgiving Day Macy’s Parade, Advertising for Black Friday sales, two NFL football games on TV, and the National Dog Show (not the Westminster) are traditions to many people.

iii. The menu at Plymouth is the general inspiration for many regional, familial and personal repertoires from which individual meals are drawn. In my experience this is what the repertoire in the Acadian region of Louisiana more or less:

Turkey (with cranberry sauce), ham, rice dressing,  corn bread dressing, potato salad, some kind of congealed or frozen or fruit salad (or several), vegetable casserole, yam or sweet potato casserole covered with marshmallows,  pecan pie and pumpkin pie. Not all tables have all these things and many tables will have an additional set of family specialties but these are the core.

 iv.People pray for the members of the Armed Forces and often listen to some Christmas music on this day at some point. 

 8. I hope to be eating Thanksgiving Dinner with my Dad’s family who are gathered in force.

9. I will try to reach my other family members by phone.

10. For a good number of my non-American friends I am the main reminder they have that there is a Thanksgiving Day.  

Have a Happy Thanksgiving Day!

A hard day!

I got up this morning at three forty a.m. to help my mother and I to get ready for the drive to the Lafayette Regional Airport in the rain. There was a storm and so I was glad that I had bought a new wiper blade last night although I had to install it in a light rain. The storm coming in the high pressure winter weather that preceded it has caused me a lot of pin in my joints — especially my feet. I just received an e-mail that my mother made it safely all the way to her destination in Mexico. I am grateful and happy for that.

However, I am not doing so well otherwise. I did minimum chores at slow speed and some will have stacked up as to-do items for the coming days. I am feeling better but still pretty rotten as joint pain goes. My big “treat”  was to watch LSU play and they lost in a close game to Ole Miss.

This was not a day that was very bad but it was a very hard day anyway. So I hope for a better one tomorrow. I just hope to get through the rest of this one today.

The Ananias Project: Good Music, Creative Artistry

I did a post a while back in which I mentioned the Ananias Project. To see that post go to: https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/a-jambalaya-round-up-or-potpouri-post/ That October 19, 2009 post was the first of my round-ups which have since become a regular feature of this blog.  Because it was only one of several items I can reproduce everything I said about it here.

” 9. My brothers and brother-in-law (and some other people without the good taste to be my relatives) have come out with a CD I believe is titled ”The Ananias Project”. I have not heard it but I know all of them have made beautiful music and I have enjoyed it. One of the best guitar riffs I ever heard was two of them playing together. I wish them well. You can order here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ananiasproject  I hope that I did not promise WordPress not to publish commercial links, I did not really read the contract. ”

As of today I have still not heard the exact disk which you will get if you order it from CD-Baby. However, I did get to listen to one of the production studio CDs that was mostly complete.  I was impressed at what a unique musical experience it was there was live recording from several  places where Family Missions Company Missionaries have served which added color and depth to the many original pieces of music.  The raps and intros had a lot of personal feel and universal quality.  Their was a wide range of musicality and it showed that these are people serious about music who have other real connections that empower their vibe.

This is religious, spiritual and Christian but I think anyone could appreciate the work with a certain attitude and be glad to have this piece in your collection. You may not  have heard of Joseph Summers, Kevin Granger and Sarah Summers Spiehler Granger or Sheila Aggresta or any of the others on these tracks but you can hear the fact that there is quite a bit of both musical training and popular audience experience in these digits your machine is reading.

One of the things that impressed me the most is that these artists and especially my brother-in-law Kevin Granger did much of the mixing, equalizing, editing and production. In my opinion much of the CD is extraordinary in its perfection.

There is a sense of a debut album by people not on a big label — although some members have had there CDs distributed before under various names but this is not raw. It is Christian Indie and contemporary fusion folk in a post deconstructionist milieu but it is not amateurish. These people have gone surely where they wished to go. We must now see if they  can connect with the listeners who connect with their music and art.

America after the Fort Hood Shooting: Real Change?

I think that in the context of the economic crisis of recent months, the huge undocumented population, the high level of the  corruption in the current regimes and the lack of leadership as many people see these things. My question is, “If we were to somehow move towards radical change what changes should we consider?’ I think that the Confederate and the Revolutionary periods are both important founts of inspiration for many discontented people. However, I suppose I want to broaden the dialog to include some influences which are the least likely to be seriously considered. I want to address the royalist tradition.  
I am drawn to including this Facebook  Note for a variety of reasons. I am drawn to it because of my feeble attempts to promote the recognition of heroism on the part of Kimberly Munson.  I am drawn to the subject because one of the networks had a  presentation of the Prince and Me trilogy of movies.   Further, I have been commenting on the relationship of the UK and other members to the European Union and the way that shapes other complex and diverse relationships across the planet ands the future of all things human.  The note I am including in this blog post is about royalism and royalty.
In the Facebook context it was posted after many other posts that did a better job of leading up to the message and measure of this note because those posts had more to say about the royalty of Jesus and about both ancient Arcadian and modern Acadian royalty than I have posted so far on this WordPress blog. But this is a time in my life when I am not as concerned with a perfectly coherent presentation as I have been at times in the past.  So I am including this post without all due preparation of ye few, ye brave, ye readers of my little blog. Another reason I may be writing this post now is that the New Orleans Saints have just won their eighth game in a row and they hold up the banner of the Fleur de Lis which has been a symbol of all French Royalty, of Bourbon Royalty and of the Acadian Royal Line as well. So read ahead if you wish, My Facebook Note. 
 Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 9:02pm |
My brother graduated on May 17, 2009. He was my last sibling who could earn a degree ( I have a different brother who is mentally handicapped and cannot earn any college degree ). John Paul graduated. Next month he will marry the young woman he loves. We took a picture of John Paul, myself, my mother, my brother Joseph, my sister Mary and her husband Chris who all graduated from (USL) UL-L. I was the first, then Mom, then Mary & Chris close in time, then Joseph and then John Paul. My sister Sarah and took the picture. She and I each have a degree from LSU, she got her bachelors there and I got my masters degree there. I think of all the young people pouring out into the economy. According to a huge variety of people who claim to know something we are in an economic crisis. I think that more and more people are acknowledging that we also have long-term economic problems related to wasting the earth. This year’s university and college graduates in America nad many other countries have done what they could to get where they are and did not choose the time of their birth. They hope for the best and yet perhaps are entering one of the worst job markets to exist in a very, very long time.

What a challenge that is for all of them. I also listened to Barack Obama’s speech at the Notre Dame Commencement. I listened to it on delayed broadcast on one of the C-SPAN networks, C-SPAN 2 I think. It was a good speech if I had not already hardened into an adversarial position and point of view towards President Obama then I think it would have gotten him substantial good will from me. However, it at least did not do anything to increase ill-will or hostility on my part. He seemed to offer the kind of olive branch to pro-lifers which actually has some value when it comes from a president. The abolition of the conscience clause by the FOCA bill had it been passed would have morally justified civil war and revolution ( that would not have happened but it would have been morally justified). Obama said words which if he were not lawyer and politician speaking in public would fairly be taken as an assurance not to abolish the clause which allows health care workers not to perform abortions for reasons of conscience and pro-life institutions not to provide them as one of their scheduled services. Whatever happens in the future in itself it seemed a speech aimed at not providing occasion and justification for new hates and new rage.

Since I do not feel compelled to use this Facebook Note in venting new and justified hateful criticism against President Obama I will use it to discuss briefly an economic point of view which is a fundamental attack on the idea that the Market and the State itself are the only arbiters of economic life and exchange. I am going to explain true and pure royalism as it defines its ideals of that ideology’s most vital institutions — the Court and the House. Explaining them I will not get to the advocacy of a specific plan to make them real. In this case I am reminded of what many capitalist leaders quoted from a financial sage when Russia began to move into post Soviet reality. The rather articulate money man expressed his view of the problem this way “It is easier to turn an aquarium into fish soup than to turn fish soup into an aquarium”. But of course fish populations can produce several soups and soup once consumed is simply shit and used up energy. The capitalist world is also dead from a royalist point of view. But it is also possible to resurrect it just as the post-Soviet money man was trying to resurrect capitalism. A king or royal sovereign need not and usually does not in any meaningful way own everything in the realm. Discussing the property of a royal sovereign is too much for this note but I will merely insist that it is a complex subject admitting of much variety from realm to realm. However in a very non capitalist way the King or royal sovereign does dominate the economic life of the court and less so but still the royal house. It is remarkable how maintaining a court tends to increase a variety of forms of economic flow and exchange. It is amazing how it tends to strengthen family fortunes and family small businesses. It is amazing how cheap even the finer courts are when one considers competing ways of maintaining a national symbol and making a global impression. It is amazing how they can appeal to the Few and the Many.

I personally should state clearly that I perceive my own economic failures as and lacks as being more massive than I can easily describe or believe sometimes. Yet despite that I am willing to write about economics for a variety of reasons. I think I have spent a lot of effort because evolution requires more energy than entropy.

The time we live in is a time of economics. It is an age of economics. The last twenty years perhaps have seen a resurgence of other issues and ways of being. However, capitalism, communism, socialism, National Socialism, most of fascism and other American political oddities like “Silverism” and “Free Soilism” are defined and define themselves mostly in economic terms. In the Philippines the Federation of Free Farmers, The Grange in the USA, the Priest-Worker Movement in France, the (original not the current) Green Revolution and a variety of population related movements have had broad social agendas like the macroeconomic systems listed above. But they viewed the road to social transformation was and is seen in economic terms by most in such groups. Writing of roads is especially evocative for me today because I live out in the country and the significant highway between my home and my hometown is currently closed while they work on the small bridge nearby. So I am taking a much longer route real country back roads. It costs me quite a bit in time and money. However, it is not philosophically troubling for me to endorse the idea that people and governments should repair and maintain bridges. I just have to put up with any inconveniences that are necessary for that to occur in a reasonable way and with reasonable dispatch.

So in a similar way we all can develop enough civic virtue to accept some of those activities which we see as necessary in an economy even when there is a present inconvenience to us. When the relationship between selfishness and civic virtue is such that people no longer accept the necessary real and metaphorical bridge repairs in their economy then a society is doomed to some very bad and relatively immediate trouble. That is perhaps a difficult to evaluate but very certain social litmus test.

I think that for me there is always a range of demands for which long-term investment, plain old gambling and paying off old debts is appropriate. However, there is always a balance with one’s own immediate needs and the immediate needs of one’s dependents. Society must recognize that individuals and families are well positioned to perceive their needs and to meet them. Society must also see that family and individual interests are very important because a starving, poorly housed, uneducated and ill transported mass of individuals and families form a weak and pathetic society. Such people may have great moral capital after losing a just war or after some unforeseeable catastrophe but one cannot applaud the continuance such a state of affairs from many morally viable point of view. The great strength of some economic systems we have abandoned is that they maintained certain foci of continuous economic stimulus through good times and bad. Enduring spark plugs and repair shops existed not affected much by quarterly earnings.

One of my great interests in life is ancient Greek political science. This science is based on the idea of the role and characters of the One, the Few and the Many. In a very much less significant way they also studied the role of the All and the None. These would be basic components of society. I want to discuss these components and their functions a bit in economic terms in this Facebook Note. The One or monarch had the role in the ideal state of preserving those parts of the economy which were most needed and useful to the Few for the Few and likewise what was useful for the Many for the Many. There were tides and changing balances but not as frequent catastrophe as in an unmixed democracy.

Monarchy and royalism are two different things but they are somewhat related things. In popular culture in America a king is most understood as a man with a pointy metal hat who lives with his queen in a big house with guards and has something to do with a country. No understanding much deeper than that can be taken for granted. I want to lay out in this Note a realistic view of what royalism at its very center is meant to be like and what its economic costs and benefits might be. I want to discuss and analyze the court and royal house from an institutional point of view.

One thing about the” Few” is that while the word translates to about the same thing as “a minority” the implications are distinct and the associate ideas are different. Yet on the other hand there are certain facts about being an identifiable group that is a minority which cannot be changed regardless of how society develops or interprets power. In a perfectly Royalist USA there would be some black and more nonblack African-American Titled Aristocrats but more who were from the white majority and higher ranks abounding in a few ethnicities with none excluded. These titled persons, high-ranking courtiers and military officers as well as US Senators would be the Few. They would have some preserved rights and would be in a different position than either ethnic or political minorities in our current political and economic system.

The Royal Court and House is a powerful economic institution which I wish to discuss in some detail from a historic point of view. In my most recent note I mentioned or repeated the idea or claim that the King of the Arcadians is the First and Father of all Earthly Kings. While that may be difficult to believe, since I do believe it is logical for me to speak and write on the basis of that belief. So here are some thoughts about the nature, origins and function of Royal Houses and Courts. There is also the issue of the monarchy as we have discussed it above in the passages on the political science of the ancient Greeks. The royal courts and houses are and are meant to be a special place in which a portion of the few and the many are joined to and made to clearly orbit around the one when that one has assumed a royal character. That character in turn is tied to family and house of a royal character.

It should surprise nobody who is actually thinking that there is what the Motion Picture Association of America would classify as an R rated or NC-17 rated quality to the royal establishment in its own rights and own ideals because there is a real sense in which the royal court and house function best as the juncture of human capacity for the forbidden with the ideals honored by the realm which produce the prohibitions. A perfect King of Sweden even today would at least find the idea of drinking a toast from his enemy’s skull lined with gold to make a cup interesting. This would be a part of his heritage which would add richness to his celebration of the Eucharist, his toasting on state occasions and his conflict with his foes wether he does the cup thing or not. If he is great souled enough to be a great king then he can be such a man and in context make life less obscene and not more so than it would have been. With sexual morality this is even more the case.

In its ancient essence the royal family and house joins into one thing a number of traits, qualities and institutions which are not likely to exist otherwise. This is really one of the great purposes of a royal house. The way I see this and would encourage my readers to see it is that in terms of royal houses and courts there is a rather narrow range of ideals which are the ideals of the Royalist tradition. These are not the exact ideals of Christianity or any other official or popular religion. They are not the ideals of any particular nation or economic system. They are the ideals that are intrinsic to royal monarchies on Earth. As the royal house and royal court is adapted to any particular set of ideals specific to a religion country, time and people then the institution undergoes a transformation which is similar to a market process. Investments, sales and purchases are made in which values and rights are transformed into a state in which the institution can exist and thrive. But for the start of this part of our discussion let us consider what the values or disparate elements are in their pure form:
1. Executive and Judical policy and Politics especially.
2. Family name, brand and tradition.
3. Religion and Especially sense of Duty to the Most High
4. Monument Preservation
5. War and a special role for old, wounded and crippled warriors
6. Hunting and wildlife management
7. High Marriage
8. Polygamy
9. Prostitution
10. Licensed and Localized Deviance.
11. Gardening
12. Ethnic Traditionalism
13. Internationalism and Diplomacy
14. Production of Royal children, support of families and Dynastic Ambition.

1. The legislative functions in the royalist ideal will come from a variety of processes which involve principally three sources. First, tradition and Constitutional law as one thing possible to modify but in a category deserving respect. Second the will of the Many in the legislative process. Thi.rd the will of the Few in the legislative process. The One who is royal should have some limited legislative prerogatives but should be the clearly defined last resort in the Judiciary and supreme authority in the Executive. Royal protocol is meant to make all these portions of the system work well together. around all the tables and hearths where likely future kings are growing up these political processes should be in the air, in at least occasional conversation, notes and schedules. These influences form the future monarch. Succession politics are especially important. However, if we get to that discussion at all then we will touch on it under part 14.

2.Genealogies, family histories, coats of arms, parties, rolls of guests and invitees are all part of the experience of royal family. They train all the royals to see property in title as a major portion of any property they can have or aspire to and form a context for the rest of their lives together.

3. “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter by the grace of the Lord”, the Lord’s Anointed, King or Queen by the Grace of God and other phrases and titles can abound. It is possible on the fallen and confused earth for a pantheist or polytheist in the fullest sense to be a legitimate monarch and royal sovereign. However, it is an imperfection in the claim. Even if the realm is pantheist or polytheist the royal monarch is meant to represent the Most High sovereign whom the Hebrew Psalms call the “Great King over all the Gods” — in both worship and study the royal house should be a place where the honor and claims of the ultimate King are recognized and honored. An atheist king is really a Tyrant although he may benefit himself and his realm by drawing on what element s he can of the royalist tradition into his tyranny.

4. In a royalist society when a great building or place is in danger of becoming a ruin it is presumed that it becomes the property of or falls to the use of the royal house and court. The royal house and court also are preservers of monuments which are not architectural or spatial. The King and Queen especially should have a variety of roles in awarding honors, keeping an archive and overseeing but not merely creating lesser lines of succession. Military honors and monuments, religious ones, industrial and agricultural honors and the records associated with all of this have a special relationship to the court.

5. In many cases the king should be a very skilled and accomplished warrior who has some notable physical limitation. He should gather around himself those injured and limited in past wars who are still able to do some fighting and can still understand much about the nature of war.

6. “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter by the grace of the Lord” is a phrase that describes the ideal king and many of his retainers. Hunting provides an excuse to preserve wild lands in quantity which is a vital role of royals. It should allow royals to help bring in food without competing with as many workers as with most occupations in their kingdoms. Hunting provides occasion for the practice of warlike skills and the rearing of princelings and others who will have some basic warrior skills outside of military formalities.

7. The ideal royal monarch is a male a king. However, in the ideal royalist civilization there will always be a small minority of female monarchs who are Queens, Princesses or other such in their own right and hold their own sway over their realms with their husbands as consorts. One of the reasons for these few exceptions is to strengthen the status of those relatively many High Wives of Kings who are Queens by Marriage. These Queens must know that when times are bad their roles will contract relative to the King’s powers and court. But the ideal and norm should always be:
I. The Queen has her own chambers and court within a court which is composed of two parts. The inner one of women only and the outer one of men and women.
II. At least some titles and holdings which are hers separate from her husband.
III. A guard which is of high quality and composed of warriors loyal to her directly.
IV. An allowance which is just hers and is fixed from the royal treasury.
V. She is the King’s senior most adviser and courtier and sits beside him on the highest occasions of state.
VI. Her highest honors and greatest protocol obligations go in a particular order. The King,the Queen Mother – mother of the King, her oldest Son who is heir to the king, the highest ranking members of her maiden family. Within her inner court this is the one aspect where her protocol is not that of the family or realm at large.
VII. Ideally the King should have no mistress or other lovers for the first two or three years of his marriage to the Queen. He should provide for earlier mistresses a suitable position but not be intimate with them during that time.

8. Polygamy is basically essential to maintaining a royalist system. It can be restricted and minimized but that is not a good thing for the royalist monarchy it is simply possible. All marriages other than the High marriage ought to be overseen by a wife who is not the queen but is of high rank. The harem will always have ritual tributes and protocol acknowledgements of both the Queen Mother and the Queen. Ideally, these women will have specified legislative and diplomatic responsibilities and portfolios which are not negligible. They should have their own places but also a space for them and their women guests only and there they should entertain the Queen and Queen Mother separately on scheduled occasions. A small harem of less than ten women can struggle along with little institutional organization. The large harem is fully an institution of vast importance performing many roles that cannot be well described in this note.

9. Prostitution interfaces with the royal house and family in a range of ways and at a range of levels. It is vital that many of the other elements in this composite be quite strong in order for this not to overcome and destroy all the rest and the sum and whole of all. However, prostitution is strongly connected to the idea and practice of royalty as an institution. Among the elements that function to keep royal prostitution working as it must are the following.
I. Relatively easy forgiveness for almost any sexual past offenses or injuries sustained by royal women. However, it is forgiveness because the penalties which go all the way to death are still possible.
A special note is that the ideal queen and king will have been exclusive and affectionate lovers for a few years after marriage and they will retain some sexual congress thereafter. thus the firstborn will be the king’s biological son. But in ancient times and the ideal there is no heir apparent and as the king turns to his mistresses the queen will spend time with the most accomplished and stylish men in the realm and elsewhere. There should be a lot more dreaming than doing but it is absurd to think that queen is really and truly expected never to have sex with any of them.
II. Royal immunities and a king who really will kill men who turn palaces into brothels. Only that will work well.
III. Polygamy in which the mistresses or plural wives of the king generally have no sexual relations with any other men during the years when they are really active with the king.
IV. Women of varied degrees including courtesans who are open and well-regulated prostitutes.
V. Non-prostitution of almost all newlyweds and both class and ethnic endogamy which allow a maintenance of blood filiation by multiple lines within the royal community despite new bloodlines unacknowledged.
VI.By most traditions and all non-murderous ones both merit and election as well as birth must enter into the succession of the highest royal titles.

10. The court and the royal house are places where others who are not average or normal per se can earn a place of freedom and some peace by offsetting usefulness and excellence. This is also a very important function of the royal court or house. Sex is also an issue here. In the ideal royal court there are all the sexual types I have already mentioned but there are also places and roles for the truly temporarily, permanently and sporadically celibate people. Officers and soldiers from genteel families have the opportunity to move to court and have their wives function as extraordinary mistresses or harem members of the king or princes with children being reared as their own. Women who are unacceptable as acknowledged mistresses or plural wives can marry homosexual men who are willing to assist in discretion and family duties. These and some monastic and semi monastic types who are discreet homosexuals rather than true celibates can form part of a community within a community that engages in homosexual relations at their own risk and with understanding of their unique roles and limits at court. There should be acknowledgement that homosexuality goes on but not open relationships between particular men. On the other hand the court is the ideal place for the mistress of high-ranking clerics in any religious tradition to keep their mistresses. For reasons that are hard to explain here a Catholic monarch would have supreme policy reasons to reward a heterosexual bishop who had been a devoted celibate pastor with a fine mistress and a house to keep her in near court. All children are taught that a husband and wife belong to each other sexually and are the parents of the wife’s children. That is in fact the truth and the language evolves over time.  Religious and ethnic minorities and diplomats are also expected to be able to live at court within a different set of rules and tolerances.

11.Gardening is very important at court and in royal families.  ideally a good amount of food is grown by royals retainers and domestics not working ver hard at it but working with the help of a few professional gardeners. This food helps with feasts in the good times, charity and survival in the bad times.  Exotic herbs, narcotic and alcoholic plants of very high quality should ideally be produced, refined and both sold and provided to guests at court. Princes and princesses should do a little labor in the garden because it is run by the family and their work can be consistent with their personalities not geared to drudgery. An ideal king would prune plats are something a few hours each month and actually enjoy it.
Preservation of rare plants and birds, herbal medicine, flowers for interior decoration and green spaces for sport and recreation ought all to exist as part of the master plan of gardening.

12. Because of some leisure and the availability of people to assist them in various ways the royal courts and houses should be able do agreat deal to honor and preserve various ethnic traditions of the realm. They will especially honor their own but they will also find the proper ways to acknowledge those of ethnicities larger and smaller than their own.

13. Internationalism and diplomacy ought to be part of the air of court. Map rooms, gifts from foreign royals and teachers and some marriages should reinforce the presence of diplomats and the foreign service. People having lived at court should have absorbed a certain amount of education in diplomacy and international affairs.

14. It is in this total context that succession and the production of heirs for the preservation of dynasties is to be best understood. There is no way to estimate the total value to a political system of maintaining a royal house and court when it is all that it should be.

My sister Sarah celebrated her birthday on May 18. She has that sort of royalist sensibility that pervades all she does though as for as I know she has never been political about it in the way that I am and have long been. But in Mexico and America I have often seen her do things that help sustain the royalist heritage in North America. Her baptismal name Sarah Anthea can be translated from Hebrew and Greek as “Princess of Flowers” and I often called her that when she was small. I like the fact that she is descended from Joseph Broussard, Severin Leblanc and that the line of the Basileus Arkadios is evident in her. She is 33 and I hope she lives long and prospers as we move from this Star Trek year towards the future. I wonder what her economic potential might be in an aquarium instead of fish soup.

Most of the royal sovereigns left in the world are in Europe. While all of them have some qualities of the ideal court I describe above none of them are exact duplicates of it. None of them are really very close to it. That is not all that surprising. But Spain, the United Kingdom, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands Monaco and few other places seem to be struggling along in Modern Europe with some version of the royalist ideal. Because I basically have a royalist point of view I tend to see possible royalist solutions to American problems. I see things royalism and royalist institutions could possibly contribute to ongoing problems of race, class, labor, religion and growth. I do not think we will see those solutions applied in my lifetime but it is not technically and formally impossible. So while I am not planning any violent demonstrations nor suggesting that American Royalism will become politically viable I am suggesting that it is not the same kind of impossibility as burning water in your lawnmower tomorrow.

November’s First Thursday Round-up

1. The New Orleans Saints are 7-0 which ties their best start ever behind Bobby Hebert, the Cajun Cannon in 1991. The Monday Night Football victory over Atlanta  was very exciting. I think Atlanta is a better team in many ways than their finished product shows right now — the parts have not yet clicked into the right whole.

2. The New York Yankees won their 27th World Series title last night. The Yanks are back on top. It was an entertaining and well played series overall.

3. LSU crushed Tulane and now plays Alabama. What does any of it mean in the BCS picture? Will Oregon be in th Rose Bowl and continue a journey towards being a permanent contender? Is UL still a contender for the Sunbelt Championship?  College football is still a very indefinite situation, lots of question marks belong here.  

4.The relics of St. Mary Magdalene visited our area and I visited them at the Chapel at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Abbeville where I was baptised, made my First Communion and was wed. There was a long line visiting the relics.

5. To follow up on a post on Anglican and Catholic Relations that appeared as part of an earlier round-up go to this site:  http://lordsoftheblog.net/2009/11/04/letter-published-in-the-catholic-herald-during-last-week-of-october/

6. The Republicans won the governors races in New Jersey and Virginia and Maine repealed the same-sex-marriage laws by popular referendum. It seems that Obamania has died down since President Obama campaigned for both defeated gubernatorial candidates.

7.  Police negligence stories are really being reported for the first time in my life.  The house of horrors with eleven bodies is on the news, Jaycee Dugar enslaved in a backyard in a neighborhood, he testimony by Elizabeth Smart recently, the eight prostitutes or “high risk lifestyle” women killed in a parish here in Acadiana, the millions of illegal aliens, the ACORN corruption and other stories are showing what our political system as it operates does to mundane duties like policing.

8.The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall his consort have been visiting Canada recently and I believe they are still there. He impresses me as an engaged and relevant man.

9. I lost the most recent Parliament Quiz and have only won once out of  four attempts.

10. Sarah, Kevin, Alyse, Anika and Soren are still on their trip around the eastern USA.

11. My mother’s birthday is November 13. If you know her it is time to get a card in the mail if you live far away.  

 

Happy Halloween

Halloween is “All Hallows Even’ ” contracted. In other words it is the evening before All Hallows Day. All Hallows, means All Holies and then the actually used term of All Saints means the same. The Holiday for some families means dressing up like cowboys or princesses. But the real story of the holiday is one of a tug-of-war. Christians in Europe beyond the Mediterranean celebrated their beliefs and practices regarding the dead at the time pagan Europeans had the feast of Sawain. Sawain was a time in Druidic and related beliefs when the year moved from light to darkness  and the dead came to greet and feast with everyone but especially those who might die in or before the coming winter. Christians very much changed the holiday but some bits of local custom were always preserved. There were some of the ancient practices that clung to the holidays on All Saints which focused on all those in Heaven and All Souls which focused on all those in purgatory.  Then in the way that Catholic Christian cultures find ways to leave nothing out the old practices flocked to the day before and so you had Hell, Heaven and Purgatory observed in many places in an unofficial tridium.
 
Protestantism and secularism reached heights in America that stripped away all the observance of Heaven and Purgatory and so we were left with just hell on Halloween. That seemed a bit too devilish and pagan and so Halloween was largely tamed and made comical and safe where small children were involved.
 
In my family we seek as varied members to deal with all this complexity in a variety of ways. Halloween practices, HolyWeen Parties with children costumed as Saints, traditional Acadian and Mexican care for cemetary sites and many other things make up my memories. However, confusion and change are not usually better as regards holidays. In a perfect world holiday change is subtle and slow. So this has been the story of a complex family struggling and sometimes failing to make the best of a complex set of holidays. My sister Sarah and her group are not here but she always did one of the best and usually the best costuming for Holyween Saints parties for a while and led her sisters to a good place in that regard. I am not sure where Mary is who also did well in several years and Susanna is in Texas   
 
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The picture above is a pumpkin lantern carved to honor All Saints and All Souls Days at Susanna’s house. They have their own abundant pumpkin patch for autumn foods and customs. 
 
 
 
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My nephew Michael Carving Pumpkins, just before scooping

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Thomas with an alternative pumpkin lantern matching his shirt

 
The boys and all of them enjoy a full and happy interaction with the family in their interpretation of this American ritual.  All of this is part of the struggle to do the best they can and that means having as much fun as possible in a positive way. 
Pumpkin Lanterns

My Sister Susanna and her husband Michael' family have lanterns honoring All Saints and All Souls

Whatever you do ye brave, ye proud, ye few, ye readers == Have a Happy Halloween, All Saints and All Souls Day, in your own best way.

Cecil B. Gremillion’s Birthday

This week has four holidays for me. Today is my maternal grandfather’s birthday. Tomorrow is Halloween. The next day is All Saints Day. The day after that is All Soul’s Day. This is a set of which I have observed various members with differing intensity over the years. Each has been different but each has been an important part of a small mini-season as it were.

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Today is my maternal grandfather’s birthday. His name is Cecil Bruce Gremillion.  His wife died on my most recent birthday June 15,2009. My grandmothers name was Beverlee Hollier Gremillion. They were married for over 65 years and together a bit before that both engaged and  courting. Together they went through World War II, built a home and reared a family. They went in to hospice care together. My grandmother died almost immediately and my grandfather whom almost anyone would have thought was the sicker one has lingered to make this birthday and for all I know may make another.

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Advertising the bed and breakfast in their home

The story of my grandfather’s life is surely a mixed one and I have sort of a darker view of life and the world than most people who blog. However, he was a man doing things and being with his family.  He and my grandmother did stay together a very long time and today he can look back on those days.
He was named an Economic Ambassador of Louisiana, a Commodore of a nearby Tarpon Fishing Rodeo, President of a local savings and loan, President of a local development and investment company and now he is confined to either a bed or a wheelchair and I doubt he ever feels well. Life has stages and many of them are very tough going. I hope that it is not to religious or philosophical for some who may read this to say that I hope his journey through this pain is somehow deepening and enriching to him. No life is simple but my grandfather always had a religious perspective and an interest in the inner life — which he balanced with a worldly pursuit of wealth and pleasure. He was a fairly complicated man and I am sure he still is. 
 
The picture below has been rotated and saved and edited ad nauseam and I cannot get a copy of it to show up the right way. Maybe one day I will try again with more success and edit the old post. I have about ten good copies. In this original sideways copy my grandmother is a real ghostly image next to my grandfather with the ghost on the other side. So maybe all the glitches and the outcome are apt for the season. 
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Blessing Kisinoaks after moving and while renovating it.

HAPPY  BIRTHDAY POPS!