In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

NOW — Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy: “Whether it was air traffic control, whether it was military aircraft, helicopters or the American flight, everything was standard in the lead up to the crash … Something happened here.” pic.twitter.com/ojRVAf34ZO — Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) January 30, 2025 A YouTube commentator that I trust on aviation matters, Juan Browne on the blancolirio channel, a working airline pilot with both military and civilian experience, has a good video with graphics. At 0:50, he says, . . . the [Regional Jet] flies the approach to this Runway, 1, the long runway, and then sidesteps around here to a left dogleg entry to Runway 33, the relatively short runway at about 5200 feet long here at Washington DC, a very demanding approach. This crew is focused on this approach. This midair collision occurred just below 400 feet above the ground. The National Guard helicopter, believed to be eithet as UH60 or VH60, was presumably operating out of Joint Base B...

I ran across this video by a UK YouTuber that gives an entertaining perspective on Trump;s current effort to buy Greenland. The key takeaway is that acquiring Greenland has been a US strategic objective since 1867, when Secretary of State William H Seward attempted to purchase it from Denmark along with his purchase of Alaska from Russia. (He also wanted to buy Canada from the UK.) According to Wikipedia , Since the 19th century, the United States has considered, and made, several attempts to purchase the island of Greenland from Denmark, as it did with the Danish West Indies in 1917. Internal discussions within the United States government about acquiring Greenland notably occurred in 1867, 1910, 1946, 1955, 2019 and 2025 and acquisition has been advocated by American secretaries of state William H. Seward and James F. Byrnes, privately by vice president Nelson Rockefeller, and publicly by president Donald Trump, among others. After World War II, the United States secretly o...

Catholic Charities shocking video instructing Illegals on how to avoid ICE. You tax dollars fund this sh*t. They receive millions in Government grants. pic.twitter.com/LtG0OLGYwr — Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) January 27, 2025 Via Catholic News Agency: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on Sunday argued that its long-standing refugee program is a “work of mercy” after Vice President JD Vance criticized the bishops’ positions on immigration issues.' . . . The USCCB on Sunday argued that its own work with refugees is part of a “long history” of Catholic advocacy for vulnerable migrants. “In 1980, the bishops of the United States began partnering with the federal government to carry out this service when Congress created the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP),” the bishops said in the statement, which did not mention Vance. “Every person resettled through USRAP is vetted and approved for the program by the federal government while outside of the U...

I found a surprisingly even-handed story on Vice President Vance's exchange with Margaret Brennan on yesterday's Face the Nation that covered, in part, the USCCB's condemnation of Trump's immigration-related executive orders, at America magazine. The full interview is embedded above. The America piece reports, In Vance’s first interview since becoming vice president, host Margaret Brennan noted that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “condemned” Trump’s immigration-related executive orders, and asked Vance, “Do you personally support the idea of conducting a raid or enforcement action in a church service, at a school?” “Of course, if you have a person who is convicted of a violent crime, whether they’re an illegal immigrant or a non-illegal immigrant, you have to go and get that person to protect the public safety. That’s not unique to immigration,” he said. “But let me just address this particular issue,” he continued. “Because as a practicin...

The most succinct comment on Trump's first week was from Greg Gutfeld, who said Trump shows the difference between a "real president and a cardboard prop". Yesterday I called him a Republican president with industrialist, federalist, reconstructionist, even partly Catholic leanings, thinking in particular of Lincoln, Grant, McKinley, and Roosevelt. Although comparisons of Trump with Theodore Roosevelt are easy, before this past week, I thought more of Grant. Via Wikipedia , In 1885, impoverished and dying of throat cancer, Grant wrote his memoirs, covering his life through the Civil War, which were posthumously published and became a major critical and financial success. At his death, Grant was the most popular American and was memorialized as a symbol of national unity. Due to the pseudohistorical and negationist mythology of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy spread by Confederate sympathizers around the turn of the 20th century, historical assessments and ran...

As I had hoped, a visitor set me straight on the question of the Anglican vestments at the National Cathedral post-inaugural prayer service: I'm not sure that they are "black stoles" but, rather, "scarves." The stole as a liturgical vestment was discarded in the Church of England at the Reformation and did not return until the Oxford Movement, and that unofficially and indeed, arguably, illegally. Nor were the traditional Catholic liturgical colors for vestments preserved after the English Reformation; they, too, came back with the Oxford Movement. The same was the case in the Episcopal Church, although their restoration to use in some circles in PECUSA met with less violent and less prolonged opposition in the former, than it did in the Church of England (among Evangelicals especially). In both the CofE and PECUSA the wearing of such post-Reformation style of vestments tended to hang on in cathedrals and especially big public services of a politica...

In Wednesday's post, I noted that the clergy presiding over the post-inaugural prayer service for Trump's second inauguration wore black stoles. This puzzled me, because I was an Episcopalian for over 30 years, and I've been a Roman Catholic for a dozen, and the liturgical colors for The Episcopal Church follow those of the Catholic Church. The current Catholic liturgical season is "Ordinary Time", for which the color is green. The Episcopal Church regards this season as an extended "Epiphany" that lasts until Ash Wednesday, but its liturgical color is also green. Thus a priest or deacon presiding over a normal eucharist or prayer service at this time of the year would wear a green stole, not a black one, and black isn't normally listed as a liturgical color -- just red, white, purple, rose, or green. According to Wikipedia , in Roman Catholic practice, which Episcopalians have followed since the Oxford Movement, For the celebrati...