THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

I especially like that idea about "nobody noticed." You have mentioned this in other writings. Also, the idea that "nobody notices" the obvious. I need, we need, to remember that because it is so important and it is so true. But why don't they notice? Are they afraid to notice, unwilling to notice, unwilling to call a spade a spade, conditioned by society to not notice? There has to be a reason for not noticing. Especially, there has to be a reason for not noticing the so-called obvious. Is it blindness, deafness, ignorance, unwillingness, fear?

When I was a young guy I decided it was stupid to salute a piece of clothing. I wanted to know about the person inside the piece of clothing. Being young and stupid, I did what I was told to do. In retrospect I have decided that my earlier idea was the correct idea. Especially, when I see what I see happening today. Yesterday, the local police chief appeared on television in his costume with the stupid looking scrambled eggs on his cover. I know him personally. I know him to be a thoroughly corrupt human being that has been that way throughout his career as a "law enforcement" officer. He enforces the laws that his bosses tell him to enforce. I brought to his attention once a woman who had been raped in the presence of her son. He laughed it off. He told her to forget about it. The rapist was one of the local CI personell. This was when "the chief" was just another flunky pretending to be a cop. A company man. A team player. In a costume. The costume itself is a lie.

When you don't talk about these serious problems, it becomes your fault.

When no one talks about them, they can pretend the problems do not exist. So then if YOU talk about them, the problem is with YOU.

Now if you talk about something you have first hand experience with, the problem is even then with you. You must have an attitude problem. In other words, they blame you, the victim.

We need to hear more of the real stories like Bob tells and Joe just told. Otherwise evil keeps on getting away with it.

Let me cut to the chase. That man Joe mentions is evil.

He is destined in life to wear a uniform: if not the blue, then day-glow orange.

We can all see clearly who control society now: the flunkies and the evil. It was the same in Communism. Let's just hope that when fortune's wheel turns and the good again have their day that the evil ones are not allowed to retire on their pensions as they did in the Eastern Bloc.

I am of a protestant heritage. Not too long ago I became a Catholic. To make a long story short, I find that I agree about costumes. However, no costumes can be pretty silly too. You know the jeanand t-shirt, we're all the same mentality. Anyway, one thing I enjoyed about the recent pope's funeral was seeing our " Christian president", wife, and others have to at least predend respect. Shari

Lemon, there is a piece below called, "Martyr, Second Class" about how I converted from Methodist, my grandfather was a circuit rider when Methodism was still a church, to Melkite, a Uniate chruch.

One day the priest did a homily on the exact subject of costumes. He said that Jimmy Swaggart did a sermon on how ridiculous it was that priests got all dressed up in robes.

Then he said, "You know, he's right. We don't need these robes. But we love God and we want to look good for him."

But a Eucharist on a stone by a Padre in an army uniform is just as much a Eucharist as the old Christmas Mass from Rome that was long and in Latin.

In a Uniate Church the priest dresses up and the congregation is welcome to come in street clothes. In a Protestant church the preacher has on his suit and the worshippers have on their Sunday best.

As Saint Paul said, it ain't the uniform, it ain't the ritual, it is Christ.

Though he said it in a more sophisticated way, he's nodding approval.