Blog Archives - ROBERT E DUNN

Stephen

7/31/2022

Meaning
Stephen c. 5 – c. 33-36, age 28-32
Greek: Στέφανος Stéphanos (Latin alphabet)
Hebrew: סטפנוס הקדוש, Stephanos HaQadosh (Latin alphabet)
The name means “wreath, crown” and by extension “reward, honor, renown, fame”, often given as a title rather than as a name.

Martyrdom
According to Acts, he was a deacon in the early Church at Jerusalem and angered members of various synagogues. Accused of blasphemy at his trial, he made a speech denouncing the Jewish authorities sitting in judgment of him and was then stoned to death. Before his conversion, St. Paul, a Roman citizen and Pharisee, participated in Stephen’s martyrdom. We commemorate him this coming Wednesday.

Miracles
From the desk of Father Joshua Curtis, FSSP, St. Stephen the First Martyr, Sacramento, CA – “The discovery of the relics of St. Stephen was one of the most magnificent chapters in the history of the early Church. St. Augustine, who heard of and witnessed many miracles in the presence of these relics, was not able even to record all of them: ‘What am I to do? I am so pressed by the promise of finishing this work that I cannot record all the miracles I know.’”

eight voices

Lux aeterna Eternal Light
Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, May eternal light shine on them, Lord,
cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es. With your saints forever, for you are good.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, Give them eternal rest, Lord.
et lux perpetua luceat eis, quia pius es. And may perpetual light shine upon them, for you are good.

bar

7/31/2022

I quote a good friend who took the most recent California Bar Exam.

“I was in good company with my classmate. We went together both days to the Santa Clara Convention Center. We saw a few other classmates there. The only thing that was easier was the process. I already know to get in line, look for my assigned seat, sit down, and shut up. If anything, it was entertaining to look at the other bar candidates. A few were dressed as if they were going to yoga class; a few were dressed as if they were going to a party. One bold individual wore his hotel robe to the exam! Clearly someone did not give a damn. So good for him. The rest of the examinees were dressed as if they were going to Walmart. I dressed in business casual. May as well look presentable, at least.”

ray devlin (mature)

7/31/2022

I am going to write about something that will earn me condemnation. I am speaking of one man and one man only. I am strong enough to withstand anything that comes my way, hate mail, phone calls, etcetera.

Father Ray Devlin, SJ, the man who baptized me, is on an accusation list. He is deceased. I will reproduce the accusation, almost word for word.

The victim accused Devlin of rubbing his arm, leg, and buttocks while attending a track clinic. The 14-year-old boy awoke to find Devlin fondling him. According to the victim, Devlin talked about killing himself and beat himself with a belt. Then he urged the boy not to tell anyone or it could hurt the priest, school, and church. According to the boy’s father, Devlin said the action was sensual, not sexual.

This event was denied and never proved. It was the only accusation ever leveled at Devlin.

Even if it were true, what this boy and his parents did was an utter betrayal of Devlin.
As a teenager, if this had happened to me, I would not have said anything to anyone. I had my own faculties then, and I still possess them. Faculties are defined as an inherent mental or physical power. I can deal with any situation. I would have excused Devlin if he had done that to me.

Catholics who do not understand this are unbelievably immature and need to be chastised. Loyalty is at stake, and loyalty is the highest of virtues for me. I would have protected Devlin no matter what. Semper fidelis.

The man is in heaven for bringing me into the Church.

If it is my last act on earth, I will defend Ray Devlin.

limerick

7/31/2022

Limerick – humorous, frequently bawdy, verse of three long and two short lines rhyming aabba

I don’t know if I ever told this limerick on my website, but here goes –

There was a girl named Anheuser,
Who thought none of the boys could surprise her,
So, Pabst took a chance,
Put Schlitz in her pants,
And now she’s pale Budweiser.

My father told that one at the dinner table. My mother stared at him and said, “Don’t talk like that, Joe.” Dad and I looked at each other and laughed. I was around 15. Mom left the room for the kitchen to get more food.

Here is one for the sensitive ladies –

A mouse in her room woke Miss Dowd,
Who was frightened and screamed very loud,
Then a happy thought hit her,
To scare off the critter,
She sat up in bed and meowed.

Okay, one more, from Dad...

There was a girl from St. Paul,
Who wore a paper dress to the ball,
The dress caught fire,
Burned the entire,
Front page, back page, and all.

lento

7/31/2022

Ottis Shirk, poet. According to the Muncie Evening Press, until his retirement in 1953, he was employed in the Ball State University maintenance department where he earned the title "campus poet". A Lento consists of two quatrains with a fixed rhyme scheme of abcb, defe. The second and forth lines of each stanza must rhyme.

Our Watermelon Patch

We used to have secluded,
Every summer on the farm,
A spot we kept protected
From the pilferer, who might harm
Or vandalize this valued plot,
No fence with gate to latch,
’Twas just a family secret -
Our watermelon patch.

I remember as a youngster
How I watched the melons grow
As the vines spread out like carpet
Covering every hill and row.
How the mammoth, green-striped melons
Seemed to nestle in the vines;
Each branch so closely matted
With another intertwines.

When it came the time for ripening,
I wondered how Dad knew;
He'd thump each melon briskly;
Then he'd thump his shoe.
He said, "It's just like music,
When they tune with tuning pipe;
If they sound alike, harmonical,
The melon then is ripe."

I still am fond of melons,
But the pleasure's no more mine,
To thump those tempting beauties
And pull them from the vine.
To me it seems I've never
Found any that would match
The sweetness of the melons
From our watermelon patch.

big numbers

7/31/2022

Romans had many ways of describing big numbers. For example, the inscription on the left describes how the Romans acquired 2,100,000 sestertii after the battle of Mylae. Each curly symbol at the bottom of the inscription represents 100,000. 260BC

A mathematician on Quora, Mark Pinsker BSc. In Mathematics, University of Bristol, 1983, answered a question about how Romans counted.

pauline, robert, and ciss

7/31/2022

Lie on the couch, close your eyes, and listen. (story originally published in 1932)

Awhile or A While

7/30/2022

Awhile: adverb, modifies a verb, as in, “We stayed awhile in the park.” It answers the question, “How long did we stay?” and immediately follows the verb.

A while: noun phrase, as in, “It’s been a while since we visited the park.” It refers to a time. It’s easy to know which one to use by replacing the phrase with, “It’s been a week since we visited the park.”

Park is both a homonym and a homograph. Park your car. We visited Yosemite National Park. The words are pronounced and spelled the same but have different meanings.

Saint gallen

7/30/2022

More revelations. Read this! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Gallen_Group
All “private clubs” in the Catholic Church shall be exposed to the light of day.

how many

7/30/2022

How many women are named Mary? The BVM, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, sister to Martha and Lazarus, Mary of Clopas, present at the Crucifixion, and Mary, mother of John Mark, in Acts. Is the Magdalene, Mary of Bethany? Well, all are exponential. To see what I mean, listen to math tutor, Sal, explain in his video titled, “Intro to exponential functions”. He gives an excellent example, chain letters, and makes it is easy to understand (kahnacademy.org). Deena explains her relationship with the BVM. It went from almost zero to 100.

New anarchy

7/29/2022

I saw the term, “New Anarchy”, in a quiz and was stumped. Wikipedia defines contemporary anarchy this way: “Anarchists are generally committed against coercive authority in all forms, namely ‘all centralized and hierarchical forms of government (e.g., monarchy, representative democracy, state socialism, etc.), economic class systems (e.g., capitalism, Bolshevism, feudalism, slavery, etc.), autocratic religions (e.g., fundamentalist Islam, Roman Catholicism, etc.), patriarchy, heterosexism, white supremacy, and imperialism.’” I did not know we were deemed an autocratic religion.

Now, if you would like to listen to someone who is not against everything, someone who is an “autocrat”, a video follows (40 mins). He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Princeton in 1972. He is speaking in Rome, of all places, and even uses a Latin phrase, post hoc, ergo propter hoc, translated as “after this, therefore because of this”. Example: after the rooster crows, the sun comes up, therefore the sun comes up because the rooster crows. The speaker uses the phrase to poke fun at someone. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uci4uni608E

A good example of what he is talking about is St. Katharine Drexel (1858-1955). Born into the wealthy banking family of Philadelphia, she used her portion of a $15 million trust fund, shared with two sisters, and founded schools for American Indians and blacks, including Xavier University in New Orleans.

According to Xavier, her father, Francis, “…had put the money in trust and indicated that the income from the trust was to be equally divided by his daughters and their offspring, not their husbands. His intent was to ward off suitors who might be looking for money. If at the death of the third daughter, there were no surviving offspring, the principal of the trust was to be divided among a group of Philadelphia area charities that he designated.”

In 1922, a local KKK group turned against Mother Katharine’s school in Beaumont, TX. What did the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament do? The story goes that they prayed, and a tornado destroyed the KKK headquarters.

ivana

7/28/2022

Ivana Trump was a Catholic Czech American. ✝ The Catholic News Agency reported: “The Czech American … did not reveal much about her faith life to the public. A 2017 profile from The New Yorker said, ‘Ivana was born in 1949 in what was then Czechoslovakia to Catholic parents who refused to join the Communist Party.’” No media were allowed inside Manhattan’s St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church. Two Dominican sisters and one from the Sisters of Life attended. Melania Trump is a Catholic Slovene American. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia split into the nations of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The separation of the two countries was decided by the Federal Assembly. I suspect there is a heaping teaspoon of competition in the Trump family, so I hope 6'7 Barron is a competitor. He might like to read my blog entries on the Roman Empire’s sages, warriors, and emperors.

arithmetic/geometric/exponential

7/28/2022

There are many types of patterns in math. Patterns are sequences of numbers. Often, questions arise on national tests about increases and decreases and show sequences. Here are three types: arithmetic sequence involving adding or subtracting, geometric sequence involving multiplying or dividing, and one more.

I list the type, examples, and solution.

Arithmetic
1, 3, 5, 7, 9...
Add 2 each time.

99, 90, 81, 72...
Subtract 9 each time.

Geometric
1, 2, 4, 8, 16...
Multiply the previous number by 2.

1000, 100, 10, 1...
Divide the previous number by 10.

Exponential
2, 4, 16, 256...
Square the previous number.

1, 4, 9, 16, 25...
Square of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

These types of problems appear in a variety of questions on national tests, often about population growth.

Graphs

For graphs on these types of increases or decreases, Sal from Kahn Academy is good. Look for Graphs of exponential growth.

Codes

A practical application of sequences is encrypting sensitive information over the internet for security purposes. The Fibonacci series is a sequence of numbers in which each consecutive number is equal to the sum of the two numbers that come before it. For instance, if you start with the number zero, this is what a Fibonacci series would look like: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and so on. This is a sequence that can be used in cryptology - secret codes and solving them.

So, don’t let those big words, arithmetic, geometric, and exponential, scare you.

diamond

7/28/2022

Diamond Valley Ranch House, Alpine County, CA, owned by the Tahoe Public Utilities District. Elevation 5,476 ft. My family frequently traveled the area in summer, but not in winter.

geometric mean

7/28/2022

If the arithmetic mean of two numbers is 25, and the geometric mean is seven, what are the values of the two numbers? *

The arithmetic mean is the average of two numbers.

(x + y) ÷ 2 = 25

Solve

Multiply both sides by 2

x + y = 50

To calculate the geometric mean of two numbers, multiply the numbers together and take the square root.

√xy = 7

Solve

Square both sides

xy = 49

Answer: the numbers are 1 and 49.

Check: 1 + 49 = 50

*I had the assistance of Quora contributor Elaine Dawe, BMath, Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Waterloo 1985.

wolves

7/28/2022

The silkworm is the caterpillar of a silk moth. It is an economically important insect as the primary producer of silk. Domestic silk moths are entirely dependent on humans for reproduction because of millennia of selective breeding. Wild silk moths are not as commercially viable. triviaripple.com

unschooled

7/28/2022

China threatens US. Biden and company are unschooled in governance, which is learned by studying history and the history of war. Oderint dum metuant. Let them hate, so long as they fear.

Marcus Aurelius, AD121-180, emperor, Roman Stoic philosopher, the last of the Five Good Emperors and the last of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire lasting from 27BC to AD180.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, 4BC-AD65, Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and satirist, raised in Rome, where he was trained in rhetoric and philosophy and was influenced by Plato.

Epictetus, AD50-135, Greek Stoic philosopher, born into slavery, lived in Rome until his banishment, his teachings written down and published by his pupil Arrian in Discourses and Enchiridion.

From Patriot Mom Digest:

“This month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Facebook platform is shifting resources away from its News Tab and news distribution, and towards a “creator economy”, meaning that news will be featured less frequently to users, whether they ask for it or not. A way of preventing unwanted narratives from reaching the public, this will be effective at a time when news coverage of the failures of Democrat rule in D.C. will be building….”

The Wall Street Journal story is by Alexandra Bruell and is dated July 28, 2022, at 11:39am ET.

Epictetus: If we wish for nothing, but what God wills, we shall be truly free, and all will come to pass with us according to our desire; and we shall be as little subject to restraint as Zeus himself.

Marseillaise

7/28/2022

I try to bring something different. Who of us has ever heard the alternative Marseillaise? It is the version that was a counter to the revolutionary one and was used by the Catholic and Royal Army.
The revolutionaries are "Blues" because of the choice of colors within the Estates General.

dc greg

7/27/2022

I know non-Catholics could be baffled by, or unconcerned with, what is going on inside the Catholic Church. Many of us Catholics came to know the full story just in the last few years. The battle is epic. What happens to the Catholic Church is likely what will happen to the world. Not hyperbole.

Pelosi was told not to receive communion by her bishop, the man who has authority over her, but she did, anyway. Dr. Edward Peters, one of the foremost canon lawyers, said, “Canon 915 states in pertinent part that ‘those who persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.’” Everyone knows it, yet she marches on as if we are idiots. Americans do not like a fraud; neither do Catholics.

These things are not my opinions. I have no opinions or input when it comes to the Catechism. I either accept or reject. Now, let us move on to DC Greg.

There are about 95 parishes in DC. The closest FSSP is in Baltimore, 40 miles away, but we have people traversing three times that distance. The traditional orders are

FSSP Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter
ICKSP Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest
SSPX Society of Saint Pius X
(2009 - Decree of Excommunication of the SSPX withdrawn)

nineteen-year-old burned at the stake in 1431 sings for us

The next video will put into perspective the epic nature of the battle.

In February 2022, the Vatican released statistics showing that in 2020 the number of Catholics in the world increased by 16 million to 1.36 billion. The Catholic Church is the oldest and largest continuously operating institution.

death philosophy

7/27/2022

I wondered what Father Mawdsley meant by “Death Philosophy”.

The following excerpt is from a chapter of Philip Bell’s book, Evolution and the Christian Faith (2018), titled, “A theory that requires death? Evolution and the doctrine of death”.

“Janet Browne, British science historian and acclaimed biographer of Charles Darwin, has degrees in zoology and the history of science; she is Aramont Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University.

“In the documentary film, Darwin: The Voyage that Shook the World, Browne is adamant: Darwin … was working on a theory that requires death. His theory of natural selection is built on the idea that the unfit are going to die, that they are not going to contribute to the next generation” (italics added to match her own emphasis of speech).

“In the same film, Browne explains that Darwin’s own bereavement, involving three of his children, presented him with real difficulties. He could not reconcile his death-ridden theory with a God who would allow his beloved daughter Annie to die (aged just 10 years). Other biographers of Darwin agree that this tragic loss was the final death knell for any remaining vestiges of Darwin’s Christian faith. Weak in body, Annie had simply lost the struggle for existence—her death, excruciating though it was for him personally, was fully in accord with natural selection. This, after all, is precisely the sort of thing that evolution entails, in fact demands.”

Philip Bell is a scientist and educator who lives and works in the United Kingdom. He studied biology and geology at the University of Wales (Swansea) and graduated in zoology in 1989. For nine years he worked at a cancer research unit in chemo sensitivity testing. During the 1990s, he was also a member of the Postgraduate School of Medicine, Bath University, and (co-)authored several papers in secular medical journals. Philip became a secondary school science teacher in the late 1990s.

From the same article, he said, “For all of us, the most pressing question is whether we are ready to face death—do we have hope beyond the grave? Without Christ, we are without hope and without God in this world (Ephesians 2:12). But Christian people experience the difference that a living faith in Jesus makes when confronted with their own death or that of a fellow Christian. They do “not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Of course, they do experience grief at the death of a loved one, friend, or colleague, but they face it with the certain hope of eternal life beyond the grave.”

arithmetic mean

7/27/2022

A set of nine numbers has a mean of 10. A tenth number was added to this set, and the mean increased to 12. What was the number that was added to the set?

The arithmetic mean of a set is the sum of all the values divided by the total number of values. The arithmetic mean is usually called the average.

A set of nine numbers that has a mean of 10 must total 90
90/9 = 10

A set of 10 numbers that has a mean of 12 must total 120
120/10 = 12

Thus, the difference between the set of 10 numbers and the set of nine numbers is
120 – 90 = 30

Answer: the number that was added to the set was 30.

dunnage

7/27/2022

Shipmates brought Dunn in with his dunnage, dumped all in the cargo hold, and laid dunnage over Dunn and his dunnage.

as children

7/27/2022

We were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs
Covered with bright colored,
Lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets,
And, when we rode our bikes,
We had baseball caps,
Not helmets, on our heads.

As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats,
No booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags,
Bald tires, and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick-up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, and no one died.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter, and bacon.
We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar, and we weren't overweight.
WHY? Because we were always outside playing...that's why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day…
And we were OKAY.

We would spend hours building
Our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill,
Only to find out that we forgot about brakes.
After running into the bushes a few times, we learned
To Solve the problem.

We rode on metal skates,
Spent long minutes hunting for the key,
And no one was scarred for life.

Nor did movies about cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians, turn us into killers.
(My friend from Vietnam watched the same movies, and he didn't become a killer.)

We did not have
Play Stations, Nintendo, and X-boxes.
Video games, 150 channels on cable,
No video movies,
No DVDs,
No surround-sound or CDs,
No cell phones,
No personal computers,
No Internet,
No social media, and
No chat rooms.
WE HAD FRIENDS
And we went
Outside and found them.

We fell out of
Trees, got cut,
Broke bones, and
Lost teeth,
And there were
No lawsuits
From those accidents.

We would get
Spankings with wooden spoons, hangers, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand,
And no one would call child services to report abuse.

We ate worms,
And mud pies made from dirt,
And the worms did
Not live in us forever.

We were given
BB guns for our 10th birthdays,
(Tommy had his taken away because he shot a boy),
Made up games with sticks and tennis balls,
And  although we were told it would happen,
We did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes
Or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell,
Or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts
And not everyone
Made the team.
Those who didn't
Had to learn
To deal with
Disappointment.

The idea of a parent
Bailing us out
If we broke the law
Was unheard of…
They actually sided with the law.

We had freedom,
Failure, success, and responsibility,
And learned.

My sister was quite competent at age 11. When Mom called the main office at school and Kathy answered, my mother yelled, "What are you doing answering the phone!"

A glimpse of the past.

And, sometimes, we would lie out in the backyard,
Wait for a shooting star,
And never see one.

Read what Kathy has to say in the comments! She will not say it, so I will. The skills she learned made her the #1 Women Singles tennis player on the islands far away.

chi-rho

7/26/2022

The Chi-Rho symbol was used by the Roman Emperor Constantine I (reigned AD306-337) as part of a military standard (vexillum). By the year 350, the Chi-Rho began to be used on Catholic sarcophagi and frescoes. The usurper Magnentius appears to have been the first to use the Chi-Rho monogram flanked by Alpha and Omega, on the reverse of some coins minted in 353. A tessellated mosaic paver with the Chi-Rho monogram dating from the 300s was uncovered at Hinton St. Mary, a village in Dorset, England.

Hinton St Mary Mosaic, central panel of a Roman mosaic found at Hinton St. Mary, a village in Dorset, England, on Sept. 12, 1963, by the local blacksmith, Walter John White. It is a large, almost complete Roman mosaic, presently in the British Museum. “On stylistic grounds it has been dated to the 4th century and is attributed to the mosaic workshop of Durnovaria (modern Dorchester).” Photographed by Udimu. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hinton_St_Mary.jpg

heliacal

7/26/2022

Heliacal [hə-LIH-ə-kəl] means relating to or near the Sun. This word is based on both the Latin “hēliacus,” and the Greek “ἡλιακός,” both meaning “sun”. (credit wordgenius.com) I think I will throw in another Latin word here because I see it quite often: cunctis means to all. It makes me think of conk.