Our Roller Coaster Fundraiser

Summer Fundraiser 2015, Day Two

This is the second day of our Summer Quarterly Fundraiser for 2015. Only the second day? Oh, my — I’ve been through two thunderstorms and a whole lotta mudslinging since I woke up on Monday morning. Kind of elongates the time.

For this fundraiser, the Baron decided to return to the subject of “Resources” — which is a good idea, considering that our work is founded on them.

[It’s becoming a perennial and frequent subject, as most folks are worrying about their own fate while this president makes a downright ruin of a formerly functioning country. Make that several f.f. countries. But that’s change for you, Chicago-style: it’s destruction, plain and simple, but no one thought to ask him to define it.]

For many of our neighbors around here, the old mantra has been refurbished: “make do, make over, do without.” It’s harder now than it was for those in the 1930s, because obsolescence has long been made a feature — things that break or wear out are no longer “bugs”.

Our website is rather retrograde. No bells, whistles, or gizmos. Just words and illustrations. How quaint. That’s why I glommed onto this comment from the Baron’s first post of the quarterly:

Felix Quigley

You deserve to be supported. Your site is a credit to you. I go onto some fancy sites and I sit for ages waiting because they have loaded their sites with c..p

But your site is so fast. That means a lot to me.

I agree with Mr. Quigley, but it may be a losing battle. Not everyone lives in the fast lane with broadband connections. Here in our own area, only those who live near the Courthouses have access to such luxury. The government installed broadband for local governments — all the better to reach them easily. The rest of the county? Some of us live in cell tower dead zones and people have to drive to where reception is better. Or just not bother.

Tip jarOn top of everything else today (the Hater’s bizarre and erroneous attacks and the thunderstorms that took down our internet and phone) the Baron’s car went on the fritz as he was driving home from the pharmacy with my medicine. He knows what the problem is: you don’t live with a machine for ten years without learning its vulnerabilities. So he cancelled a doctor appointment for tomorrow and left a call for the mechanic. We won’t be seeing our ride for a few days…but who cares? We stay so busy during the Quarterly Fundraiser there’s no need to leave. And donations will cover the costs. Deo, etc.

I am quite pleased at my resourcefulness regarding our “cell phone” (a candy-bar type left over from the ’90s. Very loose in the joints from falling off our moving car one time. The B collected the pieces from the verge and the ditch and stuck them back together: Voilà, connectivity!). Since there is no landline way to call the phone company regarding the internet, and no car in which to leave to find a cell tower connection… what to do? With the phone carefully held together, I went outside, checking the garden while glancing at the screen. Wait! What’s this Sweet Spot! All the bars were bopping in this one small area of the garden. I quickly called a friend and asked her to report our outage. The Baron came out at the sound of my voice and was able to give her the directions to tell them for our landline “ticket”. In no time we had the internet back again; the landline may still be dead, but again, except to plot with Vlad, we don’t need any other mod cons during the Fundraiser.

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This preference I see everywhere for the quick, the convenient, the flashy, the replaceable, has been a concern of mine for a while. It has raised government and personal debt to the stratosphere. And it has left many behind. When we were involved in diocesan work for our church, we got to see the problems of rural parishes first-hand.

For one thing, they suffered badly from neglect by the Big Church. The geographical heart of the diocese was far, far from its actual working center in the remote east. I began to refer to the Diocesan offices — located in a big urban sprawl — the “Winter Palace”.

Episcopalians are infamous for being God’s frozen people; nowhere was this more evident than at its functional (not its geographic) center. Over the years it became increasingly bureaucratized and layered. Instead of a small diocesan newspaper published monthly and sent out to all the parishes, where people read them and looked at the photos, there is a bland website. It’s less interesting than my dentist’s webpage. Instead of evolving into something content-rich while being easy for country folks to load, they evolved to a… a governmental bureaucracy with no beating heart.

But not to fear. They have added a Communications office to replace the paper. Cheaper, they say. What a crock.

I don’t miss the Baron’s work as webmaster for that website, but it was an interesting product while he was there; it was inviting in a way the current page is not. So were the myriad small churches we visited. There is a certain smell in old Southern country churches: a soothing blend of dust, aged wood, candle wax, humidity, old prayer books and ironed linens in the press. In winter, the stoves at the back. Some lucky few had small pump organs.

I would say that world is passing, but it is only for the Episcopal Church. Our county is full of lively Methodist and Baptist churches — both white and black. Sometimes, for special occasions, they mingle. The Episcopal Church in the United States of America — ECUSA — is peopled with missionaries from Africa in its urban centers since ECUSA isn’t doing it right. Yes, they were invited, though not by the poobahs at the Winter Palace or the one in Northern Virginia, either. Those urban centers kissed kumbayah goodbye long ago. They want rules and order and limits to bump up against. If they can’t get that from ECUSA, they’ll find it in another church. Meanwhile, ECUSA caters to the #BlackLivesMatter, racism workshops, and other fads. They have rainbow fags for gays, unfurling in the breeze above the church flags. Way to go. What a way to use your resources, even as they continue to dwindle.

/sermon

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As Mr. Quigley mentioned, he likes the simplicity. So do we. It’s manageable. No exclusives for us — the Counterjihad must never take on the MSM mindset. We don’t do Henny-Penny-the-sky-is-falling dramatics, you won’t find end-of-the world al-Gore news, and no exposés . Definitely no breathless headlines either, or jihad porn. The few times we’re compelled to put up ISIS atrocities, you will always find the pictures on the back page. It is crucial that we never look away, but equally, that we never become inured. That is what they want.

Our resources include our own resourcefulness. I love to watch the Baron and Vlad strategize on the presentation of a story, how they both search for humor and the saving grace. They are good men; they work well together combining their own resources for transcriptions, translations, and even plot lines for a story. The Baron is first of all a team player; it is one of the things I most admire about him. That and his unfailing integrity, limned as it is by a hard-fired patience. Those things don’t come easy.

We are rich in people resources. This fact never gets stale: the generosity of others’ time, money, talents (often earned the hard way) and experience makes Gates of Vienna both simple and complex. Simple strands, complex weave. The resulting patterns over the years have been proven past any doubt. Discerning readers know this almost immediately. Emails that begin, “I didn’t know about you” are rarer these days, but not unheard of. Obviously, not everyone knows us.

We have been fired in the kiln of the Breivik massacre and those subsequent sleazy, blunted Norwegian attacks. These Brit haters are amateurs, both in their understanding of who we are and in their obvious braggadocio. They thought we’d be scared off by people who don’t have to earn a real living and don’t where Gates of Vienna’s server is?? Bah!

The creation of the Circus Breivik image was a true collaboration between me and the Baron. We don’t have a TV, but in our travels we saw enough “Law and Order” to see what ABB’s lawyers hoped to gain from their fleeting fame. They’d get their thirty pieces of silver wearing cheap suits and awkwardly imitating the Hollywood pose? Ugh.

They sure knew how to ruin Fjordman. Norway is good at that, and I have some sad letters to prove it. Only Norway could give our lawless President a Peace Medal before he was out of the gate. Over and over again, Norway has chosen the low road. For them, the designation “totalitarian democracy” is especially fitting.

But Britain, with its haters and its betrayers of British children, appears to be more like a soviet. Cute pictures of Kate and Will can’t be redeemed for a half-pint of courage. And even if they could be, where would a Brit get to spend that virtue besides gaol? Tommy Robinson epitomizes what England does to its heroes. Fjordman is Norway’s exile-in-chief. Geert Wilders is forced into the Netherlands’ gilded cage for those who speak out. France? It’s all talk. Marine Le Pen is marginalized, ridiculed.

I would say we’re no better, but people across the world turn to America out of a need for courage. Not the faux “hopeychangey” Obama has on offer, but the real thing from those brothers in arms in the small towns across America’s south… it’s no accident that the Confederate flag, Thomas Jefferson, et al. are being trashed by the elites. They know how dangerous history is, how sharp the edges of symbols. If they can airbrush out our heroes, replace them with a bunch of transgendered wymyn, then they think we’ll despair. Not a chance.

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It was a lively day, gentle reader. A bang out of the starting gate. And you responded in kind. Our donors, new and old, came through the door bringing… more RESOURCES!

Stateside: Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia

Near Abroad: Canada

Far Abroad: Australia, Germany, Israel, The Netherlands, Sweden, Thailand, and the UK

The tip jar in the text above is just for decoration. To donate, click the tin cup on our sidebar, or the donate button, on the main page. If you prefer a monthly subscription, click the “subscribe” button.

4 thoughts on “Our Roller Coaster Fundraiser

  1. Dymphna, thank you for your sermon. Those of us interested in the current phase of this long war are always in need of erudite encouragement and knowledge.

    I must note here that the Godfried Maes painting, depicting your namesake’s murder, has her pagan killer wearing a turban. Both grand and obscure histories, as you well know, have funny ways of sending ripples downstream. For Heaven’s sake, watch your six.

  2. I’m just another of your “repeat” donors ; I read you daily, but don’t send Comments

    I do appreciate how “clean” your website is & how fast it loads ; simpler is better

    up here in Northern Michigan, connectivity is an issue & I agree with your strategy

    also , you’re right about smalltown churches keeping the faith alive……

  3. Great post, Dymphna. There’s just one itty-bitty but quite (inadvertently, I’m sure) ironic typo.

    Towards the end of the paragraph discussing the eviscerated ECUSA, you state “They have rainbow f[l]ags for gays….” Unfortunately, the L in “flags” didn’t show up, leaving a word that I’m sure you would rather not publicize. 😉

    Glad to hear resources are coming in from the Greater Outside.

  4. If you will provide me a post office box or hard address, I will donate. I’m not paypal friendly.

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