2010 Congressional District Survey

Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee needs MY help! Immediately! He sent me a survey and a form letter saying so. This is because I am apparently "one of our Party's most dedicated and trusted activists [whose] views and opinions on this survey will be used to represent thousands of Republicans in [my] congressional district." Not only can I provide valuable guidance for the party I can also...wait for it...provide MONEY! Hot damn! Money for "the critical campaign support they need--including polling data, research materials, strategic planning, advertising, volunteer training, lap dances and even direct cash assistance." OK, one of those I made up; you decide which. And $500, $250, $100, $50, or even just $25 seems a small price to pay to stop the Socialist Armageddon Mr. Steele seems certain is looming just over the horizon. The Democrat (sic) Party must be stopped. Did I mention I could give $500, $250, $100, $50, or even just $25? Because he did. Three times, in case I forget!

Anyhoo, I just thought I'd share the survey questions with you all:

1. Do you support the Obama Administration's efforts to eliminate further testing and deployment of an intercontinental missile defense system?
2. Should Republicans fight congressional Democrats' efforts to grant full unconditional amnesty to illegal immigrants?
3. Do you agree with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi's efforts to impost massive tax hikes on the American people?
4. Do you believe that the federal government should maintain a permanent ownership stake in large auto companies?
5. Do you support giving captured foreign terrorists full judicial privileges and rights that are granted to U.S. citizens?
6. Do you support expanded exploration and drilling for fossil fuels off of U.S. coasts and on federal land?
   
7. Do you support the Democrats' efforts to create a massive new federal government bureaucracy that would be run by unionized government employees and would have complete control of your healthcare costs and choices?
8. Should Republicans in Congress make expansion of veterans' benefits a priority?
9. Do you support maintaining anti-terrorism laws that give law enforcement and intelligence agencies the far-reaching powers to track detain and prosecute terrorists and their accomplices?
10. Should the U.S. government normalize relations with Cuba?
11. Do you believe Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress have the best interests of you, your family and your community in mind?
12. Do you believe that American business and industry will be able to compete in the world economy if the Obama Administration bends to pressure from radical environmentalists and implements draconian regulations on emissions, energy consumption and transportation beyond what is required in other countries?
13. Do you support Barack Obama's plan to get Medicare to fund a new bloated entitlement program?
14. Do you agree that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress seem more concerned about passing their liberal pet-programs than creating jobs and getting the economy going?
15. Do you believe that the nation's Founding Fathers intended for the federal government to micro-manage state and local functions such as healthcare, child care and unemployment assistance
16. Do you feel that total Democrat (sic) control of both chambers of Congress and the Presidency will make our nation more safe prosperous and free?
17. Are you ready to actively support Republican candidates in your area and across the country who are fighting to stop the liberal Obama agenda and reinstitute conservative Republican policies and principles such as personal responsibility, lower taxes, cutting government waste and keeping our defense strong?

• Yes! I want to join the RNC's effort to win control of the U.S. House and Senate in the fast-approaching 2010 mid-term elections, safeguard our values and principles, and get America moving towards a strong, prosperous and secure future. I am enclosing my most generous contribution of: $500, $250, $100, $50, $25, $____ Other
  
• I cannot pledge my support this year, but I would like to include a contribution of $11 to help the RNC fund this survey and its tabulation.
  

The Host Desecration Project Finale: The Introduction

Note: This is a draft introduction for the Host desecration piece I've been working on. It is to appear in a source reader on pilgrimage, which is why it is mentioned in the final paragraph.

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a time of increasing anxiety concerning the presence of Jews in Christian Europe. Beginning with the massacres attending the summons to the First Crusade in 1099, Jews in Europe found themselves more and more alienated from their Christian neighbors and more the target of polemical attack from Church authorities. In around 1150, the monk Thomas of Monmouth, seeking increased pilgrim traffic to the local shrine of William of Norwich, wrote an account of the Child-saint's life that introduced the fantasy of Jewish ritual murder into the arsenal of anti-Judaic invective.

When, in 1215, it was decreed at the Fourth Lateran Council that underneath the bread and wine of the Eucharist were the actual, historical body and blood of Christ, a new source of anxiety appeared, this one concerning the proximity of Jews and the Eucharist. These concerns would find full expression in accounts of host desecration, the capture and torment of the consecrated bread by Jews, like the one presented here. Though composed of tropes that began circulating in the mid-thirteenth century, this incident, which took place in 1290 in Paris, is generally considered to be the first fully-articulated account of Host desecration. Like the accusations of ritual murder that preceded it, this was also an anti-Judaic fantasy, an expression of Christian angst about the Eucharist.

All of the elements are here: the doubting Jewish merchant, the Christian woman ensnared by debt, the family of the Jew, the tortured host that bleeds, the execution of the Jew and the conversion of his family to Christianity as he burns. This account adds the twist that the knife used and some of the blood become venerated as relics which the people can come to see with their own eyes. Thus the perfidy of Jews led to an opportunity for pilgrimage, and a possibility for the same redemption achieved by the unnamed merchant's wife and children.

The Host Desecration Project 4: The Rest of the Story

He who considers this will, astonished, praise divine mercy, and the other things of the Lord (he was allowed to return from death and not immediately to die) and speak as it were of the resurrection. Indeed, that sacrosanct Host, after being stabbed, pierced, scourged, burnt by the flames, torn, lanced and thrown into a cauldron of boiling water, unblemished and whole, lay with honor in the Church of Saint John in Gravia, covered by a small piece of the Lord's clothing, and to the greater glory of the Lord, adorned with a small piece of the Cross. The faithful can look at with their own eyes the aforementioned breadknife and the blood that miraculously flowed forth from the wound and the container of ashes in which it arrived, in the church of the Brothers of Blessed Mary of Charity, in the same neighborhood.

These deeds came from the house to the notice of the people thus. When, at the hour of the High Mass, the signal was given by the bell in the Crusader church, that the gathering people might adore the sacrosanct body of Christ, the son of the Jew, going outside, asked those passing by where they were running. They declared that they were going to the venerable mystery of the sacrosant body of Christ. The boy told the Christians that they would seek their god in that church in vain, and how his father had beaten it, scourged it, afflicted it with injury and treated it with evil. A certain woman, hearing this and eager to find out, charged into the house of the Jew, full of horror, armed with the sign of the Cross saw again the martyrdom of the flesh of the Lord. Immediately the sacrosanct host, consecrated and unharmed, ensiled itself in a wooden container used for carrying ashes, which the woman reached for to carry. She bestowed it for safekeeping on the priesthood of Saint John in Gravia, and they concealed it with great reverence under the interior. That woman, moreover, although she attempted to leave the church, could not as though she were bound in chains, until she told the priests how she got the Host she had bestowed, witnessed by many who had now gathered and made reports.

The woman related the deed and the things she saw. Whereupon the priest undertook to tell the bishop of Paris. The whole of the city rushed to the spectacle; the Jew was joined with his wife and children in chains. Brought to the presence of the bishop and men distinguished in ecclesiastical dignity, the Jew confessed to the crime; he was warned that he should repent, for it is written, I desire not the death of the wicked, but it is better to turn from this way, and live, he hoped for pardon when he prayed a long time ago before they crucified him. The woman and children were converted to the Christian faith, although the obstinate Jew had been condemned to be cremated by fire, and was led to the place of punishment. When the executioner wanted to place him on the fire he exclaimed, "Woe is me, who was so unexpectedly caught, I was not able to take arms!" Asked what were these aforementioned arms, the Jew responded, "I have a book in my home, which, were I to have it with me, God would make it so that you could not immolate me."

At the command of the prior the book was brought by the ushers, bound to the Jew, and placed under the flame both were reduced to ashes as easily as it was difficult for the Jew to be converted from his infidelity. Then with the crowd of people standing around, the Bishop of Paris reviewed the place where the miracle occurred, as was told. He marked with holy anointing of chrism the wife of the Jew, his son and his daughter, who were cleansed by baptism. Many other Jews, too, so moved by the evident miracle, converted to the faith, securing the sacrament of baptism.

Moreover, in that spot where so great a crime was savagely perpetrated, Raynerius Flamingus, a citizen of Paris, undertook the building of a chapel where the miracle was expressed, at his own expense in the year 1294. Then, with Guido of Joinville managing, he bestowed it upon the brothers of Blessed Mary of Charity of the diocese of Catalina. Also Philip, king of the Franks, called the Fair, enlarged the home near the aforementioned chapel in the Year of our Lord 1299. Indeed the aforementioned brothers of the order established a commemoration of so great a miracle to be celebrated solemnly each year on Whitsunday.