Organizational Chart

The Twelth Day of Christmas

DELIVERED BY HAND


December 25, 2017

Dewey, Chetham, & Howe

460 1 St SE, Medicine Hat, AB 
T1A 0A9

Sir:

       This acknowledges your latest gift of 12 fiddlers fiddling, which you have seen fit to inflict on Ms. Agnes McElroy. The destruction was total. All correspondence and further "gifts" should come to our address. If you should try to reach Ms. McElroy at the sanitarium, the attendants are instructed to shoot you on sight.


Cordially,

         

James Dewey

Turning Turkey

Some readers probably don’t realize that Turkey is one of the larger economies in the world. The largest in the Muslim world, except for Indonesia, and that depends on which stats you read….they are neck in neck.   But Turkey has a problem, and it may soon be the world’s problem: debt.  Lots of it. A quarter trillion dollars in government debt, but almost 1.5 trillion dollars in corporate debt, most of which is owing externally. I don’t think it’s going to be paid. Turkey’s debt, not counting consumer debt, is over twice its GDP. The problem is compounded by Turkey’s aversion to accepting IMF help. From what I can see, the attitude seems to be “screw the west…they got us into this mess by lending to us.”  If Turkey defaults, the contagion will spread. Banks who lose will want to sell other assets….fast. There may not be buyers in some asset classes, and that will then freeze those markets so that the panic selling will spread even further. 

The Eleventh Day of Christmas

                                             December 24, 2017

                                             Miss Agnes McElroy,

                                             38 Beeswax Lane,

                                             Medicine Hat, AB,

                                             T1J 3A9

Listen Turdbrain:

       What's with the 11 lords a-leaping on those maids and "ladies"? some of those broads will never walk again. The pipers, by the way, got tired of the ladies and....well, I won't say what's gone on with the cows.  All 23 of the birds are dead. The ones that hadn't been squashed by the cows were trampled to death in the orgy. I hope you are satisfied, you rotten, vicious swine.


Your sworn enemy,

         

Agnes

The Tenth Day of Christmas

                                             December 23, 2017

                                             Miss Agnes McElroy,

                                             38 Beeswax Lane,

                                             Medicine Hat, AB,

                                             T1J 3A9

You Rotten Ass:

       You just HAD to do it, did you? Ten ladies dancing....except, I don't know why I call those sluts "ladies". And I wouldn't call what they've been doing with the pipers the last several hours "dancing". The cows can't sleep with all the moaning, and they've got diarrhea. My basement stairs is Shit Rapids. The Public Health Inspector has cited me to give cause as to why my place shouldn't be condemned.


I siccing the police on you.

         

Agnes

The Ninth Day of Christmas

                                             December 22, 2017

                                             Miss Agnes McElroy,

                                             38 Beeswax Lane,

                                             Medicine Hat, AB,

                                             T1J 3A9

Hey Bumblebrain:

       What are you? Some kind of sadist? Now there's 9 pipers playing. And boy, do they play! They haven't stopped chasing those maids since they got here. The cows are upset and they're stepping on all those squawking birds. What am I supposed to do? The neighbors are trying now to evict me.


You'll get yours,

         

Agnes

The Eighth Day of Christmas

                                             December 21, 2017

                                             Miss Agnes McElroy,

                                             38 Beeswax Lane,

                                             Medicine Hat, AB,

                                             T1J 3A9

OK Buster:

       I think I prefer the birds. What the hell am I supposed to do with 8 maids a-milking??? And forget that...at least they know how to use the toilet....but what about those damn cows they had to bring with them? There's shit all over the lawn, and I can't move in my own house. Just lay off me smartass.

         

Agnes

The Mephisto Club

I recently read a novel called The Mephisto Club about a small private club of Satan hunters. I am not clear on their objective, but they wanted to hunt/study Satan by observing people possessed by him. Not something I’d want to do, but it induced some thoughts. Our modern humanistic world of materialism completely discounts the notion of absolute evil or the idea of it having sentience or even personality. Yet we don’t have to reach back very far into history to encounter events that befuddle any other explanation. For example, the atrocities of the Third Reich. I don’t care what theory of psychology, or of sociology or of anthropology you care to put forth, it will not explain lampshades made from human skin. This concept is discussed in the seminal work of Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, The Morning of the Magicians, in a section of the book entitled “A Few Years in the Absolute Elsewhere.” The revolting fact is that there are even today many manifestations of pure evil --- crimes whose details you don’t want to know. Sometimes these are multiplied on a large scale, and sometimes not.

The pop Christianity view of some tug-o-war, involving you, caught between God and Satan, is an infusion of paganism into Christian thought. The Bible paints no such picture. I recall being challenged decades ago, in an undergrad class, to write a term paper about Satan in the Old Testament. It was a short paper. There isn’t much there. The most extensive treatment is in the book of Job, that seminal book of philosophy from the catalogue of early Wisdom Literature. What we see there is Satan (who would have then been called saw-TAWN), a word which means adversary, but Satan is an adversary that is of no significant challenge to God on any level. In fact, in that account, he performs God’s will and then plays no more role in the story. The Bible depicts a sovereign God whose abiding and overriding value is Love, and it is a love that is characterized by an unconditional loyal caring, affection, and manipulation of lives to bring about certain outcomes. And sometimes that manipulation includes using evil spirits to bring about events that are springboards to personal growth.

In the New Testament, Satan (or “the Devil”) is developed in a much more detailed and larger treatment. There he is painted as a desperately dangerous Evil One seeking to devour and destroy, but in none of that literature is there anything to suggest that he is not fitting completely into God’s plan. No, there too we have the picture of a clever and powerful God who determines and engineers outcomes.