Mid Week at Work. Packing in.

 

WY Geological Survey

@WyGeoSurvey

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4h

WSGS geologists used horses and mules to pack in supplies for a week of field mapping on The Ramshorn quadrangle last summer. They rode in 20 miles along the South Fork Shoshone River to a basecamp in Bliss Creek Meadows, where they camped and mapped for the week. 1/2

Enough Already? Wyoming Republicans begin to take back county organizations from the Populist far right.

Natrona County's GOP went with an all traditional, "big tent" leadership in county elections held on March 16.  Indeed, as chairman it elected a conservative businessman to be its head, a former member of the legislature who lost his seat in the last election during Casper's east side slide towards the far right.  Other committee members voted in, or retained, were uniformly traditional Republicans, rather than the populist insurgents that have been so much in the news.

Earlier this week, moderate traditional conservatives completely unseated Uinta County's far right populists in their county's organization. The Cowboy State Daily reported it as thus:

During the reportedly contentious meeting, party chairperson Elisabeth “Biffy” Jackson was replaced by former Evanston Mayor Joy Bell in a close 33-31 vote.

A complete takeover of the Uinta County Republican Party’s leadership Tuesday night may be a sign of a new trajectory for the Wyoming Republican Party.

Every member of the Uinta County GOP’s executive committee was ousted during a Tuesday party meeting.

The Results

Also, former state lawmaker, gubernatorial candidate and former Wyoming Secretary of Agriculture Ron Micheli and his wife Patty Micheli replaced the county party’s State Committeeman Karl Allred and Committeewoman Jana Williams by similarly close margins.

The group’s new Secretary-Treasurer is Stacy Wallace, and the West/East vice chairs are Randy Barker and Jay Anderson.

“We’re obviously pleased,” Ron Micheli told Cowboy State Daily about the outcome of Tuesday’s vote. “We appreciate the effort the past officers made. We hope they continue to be involved. Hopefully, this will patch up some of the tension in the county and state.”

Every single member, including pistol packing Karl Allred, fresh from his being interim Secretary of State, went out the door.  That's particularly remarkable.  Allred had been a failed candidate in prior elections, but was boosted as a far right member of the party by the state organization, propelling him to high office, briefly, in spite of a lack of apparent qualifications.

Whatever those qualifications were, now boosted, didn't serve to keep him on the committee

Something is going on.

Part of the something is the state organization is suddenly suggesting to Natrona County that if it bring its bill current, which the county intentionally withheld, it might have its full voting rights restored.  So far, NatCo has indicated that it will bite, on a "might", but there to, there's some sort of shift in the wind.

March 22, 2023

The Freedom Caucus formally admitted new members this week who were already assumed to be new members. Apparently, freshman legislators have to prove their mettle in a legislative session before being admitted to the group, which means that such figures as Jeanette Ward were only recently allowed in.l

While some quarters of the Press continue to portray the last legislature as taking a sharp right turn, when in fact the populist were fairly ineffectual, the post legislative bloodletting of the populists continues.  Not only has Uinta County booted its far right populists, but now Lincoln County has as well, with another casualty being another East Coast expat, Marti Halverson.

Halverson was an early far right import who had served in the legislature and who continued to make far right news after her departure from it.  Now that county has told her thanks, but no thanks.

Halverson didn't comment to the press, noting that she couldn't get into the mind of voters, but Allred did, blaming his defeat on "frontier Republicans and Liz Cheney supporters", a remarkable comment for a figure who lost more than one election and was only appointed as Interim Secretary of State due to his far right reputation with the Central Committee.  Allred stated he didn't know if he'd run for a leadership position again.

The entire executive committees for both counties changed, removing the populists from their positions. As noted above, Natrona County rebuffed the populist in its recent election.

All the County organizations must chose their leadership in March.

Get a Vision. Get Off Your Cellphone. Get to Work. - Minding The Campus

Get a Vision. Get Off Your Cellphone. Get to Work. - Minding The Campus: “I think that you appreciate that there are extraordinary men and women and extraordinary moments when history leaps forward on the backs of these individuals, that what can be imagined can be achieved, that you must dare to dream, but that there’s no substitute for perseverance and hard work …” – FBI Special Agent Dana […]

National AgDay, 2023.

 

Sunday, March 21, 1943. A second assassination attempt.

Hard on the heels of a plot to kill Adolph Hitler by blowing his airplane out of the sky with explosives contained in a bottle of alcohol, Generalmajor Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff attempted to kill him by detonating a time fused bomb on his person while escorting Hitler through an exhibition of Soviet war materials as the Zeughaus in Berlin.  A detailed coup d'état was to follow the assassination.

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1976-130-51 / Unknown author / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5482858

It was expected that the tour would take thirty minutes, and Gersdorff set the fuse ten minutes prior to Hitler's arrival.  Hitler rushed through the exhibit in two minutes, and Gersdorff defused the bomb in a restroom.

Gersdorff was, amazingly, never mentioned by the July 20 conspirators, even though he had participated in the plot.  He therefore survived the war.  His role becoming known post-war, he was denied admission to the Bundesherr and therefore devoted the remainder of his life to charitable causes, dying in 1980 at age 74.  He was a paraplegic the last twelve years of his life due to a riding accident.

Sarah Sundin reports, in her blog:

Today in World War II History—March 21, 1943: Cornelia Fort becomes first WAFS member (precursor of the WASPs) to be killed, in a midair collision while ferrying a BT-13 in Texas.

She also notes that on this day the Rangers took Gafsa and New Zealanders bypassed the  bypass the Mareth Line 

Wednesday, March 21, 1923. The Cieplak Trial

Fourteen Roman Catholic Priest were put on trail on charges of "counter revolution" in the Soviet Union.

Servant of God Konstantin Budkevich (Budkiewicz), executed ten days following the farce of a Soviet trial that commenced on this day in 1923.

Their crime, basically, was being faithful to their Faith.

Fr. Budkevich would lose his life due to the sentence the "court" would hand out.  He was executed in the Soviet style, shot in the back of hte head.  Amazingly, a  Requiem Mass was said for the repose of his soul in the Church of Ss Peter and Paul in Moscow. 

Archbishop Jan Cieplak, he was imprisoned and later released, living until 1925.

Woke Wall Street

Kevin McCarthy

@SpeakerMcCarthy

In his first veto, Biden just sided with woke Wall Street over workers. Tells you exactly where his priorities lie. Now—despite a bipartisan vote to block his ESG agenda—it’s clear Biden wants Wall Street to use your retirement savings to fund his far-left political causes.

No matter what you think of this, you are slipping down the rabbit hole if you are calling Wall Street "woke".

Enough with the posturing. Where's that budget, Kevin?

Bank collapses, The Economy, Modern Work. A meandering trip through the punditsphere.

I haven't commented on the recent bank collapses at all here, as banking doesn't interest me much.

First National Bank in Meeteetsee, circa 1901.

It should.  Economics does. But banking doesn't.  Given that, I tend to think this probably isn't as big of a crisis as it's being portrayed.

Indeed, I think it isn't.

Not that it isn't important.

A couple of observations, however, on the observations.

On This Week and Meet The Press, Elizabeth Warren was on, meaning she was doing a full court press over the weekend.  Both of her interviews were nearly identical, as both interviewers let her backtrack on a question to give her full, long explanation of the history of this topic.

I have to say, her explanation was good.  I don't know if it's correct, but it was good.  And that's saying something, as I frankly can't stand Elizabeth Warren.

One thing she continually noted is how we weren't watching these big banks like we were "small local banks".  I don't know if that's true either, but she was full of profuse praise for small local banks.

Hey, I'm a distributist and a localist, so I like small banks.  Is there an argument here for keeping small local banks local?

Seems like there is, although with a modern economy you're going to need big financial institutions.  She wasn't arguing otherwise.  It's just an interesting aspect of this.

One member of the banking committee was asked if these banks were "too big to fail" and he flat out said yes, an interesting example of political honesty.

Of note, while the banks are sort of being "bailed out", those who are really emphasizing this right now seem to fail to appreciate that FDIC insurance is being used for this, which suggests that the insured face amount of $250,000 is really way too low.  It probably ought to be more like $1,000,000 at this point.

Robert Reich, whose opinions I have a love/hate relationship with, used the opportunity, predictably, to hammer the rich, writing:

The undeserving rich

Putting the bank bailout in context

A while back I saw somebody commenting to one of Reich's Twitter feeds on this topic, which he's obsessed with, that Reich was rich himself.  According to an online source he has a net worth of $4M, which would mean, quite frankly, that in contemporary terms, he really isn't.  Shoot, half of that could be his house alone, depending upon where he lives, with the house not really being all that much.

Reich's article is an interesting one and basically amounts to an argument that post Reagan, the economy has been rigged to favor the upper 1%, more or less.  That's not how he puts it, of course, but is basically what he believes.  He notes that workers incomes haven't really gone up in 40 years.

All that is true, and from a Distributist point of view, is a nifty argument, the problem is however that the percentage of Americans who are "wealthy" has increased remarkably in the past 40 years.  Indeed, some demographers worry that the American middle class is disappearing not because the middle class is sinking into poverty, but that the upper middle class is moving into wealth.

In real terms, almost nobody, save for people on the street, something that wasn't tolerated 40 years ago, is poor the way the poor were, say, in the 1960s.  Prior to 1950, the middle class was mostly lower middle class and lived on the edge of poverty, That's just not true anymore.  And poverty was by and large worse in real terms at that time, than now.  It's easy to forget that as we have a 1) Norman Rockwell view of the past and 2) we always think our own times are worse than they really are.

Therefore, the Reich argument, the way it's made, really doesn't hold water.

Which gets us to the fact that  the best arguments for addressing the modern economy actually have to do with Social issues, as in Social Justice in the classic Pieper sense, rather than economics.  

What people like Reich, or Warren, edge up on is arguing that life was "nicer" when there was a big middle class.  That's true.  And many things that are unobtainable to even the upper middle class and the lower wealthy class were then, as there were very view super wealthy.  But lib economist don't go there as they are, frankly, just a little left of center on the capitalist scale.

Put another way, the difference between liberal economist and conservative economists is very slight.  Both main camps are fully vested in capitalism and are, beyond that, invested in the theory that a capitalist economy is its own good, rather than the distributist concept, which is another free market concept, that any economy only serves to serve people.

Hardly anyone is going to argue that in the lib or con economic camps, but it's true.  The theory is always that we do this or that for the economy, and then this or that happens to people, rather than considering what do people want, and what kind of economy best serves that.

A really interesting example of this, I'd note, is that really left wing economist essentially join industrialist in concepts that really only serve industry.  They seemingly don't know that.

For example, you'll see left wing economists, and politicians with strong interest in economic topics, argue that we need abortion so that women can work, or that we need government funded day care so that women can work.

This is really only liberal in that it takes the liberal view that pregnancy is some sort of freakish medical aberration that needs to be medicated into extermination or, if a person is so unfortunate that a child is born, it needs to be separated from the Dear Worker.  Beyond that, it's pure industrialism.

The big achievement of industrialism early on is that it took men off of family farms and family workshops and sent them off all day long to work.  In the 20th Century, it started to do the same for women.  Abortion and birth control were big industrial successes, as they meant that there was a way to separate women from biology and all those problematic little people.  Of course, it turned out that people had children anyhow, so daytime child concentration camps had to come about in order to address that.

This, really interestingly, is one area where the extreme left and industrialist have all come together.  Communists, for example, boosted the "let's warehouse all these little problems so that the mothers can toil" approach to things, whereas quite a few modern businesses have put in day cares so that they can take the "time off to raise children: . . no, just bring the little urchins into the business day care".

Here's an area where Reich and company have a real wage point, but not in the manner that they might imagine.  Part of the reason that wages have remained low over 40 years is that we've practically doubled the work force in relationship to the population.  I.e., if where you had 200 adults and 100 workers 40 years ago, now you have 200 workers.  More workers equal less pay.  

Now, I'm not saying that women shouldn't work.  I'm just saying that in our modern economy, they've been compelled to work.  And one way or another, in the modern economy, employers have had to accommodate children in the workplace where they would have resisted even 20 years ago.  

A lot of people are refusing to work now, it seems, or so the society wide rumor has it.  And that does seem to have some merit.

Chuck Todd, on the Meet the Press, noted a labor shortage in his early part of the show this pasts weekend, attributing that to a "restrictive immigration policy".  

Todd is apparently delusional.

The US has the most open immigration policy on the planet.  What the country has been working on, not too successfully, is halting illegal immigration.  That's what Todd really means.  Clamping down on illegal immigration is creating a labor shortage, in Todd's mind.

Illegal immigration actually serves to depress wages for the same reason noted above.  Illegal workers in the country means more workers, and that means lower wages.  D'uh.

All of which suggests, on this topic, that addressing illegal workers would mean a rise in wages, which we have been seeing.  Isn't that what we wanted?  Well, it is inflationary, at least temporary, but having suppressed wages for years, some of that's going to occur until it levels out, which it ultimately will.

All of that gets back to this, what do people want out of the economy?

I suspect they want something of their own.

Saturday, March 20, 1943. Defeat yielding to increased murder.

The Germans began to deport Greek Jews to Auschwitz.

The Japanese Navy ordered its submarines as such:

Do not stop at the sinking of enemy ships and cargoes. At the same time, carry out the complete destruction of the crews of the enemy's ships.

 Sarah Sundin reports on her blog:

Today in World War II History—March 20, 1943: 80 Years Ago—Mar. 20, 1943: In Tunisia, British Eighth Army launches assault on the Mareth Line, and US II Corps drives for Maknassy.

Wednesday, March 19, 2003. The Second Gulf War Commences

F15E over Iraq.

The United States and a coalition of Allies, including its principal western allies, on this day in 2003, commenced operations against Iraq.  The war commenced with air operations.  

The causa belli of the undeclared war was Iraq's lack of cooperation with weapons inspectors.

President Bush went on the air and stated:

At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.

Congress is just now considering a bill to deauthorize military force in Iraq, which at this point would be more symbolic than anything else.  

The initial invasion went well and swiftly, but the war yielded to a post-war, war, against Islamic insurgents that lasted until 2011.  Iraq has remained unstable, but not Baathist, and it has retained democracy, although frequently only barely.  Iran has gained influence in the country, which has a large Shiia population, which was not expected.

The war remains legally problematic in that it was a full scale invasion of a foreign power with no declaration of war, setting it apart from any post World War Two war, with perhaps the exception of the war in Afghanistan, that had that feature but lacked such a declaration.  At least arguably it was illegal for that reason.  Amongst other things, Art 1, Section 8, of the Constitution provides that Congress has the power to:

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

Presidents are the commanders in chief of the armed forces, and in Washington's day actually took to the field with it, so it would not be correct to assume that only Congress can deploy troops, even into harm's way.  But full scale wars. . . that seems pretty exclusively reserved to Congress.

The war also came while the U.S. was already fighting, albeit at a low level, in Afghanistan, and the Iraq episode would prove to be a distraction from it, leading in no small part to that first war ended, twenty years later, inconclusively.

The war redrew the political map of the Middle East, which it was intended to do, so to that extent it was at least a partial success, although it took much longer than expected.  It's effect on the national deficit, discussed this past week by NPR, is staggering and the nation still is nowhere near paying for it, something that will have very long term consequences for the nation going forward, and providing a reason, amongst others, that undeclared wars should not really be engaged in.  Congress, for its part, simply chose not to debate the topic in that context, an abrogation of its duty, although it did authorize military action in another form.

The war contributed to the rise of ISIL, which was later put down.  It increased Syrian instability, which has yet to be fully addressed.  

It also contributed to a rising tide of military worship in the US, while ironically would be part of the right wing reaction to "forever wars" that gave rise to Donald Trump.  

One of only two wars, the other being the First Gulf War, initiated by a Republican President since World War Two, the war had huge initial support from the left and the right, something that many of the same people who supported it later conveniently forgot.

Friday, March 19, 1943. Ships lost, Airmen Promoted, Mobster departs.

The Carras (Greek), Glendalough (UK), Lulworth Hill (UK), and Matthew Luckenbach (US) went down in the Atlantic.   So did the U348, which was sunk by a British B-17.

Sarah Sundin notes, in her blog:

Today in World War II History—March 19, 1943: U-boats break off attacks on convoys HX-229 and SC-122, ending largest convoy battle of the war. 

The HMS Derwent, Ocean Voyager (UK) and Varvara went down in the Mediterranean.  

The U-5 went down in a diving accident off of Pilaue, East Prussia.  The Soviet TKA-35 collided with another torpedo boat and sank.

USS Wahoo.

The Japanese lost the Kowa Maru, Takachiho and Zogen Maru, all merchant ships, to two submarines. The USS Wahoo sank two of them.   She would be lost in December 1943.

The Japanese losses demonstrate that the Japanese were enduring in the Pacific what the Allies were in the Atlantic, shipping losses due to submarines.  However, the Japanese were never able to adjust to it to the extent that the Allies ultimately did.

Sundin also noted:

Today in World War II History—March 19, 1943: Henry H. Arnold is promoted to four-star general.

Arnold was a career airman and had in fact received flight instruction from the Wright Brothers.  A West Point graduate, he had wanted to be a cavalryman, but his initial assignment was to infantry.  He switched to aviation in 1911, but did not receive any sort of World War One overseas assignments, being used in other roles, much like Eisenhower, until 1918 at which time he became ill with Spanish Flu.  He arrived in Europe right at the time of the Armistice.

He became chief of the Air Corps in 1938.

56 at the time of this promotion, he was in ill health and starting in 1943 he would have the first of four severe wartime heart attacks which should have caused him to be required to leave the service, but he was allowed to stay due to intervention by President Roosevelt.

He was appointed to General of the Army in December 1944, and General of the Air Force, although retired in 1949.  He's the only person to have held five-star rank in the Air Force, and the only one to hold five star rank in two services.

He retired in 1947, before the establishment of the Air Force as a separate branch, and died at age 63 in 1950.

The Albanian Communist Party formed the Sigurimi which gathered intelligence in the fight for Albanian freedom, and then was used post-war to stamp out any chance of Albanian freedom.

Frank Nitti, cousin of and mobster with, Al Capone, died by suicide the day before a scheduled grand jury appearance.  

Nitti had risen high up in the Chicago mob due to Al Capone, although he was not exclusively active with it.  He did become a very significant member of it and was more than mere muscle, contrary to the way he has been portrayed in film.  Born in Italy, and raised in the US under rough circumstances, he was perhaps a natural for crime.

Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, Nitti and Capone were not in the mafia and were not eligable to be as they were not Sicilians or of Sicilian extraction.

Best Posts of the Week of March 11, 2023

The best posts of the week of March 11, 2023

Saturday, March 13, 1943. Freedom from Fear.

The 2024 Wyoming Legislative Session. The Super Early Riser Edition (Part 1)

Wednesday, March 14, 2023. International cartographers

An uncomfortable question.

Left, Right, and Changing Lanes. The Evolution of the American Political Parties. Part 1, the Republican Party.

Monday, March 15, 1943 A Wyoming Federal Reservation, Germans retake Kharkiv

Uniparty?

March 16, 1943. Stalin asks for the Western Allies to open a "second" front, disregarding that the war in the East was the Second Front, and the Western Allies were fighting on three fronts.

Left, Right, and Changing Lanes. The Evolution of the American Political Parties. Part 2, the Democratic Party.

Saturday, March 17, 1973. Treason and Sad Reunions.

Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus

Pandemic Part 10. A new paradigm?

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part 3. Spring Storms.

The 2023 Wyoming Legislative Session. The Last Roundup. (Vol 7).

Enough Already? Wyoming Republicans begin to take back county organizations from the Populist far right.

Is this Columbus in 1916?

Is this Columbus in 1916?

Hmmmm. . . I wonder if this caption is correct:

Destruction of liquor by order of Pancho Villa, Columbus, New Mexico, ca. 1916.

The city depicted looks far larger, and more developed, than those I've seen of Columbus, New Mexico in this time frame.

Thoughts?

Thursday, March 18, 1943. 1st Rangers take El Guettar.

The U.S. 1st Ranger Battalion, "Darby's Rangers", took El Guettar Tunisia from surprised Italian forces.

William O. Darby, their commander, was a pre-war artilleryman who was exposed to British Commandos while stationed in Northern Ireland.  Darby sought and was granted a leadership role in the 1st Ranger Battalion when it was formed in 1942.  The Rangers at that time were heavily made up of volunteers from the 34th Infantry Division, which was a National Guard division made up of units from several states.  That the rangers had this origin is often missed.

Darby was killed in action in Italy shortly before the war ended.

United States Army Air Corps bombardier Jack Warren Mathis was killed in action.  He'd be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on this day. The citation reads:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy over Vegesack, Germany on 18 March 1943. First Lt. Mathis, as leading bombardier of his squadron, flying through intense and accurate antiaircraft fire, was just starting his bomb run, upon which the entire squadron depended upon for accurate bombing, when he was hit by the enemy antiaircraft fire. His right arm was shattered above the elbow, a large wound was torn in his side and abdomen, and he was knocked from his bombsight to the rear of the bombardier's compartment. Realizing that the success of the mission depended upon him, 1st Lt. Mathis, by sheer determination and willpower, though mortally wounded, dragged himself back to his sights, released his bombs, then died at his post of duty. As the result of this action the airplanes of his bombardment squadron placed their bombs directly upon the assigned target for a perfect attack against the enemy. First Lt. Mathis' undaunted bravery has been a great inspiration to the officers and men of his unit.

Mathis had joined the Army in 1940 and had served as an enlisted artillerymen until his brother joined the Air Corps.  He then transferred to it. 

The German recapture of Kharkiv was completed.  The Red Army evacuated Belgorod.

Of note, now regarded as a Russian city, it had been a Ukrainian one prior to the USSR redrawing the map.

The British Canadian Star, Clarissa Radcliiffe, Dafila, Kaying, the US SS Ogelthorpe, Molly Pitcher, Walater Q. Gresham and  the DutchTerkolei went down in the Battle of the Atlantic.

The Vichy administration of French Guiana was deposed.

American Nazi leader, German-born Fritz Kuhn, was stripped of his U.S. citizenship.

Deportation of Jewish residents of Bulgarian occupied Thrace commenced.

Sunday, March 18, 1923. Because it's there.

In a New York Times interview with British mountain climber George Leigh Mallory, the adventurer gave his reason for looking forward to a third attempt on Mount Everest as "Because it's there".

Mallory did attempt the climb in 1924, losing his life in the attempt.

Going Feral: Salmon Season Suspended.

Going Feral: Salmon Season Suspended.: 

Salmon Season Suspended.

From UPI:

March 13 (UPI) -- The recreational and commercial salmon fishing season has been canceled along the coasts of Oregon and California, through the middle of May, due to dwindling numbers of Chinook salmon in the states' largest rivers following years of drought.

Not good.  Not good at all. Even with all this years rain and snow. 

Sunday, March 17, 1963. St. Patrick's Dedicated.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 17: St. Patrick's Day:1963  Dedication of St. Patrick's Parish in Casper. 

St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Casper Wyoming was completed in 1962. The church came about due to the expansion of Casper in the 1950s, and this church is the newest of the three Roman Catholic churches in Casper. Unlike Our Lady of Fatiima, which represented an expansion to the west side of Casper, this church is located in east Casper.

Plans for the church commenced in 1955. Like Our Lady of Fatima, a school was constructed on the site but was never used as a regular grade school. The church is also the largest of the three Catholic churches in Casper, having a very large interior.

Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus

Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus

I declare that I, Patrick, – an unlearned sinner indeed – have been established a bishop in Ireland. I hold quite certainly that what I am, I have accepted from God. I live as an alien among non-Roman peoples, an exile on account of the love of God – he is my witness that this is so. It is not that I would choose to let anything so blunt and harsh come from my mouth, but I am driven by the zeal for God. And the truth of Christ stimulates me, for love of neighbours and children: for these, I have given up my homeland and my parents, and my very life to death, if I am worthy of that. I live for my God, to teach these peoples, even if I am despised by some.

With my own hand I have written and put together these words to be given and handed on and sent to the soldiers of Coroticus. I cannot say that they are my fellow-citizens, nor fellow-citizens of the saints of Rome, but fellow-citizens of demons, because of their evil works. By their hostile ways they live in death, allies of the apostate Scots and Picts. They are blood-stained: blood-stained with the blood of innocent Christians, whose numbers I have given birth to in God and confirmed in Christ.

The newly baptised and anointed were dressed in white robes; the anointing was still to be seen clearly on their foreheads when they were cruelly slain and sacrificed by the sword of the ones I referred to above. On the day after that, I sent a letter by a holy priest (whom I had taught from infancy), with clerics, to ask that they return to us some of the booty or of the baptised prisoners they had captured. They scoffed at them.

So I don't know which is the cause of the greatest grief for me: whether those who were slain, or those who were captured, or those whom the devil so deeply ensnared. They will face the eternal pains of Gehenna equally with the devil; because whoever commits sin is rightly called a slave and a son of the devil.

For this reason, let every God-fearing person know that those people are alien to me and to Christ my God, for whom I am an ambassador: father-slayers, brother-slayers, they are savage wolves devouring the people of God as they would bread for food. It is just as it is said: ‘The wicked have routed your law, O Lord’ – the very law which in recent times he so graciously planted in Ireland and, with God's help, has taken root.

I am not forcing myself in where I have no right to act. I have a part with those whom God called and destined to preach the gospel, even in persecutions which are no small matter, to the very ends of the earth. This is despite the malice of the Enemy through the tyranny of Coroticus, who respects neither God, nor his priests whom God chose and granted the divine and sublime power that whatever they would bind upon earth would be bound also in the heavens.

Therefore I ask most of all that all the holy and humble of heart should not fawn on such people, nor even share food or drink with them, nor accept their alms, until such time as they make satisfaction to God in severe penance and shedding of tears, and until they set free the men-servants of God and the baptised women servants of Christ, for whom he died and was crucified.

The Most High does not accept the gifts of evildoers. The one who offers a sacrifice taken from what belongs to the poor is like one who sacrifices a child in the very sight of the child's father. Riches, says Scripture, which a person gathers unjustly, will be vomited out of that person's stomach. The angel of death will drag such a one away, to be crushed by the anger of dragons. Such a one will the tongue of a serpent slay, and the fire which cannot be extinguished will consume. And Scripture also says: ‘Woe to those who fill themselves with what does not belong to them’. And: ‘What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and yet suffer the loss of his or her soul?’

It would take a long time to discuss or refer one by one, and to gather from the whole law all that is stated about such greed. Avarice is a deadly crime. Do not covet your neighbour's goods. Do not kill. The murderer can have no part with Christ. Whoever hates a brother is guilty of homicide. Also: Whoever does not love a brother remains in death. How much more guilty is the one who stained his hands in the blood of the children of God, who God only lately acquired in the most distant parts of the earth through the encouragement of one as unimportant as I am!

Surely it was not without God, or simply out of human motives, that I came to Ireland! Who was it who drove me to it? I am so bound by the Spirit that I no longer see my own kindred. Is it just from myself that comes the holy mercy in how I act towards that people who at one time took me captive and slaughtered the men and women servants in my father's home? In my human nature I was born free, in that I was born of a decurion father. But I sold out my noble state for the sake of others – and I am not ashamed of that, nor do I repent of it. Now, in Christ, I am a slave of a foreign people, for the sake of the indescribable glory of eternal life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If my own people do not recognise me, still no prophet is honoured in his own country. Could it be that we are not of the one sheepfold, nor that we have the one God as our Father? As Scripture says: ‘Whoever is not with me is against me’; and ‘whoever does not gather with me, scatters’. But it is not right that one destroys while another builds. I do not seek what is mine: it is not my own grace, but God who put this concern in my heart, that I would be one of the hunters or fishers whom God at one time foretold would be here in the final days.

They watch me with malice. What am I to do, Lord? I am greatly despised. See – your sheep around me are mangled and preyed upon, and this by the thieves I mentioned before, at the bidding of the evil-minded Coroticus. He is far from the love of God, who betrays Christians into the hands of Scots and Picts. Greedy wolves have devoured the flock of the Lord, which was flourishing in Ireland under the very best of care – I just can't count the number of sons of Scots and daughters of kings who are now monks and virgins of Christ. So the injuries done to good people will not please you – even in the very depths it will not please.

Who among the holy people would not be horrified to take pleasure or to enjoy a banquet with such people? They have filled their homes with what they stole from dead Christians; they live on what they plundered. These wretched people don't realise that they offer deadly poison as food to their friends and children. It is just like Eve, who did not understand that it was really death that she offered her man. This is how it is with those who do evil: they work for death as an everlasting punishment.

The Christians of Roman Gaul have the custom of sending holy and chosen men to the Franks and to other pagan peoples with so many thousands in money to buy back the baptised who have been taken prisoner. You, on the other hand, kill them, and sell them to foreign peoples who have no knowledge of God. You hand over the members of Christ as it were to a brothel. What hope have you in God? Who approves of what you do, or who ever speaks words of praise? God will be the judge, for it is written: ‘Not only the doers of evil, but also those who go along with it, are to be condemned’.

I do not know what to say, or how I can say any more, about the children of God who are dead, whom the sword has touched so cruelly. All I can do is what is written: ‘Weep with those who weep’; and again: ‘If one member suffers pain, let all the members suffer the pain with it’.[Nota] This is why the church mourns and weeps for its sons and daughters whom the sword has not yet slain, but who were taken away and exported to far distant lands, where grave sin openly flourishes without shame, where freeborn people have been sold off, Christians reduced to slavery: slaves particularly of the lowest and worst of the apostate Picts.

That is why I will cry aloud with sadness and grief: O my fairest and most loving brothers and sisters whom I begot without number in Christ, what am I to do for you? I am not worthy to come to the aid either of God or of human beings. The evil of evil people has prevailed over us.We have been made as if we were complete outsiders. Can it be they do not believe that we have received one and the same Baptism, or that we have one and the same God as father. For them, it is a disgrace that we are from Ireland. Remember what Scripture says: ‘Do you not have the one God? Then why have you each abandoned your neighbour?’

That is why I grieve for you; I grieve for you who are so very dear to me. And yet I rejoice within myself: I have not worked for nothing; my wanderings have not been in vain. This unspeakably horrifying crime has been carried out. But, thanks to God, you who are baptised believers have moved on from this world to paradise. I see you clearly: you have begun your journey to where there is no night, nor sorrow, nor death, any more. Rather, you leap for joy, like calves set free from chains, and you tread down the wicked, and they will be like ashes under your feet.

And so, you will reign with apostles and prophets and martyrs. You will take possession of an eternal kingdom, as he (Christ) testifies in these words: ‘They will come from the east and from the west, and they will recline at the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens. Left outside are dogs and sorcerers and murderers; with the lying perjurers, their lot is in the pool of eternal fire’. It is not without cause that the apostle says: ‘If it is the case that a just person can be saved only with difficulty, where will the sinner and the irreverent transgressor of the law find himself?’

So where will Coroticus and his villainous rebels against Christ find themselves – those who divide out defenceless baptised women as prizes, all for the sake of a miserable temporal kingdom, which will pass away in a moment of time. Just as cloud of smoke is blown away by the wind, that is how deceitful sinners will perish from the face of the Lord. The just, however, will banquet in great constancy with Christ. They will judge nations, and will rule over evil kings for all ages. Amen.

I bear witness before God and his angels that it will be as he made it known to one of my inexperience. These are not my own words which I have put before you in Latin; they are the words of God, and of the apostles and prophets, who have never lied. ‘Anyone who believes will be saved; anyone who does not believe will be condemned’ – God has spoken.

I ask insistently whatever servant of God is courageous enough to be a bearer of these messages, that it in no way be withdrawn or hidden from any person. Quite the opposite – let it be read before all the people, especially in the presence of Coroticus himself. If this takes place, God may inspire them to come back to their right senses before God. However late it may be, may they repent of acting so wrongly, the murder of the brethren of the Lord, and set free the baptised women prisoners whom they previously seized. So may they deserve to live for God, and be made whole here and in eternity. Peace to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Patrick, Bishop of Ireland.