NEW YEAR'S FORECAST

The wisest prophets make sure of the event first. Walpole

After delivering a forest of switches to misbehaving cult "clergy" and "religious" last week,  Krampus returned exhausted. Our shaggy prankster was particularly miffed at having to make a second stop in Highland, MI, at the — LOL — "convent."  (In past years, he could skip the house: the "nuns" were once fiery-eyed foes of Tradzilla because he used to laugh and call them names.)

"Every year," ol' Krampus complained resentfully, "the list of Tradistan's naughties grows longer and longer. When's it all going to end?"

A fair question, we thought. For sure, it's one everybody's asking. And that gave PL the idea for today's post. Many of you may remember The McLaughlin Group, the long-running political commentary and discussion show on PBS, the host of which passed away in August 2016. Our favorite recurring segment featured Dr. McLaughlin's inviting the panelists to venture their predictions. 

Accordingly, by way of tribute to the late former Jesuit who enlivened many a Friday evening, PL asked staff to predict events in 2017 that might lead to the end of Tradistan before next Christmas. We told everyone here to think BIG, to guess boldly. Nothing would be too far fetched or absurd. Our good buddy Krampus hopes the new year can bring relief. Besides, Santa's been concerned about the rapid deforestation of the planet if his companion has to cut an equal number of birch rods every year.

As the Readers shared predictions, it dawned on the group that all you guys out in cyberspace could lend a hand. Many of you are keen observers or, like us, former victims of the cult masters; furthermore, often you have more information about internal cult activity than we do.  Therefore, we decided to post our most imaginative conjectures for TRADPOCALYPSE and invite you to add your own guesses in the comments section. That way Krampus can get a better idea of how many names he might cross off come December 2017.

Doesn't that sound like fun? It sure does to us. As a  handsel for our Latin-loving friends, we've concluded with a general prediction of Tradistan's collapse in everybody's (except the cult masters') favorite language.

So, as Jackie Gleason used to say, "and away we go!"

Reader # 1's Prediction: Dannie and Tony Baloney won't be able to wait for the renovated and expanded Bishop's Lodge to re-open in late spring of 2018. Knowing they can never retire to the artsy Southwest (or anywhere else), they may splurge in 2017 at another deluxe spa property in fashionable Santa Fe. Scandalized by the mortally sinful waste of their contributions, the dead-broke Gerties won't believe Travelin' Man Dan and Breezy Cheesy went on a "pilgrimage." When the Gruesome Twosome returns to the dilapidated Ohio cult center, they may well find mostly raccoons and mice to greet them. 

Reader # 2's and # 5's Prediction: Between the end of April and the middle of June, Tradistan's "bishop"-elect, a.k.a. the Kid, could get his birthright miter from Tradzilla, with the flappable Long-Island Jellyfish as co-consecrator. Thereafter, the Swampland élite might  (a) show Tradzilla to the door, (b) close the pesthouse to all but family members or turn it into a "convent," (c) run off anybody without enough money or unrelated to the Big 3, and (d) try to fly under the radar from now on. (No sense in further piquing the curiosity of those pesky, do-gooder governmental authorities.) The Jellyfish's disenchanted cultlings, stung by Its Gelatinacy's capitulation to the long-anathematized Donster, will likely become openly contemptuous, thereby pressuring the creature to return to native waters.

Reader # 3's Prediction: Way, way back in May, Big Don promised he would "[s]hortly...found an organization of Traditional Catholic priests" that "will give a 'body' to what already exists in spirit, i.e., a common mind and way of acting among our priests..." (click here for the full statement on p. 2).  Well, seven months have come and gone. It's the end of December already, and not a peep from the pestholuse: the last newsletter said absolutely nothing. Therefore, either this new "body," like Tradzilla's other embarrassing flop, the Big $30 K plan of 2011, will never materialize, or, if it does, the members will be limited to the toad-eating "clergy" the Donster already dominates. As the clerical grapevine has it, there's a boatload of questions about Don's so-called "Declaration of Theological Principles," and no one except his sycophants may want to sign on. The failure of the rector's initiative won't have any effect on Reader # 2's and # 5's guess.

Reader # 4's and # 6's Prediction: For Easter 2017, the SGGResources site will hawk memorial lilies. Like 2016's memorial-poinsettia cash grabathon, overpriced Easter lilies will provide His Designership with more than a tasteless money-making scheme.  It's the only way Decorator Dan can get the crumbling cult center tarted up for his big spring show. The Gerties aren't helping out as they used to. If they do show up for one of the (possibly simulated) Masses, they can't wait to get out of the vermin-threatened dump as soon as it's over. Also, they refuse to come back during the week. The handful of sullen suckers who do show up to decorate are aging, therefore reluctant to climb high ladders to hang Dannie's kitschy frippery. More than that, they're sick and tired of being it all the time. Significantly, with revenue down, SGG can't afford all the outrageous extravagance of the long-gone fat years before the 2009 School Scandal. Therefore, wilting flowers passed off as "memorials" for the dearly departed are all that's left:  It doesn't take Residential Interior Design Qualification Certification to plop vases around the blighted property to mask all the building's defects. (BTW, the vases will cost extra. We think Dannie might favor the Waterford Crystal My Favorite Things Opulence pattern.)

Our Techie's Prediction (e-mailed to PL from Mexico, where she's visiting her family):  His Footlooseness's south-of-the-border "apostolate" will shrink, as more and more chapels down there angrily break off relations with him. They've got this gringo's number now. Without big bucks to pass around, any oddballs who do remain associated with the Dirtbag will become restive. (There's already been some very nasty grousing about tacañería and — *shudder* — mezquindad.) By year's end, he'll be left alone with the mischief-making "Juárez Chihuahua King" to lick his boots, and talk ugly behind his back.

PL's Corporate Prediction in Latin:  By far, this is the wildest one we made as a group. Up front, we'll grant the probability of its coming true in late 2017 is pretty low. Nonetheless, the idea gives so much encouragement to everyone that we can't resist, notwithstanding the risk of depraved cult zombies' mocking us if it doesn't happen this year. But since it's in Latin, we're probably safe: their "clergy" won't be able to translate for them. So, begging pardon from the shades of Lucan for not preserving all the quantities, we predict that

Tota tegetur Tradistan* dumetis: etiam perierint ruinae.

If the prophecy isn't realized in 2017, it won't be long. The event will come to pass. It's only a matter of a little time. You can make it happen sooner if you

Starve the Beast in 2017.


*For objecting purists, we vindicate ourselves against a charge of scribbling dog Latin: "Tradistan," the cult masters' spectral desert island, with some stretch of the imagination could be a transliteration into the Roman alphabet of a never-to-be-attested nu-stem 3rd. decl. noun ἡ Τραδιστάν (like ὁ μεγιστάν, -ᾶνος "big shot," a late-Greek word with an Eastern flavor and a definite cultish resonance).

ROGUES, VAGABONDS AND STURDY BEGGARS

 Editor's Note: In restless anticipation of St. Nick's visit tonight, the Readers are posting early. We've got to hang up our stockings and wiggle into our toasty p.j.'s long before the jolly old elf lands on the roof of PL's editorial offices. (We've been very, very good this year.)

Don't worry: we'll leave Krampus a nice bottle of Himbeergeist along with GPS coördinates for all the SW Ohio-Brooksville cult centers and affiliates. (Let's hope he's got enough switches for the terribly naughty Tradistani "clergy.")

The horseleech hath two daughters that say: Bring, bring. The Book of Proverbs

The Readers thought they'd heard it all.

Then they saw last week's "Bishop's (?) Corner."

Mind you, we're accustomed to the degrading image of His Mendicancy's mooching fully prepared suppers from impoverished Gertie families. But nothing, and we mean nothing, beats the following example of grotesque impudence:

We’re surely grateful for meals for priests. Last week we did very well. Sometimes, though, it’s a question of meals or priestly work, and we’d much rather attend to the spiritual, but we are used to eating, alas! So, let’s work together. If you are cooking, please use the Cucina Clerical website. For last-minute offerings, just let me know, or Fr. Lehtoranta, so the food doesn’t get missed. Sometimes we forget to check the fridge. We should be good for Christmas, as we were indeed for Thanksgiving. But there can be some pretty spare days in between….

What was he smoking when he wrote that?

Unless you assume Panhandlin' Dan, suffering from some dissociative disorder brought on by increasing defections from his cult, is babbling some loopy, stream-of-consciousness monologue, it's hard to make much sense of the paragraph. To decode the Dirtbag's secret message, you've got to anatomize the text. In case you quickly skimmed over the immodest proposal, thereby missing all the parasitical implications lurking under the zany prose, here's our reading. Let's start with the third sentence:

Sometimes, though, it’s a question of meals or priestly work, and we’d much rather attend to the spiritual, but we are used to eating, alas!

That line is much more than a mortifying specimen of Dannie's frightfully gauche humor. It's a brazen threat:

"If you want us to do the job you're paying us for, then you'd better make sure we don't waste our time or money on grocery shopping and cooking for ourselves."

So what if your employers expect you to feed yourself on your own! So what if you have to take time out from what you want to do in order to shop and prepare dinner! The clerical leeches feeding off you in grand style won't be confined by the silly constraints of daily life. No way! If you want 'em to work, then you gotta feed 'n' serve 'em.

Like all inveterate freeloaders, Dannie's too practiced a sponger to let you ponder his insolence for too long. If he gave you time to reflect, you'd be furious. That's why he immediately made his move to lock in your thoughtless assent as you were still recovering from his aggressive cadging:

So, let’s work together. If you are cooking, please use the Cucina Clerical website. For last-minute offerings, just let me know, or Fr. Lehtoranta, so the food doesn’t get missed. Sometimes we forget to check the fridge.

See, Gerties, you've been slow on the uptake. He'll "work together" with you to guarantee a non-stop supply of ready-to-nuke-'n'-gobble goodies for himself and his bone-lazy clown crew. And since the cult "clergy" aren't resourceful enough to open the refrigerator to check whether you've brought their chow, it's now up to you to inform them. (N.B. In fairness, the cult "Fathers" might be scared to open the refrigerator door for fear of encountering another mouse inside. See our post of January 3,  2015. )

Apparently, the unannounced food drop-offs forced the curiously incurious "clergy" to rustle up their grub using their own cash. Gertie Gals, it's your fault the "missed" victuals rotted away or were carried off by the filthy vermin nesting in SGG. All we can say is that Li'l Daniel must be pretty cross at your inconsideration.

What makes your thoughtlessness more reprehensible is that on those days when the "clergy" missed the catered eats, Dannie probably had to pressure one of his work-averse "clerical" parasites to whip up something for his din-din. Can you imagine the screaming and yelling it takes to herd those layabouts into the kitchen, especially if they're squeamish about rodent scat?

After Dannie 'fessed up to forgetting to check on meal deliveries, he probably realized he'd crossed the line. The cultlings signed on to SGG for the sacraments, not to run a "clerical" chuck wagon and ring an iron triangle dinner-bell for loafers too indolent to crack open the icebox door. That's really taxing the dirty Gerties' vanishing patience, even by cult-master standards. Accordingly, his survival instincts cautioned him to pivot by playing the sympathy card:

We should be good for Christmas, as we were indeed for Thanksgiving. But there can be some pretty spare days in between….

"Some pretty spare days..."?

Did he say, "... SPARE..."???

What? Does "One Hand" mean the SGG chow-hound "clergy" didn't have enough freebies to wolf down between Thanksgiving and Christmas? Is the old scrounger's cupboard so bare that his poor "clerical" doggies have nothing to nosh on between holiday pig-outs? Can His Esuriency be suggesting that Gertie Gals bust their household budgets to cater meals every day, or else he and his famished entourage will starve? Could it be that Uneven Steven's at risk of involuntarily attaining the Body Mass Index recommended by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute?

If true, it's strange, because in the next paragraph "One-Hand Dan" reveals the "clergy" actually do have the resources, batterie de cuisine (almost), and advanced culinary skills to pull off a crockpot pot roast.* Experienced cook that he is, Dannie himself crowed, "it really is easy to do." Moreover, His Gourmandiseship pronounced the dish "delicious! A great winter dinner."

All-righty, then... the question we have — and one that should fester on the lips of every haggard Gertie scullery maid — is:

Why can't the scum "clergy" make their own dinners in a slow cooker every day?

There are hundreds of economical recipes online, such as this one for hillbilly crockpot raccoon stew, seeing that SGG has a generous supply of the critters infesting the ramshackle cult center. Alternatively, they could get hold of the bestselling Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes which features a bonus chapter on 5-ingredient recipes. That way, Deacon Dan only has to use one hand when he goes marketing.

But don't waste your breath. Stop these bloodsucking worms before their hungry proboscides strike again:

END THE MEALS-FOR-CLERICAL-HEELS PROGRAM AT ONCE!

* Weirdly offensive as the "Corner" was, PL got a kick out of Dan's anecdote about cajoling the hapless Lurch into making a slow-cooker repast: 

... the other night after an excellent supper of Aztec Soup, I inveigled Fr. McGuire, of all things, into making Crockpot Pot Roast. He likes it, and was familiar with the concept... 

Hold on now! Fixing a pot roast in a crockpot is a CONCEPT????

Sheesh! He makes it sound as if he'd asked Lurch to factor 4th degree polynomials with synthetic division instead of dumping 3 or 4 pounds of eye-of-round along with a can of cream-of-mushroom soup into the inner bowl. Well, we suppose if one of your "things" is Lurch, you've got to pretend it's high functioning.

But right after Dannie declared the dish "delicious," his finely tuned prudentia carnis counseled him to excite the Gerties' pity lest they get the impression that the idle "clergy" are capable of fending for themselves in the kitchen:

The only problem is that when [Lurch] started, after having shopped for the ingredients, he discovered we had the crock but not the pot, the lining having been lost. 

Oh, brother!