"WITH tolerable taxes, no state debt and no interest to pay, England enjoyed a period of unparalleled growth and prosperity [in the Middle Ages]. The average laborer worked only 14 weeks and enjoyed 160 to 180 holidays. According to Lord Leverhulme, a writer of that time, "The men of the 15th century were very well paid," in fact so well paid that the purchasing power of their wages and their standard of living would only be exceeded in the late 19th century. A labourer could provide for all the necessities his family required. They were well clothed in good woolen cloth and had plenty of meat and bread. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the Anglo-German philosopher, confirms these living conditions in his The Foundations of the XIX Century: In the thirteenth century. when the Teutonic races began to build their new world, the agriculturalist over nearly the whole of Europe was a freer man, with a more assured existence, than he is today; copyhold was the rule, so that England, for example -- today a seat of landlordism -- was even in the fifteenth century almost entirely in the hands of thousands of farmers, who were not only legal owners of their land, but possessed in addition far-reaching free rights to common pastures and woodlands. During their spare hours many craftsmen volunteered their skills in building some of England's magnificent cathedrals, which reinforces one of the basic tenets of Western civilization that without…

  "PRAYER ought to be humble, fervent, resigned, persevering and accompanied with great reverence. One should consider that he stands in the presence of a God, and speaks with a Lord before whom the Angels tremble from awe and fear." ---- St. Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi

FOR SOME reason, the font suddenly changed on this website when viewed in Google Chrome (and now in Safari). I probably did something wrong when making a backup. If anyone knows how to fix it, I would appreciate your help. In the meantime, if it also appears small to you, use the "zoom in" function in "View." You can also go to another browser.

  WHY HAVE so many artists found apples compelling? See my previous post, "An Apple with Character."

FROM Our Borders, Our Selves: America in the Age of Multiculturalism, by Lawrence Auster (forthcoming from VDare Books): What must be understood and resisted is the Secular‑Democratic Consciousness in all its forms, whether they be called leftist, liberal, conservative, or even Christian.  Whatever its particular ideological object, the Secular‑Democratic Consciousness believes not in God but in man and the perfectibility of human values. In pursuit of that perfection, it reduces the whole of reality with its hierarchy of spiritual and temporal goods to one part of that reality, and treats that one part as the whole, while seeking to eliminate whatever stands in its way. The various secular "gods" resulting from this ideological operation go by many names -- global democracy, humanity, unlimited personal freedom, economic equality, racial equality, gender equality, compassion, sexual liberation, economic growth, population control, immigration, race blindness, racial diversity, racial amalgamation. America itself is regarded as possessing godlike qualities, as we see in the idea of America as a "redeemer nation" or "universal nation." To the Secular‑Democratic Consciousness, America is not a nation under God, America (or rather the ideology they call "America") is God. The core of the Secular‑Democratic Consciousness in all its forms is the deformation of the Christian religion into the Religion of Man. But that is only the beginning of the disaster. With the advent of multiculturalism and anti‑racism, the Religion of Man has been further perverted into the Religion of Other Men…

JAMES H. writes:

In response to “Nihilist America:”  When we attended St. Louis Cardinal baseball games – we dressed up.  When we attended the St. Louis Muni Opera – we dressed up.  When we travelled – we dressed up.  When we attended the movies, we dressed up!

On May 31st, 1965, Mom and Dad assembled the “troops” and took us to the St. Louis premier of The Sound of Music at the St. Louis Theater.  The St. Louis Theater was one of the grandest theaters in the world opening on November 25, 1925 – four years after Dad’s birth.   The theater was enormous, seating 4,100 patrons.  The Sound of Music ran 86 weeks, from 1965 to 1966 and closed immediately afterwards when the restoration for the St. Louis Symphony began.  You can still visit the St. Louis Theater today which is now known as Powell Symphony Hall – its grandeur evocative of an earlier better age.

We sat near the front of the balcony on the right as you face the screen and I will never ever forget the opening scenes from the Sound of Music on that enormous screen. The theater was equipped with a 70-millimeter projector and with stereophonic sound to showcase the movie’s beautiful Todd-AO large-format cinematography. Seeing that magnificent movie in that spectacular theater was one of my fondest memories as a child.  And you can bet, we (all seven children with 2 yet to come) dressed up!

When I grew up America had a bright future – and we looked our best for it.  Today, not so much. (more…)

BILL DONOHUE, president of the Catholic League, has written a sharply-worded letter to state attorney generals who are seeking to emulate Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro's sensationalistic, defamatory grand jury report on sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Note: There has indeed been sexual abuse of children by clergy, particularly in the decades immediately after the 60s and the advent of the Sexual Revolution --- and sex abuse of children is always, without exception, a heinous crime, worthy in this blogger's opinion of the death penalty not psychological counseling. Nevertheless, Shapiro's report is deceptive, unconstitutional, inflammatory and, unlike most grand jury reports, had almost nothing to do with bringing legal charges against wrongdoers, which is the normal purview of attorney generals. There is evidence of much more sex abuse in public schools  -- and yet there is no call for similar grand jury investigations of public education. There are also many documented instances of sex abuse in Orthodox Jewish communities, even though these communities have been known to punish severely those who come forth with charges, and yet we see no comparable investigations there, or comparable media campaigns. Wonder why. Though I don't accept Donohue's general position on the Vatican II Church, and believe the Vatican II revolution unleashed a plague of homosexuality among its clergy, I embrace Donohue's mission to prevent more organized defamation.

LYDIA SHERMAN writes: I'm really liking what you are putting up on your blog about 9/11. I found this quote by a man named Robert Grodin, from a documentary called "Plaza Man" "What happens to the individual who dissents or finds the truth: he is marginalized, harassed, intimidated, caricatured, smeared, which, as the DA stated, has the same effect as liquidating him." (Note: I'm under-impressed with Robert Grodin as a family man, but the quote is so true. It has happened to even the most benign blogger!)

  NOTICE the security detail behind Mark Walsh as he plants the official explanation of building collapses on 9/11. The explanation and the entire exchange are obviously scripted.

  FOR MORE information, see the Wikispooks entry, "Israel Did It."

  "DR. Niels Harrit is the Associate Professor for Chemistry at the Copenhagen University in Denmark, and a globally recognized scientist who has published various scientific papers. He was part of the scientific team which discovered nanothermite in samples of dust from the 9/11 W.T.C attacks." Watch the full interview here.

  NO PASSENGER PLANE was seen at the Pentagon on 9/11. The building was hit by a missile. This is an excellent interview with April Gallup who was at the Pentagon that day. The very first police officer on the scene also said there was no plane.  

THE crater was made by a military drone, seen by at least one eyewitness, and not a passenger plane. As Donald Rumsfeld said (in a slip up during a speech), Flight 93 was shot out of the sky and the debris was elsewhere. Christopher Bollyn on "the Shanksville deception:" Something incredibly ugly happened to Flight 93 over rural Pennsylvania on 9-11.  A mass murder atrocity could explain why the public was deceived into thinking that a small crater was the crash site while the bodies of the victims and wreckage were actually being picked up from the real debris field hundreds of meters away in the dark woods.  How many victims were there anyway?  Two hundred?  Why was the wreckage of Flight 93 kept hidden?