STANDING IN our backyard lately has been a little like standing on the runways at JFK Airport. The aviators come soaring in for a landing, sometimes so uncomfortably close to our heads, we can feel the whoosh of their wings and the hum of their engines.

Had not a catbird expertly tipped his wings at just the right moment recently, I would have had grounds for a very serious legal claim against him. A wren just the other day zoomed past, almost shaving hairs from my head, as if he was a Blue Angel in a summer airshow. It’s not beneath these aviators to show off occasionally for the sheer pleasure of it. If you could fly, wouldn’t you sometimes show off to those who couldn’t? They may also be trying to say, “Get the heck off the runway, you idiot!”

It’s one shift after another with minimal down time, all day long. It’s like working for a corporate airliner with no union. We have stickers on our windows to prevent crashes because there’s no ground crew with lighted batons to wave them away. They stop only to refuel and clean, splashing around in the little baths we’ve provided like busy airmen in a naval shower room. There’s no time to towel off. They expertly flex the wings so that excess moisture doesn’t create drag on subsequent flights and then quickly service with a few skillful tweaks any feathers out of alignment.

For a quick fuel stop, they peck, pry, poke, pull and pick up various delicacies from the ground, all with the same ingenious tool. It’s fast food to them. There isn’t time to be choosy before air traffic control issues another command. Then their off, some just for quick, local flights, others for the long haul and distant landing grounds — and a few for stealth missions in enemy territories. (more…)

"THE present moment is the ambassador of God to declare His mandates. The heart listens and pronounces its 'fiat.' Thus the soul advances by all these things and flows out from its centre to its goal. It never stops but sails with every wind. Any and every direction leads equally to the shore of infinity. Everything is a help to it, and is, without exception, an instrument of sanctity. The one thing necessary can always be found for it in the present moment." --- Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence  

“IN the first place, take care never to harbor voluntarily in your heart any thought calculated to grieve, disquiet, or dishearten it. From one point of view, such thoughts are more dangerous than impure temptations. Your need then, is to allow them to pass you by, despising them and letting them fall like a stone into the sea. You must resist them by concentrating your attention upon contrary reflections . . .” --- Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Letters of Fr. de Caussade on the Practice of Self-Abandonment  

 " ... [W]HATSOEVER things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things." --- Phillipians 4:8-9  

ALAN writes:

One day more than ten years ago, I happened to overhear two librarians talking about a freight train passing nearby with multiple cars defaced with spray paint.  Some of what they called the “artwork” was attractive, one of them said to the other.  Some of it had artistic merit, she said to the other, who did not voice any disagreement. Neither one of them said anything about the rights of people who own private property like railroad cars, or about vandalism to such property, or about “The Law’s” remarkable ineptitude in defending those rights and punishing those who vandalize that property.

Countless photographs of freight trains from the 1920s through the 1950s do not show any such vandalism to freight cars. If at age ten I had attempted to use my crayons to draw a picture on the side of a railroad car, my elders would not have lost any time in instructing me — properly — that I could not do such a thing because I had no right to touch other people’s property. The absence of such vandalism to railroad cars in those years proves that most parents and public officials had a firm understanding of property rights and the moral determination to uphold them.

That “The Law” today does nothing to punish those who deface other people’s property, that there is no accountability whatever for such negligence or ineptitude, and that members of the intelligentsia like public librarians do not condemn such vandalism but choose instead to sanction it by calling it “art” are but three proofs among many of the profound moral-philosophical degeneracy of contemporary “cool” culture. (more…)

"CONVERSE in fear during the time of your sojourning here; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled." -- Pet. 1: 18.  

Source  

 THE Eric Whitacre Singers perform on the album, "Water Night," in a video made by Mike Ring. God's artistry is written on every summer day. The sun shines on the good and the not-so-good. The gifts of nature are distributed to all. No one is barred from divine love.  

THE FIRST Commandment of American life is “Thou Shalt Worship the Peeps of Color.” No exceptions permitted. And whether you love ’em or not, they will impose their non-stop reign of terror on you, your city and your country. Many years ago, I used to wonder (secretly) why blacks — I mean People of Color — went to great lengths to spray hideous, depressing graffiti all over bridges and buildings, some of which were architecturally beautiful and made urban life so much more tolerable. How did people who were on welfare have so much time and energy, let alone arrogance and criminality, when most of the people I knew were working so hard to make a living?

I realized (secretly, of course) there could be no other reason why a group would deliberately deface public buildings in this peculiarly sickening way — at some expense and trouble when they could just use inexpensive and readily available paper and canvas to express their supreme artistic talents — than that they hated civilization, order and competence. They hated to submit. In other words, they were spoiled brats. Their being brats was largely due, I realized, to their being indulged, given false expectations and lavished with a freedom and license they could not handle by people with a strange fetish for the colored races, a form of state-sanctioned idolatry that made it impossible to express any of these things openly. (more…)

“A MAN does not become a curmudgeon for no good reason. Perhaps he was sick and tired of dealing with pretenders, parasites, connivers, moochers, opportunists, do-gooders, excuse-makers, and excuse validators – and grateful for the simple, forthright integrity of small animals who asked nothing of him. I, too, have ‘had it up to here’ with most human beings. Long, long ago, when I was young and naïve, I half expected to grow up and live the duration of my life among reasonable human beings. Boy, was I wrong. I have seen the stupid and inexcusable things those ‘reasonable’ human beings have done or permitted to be done to this nation in what surely must rank as one of the most astounding examples of national and cultural suicide in all history. With such people for our countrymen, we do not need enemies. I would sooner choose the company of birds or cats than that of most human beings, because I know that birds and cats will never pretend to be anything they aren’t. They will not betray, nor will the stars or the flowers.”

— Alan (2013 post, “The Stars Weep Too.”) (more…)

TONY S. writes:

My youth was spent with these girls and young women.  So many indoctrinated in this clown world faith.

How I wanted to hear just once from all the girls I knew or dated that what they wanted to be when they got older was a mother/homemaker. As I approached thirty I would say to any woman on a first date something along the lines of, “Although I can buy a house, I can never create a home; only a woman can make a home.” It never made any impression on any of them. When I was in college I knew a number of nice young women, all from good families, and I would ask them if they really wanted that career they were studying for (especially, since most students, male or female at that time, the early 90’s, were obviously not interested in learning); wouldn’t they rather stay home and raise a family? And every single one of them gave the same answer, as if programmed, “I want both the career and the family.”

Looking back, now in my mid-50’s, it is clear to me that my generation (Gen X) were indoctrinated, mostly I believe by their parents, who told them to have a career first and then a family second.  And I think the young women were really looking for acclaim by becoming a lawyer, doctor, business woman. How superficial they were raised to be. (more…)

"THIS is the picture of a woman who has zero need to work except to feed her own ego. Another fake conservative woman with jewish values who would sacrifice the best years of her child’s life for a sick and twisted career. "And the MAGA seals clap." Source Here is White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt again, this time wearing an all-too-conspicuous, all-too-large cross -- as if that somehow makes her a devout Christian. But I guess in the eyes of many people it does, because they think political theater is reality. The blonde, attractive press secretary is a Trump trademark. I guess these aggressively ambitious, know-it-all, workaholic babes are supposed to make him seem more macho. His staff is part beauty pageant, part Sanhedrin. I guarantee you, when Leavitt is holding a baby, she's thinking of something else. She sets a horrible standard for other women and proves how completely bankrupt American conservatism is.  

Source "THE Texas Department Of Licensing and Regulation webpage 'Harvesting The Texas Skies In 2022 - A Summary Of Rain Enhancement Operations In Texas' details numerous Texas cloud seeding operations, some of which have been ongoing consecutively since 1997. "These weather modification projects covered anywhere from 31-51 million acres in Texas with the objective of releasing silver iodide into the atmosphere using pyrotechnics or flares to increase precipitation: "West Texas Weather Modification Association (WTWMA) "South Texas Weather Modification Association (STWMA) "Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District (PGWCD) "Trans Pecos Weather Modification Association (TPWMA) "Rolling Plains Water Enhancement Project" Source: https://tdlr.texas.gov/weather/summary.htm  

"YOU hear their overblown, nonsensical, brassy, in-your-face, upside down opinions on everything from what you should watch, to what you should wear, to what you should feel, to what you should buy, and, of course, for whom you should vote. You are surrounded with them. You are swamped by them. If they are from the ZAR lecturing Americans, your ears are punished by their thick gutteral, phlegm accents. All those know-it-alls: the tribe members, anchors, big mouths, spokesholes, blow-hards, clowns, pundits, experts, strategists, think tank twits, smear merchants – all telling audiences what to think, how to think, and what to believe. "Food (the kosher food tax), pharmaceuticals, movies, music, TV, literature, art, fashion, right on down the line, across the board, from top to bottom, every sector is monopolized by jew run Big Government, Big Business and Big Media and Big War. You know the pattern of their names; the 'bergs, the 'steins, the 'witz’s, the cohen’s. the 'man’s. Every time you turn on the news – there they are. Every time there is a Hollywood promotion – there they are. Every time there is a financial scandal (e.g.,Madoff); some sordid perversion; some abominable legislative horror (e.g., the 1965 Immigration Act) – Yes! There they are!" -- Solzhenitzen75  

THE Guadalupe River rose about 26 feet in 45 minutes with no advance warning. Details about the tragic flooding in Texas hill country can be found here. To think of families and young children swept away during a holiday weekend like this is beyond sad.  

By changing frames at hyper-speed and using all the techno-gimmicks modern technology makes available to them, techno-shysters will seize the viewer’s mind, bounce it around, distort it, erase it, restore it, insult it, flatter it, tease it, and anesthetize it. They will dice-it-and-slice-it by means of multiple frames within the frame … None of it is there by chance. All of it is meticulously planned and engineered by people who hate you if you have a functioning mind. 

ALAN writes:

Decades have gone by since I stopped “watching television”.  To be sure, I had my share of favorite programs in the years 1954-’65, before I reached an age of intellectual-philosophical awareness. But in the late 1960s I began to notice changes in and about television that did not impress me favorably. From then onward, I spent very little time “watching television”. I thought most of it was appalling — then and now.  All the shows that were all the rage meant nothing to me. I got the impression that there was an inverse correlation between the moral-philosophical content of TV programming and advancements in TV technology. The more sophisticated the latter became, the more degenerate the former became.

Until recently and by intent, I had not seen or listened to any TV commercial in more than twenty years. I am old enough to remember TV commercials from the 1950s-’60s that are now called “classic”; advertisements for shampoo, cereal, soup, cake mix, cigarettes, Anacin, Geritol, Speedy Alka-Seltzer, Rice-a-Roni, Mr. Clean, Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix, the Gillette Bluebird, and the Doublemint Twins.

Upon seeing what TV commercials are like today, my only reaction was unqualified revulsion. How, I thought to myself, could any grown-ups worthy of that name agree to sit through, watch, and listen to such adolescent-witted, razzle-dazzle hype?  

I have long been a credits-reader. I like to read the credits listed after a movie or TV show. It was possible to do that with 1950s programs like “Perry Mason” and “Leave it to Beaver”, in which the closing credits were clearly readable and sensibly paced. Today it seems that credits are shown at hyper-fast pace, doubtless to move on as quickly as possible to the next razzle-dazzle spectacle, but perhaps also because many TV viewers cannot read well, if at all.

Another development in television that did not impress me was its bag of technical tricks, in which a scene is made to appear or disappear in a white flash, altered repeatedly, and presented in hyper-fast-cut edits within the span of a few minutes. All pretentious nonsense, I thought.

Compared with such high-tech hype, TV advertisements in the 1950s were models of restraint, form, and mannerliness.  For an example, see the advertisements for Kodak film and cameras in 1950s episodes of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” TV show. (more…)

NOT long ago, I bought two salvia coccinea plants. I knew from experience that the tubular, scarlet-red flowers are very attractive to hummingbirds.

I have had this variety before, but never ones so breathtakingly gorgeous. The blossoms on the vertical stems were so huge they weighed down the slender, green supports. They were deep red. I imagined a whole summer with these superior specimens and with happy hummingbirds. I put the plants in a new wooden planter and fertilized them. Then, I thought, “Maybe just a little more.”

I wanted so eagerly that these heavenly plants retain their spectacular blooms — and so I did it. I used more fertilizer than I normally would.

Since then, those first flowers have expired, replaced by ones that are shriveled, have tiny black spots and do not open. And these are usually such easy plants to grow!

I blew it. I loved them too much. (more…)

"THE peace which the Blood has made to reign in the high places as well as in the low; the impetus of its wave bearing back the sons of Adam from the yawning gulf, purified, renewed, and dazzling white in the radiance of their heavenly apparel; the Sacred Table outspread before them, on the waters' brink, and the Chalice brimful of inebriation; all this preparation and display would be objectless, all these splendours would be incomprehensible, if man were not brought to see therein the wooings of a love that could never endure its advances to be outdone by the pretensions of any other." --- "Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ," Dom Prosper Guéranger