A young man who lived in a 400-square-foot studio apartment in San Francisco with his wife and two young children comes away from the experience with valuable insights. He and his wife decided that they would forego two incomes and live in a studio apartment for a few years. Many of the lessons they learned are reminiscent of previous discussions here about life in small spaces. For example, tight private space induces people to rely more on public spaces, such as parks, cafes and libraries. (It probably can be proven that public space declines in some ways to the extent that private square footage increases.) Also, tight space forces one to think carefully about possessions and do away with excess. Greg Kroleski also perceptively analyzes the options for redesigning storage and living space.

He and his wife found that as a one-income family they had a harder time qualifying for available apartments.

My wife and I were 27 when our first son was born. Significantly younger than the median San Francisco birthing age of 33. We also made a decision to have my wife stay at home with the children.

Neither of those things are strange for a family in the United States during the last century. But both of those are strange for a San Franciscan in 2015. (more…)

ROSS DOUTHAT of The New York Times deserves credit for trying to explain Catholic doctrine to a group of arrogant pseudo-theologians. What is that real position? That almost anything Catholic can change when the times require it, and “developing” doctrine just means keeping up with capital-H History, no matter how much of the New Testament is left behind. As I noted earlier, the columnist’s task is to be provocative. So I must tell you, openly and not subtly, that this view sounds like heresy by any reasonable definition of the term.

“Boobus Americanus 1: I read a most fascinating column by George Will today in which he draws disturbing parallels between the irrational anti-Semitism of Hitler’s Germany and that of modern day Iran.

“Boobus Americanus 2: George Will is a rare case of a thoughtful conservative. He is one of the most intelligent contemporary American thinkers.”

EXCEPT for the first paragraph, which facetiously refers to Hitler as the “Great One,” this is an awesome smack-down of the columnist George Will by the writer Mike King. (more…)

A UNIVERSITY student from Germany writes:

Alex S. wrote in his article at (originally posted here) on the disastrous situation in Germany. But it is much worse. We are totally deprived of any civil rights as mobs of Africans and Middle Eastern Muslims settle in our country.

The police, controlled by the government of the states (like your state police), not the local communities, do not interfere in many crimes anymore. Most of the officers are concentrated near the border, to welcome the “refugees.” The remaining few protect the politicians and the wealth. Sometimes they are not able to provide enough officers at refugee shelters, so its inhabitants live in a law-free area. The refugees stroll around the cities in large groups, sometimes thirty or more young men.

But why do some people, like a German commenter below Alex S.’s post, think that this is all made up and not true?

Because they are told so by the media – mostly owned by the state or connected to it – and the officials, who lie straight in our faces. Some people are able to to look through the veil of lies, but most fail to do so. The only independent sources are foreign media and a few German sources, which are persecuted by the state. Official statistics are not given anymore, but you hear everyday of new rapes. They attack women and children of every age. I heard from a police officer, who could no longer bear silence, that in a local park they took a 12-year-old boy. In the media, there was nothing about it. (more…)

WHERE are "take back the night" protests and "slut walks" when you need 'em? Soeren Kern reports at The Gatestone Institute: A growing number of women and young girls housed in refugee shelters in Germany are being raped, sexually assaulted and even forced into prostitution by male asylum seekers, according to German social work organizations with first-hand knowledge of the situation. Many of the rapes are occurring in mixed-gender shelters, where, due to a lack of space, German authorities are forcing thousands of male and female migrants to share the same sleeping areas and restroom facilities. Conditions for women and girls at some shelters are so perilous that females are being described as "wild game" fighting off Muslim male predators. But many victims, fearing reprisals, are keeping silent, social workers say. At the same time, growing numbers of German women in towns and cities across the country are being raped by asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Many of the crimes are being downplayed by German authorities and the national media, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.

THE CATHOLIC English blogger Mundabor promotes the false position that if one doesn't like what the pope teaches and notices that he is a heretic, one can just ignore him or go around calling him an "idiot." Novus Ordo Watch trounces him: First, let’s respond to Mundabor’s thesis that you don’t have to listen to the “Pope” (for such he believes Francis to be) “if he’s an idiot”. We will do so simply by quoting what the Popes themselves have taught on this issue, because, believe it or not, after 2000 years, there have actually been a few cases of true Popes who were not that bright intellectually or unworthy morally speaking. This, however, did not mean they were not genuine Vicars of Christ, or that their authority was in any way diminished, nor, a fortiori, that their teachings or decisions could be dismissed or were optional for the faithful ... Speaking of idiocy, the Argentine Bomber is at it again. More from Novus Ordo Watch: When Jorge Bergoglio speaks, it’s always the same Modernist trash we’ve been hearing for decades, albeit in somewhat recycled fashion. We’ve said before that he could work for Hallmark to write shallow greeting cards full of chicken-soup-for-the-soul spirituality. The homily he gave at the Casa Santa Marta today, November 5, 2015, is a perfect example of this. Vatican Radio just published a summary, with long verbatim quotes, of Francis’ latest homily against “exclusion” and for “inclusion”, in which he goes so far as…

THE coed military is a form of cultural warfare. It’s warfare against masculinity, which ironically constitutes the life force of the military — and against femininity too. The sexual harassment bureaucracy in the Armed Forces is ratcheting up its activities, threatening draconian punishment against men who especially annoy women. Perhaps this is all a way of deflecting the public’s attention from the fact that America has engaged in far too much war, but here is one example: An Air Force sergeant and a veteran photographer of the war in Iraq faces up to 15 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge for allegedly making inappropriate advances toward women in his office. Whether Tech. Sgt. Aaron D. Allmon, who was married at the time, is convicted in felony court or not, the case sends the intended message of intimidation and raises a question that will never be publicly asked: How do women belong in the military environment if they cannot protect themselves against unwanted overtures? World Net Daily reports:

A Washington Times examination shows that, over a 14-month span, the women’s accusations, in total, amount to three kisses and six touches, plus a series of reported inappropriate comments of a sexual nature. If the married Sgt. Allmon did what the women said, he was tastelessly hitting on them.

Sgt. Allmon’s sister, Lisa A. Roper, does not believe the women. The business executive in San Antonio, Texas, is her brother’s fiercest defender. She estimates she will spend $200,000 on his legal defense, which includes a former sheriff’s deputy as investigator, a civilian lawyer and a former Army judge advocate who took the case pro bono. Sgt. Allmon is also represented by an Air Force judge advocate. (more…)

GAIL L. AGGEN writes:

While the mortality rate is rising among middle-aged whites who are less-educated, the more educated ones are having their own problems, as this New York Times article, Stressed, Tired, Rushed: A Portrait of the Modern Family illustrates.

Beyond the obvious answers that the dissolution of the family as it traditionally functioned is the major factor in the misery, we might consider what has led to this decline and devolution. Absolutely, the family and our traditional way of life have been shredded by elitist ideology hammering away at us with its hedonistic, anti-God, perverse agenda. I am also thinking, however, about the economic factors that have been so crucial to the family’s collapse. Who or what caused these factors is beyond my level of expertise, but I would like to share some of my thoughts, based on my own experience. (more…)

THE Army is accused of destroying records related to two of three female graduates of the elite Ranger School. The women are believed to have received preferential treatment. According to Ray Starman at U.S. Defense Watch,  There is no longer any doubt that a massive cover up is underway in the Department of Defense and the Army. As I have mentioned before, there is a political agenda driving the cover up. The White House wants women in the combat arms and special operations. Therefore, the Army, from Secretary of the Army John McHugh down to Major-General Scott Miller down to the Airborne Ranger Training Brigade command group, are involved in this conspiracy to deceive the American people, regardless of the consequences to our national security.

THE mortality rate among middle-aged, working class whites has spiked dramatically, reports The New York Times. Two Princeton professors say the change is due to suicidal behavior:

Analyzing health and mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from other sources, they concluded that rising annual death rates among this group are being driven not by the big killers like heart disease and diabetes but by an epidemic of suicides and afflictions stemming from substance abuse: alcoholic liver disease and overdoses of heroin and prescription opioids.

The analysis by Dr. [Angus] Deaton and Dr. [Ann] Case may offer the most rigorous evidence to date of both the causes and implications of a development that has been puzzling demographers in recent years: the declining health and fortunes of poorly educated American whites. In middle age, they are dying at such a high rate that they are increasing the death rate for the entire group of middle-aged white Americans, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case found.

The mortality rate for whites 45 to 54 years old with no more than a high school education increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014.

“It is difficult to find modern settings with survival losses of this magnitude,” wrote two Dartmouth economists, Ellen Meara and Jonathan S. Skinner, in a commentary to the Deaton-Case analysis to be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Wow,” said Samuel Preston, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on mortality trends and the health of populations, who was not involved in the research. “This is a vivid indication that something is awry in these American households.”

No kidding.

(more…)

I ONCE had a neighbor who worked for many years on rebuilding his house. He did a lot of the renovations himself and the place was transformed from a hideously ugly ’50s ranch house into a very attractive, two-story colonial. In time, our friend and his wife borrowed some of the equity they had accumulated on the house, equity which was generated by the increased value of the house resulting from the labor he had put into it. They borrowed the money to send their children to private school. And then they borrowed more to send them to college. And then his income declined. And then his wife left him. And then he drank too much. The bank reclaimed the house. The house he had spent years rebuilding and infusing with his own artistic personality no longer belonged to him.

Leaving aside the great injustice that was done to him through divorce, let me focus for a second on those banking transactions. The bank that held his final mortgage took the house not because it had lost any of its own real money on the house. It reclaimed it because it had not made enough money on the house. Our friend and his wife had, of course, paid tens of thousands of dollars in interest payments over the years, but they could no longer afford the credit that had been extended to them. The interesting thing about the loans they procured is this. They had put up something real — a house — to obtain the credit. The bank had put up nothing. It had risked nothing other than the opportunity to profit from extending credit elsewhere. It had simply created figures in its accounts, made money out of nothing, to make the deal with him. The credit the bank had extended to him was part of its share of the national reserve of credit that constitutes our collective goods and services. The bank takes some of the credit that rightfully belongs to all and sells it for a profit.

Something doesn’t quite make sense here, don’t you think? That’s what Jerome Daly thought when he was about to be foreclosed on his Minnesota house in 1969. He said, “Wait a minute. The bank put up nothing, and now it is taking my house.” He challenged the foreclosure in court.

In this video excerpt from a movie called Zeitgeist: Addendum (I have only seen this clip not the whole movie), the case of National Bank of Montgomery vs. Daly is explained. Jerome Daly won the day. Unlike my neighbor, he did not lose his house because the court agreed that the bank did not rightfully own it.

(more…)

A GERMAN writer contends that the "refugee crisis" in his country is an apocalyptic event and has all the hallmarks of a military intelligence operation. He writes: Even if this is a genuine refugee crisis, why is that none of the policies of the German/European government make any sense? And why is the press acting continuously and uniformly in favor of their policies, and is downright hostile toward the European populace? If millions of people have to flee immediate peril, there are a lot of different ways to care for them without endangering the integrity of Europe and ruining several national budgets. But instead of discussing what to do, how to do it and how to pay for it, the plan seemed to be predetermined, decided and fixed long ago. Notice that in the comments section the writer is sneered at and accused of exaggerating.

ANTI-GLOBALIST EXPATRIATE writes: I'd wager that feminism fatigue, the ethnic backgrounds of the bar employees, or both played at least some role in why the men in question in this incident failed to assist a woman who had been punched in the face by a man. And my guess is that she is a very obnoxious person in general (explaining the snide comments she alleges they made to her, and perhaps the initial assault itself -- she may well  have been harassing the fellow wearing the Afro wig about how his getup was 'racist'). I'll bet she supports women in combat, all the while complaining that 'three grown men' refused to help her. [Warning: Profane language, stupid people.]

  YOU can't be a self-respecting conspiracy theorist unless you delve into the activities of the CIA. Thus I offer this interesting new interview by Ron Paul with David Talbot, author of "The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government." Talbot discusses the CIA's role in manipulating events and public opinion. The Kennedy assassination is discussed but the main issue is the ongoing expansion of the CIA's subversive activities.

  Offertorio Lord Jesus Christ, glorious King, free the souls of all the faithful dead from punishment in the inferno, and from the deep pit. Deliver them from the lion's mouth, lest the abyss swallow them up, lest they fall into darkness. But may the standardbearer St. Michael bring them into the holy light, as once you promised to Abraham and his seed. Sacrifices and prayers we offer to you, Lord, with praise. Receive them for the souls of those whom today we commemorate; make them, Lord, to pass from death to life, as once you promised to Abraham and his seed. [Herbert von Karajan conducts the orchestra and choir of Teatro A La Scala in 1967 with soloists Leontyne Price, Fiorenza Cossotto, Luciano Pavarotti, and Nikolai Ghiaurov.]

WENDIE W. writes:

I couldn’t begin to express to you what your blog has meant to me, how much I enjoy it, how much I have learned, and how much I have benefitted from your writings, perspectives, and references.

Due to your recent interest, I have decided I must at least forward to you a most compelling video on the topic Building 7 that perhaps you have not yet seen.

 I remain ever grateful to you and your benefactors. (more…)

THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

I recently asked the students in my “Writing about Literature” course to compose a short essay by applying the criticisms made by Romantic writers and poets like William Wordsworth and Samuel T. Coleridge – and their modern defenders – against the purely rational society that modern people have inherited from their Enlightenment ancestors.  I asked, what would those authors say about a modern university?  In assessing the responses, it is probably a good idea to correct for the fact that students frequently write or say what they imagine the instructor wants to read or hear and for the tendency of contemporary college students to take things with alarming literalness.  Nevertheless, the responses hold out some interest.

(more…)