STEPHEN from the Gold Coast of Australia writes:

Your observation that Australia’s Prime Minister Abbott goes by the diminutive “Tony” rather than “Anthony” is not trivial at all and ties in nicely with what I consider to be one of your most telling observations when, on December 11, 2013, under the post  “A Study in Modern Leadership“ you linked to the infamous series of “selfie” photos taken at Nelson Mandela’s funeral by a giggling group comprising U.S. President Obama, British PM David Cameron and Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt, each of whom was there, at great public expense, representing their respective countries at the solemn funeral of a major head of state.

You spoke for many of us in that earlier posting when you expressed your dismay at “the teenagers who lead us” and again recently when you lamented in your post about Mr. Abbott that: “Western leaders are overgrown children.“

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  FRED OWENS writes: To go along with Thomas Bertonneau's images. I offer this image of St. Catherine, done by Caravaggio and hung at the Prado in Madrid. I had the good fortune to visit the Prado in October and see this painting, which absorbed my attention for a long time. What do you call it, pre-feminist self-assertion?

FROM the Prophecy of Isaias, Chapt. 35:

The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily. It shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise; the glory of Libanus is given to it, the beauty of Carmel and Saron. They shall see the glory of the Lord, and the beauty of our God. Strengthen ye the feeble hands, and confirm the weak knees. Say to the faint hearted: Take courage, and fear not. (more…)

ACCORDING to Eric Holder, the Department of Justice must now interpret Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as barring employment discrimination against the “”transgendered.” In other words, if a employer does not like the fact that, say, a salesman he hired is now a “saleswoman,” or objects that the male teacher he hired to coach football at a private school is now wearing lipstick and a wig, he can be sued and lose big bucks.

This reminds me of the political notices students used to put up on bulletin boards in college, announcing some imminent and daring transformation of society. In this case, it’s the Attorney General of the United States with an adolescent worldview, not the head of a leftist campus club.

All human differences are now officially meaningless if they in any way impede the rule of social engineers.

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ALL THE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

— By Phyllis McGinley

What shall my true love
Have from me
To pleasure his Christmas
Wealthily?
The partridge has flown
From our pear tree.
Flown with our summers
Are the swans and the geese.
Milkmaids and drummers
Would leave him little peace.
I’ve no gold ring
And no turtle dove,
So what can I bring to my true love?

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BREITBART has the story.

The Chief of the General Staff General Sir Nicholas Carter says:

If the research recommends that women are physiologically suited to close combat roles then we will be able to make as many ranks and roles open to all our soldiers, within a flexible career structure.

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JAMES P. writes:

They really, really seem to want black and Asian women to join the Navy. Front and center in just about every picture.

Message to young white men: don’t bother.

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JEWEL A. writes:

I found this version of Silent Night. From what I know about music and Arab culture, the Western scales, chord progressions and harmonies are utterly alien to Arabic culture, having only been assimilated in the last 100 years. If you listen to Byzantine Orthodox or Catholic music from the Middle East, you are listening to something that predates Western music notation and theory by more than a thousand years or so. The adaption of very European musical science into a very incompatible Arab musical science is, well, interesting to say the least.

Now here is Byzantine Orthodox singing in Arabic. Absolutely ethereal and heartfelt. Not alien to its own culture at all. It isn’t difficult to imagine at all that Mary and Joseph would have heard music like this in their own time. 

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  CHURCHES in Paris desecrated in observance of Advent. (Entry heading comes from Novus Ordo Watch.)

CH writes:

I don’t want socks. I’m tired of pizza. I’d like home-cooked meals. I’d like someone to share life with. Unfortunately, I’m tied into the Pizza Hell Matrix myself, what with there being hardly naught but cranky, ‘unfulfilled,’ “I Ain’t Cookin’ Crap for No Man” little girls running around in women’s bodies out there. The Pizza Industrial Complex has me sorely within its grip. The bastards know I’m like any other bachelor—I want to eat but I’m not the chef type and, despite all the things I could offer one of the women-children running around, I can’t find a single one who doesn’t seem to find the idea of cooking for me to be anything within her realm of things that don’t make her nauseated.

So Totino’s, DiGiorno or Tombstone it is, more often than naught.

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FROM Socksmith:

Cheesy, saucy, hot and delicious – how can you say no? Show your love for America’s favorite food with our men’s Pizza crew socks! Made of a soft, breathable cotton, nylon and lycra blend, these socks are perfect for a night of snacking and gaming with the guys.

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  THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes: This is an image from the Greco-Roman city of Pompeii, on the slope of Mt. Vesuvius, showing Terentius Neo and his wife, equally literate, equally civilized, equally real and actual.  The house of Terentius Neo was buried under volcanic ash in AD 79 during the famous eruption. This image, two thousand years old, is a refutation of every "progressive" or "post-modern" claim about the "oppressiveness" of Western Civilization, in which women have enjoyed historically unprecedented parity with men.  It helps in understanding Islam to grasp that, for the Koranic consciousness, this household portrait is an obscenity, down to the degree that it is an image, images being forbidden under sharia and under Islam generally. This is another Pompeian image, showing a young woman of perhaps eighteen or nineteen years of age, either contemplating a letter received from a correspondent, out in the world, or thinking what she might write to the same correspondent.  Again, the spiritual independence  of the young, female person is powerful and extraordinary.  This image too would strike the Ikwan mentality as obscene. --- Comments --- Dr. Bertonneau adds: Here is another image, also from Pompeii, showing a woman, in company with two friends, painting a picture.  Like Terentius Neo and his wife, or the young woman, this lady is cultured and elegant. In respect of the young woman: Notice her coiffure and dress, both immaculate and decorous, bespeaking a deeply held idea of form and appearance; notice also…

JEWEL A. writes:

Last week a horrific murder took place in the home of a sixth grade teacher in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Nicole Mathewson was allegedly murdered by two men who appear to be of mixed race. One is 16 and the other is 25. Police are calling the murder “grisly” but won’t describe the details. What the papers aren’t saying, is that the older one, Thomas Gregory Moore, professes to be a Muslim convert.

Moore is an expecting father. He had a good job as a barber and a criminal record. He has a foul mouth and is completely ghetto. So simple robbery maybe. The level of rage is quite another thing.

I just don’t have any more words.

I took these images from Moore’s Facebook page: (more…)

LINDA N. writes:

There are some interesting little coincidences emerging in the wake of the recent Australian terrorist incident. A woman named Nadia El-Mouelhy is said to have left the shop just before the incident began unfolding. According to the Sydney Daily Telegraph, she’s the chief executive of the Halal Certification Authority of Australia. (Other sources say she’s the wife of the HCAA.) That organization is often accused of bullying and extortionary behavior.

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    IT'S NOT every day that you can celebrate the birthday of a papal pretender. Get up and dance, folks! Join in the celebration of a flaming heretic! Red is for Marxism and it's also for tango. I know it's Advent, but this is no time for repentance. Grab a partner (preferably an atheist) and do the Bergoglio Tango. According to Public Vigil: The basic step is one step forward and two steps backward. The weight is shifted from left to right, but always maintaining more weight on the left. Get more instruction at Call me Jorge.

SEE Pete F.’s comment in this entry about why a chocolate cafe at Christmastime would be a logical place for an angry Muslim to attack.

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  AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER Tony Abbott on the Muslim who took over a cafe in downtown Sydney: “The system did not adequately deal with the individual, there is no doubt about that,” Mr. Abbott said. Thank you, Mr. Abbott. That's profound. However, the system cannot adequately deal with Islam short of banning it altogether from Australia. Let everyone who openly professes Islam leave or be gently thrown out. There are plenty of other places to be Muslim. By the way, this is a trivial point, but why does Mr. Abbott go by the name of "Tony" instead of by his full name "Anthony?" Western leaders are overgrown children. There are no adults left in the world.

IT is good that God made diversity. The races and ethnicities have their own distinctive personalities. Diversity in the true sense is not diversity in the politically correct sense. Diversity in the politically correct sense was condemned by God as human arrogance and pride:

And they said: Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven: and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of Adam were building.

And he said: Behold, it is one people, and all have one tongue: and they have begun to do this, neither will they leave off from their designs, till they accomplish them in deed. Come ye, therefore, let us go down, and there confound their tongue, that they may not understand one another’s speech. And so the Lord scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city. And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confounded: and from thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all countries. [Genesis: 11:4-9]

Here is an interesting essay on the theme of ethnic diversity.  In “How Silent Night Reflects the German Mentality,” Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira examines the differences in how Germans and Italians celebrate Christmas.

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