WHEN I WAS in my thirties, I began to read books differently. I felt a bit guilty about doing things this way, but, what the heck, no one was looking over my shoulders. I didn’t have anyone to please when it came to reading but myself.

I would pick up a book and check out the title page. Then, as long as it was non-fiction, I would go right to the end. I would read some of the very last chapter, usually a few paragraphs or, if interested, a few pages.

I would then go to the middle of the book, and read a few pages or paragraphs. After that, I would read the table of contents and scan the entire book quickly, with my thumb on the edge of the pages, and stop here and there, looking at chapter headings and random paragraphs. Maybe I would stop for a while in one place.

Finally, I would read some of the beginning. If the book seemed worth reading, I would later start from the very beginning and read the book in the conventional way, from start to finish.

To this day, I start many books at the end, whether they are digital or hard versions.

This method is very similar to one described by the late Mortimer Adler in his book How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, which I later encountered and which made me realize that it was okay to do things this way with certain types of books. (more…)

EVER since my hosting company updated some of its software, the archives on this site have not been working well. If you search for posts using keywords or subjects, you may not find them. The problem is that the "theme," or framework, for this site cannot be updated by me and it has not been updated in a while. I am hoping to resolve these problems in the next few weeks, either by updating the theme or transferring the content to a new one. In the meantime, you may have difficulty finding past posts. You can always write to me and I will try to find them for you.  

CONFITEOR DEO writes from Paris: A few weeks ago in France, the retired General Dominique Delawarde appeared on CNews, a supposedly conservative news TV station, where he was pressed to reply to the question, "Who controls the media?" The aggressive, kosher journalist, who looks like a clone of Leon Trotsky, pressed him with the word "Qui?" (Translation: "Who?") and even if the General didn't reply exactly, his response was enough to get the interview shut down and motivate the interviewer into attacking the terrible behavior of the General, who will never be invited on CNews again. Of course the General is facing a charge of anti-semitism, but this isn't the end of the story. The word "Qui" is now being brandished quite often in the anti-Covid demonstrations. The government is working to introduce a pass that will prevent the "unvaccinated" from entering businesses. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets. On Saturday, the 7th of August, Cassandre Fristot demonstrated in the city of Metz with a placard asking "Qui?" and listing 11 names. The media hysteria is quite something and Cassandre Fristot was identified and arrested yesterday morning. So today, in France, the question "Qui?" (Who?) is now officially a crime. We need to remember Cassandre Fristot, who is Catholic, in our prayers. She has been on the right side of truth for many years.  

IN CHARLOTTE, N.C., hundreds turn out to protest mandatory jabs. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

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FROM JUNE of this year, this outstanding article by Brenton Sanderson at Occidental Observer looks at the “competitive victimhood” of Jews and the untold damage it has done to America.

Sanderson highlights the militant, cultish arrogance of Jews who are obsessed with their alleged victimization while simultaneously possessing elite status in America and their complete lack of empathy for those whom they (falsely) view as their victimizers, especially under the heady (and fictitious) narrative of the Holocaust, with which they are fed from early childhood and which becomes a story of their own saintliness: (more…)

I WAS visiting a mountain nature center recently and was browsing through its small bookstore when I picked up a book about mountain lovers. It had profiles of different people. In the book was an article about the well-known mountaineer and photographer Brad Washburn.

Fully aware of the infiltration of ideology into the intellectual sport of nature loving, I warily began to read a bit, while standing there for a few minutes, about Mr. Washburn’s life and his views of the mountains.

It was not long before I encountered the inevitable poison.

Mr. Washburn, who died in 2007, had a lifelong passion for mountains. This romantic fixation co-existed with an alarming hatred of people. I don’t have his exact words, but his diatribe against “over-population” left no room for doubt about his beliefs. The mountains were being ruined, Washburn said. They weren’t being destroyed because of careless hiking practices. They were being ruined because too many people existed. Where once only a few hiked, now there were thousands. He mentioned one difficult summit in Alaska that now saw some 1,100 hikers a year. Ghastly. (more…)

IF YOU knew nothing about nature and someone showed you the seed of a tree and told you that this small winged seed could grow into a towering tree as tall as 90 feet and as wide as 40 feet, would you believe it? Would it be possible even to believe it? The person who told you about the tree could not prove he was right for years. In the meantime, he might seem delusional or a little bit off. Ideas are like that. They seem insignificant. They are so small they have no material existence. Some people can live their whole lives disbelieving in them. Ideas are mere rumors. They have no consequences. It is self-indulgence to think and to dream. If someone explained an idea or immaterial fact to these disbelievers and told them that this idea or fact could build  -- or wreck -- an entire civilization it would be as impossible for them to believe as it would be for some to believe that a gigantic tree comes from a small pod. There's something equally absurd about the gardener and the thinker. They live in the imagination. They have faith in the unseen. The non-existent is often more real than the existent. They believe the insignificant is not insignificant. It has consequences.  

READERS, at least Catholic readers, are probably aware of the recent action of “Pope” Francis to suppress (a revised form of) the ancient Latin Mass. His “Apostolic Letter” Traditionis Custodes has shaken deeply those who attend various chapels around the world. These often articulate and pious people seemed in recent years to have escaped the modernist novelties that came in the 1960s and they have been extremely glad of it. They have existed in a religious comfort zone ever since Benedict 16 permitted these “Latin Mass” oases.

The decree by Francis is of little interest to the majority in local parishes who are content with things as they are. It also has had very little effect yet in limiting “Latin Mass” chapels (as you can see here), but it may lead to the end of this worship (as revised by John 23 in 1962) in parishes and chapels under the auspices of the Vatican. No new priests will likely be prepared in Vatican-approved seminaries.

This decree will change nothing at that much smaller number of “traditionalist” chapels that have totally or partially broken with Rome, except perhaps to draw more people to them.

I’d like to offer just a few quick words on this action by Francis and the sea of confusion and outrage it has caused:

What Francis has done is entirely reasonable. The Latin Mass and many Catholic beliefs are a threat to the unity of the institution he governs. (At least he believes in unity!!) In fact, as his health fails, it would have been surprising if Francis had not taken this step. He has long made his contempt for those who think and worship as Catholics did for almost 2,000 years very clear. (more…)

"WE were taken to the beautiful Church of the Redeemer in Moscow which was then, we were told, about to be dynamited to make way for a "Palace of Soviets". There was a display of full-sized mannikins dressed in the robes of the Church carrying on the Good Friday Footwashing ceremony. Our Guide rasped: 'This was to show that if the Archbishop could wash the feet of the humble priest the poor should endure their sufferings without complaint! Religion was always for the suppression of the people, to keep them working from dawn to late at night under the lash!' "I thought of our Savior washing the feet of His Disciples as an example, and telling them that he who would be great among you should be the servant of all (John 13:13-15; Matt. 23:11). I glanced up at the exquisite stained glass window of Christ, about to be demolished, and a little tear trickled down my cheek as I thought: 'I can never hate You like that!' (I did not know then that the Pharisee Talmud gives Him FIVE sadistic deaths today). "Staying at my hotel was the representative of a foreign country. He told me of the police terror; how the last manager of that hotel had been whisked off in the middle of the night by the "Black Mariah"--like millions of others never to be seen again. Some of our party had been taken to the police…

HERE IS MORE food for thought from Jeff Green. The virus is a fraud from top to bottom. I don't agree with everything Green says here (his comments on World War II are partly true, but also include serious error) but on this point he is right. His outrage is refreshing.