Crucifixion, Alonso Cano; 1636

“THE WORLD IS A MYSTERY. Life, time, death, doubt, good and evil, and the uncertainty which hangs about our eternal lot, are all mysteries. They lie burning on the heart at times. But the Crucifix is the meaning of them, the solution of them all. It puts the question, and answers it as well. It is the reading of all riddles, the certainty of all doubts, and the centre of all faiths, the fountain of all hopes, the symbol of all loves. It reveals man to himself, and God to man. It holds a light to time that it may look into eternity and be reassured. It is a sweet sight to look upon in our times of joy; for it makes the joy tender without reproving it, and elevates without straining it. In sorrow, there is no sight like it. It draws forth our tears and makes them fall faster, and so softly that they become sweeter than very smiles. It gives light in the darkness, and the silence of its preaching is always eloquent, and death is life in the face of that grave earnest of eternal life. The Crucifix is always the same, yet ever varying its expression so as to be to us in all our moods just what we most want and it is best for us to have. No wonder saints have hung over their Crucifixes in such trances of contented love.”

— The Foot of the Cross, Frederick William Faber, D.D.

R. HOUCK at Countercurrents looks at the push for interracial couples by major advertisers. You see these ads everywhere. (WARNING: Immodest ads.) A political agenda, not simply a response to cultural change, is at work here. Houck calls it “anti-white,” but it is anti-black and anti-Asian too. Just ask ordinary black women who can’t easily find a husband, or Asian men who see more Asian women marry whites, how they feel about it. Houck’s right though: the goal is to weaken traditional American culture. The result is not good for white women as interracial relationships rise in number:

A 2015 study examined the outcomes of women that have children with black men, the results were staggering. Currently, 70% of black children are born out of wedlock, however when the mother is white and the father black, the rate jumps to 97%. 98% of white mothers studied reported the father does not support their children financially, 97% report the father is not in the child’s life, and 97% of the women have used welfare to help support themselves and their children. Only 10% of women that have children with black men out of wedlock end up marrying. The vast majority of white women that have children with black men live far below the poverty line.

As Houck notes, the advertising industry is largely in Jewish hands. This is widely acknowledged by Jews themselves. According to a prominent Jewish source:

In few modern industries have Jews had greater influence than in advertising, and this applies particularly in America. It has even been suggested that Jewish advertising men are responsible for the wide scope and shape of the modern advertising agency.

The promotion of interracial couplings is part of the Jewish war against the natural social order and organic society, in favor of an easily manipulated, globalist mass society. Interracial advertising is part of a longstanding psychological war. Read More »

WRATH OF GNON made this lovely meme and posted it at his Twitter feed, which I highly recommend. Thank you, Wrath!

With the Sheep, Samuel S. Carr

WILLIAMS SONOMA gives this recipe for Roast Leg of Lamb with Herbes de Provence and Potatoes. I have tried it and it makes a great Easter meal. It is not difficult and it is very good. I found the recipe in this beautiful book which I bought for $1 at a book sale.
 

“Hippies throughout the 1960s and 1970s continually protested and spoke out against the Vietnam war.  Many hippies did not like President Johnson or President Nixon, because of their active role in sending thousands of troops into Vietnam and Cambodia.  Hippies and other student movements and activists would protest and march in the streets with signs that said things such as, “Make Love, Not War” or “U.S. Troops Get Out Of Vietnam” or simply hold up peace signs.  They would also chant and sing through the streets and play music that promoted peace.” [Source.]

But why after 15 years of the destructive and ongoing War on Terror in multiple countries, why when there is even talk of war with Russia, is the leftist peace movement nowhere to be seen? Where are the hand-made signs and the crowds in the streets? Where are the rousing folk songs?

The answer is blowin’ in the wind: The Hippies made love. The left was co-opted by the Sexual Revolution.

It will not rise up against the pro-war Democratic Party because the Party is the only force that keeps them from moral panic. All that love created havoc and guilt. The Party says it’s progress. The Hippies and their descendants now live very complicated lives.

Hippie, peace-loving, anti-war women became corporate slaves with hippie sexual mores. They don’t have the time or energy to care. They even take their cues from Big Brother on TV — that’s how thin the old anti-establishment rhetoric turned out to be. The Hippies sold out themselves and they sold out their country.

It’s not a choice between love and war after all.

IN THIS MUST-SEE interview, Adam Green interviews 9/11 journalist and anti-war activist Christopher Bollyn. Some quotes:

“I have to tell you it’s very painful for me to see the suffering in America today. I see a lot of suffering. I see a lot of poverty. I see a kind of spiritual poverty because this is a nation that’s been deceived and abused. And you can’t be a happy people when your reality is based on deception….

The War on Terror is a two-edged sword. Of course we’re causing incredible harm in countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But the other side of the sword is, it’s cutting us. It’s hurting America very, very badly…..

It’s essential that Americans wake up from this nightmare.”

DAN CROMER uncovers interesting details about the personal history of Emma Gonzalez, one of the stars of the Parkland Shooting Show.

TIMOTHY FITZPATRICK writes at his website Fitzpatrick Informer:

Trump’s over-the-top behaviour and persona makes a convenient caricature out of conservatism. It has provided a rallying point around which Leftists can punch holes in an easily deflatable strawman blow-up clown doll. This is only possible because Trump does not embody genuine conservative values. He is the creature of New York, Jewish yuppy culture and is led by his lust, greed, and narcissism. This caricaturization is being used the same way the Zionists used the caricature of Hitler to galvanize the fractured Jewish community. It lead to an intense period of cohesion for Hitler’s opponents, while he and the Nazis became more and more discredited. The Hitler caricature also enabled the Jewish money power to inoculate the world against any return to nationalism, which is the natural opponent of communism (and Zionism). The Soviets strive for the same goals, despite pretending to be nationalists themselves. Do you think the world will ever look at conservatism and nationalism with any validity, in the post-Hitler, Post-Trump future?

The fracturing, discrediting, and caricaturization of the Right has only encouraged the Left that their ideologies are correct. They can now push forward implementing their “truth” all over the world—more easily than had caricatures like Trump never been in power. Now there is the convenient pretext to save the world from any more monsters. Just accept their communism. Everything will be fine. Read More »

EVERY HOUR, taxpayers in the United States are paying:

*$11.6 million for military costs of war since 2001
*$10.05 million for interest on the war debt
*$7.99 million for “Homeland Security” costs
*$2.28 million for care of War on Terror veterans
*$32 million for total costs of war since 2001.

Source: National Priorities Project

“ST. Thomas Aquinas was one day visiting St. Bonaventure, and asked him from what book he had drawn all the beautiful lessons he had written. St. Bonaventure showed him the image of the Crucified, which was completely blackened by all the kisses that he had given it, and said: “This is my book whence I receive everything that I write; and it has taught me whatever little I know.”

— The Rev. Reginald Walsh, Meditation on the Passion, 1922; Kindle Edition.

The Tree of Life; 17th century

“Do not weary thyself in vain; for thou wilt never succeed in possessing true spiritual sweetness and satisfaction, unless thou first deny all thy desires.”

—-  St. John of the Cross

FROM G.K. Chesterton’s Heretics (1905):

The word “heresy” not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word “orthodoxy” not only no longer means being right; it practically means being wrong. All this can mean one thing, and one thing only. It means that people care less for whether they are philosophically right. For obviously a man ought to confess himself crazy before he confesses himself heretical. The Bohemian, with a red tie, ought to pique himself on his orthodoxy. The dynamiter, laying a bomb, ought to feel that, whatever else he is, at least he is orthodox.

It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: “The golden rule is that there is no golden rule.” We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man’s opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters—except everything.”

ELLEN BROWN disputes the common view that the U.S. Postal Service is failing because of the Internet. The post office, she says, has been deliberately targeted by powerful commercial forces:

WHEN my husband was a boy in the working class city of Chester, Pa., he was in the choir at St. Michael’s School. During Holy Week, the choir would sing, among other things, Giovanni da Palestrina’s Adoramus te, Christe, a choral version of the Latin prayer recited during the Stations of the Cross. St. Michael’s didn’t have many of the frills schools have today and my husband led a rough-and-tumble life with his friends on the streets, but he encountered one vital thing there: beauty.

Children need beauty. Even though they can’t fully understand it, beauty seeps into their souls and finds a permanent home there. It gives them a taste for the truth and the love that underlies all things.

Adoramus te, Christe
Et benedicimus tibi
quia per sanctam crucem tuam
redemisti mundum.
Qui passus es pro nobis,
Domine, Domine, miserere nobis. Read More »

FRANCIS passes up the opportunity to explain Catholic reverence for the body. Read More »

ALAN writes:

One day I was reading about people’s memories of growing up in a certain neighborhood. One woman remembered:

“How friendly people were, and how open everything was. People left their doors unlocked. One lady who lived in a big white house put on a scary costume and handed out candy to children who came to her door on Halloween. It was all very friendly. In front of another house, children had a lemonade stand.” Are these the memories of the fictitious town in “Leave It To Beaver?” No, but they could be. Are they the memories of the place where I lived in boyhood? They might be, but they aren’t. They are the memories of people who grew up on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills in the 1940s-‘50s.

They are the memories of people like Joan Benny, Jack Benny’s adopted daughter. They lived at 1002 North Roxbury Drive. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz lived next door, and it was she who handed out the candy. Other neighbors included James Stewart and Rosemary Clooney. [See Todd Purdum’s “The Street Where They Lived,” Vanity Fair, April 1999]

Much of America was like that at one time. Police officers who grew up in the same neighborhoods of St. Louis where I did remember many residents leaving their doors unlocked. That, of course, was at a time before the Communist-engineered destruction of city neighborhoods and strong Catholic parishes. Read More »

NICK writes:

Just a thought on your article this morning: should we grant the assumption that beta males are in fact inferior to alpha males?

I don’t like these descriptions, because they seem too grounded in a more animalistic reality but, as you point out, it is a popular theme on the American political Right of today.

Alpha males are typically rugged men who have no serious allegiance or loyalty to anyone else. They don’t typically like order, law or responsibility. They operate on a “dog eat dog” mentality and usually are very opportunistic in the pursuit of their own self-defined concept of happiness. In their ethical lives, they’re utilitarian.

Great examples of Alpha males: dead-beat fathers, drug dealers, playboys, wall-street investors, politicians, lawyers, etc.

None of these are typically exemplars of a good life, except when “good life” is defined by modern standards. People who boldly lived their lives as they saw fit to do so regardless of any of the supposed expectations rooted in their nature as men (similarly, women are “empowered” and “free” when they live like their lives like this). Read More »