“Gamblers,” T. Golwig

“The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice.”

— G.K. Chesterton

“BLACK FRIDAY” is an appropriate name for a day that turns what should be a relaxing weekend into a form of work. Some people get up in the middle of the night for the best deals. However, it’s Black Thursday too: many stores will be open on Thanksgiving. They include, according to BestBlackFriday.com:

Bass Pro Shops – 8 a.m. to 6 p.m
Bealls Florida – 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Belk – Thanksgiving 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Black Friday
Bergner’s – Thanksgiving 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Black Friday
Best Buy – Thanksgiving 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Black Friday
Big Lots -7 a.m. to midnight
Bon-Ton – Thanksgiving 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Black Friday
Boscov’s – Thanksgiving 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. Black Friday
Boston Store – Thanksgiving 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Black Friday
Cabela’s – 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Read More »

DAVID CURRY, of the Russian Faith website, writes:

Two weeks ago, I was summarily informed in a brief email from YouTube that our Russian Faith channel—on which we had spent hundreds of hours of hard work and which complements the Russian Faith website, which I own, had been ‘terminated.’ No reason was given other than a very general one which could mean anything.

Russian Faith is a new media project I started in September:  a website, YouTube channel (now banned), Facebook, and Twitter – to cover Christian issues in general, and the huge story of the renaissance of Christianity in Russia.

This dramatic turn by both government and society in Russia is very important not just for Christians, but for the whole world, regardless of their religious views, because it has so many ramifications important to us Americans.

It should affect our foreign policy, and it contrasts with the hostility to Christian values in our own Western societies. It is a fact that Russia has emerged as the leading defender of world Christianity, and it is a disgrace that liberal forces in the US elites and the government are among Christianity’s most hostile foes – both at home and abroad.

Read More »

ALAN M. writes:

Here is an article that highlights much of what is wrong with the Canadian immigration system.

Enticing young people into the grinding system that is the modern West only benefits those who gain power and money from a larger dependent underclass. On top of that, it causes the self-fulfilling feedback loop of more immigration requiring more socialized services for the “racialized” immigrants which requires more immigrants to keep paying for it all as the native population fades away.

There is no stopping it, according to most of my Canadian friends and family. They have resigned themselves and their progeny to minority status and really don’t understand how anyone could think it isn’t the great thing they believe it to be.

OOPS! They forgot to mention the father!

But as long as everyone’s smiling, it doesn’t really matter.

SEXUAL harassment wasn’t much of a problem in the all-male office of yesterday. This provocative and interesting comment came from a reader in 2012, lamenting the loss of mentoring opportunities that also came with that era. Note his observations on the importance of male bonding.

Jim writes:

I recently quit my job after a 10-year career at large and mid-size law firms in a big city. I do not believe in whining, sour grapes, or blaming women for the world’s problems. I have never told anyone what I am about to write, which is in response to the following comment you made on January 31, 2010:

“Like all other occupations which women have moved into, a large stratum of men choose to quit or not join rather than put up with the PC nonsense of aggressive feminism.”

Sometimes this decision is unconscious. But there is an iron law regarding the entry of women into formerly all-male vocations. These jobs instantly become less desirable to men. Therefore, to allow women to become police, firefighters or soldiers is to jeopardize our safety.

At both law firms where I worked, the male partners of the baby boom generation would select a female as a favorite associate. Every male partner had his own younger female sidekick that would have the opportunity to tag along with him and work on important cases. These women excelled at the tasks expected of a junior associate; they had meticulous attention to detail and strong organization. The partners got not only excellent support but also the satisfying feeling of having a young, attractive woman look at them with reverent, adoring eyes. As far as I know, these relationships were not sexual, but they were personal. The younger female associates would know the details of “their man’s” personal life–his relationship with his children, his hobbies, where he went on vacation, what he did there. It is impossible for most men to forge this kind of a personal bond with a senior man in the workplace. Most men compartmentalize work from their personal life, and find it awkward to discuss personal things at work. They just want to talk about work there. Women, on the other hand, strive for work/life balance. They eagerly await the holiday calendar so they can make travel plans. Work is something they do to support leisure and family time. They intuitively do not separate work life from personal life and naturally are curious and concerned about their older male partners whole life, not just his work role. Once a man has a younger female associate’s affections, especially those of an attractive female, the male protective instinct kicks in, and Daddy is going to take care of his Little Girl. In the law firm, world that care takes the form of mentoring, the best work opportunities, rave performance evaluations, increased compensation, and promotion. Read More »

CLOSE your eyes or turn off the lights and listen to the Lund University Male Voice Choir sing the traditional Swedish choral “Aftonen” (The Evening) by Hugo Alfvén for the aural translation of darkness descending in still countryside.

THE EVENING

The forest is silent; the sky is clear.
Hark to the lullaby of the cowherd’s horn
Echoing among valleys and green hills
As the sun quietly descends.

— Herman Sätherberg (1812-97)

Source

Read More »

BACKGROUND from Joe Lauria at Consortium News:

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Wall Street rushed in behind Boris Yeltsin and Russian oligarchs to asset strip virtually the entire country, impoverishing the population. Amid widespread accounts of this grotesque corruption, Washington intervened in Russian politics to help get Yeltsin re-elected in 1996. The political rise of Vladimir Putin after Yeltsin resigned on New Year’s Eve 1999 reversed this course, restoring Russian sovereignty over its economy and politics. Read More »

ALAN writes:

I am now in the same situation as the woman in the song Those Were the Days, immortalized by the singer Mary Hopkins in 1968.

The story in the song, with its old Russian melody, is told from the vantage point of an older woman looking back in memory to a tavern where she and her friends once met, sang, and celebrated being alive. I celebrated it, too, when I was young, healthy, confident, arrogant, and gave no thought to how fast “the future” would come and go.

There were more than a thousand taverns in St. Louis in the 1950s. Today most of them are boarded up or vacant lots or converted to some other use. Once-popular brands of beer like “Empire” and “Green Tree” survive in fading ghost signs on the brick walls of a few of those buildings, remnants of a vanished civilization.  Those taverns were neighborhood focal points at a time when cities had not yet been blasted by the disintegrating effects of the motor vehicle, “city planners”, and do-gooder schemes like “urban renewal.”  They helped to solidify neighborhoods.  Friends met friends there, neighbors met neighbors, and conversations flourished. Read More »

Though the story has spilled over with Kevin Spacey, Dustin Hoffman and others accused, the intense focus on Harvey Weinstein as Arch Demon in Hollywood continues. The irony, of course, is that Hollywood stars and movie makers are among the leading promoters of sexual license in the world. Sexual exploitation, including crimes against child stars, has always been part of doing business in the industry.

So whence all this righteousness from Hollywood?

In this interview, the author E. Michael Jones argues that Hollywood has chosen a scapegoat in Weinstein to purge its own shame. In Jewish tradition, the scapegoat is literally a goat upon which sins are projected. The animal is then slaughtered. A pool of guilt and shame lies beneath Hollywood. “What we have here is moral panic, a community trying to deal with guilt by focusing on one guy,” Jones says.

Kate Winslet, to take one of the stars that has been heaping on Weinstein, portrayed a 36-year-old character in The Reader who has sex with a 15-year-old boy. She has also made her own porn sex tapes.

Kate Winslet engages in child porn in The Reader

Some of the women accusing Weinstein had consensual sex with him to advance their careers. The feminist narrative doesn’t fit.

“I think this is the underlying cause of the Weinstein thing. There are all these people who feel shame because of what they had to do to get these movies. This is not new. Hollywood has always been this way,” Jones says. “… Harvey is being singled out for doing what everyone does.”

Shame leads to repentance or shamelessness. In Jewish Hollywood, it leads to the shameless fixation on a scapegoat so that the corrupt industry can go on doing what it does. The financial decline of Hollywood, which now faces more competition from independent studios and producers for the home market such as Netflix, has contributed to Weinstein’s downfall since he no longer has the power to deliver on those favors.

By condemning Weinstein and a few others, Hollywood attempts to prove its own virtue — and earns the right to continue in its shamelessness.

This interview is based on an article by Jones in the November issue of his magazine Culture Wars.  Jones has offered the definitive critique of the Weinstein affair. In my view, there is nothing more to say than what he has said here. Read More »

LIFESITE NEWS reports:

The number of young adults born in the 1990s who report they are not having sex is more than twice as high as it was for the Baby Boomer generation, a sign they have learned from the fallout of the sexual revolution, experts tell LifeSiteNews.

The study found that 15 percent of Millenials aged 20-24 said they had not had sex since age 18, more than those born in the late 1960s (six percent), 1970s (11 percent) or 1980s (12 percent). That is lower than their fellow Millenials born in the previous decade.

[See important comment from reader below.] Read More »

Birdsong, Károly Ferenczy; 1893

ALAN writes:

One day years ago I was working in an antiquarian bookshop when a customer came to the desk with a book she had chosen to purchase.  She was in her twenties and very well-mannered.  During the brief transaction, she told me how gratified she was to have found a book of the kind for which she had been looking.  It was a book about birds.

Many customers purchased a handful of books or a box or boxes of books.  And that was fine.  Some were readers; others were collectors; some were other book dealers; others were book scouts.  There was room for all of them within the realm of an antiquarian bookshop that offered secondhand books and rare books in very-good-to-excellent condition.

But that young woman always remained in my memory.  She was not a regular customer.  But she was so gratified in having found one book.  We did not have a long conversation, but I was impressed by her manner and her sincerity.   I think she was very wise.  It is possible she understood what the Roman statesman Seneca advised two thousand years ago:  That it is the quality, not the quantity, that matters. Read More »

Adoro Te Devote
(Literal Translation)

I devoutly adore you, O hidden Deity,
Truly hidden beneath these appearances.
My whole heart submits to you,
And in contemplating you, It surrenders itself completely.

Sight, touch, taste are all deceived in their judgment of you,
But hearing suffices firmly to believe.
I believe all that the Son of God has spoken;
There is nothing truer than this word of truth.

On the cross only the divinity was hidden,
But here the humanity is also hidden.
Yet believing and confessing both,
I ask for what the repentant thief asked.

I do not see the wounds as Thomas did,
But I confess that you are my God.
Make me believe more and more in you,
Hope in you, and love you. Read More »

NO ONE was killed in these phony, staged events.

Bat Masterson

LYDIA SHERMAN writes:

Here is a list of videos on the Texas shooting hoax. People would be better off watching decent actors on Gunsmoke and Wagon Train on YouTube than paying any attention to these shootings. At least the TV shows admit they have paid actors. These shootings are as real as the tale of Bat Masterson:

Bat Masterson became more widely known as a gunfighter as a result of a practical joke played on a gullible newspaper reporter in August 1881. Seeking copy in Gunnison, Colorado, the reporter asked Dr. W.S. Cockrell about mankillers. Dr. Cockrell pointed to a young man nearby and said it was Bat and that he had killed 26 men. Cockrell then regaled the reporter with several lurid tales about Bat’s exploits, and the reporter wrote them up for the New York Sun. The story was then widely reprinted in papers all over the country. Cockrell subsequently apologized to Bat, who insisted he was not even in Gunnison at the time. [Source]

I’ve pasted some of the interesting comments from one of the videos on the Texas drama below: Read More »

SEE this report by Vivien Lee.

Unanswered question: Did Home Depot pay for advertising?