(TURN OFF the truly gruesome sound in this video and sing the following to the tune of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun") NUNS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN I come to church in the morning light Deacon Bob says everything is new and bright Oh deacon dear we're the fortunate ones And nuns they wanna have fun Oh nuns just want to have fun [Beepy doo, Beepy da] The dancers arrive in the middle of the night They need to get their altar disco just right All that stuff about Calvary was way overdone Because Catholics they wanna have fun Oh Catholics just want to have fun That's all they really wa-a-a-ant Some fun When the working day is done Oh nuns, they wanna have fun Oh nuns just wanta have fun (altar girls and boys wanna have fun, nuns wanna have, priests wanna have fun) [Beepy doo, beepy da] Some Catholics take a beautiful Mass And kneel hidden away from the rest of the world But we want to be the ones to walk in the sun Oh Catholics they wanna have fun Oh Catholics just wanna have That's all they really wa-a-a-n-ooh-t Some fun… When the working day is done, Oh, nuns they wanna have fun ... [Beepy dooo, beepy da] Ohhhhhhhh, fun, fun, Ohhhhh, just wanna ...

PEOPLE with emotional difficulties are often diagnosed today with “bipolar disorder.”

“Bipolar disorder” is not a scientific diagnosis. You can’t take a physical test and be assured that you have an organic condition. The diagnosis is based on subjective interpretation of symptoms. Mood swings — ranging between manic thoughts and depression — are said to characterize this illness.

Some individuals have organic predispositions and temperaments that make mood swings more likely and truly challenging, or even incapacitating. But I believe this diagnosis is so wildly popular for a deeper reason. The human condition itself is bipolar.

We all swing between two poles.

What are those poles?

We can simplify them and call them, everything and nothing. (more…)

[This entry has been updated.]

IN the aftermath of real shootings, everything is done to save lives. Contained havoc prevails as victims are frantically treated and rushed to hospitals. Gore is visible and messy; rescuers are in too much of a rush to hide it. Trauma centers can sometimes save even those who have been shot in the head. Rarely is a victim conclusively declared dead at the scene and then left without being taken to the nearest trauma center. And if such poor treatment occurred, lawsuits would result.

In our day of pervasive cellphones, dozens of images of vivid carnage and its repulsive chaos would quickly emerge after a real mass shooting. In fake shootings, you see no evidence of this frantic rescue effort and no convincing gore. Instead, you see lots of police standing around or rushing into buildings (with a cameraman coincidentally nearby) as if they are on the set of a TV drama. These images are quickly replaced by those of official press conferences and people with red eyes and candles. As a former newspaper reporter, I can tell you that this is not how things work at real crime scenes where everything is done to save lives and detectives truly study the evidence, without rushing to declare instantly who the perpetrator is.

The default position for all synagogue or school shootings should be that they are staged political events until proven otherwise. Yes, they may be real, but evidence is needed before a rush to judgment. This rule insists on hard evidence, not just official reports. The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting strongly suggests staging. The almost immediate identification of the perpetrator — with no doubts — with a ready profile of him and his motives suggests staging. (more…)

  PILATE therefore said to Him: Art thou a King then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a King. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth. Everyone that is of the truth, heareth My voice. (John xviii, 35-37)

H.F. writes:

I’m responding to the posts “Clueless Women” and “The Woman as Helpmate.”

To an outsider I look like another clueless woman. My life revolves around studying to become a doctor, often at the expense of spiritual life, time with family, and friendships. Yet I deeply desire to be a mother and helpmate. I’m 22.

Why, then, do I waste my youth poring over textbooks rather than trying to start a family?

I was raised without religion but joined the Church as an adult, to my parents’ disappointment and embarrassment. During my childhood both my parents worked full-time, so I saw little of them. They’ve spent many thousands of dollars on my education. Earning a professional degree is expected of me.

In college I told my parents about my longing to be a housewife. They laughed and said that no man would want a freeloader. They can’t fathom forgoing an income. I tell them that I’ll marry only a Catholic man, or a man willing to convert. They laugh and say that I’m being unreasonable and inflexible, that I can’t expect a man to convert just for marriage. They view marriage as an optimal financial plan rather than as a sacrament. Although they promise to help me find a husband, I have little confidence in their ability to judge virtue, so I can’t rely on my parents for help. While I’ve tried earnestly to meet a virtuous young man, a good man is hard to find. The best men I know are becoming priests.

But the above doesn’t explain why I’ve chosen such a long, grueling educational path. I should be clear: the decision was mine, not my parents’. Prayer illuminated to me that being a doctor is my life’s calling. Based on my personal strengths and interests, medicine is the best way for me to obey Christ’s commands. In fact, I feel that God has called me to be a physician more strongly than He has called me to be a wife and mother.

I understand that medicine isn’t like any other profession. At minimum, it requires substantial time and attention. Being a good doctor and being a good mother are probably mutually exclusive. If I have children, I want to do things right. For instance, I would homeschool my children. Telemedicine is growing in demand, so as a doctor I could work from home while teaching my children, but the quality of the patient care would likely be diminished. (more…)

ROBERT FAURISSON, the famous French scholar and literature professor who researched official accounts of World War II — and was jailed, fined, persecuted, defamed and severely beaten on the street for his conclusions — died earlier this week at the age of 89.

The difficult and brilliant professor’s legacy includes his remarkable study of The Diary of Anne Frank. We all know the vivid and moving story of the young girl which was published in English as The Diary of a Young Girl, and later made into movies, plays and television dramas. Faurisson peered behind the drama for the facts.

Faurisson first worked on the project with the help of his university students in the 1970s. In the resulting article (later a book), he summarized his findings. He described the physical details of the “secret annex” in Amsterdam, where Frank hid from the Nazis with her family:  (more…)

  MOST compassionate Archangel St. Raphael, who, by a miracle wonderful in its simplicity restored the precious gift of sight to the blind Tobias, free my life, I beseech thee, from the blindness which afflicts and dishonours it, so that I may know things in their true aspect. Never permit me to be deceived by appearances, but help me always to walk secure in the way of the divine Commandments. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Source

  ELIZABETH writes: I, too, am a mother of five (all daughters) under the age of eight. The biggest struggle I face is not so much in seeing the value or feeling fulfillment in my life as a wife, mother, and home-educator, it is beating back the distractions which abound in our technological age! How much of my life — my children’s lives! — have I wasted looking down at some stupid screen just because it was there, close to hand? It is a selfishness and self-indulgence that must be checked if we are going to succeed in our vocations as the hearts of our homes. I grew up as the Internet sprang up and blossomed. I am in my thirties and can still remember life before the Internet. Having the world at our fingertips was supposed to be almost miraculous, beautiful, and it was seen as such an amazing advance, it was going to help us connect to one another, but I see it now having the effect of keeping us from focusing on our own little spheres, since we are so distracted by the wider world. Whatever feminism left behind on the hearth, technology is now devouring.

S.K. continues his comments posted here:

I hope the day finds you well. It is strange for me to read my own words on your site. I feel as an outside onlooker. It hit me, regarding the post, that I will never, ever have a helpmate. I mean, I already knew that, but I still found it momentarily shocking. I am not exceptional in this regard of course. In an era of ceaseless chatter regarding erotic fantasies and ‘naughtiness,’ the ‘forbidden’ and such, I’d say that the naughtiest, most ‘forbidden’ fantasy any man dare to dream up would be that of having a helpmate.

Have a wonderful day. (more…)

WHEELER writes: The video you posted on 10/15, "Our World" is frightening, which means that it's realistic and accurate. I couldn't help noticing, though, that one of the most prominent villains, the scary drunk on the subway, is a white male wearing a Confederate flag T-shirt. Just like real life, right? ... Because we all know that packs of feral Southern white men roam the inner city subways, victimizing women and persons of color. Even when an artist or commentator is making a valid point, there's always that irresistible urge to virtue-signal. "I'd better tone this down and preemptively prove that I'm not a racistsexisthomophobenazi."  And virtue-signaling is usually intended to win over the very people who hate the person doing the signaling. This never happens. It's a game that can never be won.

TIMOTHY FITZPATRICK writes about the legalization of marijuana in Canada: A drugged up population is a morally bankrupt population. A drugged up population is a chemically neutered and pacified nation. A drugged up population exhausts the government’s policing, health care, and education systems. The government becomes too distracted to deal with the subversion and infiltration going on within its ranks before it’s too late. Finally, when it reaches the end of its exhaustion, it becomes ripe for economic terrorism and violent revolution. Soviet agent Fidel Castro viewed drugs as “a very important weapon against the United States, because drugs demoralise people and undermine society,” according to Cuban DGI intelligence defector Major Florentino Aspillaga Lombard.

S. writes: I'm in the throes of raising my own little family with five children, the oldest eight years old, the youngest just four months. It is exhausting work, cooking every meal for all the tiny humans that depend on me (and even more exhausting to teach them how to help me cook!). It is so gratifying to hear from you that all the toil and sweat of your mother in the kitchen was not in vain. The endless work of a mother in the kitchen can feel so lonely at times. Your comments on your mother made me think of Galations 6:9 "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." I especially loved these sentences from your post: "Domesticity, its routines and its drudgery, potentially elevates human affairs from an animal-like existence. Domesticity is an art form which simply cannot be mastered by women with busy careers."

S.K., a male reader, writes: The whole "helpmate" idea has been a foreign concept as long as I can remember. I know hardly any women who think that way, at least from my generation ("GenX") on down. Many women are not even conscious that they are doing everything possible to prevent themselves from getting where they want to be. They seem to be innocently clueless and honestly confounded as to why they end up with nothing. One woman acquaintance, who has thrown herself into career with passion and mania, but is not obnoxious or grrrrrl-powery at all, but rather soft-spoken and nice, claimed not long ago that she was "thinking" about starting a family. Thinking about it. In her early 40s. She's gorgeous and possibly thinks that's all that's needed. She told me this more than a year ago; she is still without family, and even a boyfriend. I can't see this ending well. Waiting for all of them to learn on their own is likely not the ticket either.

ALAN writes:

Modern Americans are drenched in distractions and drunk on diversions.

The endless assault upon the senses in modern life means (among other things) the loss or diminishing of something Americans a hundred years ago had mastered quite well:  The ability to concentrate one’s attention, and the understanding of why that is important.

ITEM:  In 1915, an executive in the Detroit Cadillac Motor Car Company wrote to an employee to inform him that his salary would be increased. He wrote: “The writer knows that you will appreciate this and he would suggest that the very best way to show your appreciation would be to cut out all unnecessary talk, petty jokes, and story-telling during business hours and keep your mind entirely on company business….  Eliminate all outside influences….” [Reminisce Magazine, May/June 1999, p. 52] (more…)

O GENTLEST Heart of Jesus, ever present in the Blessed Sacrament, ever consumed with burning love for the poor captive souls in Purgatory, have mercy on the souls of Thy servants. Be not severe in Thy judgment, but let some drops of Thy precious Blood fall upon our beloved departed, and do Thou, O merciful Savior, send Thy angels to conduct the souls of Thy servants to a place of refreshment, light and peace. Amen. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

TODAY is the first anniversary of my mother’s death.

I think of my mother, who died at the age of 86, pretty much every day, but I thought of her more this week, not just because of this significant anniversary but because I have been cleaning out her kitchen. My father died in April and we are now packing up their home.

My mother’s kitchen was a workshop, a laboratory and a command center. She was an energetic, industrious and talented cook. From this kitchen — and the one in our childhood home — she prepared thousands of meals for her seven children, her husband, friends, and relatives. This was no secondary occupation, not simply the setting of a beautiful hobby, it was the center of life. It was reality.

We almost never ate in restaurants and hardly knew what take-out was when we were growing up. Despite the large demands on her kitchen time, my mother cooked for strangers too. She regularly made casseroles for a soup kitchen. Her kitchen was filled with her tools — hundreds of humble objects, many of them now battered and tired-looking, as if they belonged in a history exhibit where implements dug up by archaeologists are displayed to illustrate the course of human history. But they resonated with her personality and memories of the simple and indispensable chores they executed. From the baking sheets to the frying pans to the metal bowls and spatulas and knives, from the casserole dishes to the nut crackers to the potholders and candy thermometers, from the bean pot to the bread plates to the cooling racks to the stand mixer, they all seemed like friends I have known — and extensions of her. (more…)

  DR. Dennis Bonnette debunks scientific materialism. He shows why this atheistic worldview – promoted by biologist Richard Dawkins – is illogical.

  IN THIS 1988 interview (sorry about the poor quality of the video), Ron Paul explains some of the basic facts about the Federal Reserve -- facts that even Congressmen didn't know.