ELLEN BROWN on rising interest rates and what to do about them: The Federal Reserve calls itself independent, but it is independent only of government. It marches to the drums of the banks that are its private owners. To prevent another Great Recession or Great Depression, Congress needs to amend the Federal Reserve Act, nationalize the Fed and turn it into a public utility, one that is responsive to the needs of the public and the economy.

FROM  Fr. Karl Stehlin, writing in his book The Nature, Dignity, and Mission of Woman (Angelus Press. Kindle Edition):

“IF GOD Himself defines the most intimate possible relationship between Himself and a creature as the relation between mother and child, then we can say that all earthly motherhood finds its deepest meaning in connection with the Divine Maternity. Mary’s motherhood is the model and standard of every sort of motherhood on earth, and every instance of motherhood on earth is meant to be an echo of the Divine Maternity. That means that the mother (and by analogy the father also) experiences her motherhood fully when she views it in light of Mary’s motherhood.

“The parents see their child as a gift from God; they see in the child the presence of the Child Jesus. Conceiving the child and carrying it in the womb becomes for the mother a living reminder and “representation” of the conception of the Eternal Word and of carrying Jesus Christ in one’s heart. The birth and the raising of the child are understood as symbolic of the divine mission, that is, the sending forth of Jesus Christ into the world and His proclamation which gives birth to Christ in souls. Jesus Himself confirms this way of looking at it when He says that whoever does His will is “brother, sister and mother” to Him (Mt. 12:50).

“Mary’s Divine Maternity makes comprehensible to the Christian, and in particular to the Christian woman, the mission that she has to fulfill in her short life. (more…)

"Nothing represents an object more faithfully or clearly than a mirror.  In the same way, nothing more widely represents the good or bad qualities of a soul than the greater or lesser regulation of the exterior, as when one appears more or less modest.  You must be modest in speech, modest in laughter, modest in your bearing, modest in walking.  All this must be practiced, not out of vanity in order to display one's self, nor out of hypocrisy in order to appear to be good to the eyes of others, but rather, for the internal virtue of modesty, which regulates the external workings of the body." --- Padre Pio (Read more here)

"IF THE Lord should give you power to raise the dead, He would give much less than He does when He bestows suffering. By miracles you would make yourself debtor to Him, while by suffering He may become debtor to you. And even if sufferings had no other reward than being able to bear something for that God who loves you, is not this a great reward and a sufficient remuneration? Whoever loves, understands what I say." ----St. John Chrysostom

  THE FRENCH author Hervé Ryssen documents the leading role of Judaism in the Communist Revolution in 20th-century Russia in this excellent documentary. (Warning: Disturbing images include reenactments of executions.) An estimated 30 million people, mostly Christian, were killed by the Communists in Soviet Russia. (Alexander Solzhenitsyn  put the death toll at 60 million.) Ironically, as Ryssen explains, many secular Jews became Communists because they wanted to inaugurate a reign of peace on earth, others wanted revenge against monarchist Russia -- and of course, most Jewish Communists were not themselves murderers. The movement they supported was and to this day, the Western press conceals the extent of the genocide. American students are taught about the Holocaust, even though there is no hard evidence of gas chambers, nor will there ever be hard evidence since the technology for large-scale gassings of the type described by survivors was non-existent, and the claimed death toll is patently false. Students are never taught the history of the Soviet genocide, for which there is abundant documentation and physical evidence. This history is highly relevant to world events today, as Ryssen explains at the end of the documentary. Ryssen has been arrested numerous times, fined and imprisoned in France for his discussions of these events. The sort of censorship that existed in Soviet Russia exists in the West today.

FROM a comment posted here in 2013 by Steve Kogan, a writer who is now deceased:

The issue of “women’s rights” was almost a century old when Nietzsche cut it to the quick with a five word response: “Feminism: the uglification of Europe.” For years, I found nothing to match its bite until I recently came across the following reminiscence in The Dostoevsky Archive: Firsthand Accounts of the Novelist from Contemporaries’ Memoirs and Rare Periodicals (1997):

    At the parties I gave, Dostoevsky showed himself to be a charming person. He told his stories, and he displayed his wit and humor, as well as his unusual and original way of thinking. As a new person entered the room, however, Dostoevsky became silent for a moment and looked like a snail retreating into its shell, or like a silent and evil-looking pagan idol. And this lasted until the newcomer produced a good impression on him…. If the stranger engaged Dostoevsky in conversation, one generally heard him make some rude remark, or saw a sour look on his face.

    Dostoevsky was opposed to the so-called “Women’s Question.” At that time, this movement took the form of eccentric behavior and attire on the part of some women, such as very short haircuts, dark blue spectacles and other fads. Among other things, these ladies did not notice that Dostoevsky disliked them, and they revered him as their teacher.

    Several times, I was present at such meetings. A contemporary woman entered the room. She failed to notice the forbidding expression on Dostoevsky’s face. She did not hear his cold tone of voice or his formal question, “What do you want?” This lady, filled with her own motives, began to tell her story, with animated and shining eyes and flushed cheeks. (more…)

MOST of the missiles fired at Syria this weekend did not hit the ground. There were no casualties and little damage. The Anti-New York Times has the most flattering interpretation of Trump's action: Notice the pattern: Trump "attacks" Syria in 2017 then, weeks later, cuts off funding to the CIA's "moderate rebels" just as Putin is bombing the crap out of them. Trump threatens to nuke North Korea. Now, he will be meeting with Lil' Kim in June! Trump declares "trade war" against China. Then, China removes some of its trade barriers (as Xi and Trump had surely already agreed upon during Trump's visit to China). Trump goes along with Congress's sanctions on Russia (which he cannot stop, anyway) and bashes Putin. He then announces that he wants to meet with Putin soon. Trump's strategy of rhetorical aggressiveness and harmless fireworks enables him to outmaneuver the warmongers -- keeping them silent as he pulls the rug out from under them. Be not alarmed by these strategic actions, boys and girls. Trump, Putin, Xi -- and by extension, Assad and Lil' Kim are all on the same team. For all we know, Trump may have even just bombed CIA targets!

PHILOSOPHY professor George Yancy plugs his new book in The New York Times: Do I give up on white people, on white America, or do I continue to fight for a better white America, despite the fact that my efforts continue to lead to forms of unspeakable white racist backlash? I am convinced that America suffers from a pervasively malignant and malicious systemic illness — white racism. There is also an appalling lack of courage, weakness of will, spinelessness and indifference in our country that helps to sustain it. That indifference is itself a cruel reality, a reality that often makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs until I fall flat on my face from exhaustion. That indifference makes me sick to my stomach. Plenty of evil white people will probably buy his book.

  Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution. --- ArchitectureRevival

  MEDITATIONS ON Good Shepherd Sunday by Father John Tauler, O.P. (Source): Now let us ask why our Lord so often calls His friends sheep. Because sheep have two qualities that our Lord especially loves, namely, innocence and gentle meekness. We read in the Apocalypse that the pure and guileless “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (Apoc 14:4). The meek and humble of heart are near to God, and they hear His voice; proud and haughty men never hear it. When the wind howls and the doors and windows clatter, one can hardly hear the voice of man. As to the voice of God, that fatherly, whispered, secret word, uttered in the inmost depths of your soul—if you will hear it, you must be deaf to all the roar of the world without, and hush all the voices of your own inner life. You must yield yourself up like a meek and gentle little sheep, confess your sins, and, all humbly hushed and quieted, hearken to this voice of God; it is denied to all who are not thus made like unto sheep. It was to His sheep that the Lord spoke, as we read in the lessons of this night’s office: “I will give you a lovely land, the goodly inheritance of the army of the Gentiles. And I said: You shall call me Father and shall not cease to walk after me.” (Jer 3:19.) And what is this lovely land…

  JANICE KORTKAMP has studied the situation in Syria for years. In an interview with the website We Hold These Truths, she says, "The sad thing for me is that so few Americans know anything Syria." She has talked to many Syrians and says they are almost unanimous in their view that the American government has orchestrated the terrorist revolution in order to take control of their country. "That is a very bitter thing for them because Syria never threatened the U.S."

EXCELLENT analysis by Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams in this segment on the alleged gas attack in Syria. All the world’s a stage. Paul: “I don’t think we’re going to hear any more noise about bringing the troops home.” (more…)

  THIS video tells you a lot about the new encyclical released by the juvenile delinquent in Rome. It's called "Gaudete and Exsultate" ("Rejoice and Be Glad"), "joy" being a familiar sugar coating on the theological poisons of a cunning revolutionary. The sublime has been replaced by social work, sin has been replaced by "injustice," wisdom by slick, humanistic sentimentality. In short, God has been replaced by man. All in all, it's about as evocative of holiness and its internal combats as a life insurance commercial.

ALAN writes:

If an astronomer looked up one evening and saw that a bright star that had been there for ages is no longer there, he might say, “The universe has changed.”

That was approximately how I felt at the moment last week after I walked into a branch library in St. Louis and paused to look at an exhibit of railroad photographs in a display case.  One of the staff members came over to where I was standing and said he had something to tell me.  What he said was the last thing in the world I would have expected to hear: “Mary passed away…..”

It was one of those moments when you stand there, stunned, and want so much not to believe what you have just been told. Those few words caused my universe to change.

Mary had worked in that library for 28 years.  She died from natural causes at age 53, and her death, wholly unexpected, came as a shock to everyone who knew her.

In this age of outrageous excess and overstatement, the word friend is greatly overused and misused.  Mary and I were friends, in the proper sense of the word, for all those years. (more…)

THOUGHTS on ordinary singing by Webster Young: An important part of the joy of song is that we use our own voice to make it. We need no machines– only our solitary voice, which no one can take away from us. This is part of the joy – the difference between one’s own voice, so natural and a part of us, and the juggernaut of modern industrial technology. When all the batteries have run dead, all the transistors and resistors worn out, when all the radios in the world are ruined and thrown away, you will still have your voice, the perfect human answer to oppressive technology. If we find our own song, one that really uplifts us, we have a very effective weapon against the trials and tribulations of life.

  NASIM AGHDAM, the woman allegedly involved in what appeared to be a comically staged shooting at Youtube headquarters, does squats joyfully and energetically before her national flag, and to the tune of "Hava Nagila," in this video. Miss Aghdam is probably on an island beach somewhere right now resting up from her "suicide." "Hava de guns, Hava de guns, Hava de guns and we be happy."