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. (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.

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. (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.] (more…)

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. (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. (more…)

  NO ONE was killed in these phony, staged events.

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: (more…)

SEE this report by Vivien Lee. Unanswered question: Did Home Depot pay for advertising?

FIVE HUNDRED years ago last week the “Protestant Reformation” began, an event to mourn for its ongoing effects. A revolution by oligarchs against the people, it disbanded many of the great charitable institutions of Europe: hospitals, schools, and alms houses run by those who took vows of poverty. Tenant farmers on monastic lands were displaced and many became the homeless poor. The spoils were distributed as political favors. To cite one small example, the buildings of Netley Abbey in southern England, a monastery renowned for its charity to travelers, were given to Sir William Paulet by Henry VIII in 1536 in reward for his loyal service to the king. He created a fashionable mansion.

In A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland, the Protestant writer William Cobbett (1763-18-35) wrote of the looting:

182. The whole country was, thus, disfigured; it had the appearance of a land recently invaded by the most brutal barbarians: and this appearance, if we look well into it, it has even to this day. Nothing has ever yet come to supply the place of what was then destroyed. This is the view for us to take of the matter, it is not a mere matter of religion; but a matter of rights, liberties, real wealth, happiness and national greatness. If all these have been strengthened, or augmented, by the “REFORMATION,” even. then we must not approve of the horrible means; but, if they have all been weakened, or lessened, by that “Reformation,” what an outrageous abuse of words is it to call the event by that name! And, if I do not prove, that this latter has been the case; if I do not prove, clear as the daylight, that, before the “Reformation,” England was greater, more wealthy, more moral, and more happy, than she has ever been since; if I do not make this appear as clearly as any fact ever was made to appear, I will be content to pass, for the rest of my life, for a vain pretender. (more…)

  TREES are never trendy. A tree can't say, "I'm tired of the smoldering golds and russets of fall. I think I'll wear black instead." It can't put on shoulder pads or sweatshirts or ripped jeans. It can't listen to big-name designers. Year after year, generation after generation, it wears the same thing. And yet we don't tire of its fashions. Its style is timeless. It has nothing to hide, no need for modesty, no will to deny its essential nature. The dresses and skirts of trees have a perfection our garments can never match. Beauty isn't boring. Seas of ugliness cannot destroy the messages of trees. Somewhere the orchards are eternal.

  IT'S ABOUT TIME has been posting interesting paintings of flower sellers of the past. They include this French painting by Louis Marie de Shryver (1862-1942), Selling Flowers Elysee. Selling flowers was a humble, but profitable occupation for women on the streets of Europe. Barbara Wells Sarudy writes: When some think street flower sellers, they picture Eliza Doolittle, the flower seller in Covent Garden who went from rags to riches, thanks to the attentions of Professor Higgins, in George Bernard Shaw's (1856-1950) Pygmalion. Her rise out of poverty was hardly typical. Flower sellers were common on the streets of London, Paris, & other European urban centers. We can glean some information about British flower sellers from Victorian London census records which reveal that most were married women & widows ranging from older teens to women in their 50s, single women, mostly enumerated as "daughter" are far fewer & make up a small percentage of the total. We can see the occasional "flower girl" who was put out onto the streets to sell flowers in order to help with the family income. Flower sellers didn’t just sell cut flowers, which had to be sourced at dawn, taken home, made up into bunches & then taken out onto the streets to sell from a basket, wheelbarrow, hand cart, or temporary stall in high traffic areas such as informal markets or lining the streets of busy thoroughfares. They also sold pot plants, "roots," seeds. There was a hierarchy within the occupation as…

  AARON RUSSO, the late Hollywood producer, discussed his conversations with Rockefeller family insider Nicholas Rockefeller in this 2009 interview with Alex Jones. Russo's thoughts on the true nature of feminism, which was promoted by the government, foundations and corporations for profit motives and to bring about world government, are of special interest. Many people have awakened to this idea and millions have watched versions of this video. [I should add, I am not a regular viewer of the media personality Alex Jones.] While there is truth to what Russo says, it obviously is not the whole story.

  HURRAY to "John Williams" for a flawless performance. Love the hairspray.

A SAINT, one might say, is a man or woman who was willing in life to suffer intensely for the love of God and who retained his faith, confidence, hope, cheerfulness and spirit of charity through all his sufferings. Today, the Feast of All Saints, is a good day to honor saintly heroism. To that end, here is a brief list of some of the trials of one saint, St. Bernadette of Lourdes (1844-1879), who in her short lifetime endured the following: 1. Humiliating and sometimes vicious personal attacks at the age of 14 from her parents, teachers, neighbors, the local clergy and police (who threatened her with arrest) when she claimed she had seen visions of a beautiful lady. 2. The burden of celebrity when later many believed her visions were real. This attention lasted for the rest of her life. It was tedious and unwanted by her but she handled it with humility and patience. 3. Persecution from a superior at a convent who falsely believed she was full of herself and seeking attention. 4. The death of her parents. 5. Severe physical suffering before her death at 35 from tuberculosis. Suffering, for a saint, is a grace. God sends great hardship to those he loves most.

WHAT power do the people have against rogue judges like Colleen Kollar-Kotelly? She's above the written law -- the Constitution gives the president command of the military -- and she certainly considers herself to be above the moral law, which means that even if the people overwhelmingly supported her, she is against reality itself. The moral law is like the law of gravity. It doesn't go away just because you don't believe in it. I can safely predict that the prohibition against gravely unbalanced individuals in the military (known as the transgender ban) that Judge Kollar-Kotelly stayed on Monday will never be enforced. Modern democracy, by its very nature, leads to progressive decadence. There will be "transgenders" in the Army. What of the many stunning departures from morality enshrined by our government in the last 50 years has been reversed? Rejoice that the truth is clearer by the day.

ANNA MARIE writes:

I am recently engaged and planning a wedding for next August! Please pray for me. I was wondering if you had any advice/book suggestions for me to read as I prepare for marriage. (more…)

CHRISTOPHER writes: I prayed five Glorious Mysteries for your mother yesterday. I have no real Catholics in my family so I always offer masses and prayers for people I don't know because I know they will pray for me and my family. God bless!

IF THERE is one idea that Americans of all political persuasions hold in common it is that democracy is the greatest of all political systems. More than an idea, it’s an emotional state. Love of country is love of “We the People.” It doesn’t matter how many liars are elevated to power, it doesn’t matter that the democratic state routinely imposes restraints that surpass those of tyrannical kings and make the woes of the American colonists seem utterly petty, it doesn’t matter that the government bureaucracies relentlessly expand, confiscating wealth and brazenly defying the people on issues such as immigration, democracy, we continue to believe, is the foundation of freedom. It will not let us down in the end.

But it has let us down and, according to the Belgian writer and historian Christophe Buffin de Chosal, this is the end. It will never deserve our trust again. Buffin de Chosal has produced a powerful and provocative critique on the nature of democracy. The End of Democracy, originally published in 2014 and recently translated into English by Ryan P. Plummer in a new edition by Tumblar House, is unsparing in its rejection of the modern democratic system.

Democracy has failed us, he argues, not because we are decadent. We are decadent because of democracy. Democracy by its nature promotes “spectacular advances in immorality.” It is not government for the people and by the people. It is government for the powerful by the powerful. Democracy never was a movement of the people. We are democracy’s dupes. Its revolutions were always imposed from above. Offering the masses the illusion of participation, it prevents popular resistance to its absolutist dictates. Both the English parliamentary revolution and the French Revolution were the successful efforts of powerful minorities subjugating the monarchy to its demands. The people were a ruse.  “Liberal democracy did not want liberty for all, but only the liberty of the wealthy,” Buffin de Chosal writes.

The reality is that democracy was invented for the purpose of bringing an oligarchy into power and keeping it there.

In his introduction to Buffin de Chosal’s work, historian Charles A. Coulombe embraces this thesis too:

Democracy has been a system in perpetual degradation. it has participated in the decline of the Western world, being both its cause and its fellow traveler. It is a factor of “decivilization,” and it leaves in its wake disappointed and politically immature peoples. Behind the screen of its rituals, it consolidates oligarchic totalitarian regimes which shall one day surprise — indeed this day has come — people who believed themselves free.

Democracy by its very nature leads to the all-encompassing intervention of the state. It controls education, the media (through the political interests supporting it), the issuance of money, the medicine we take and the food we eat. Our government drifts ever leftward because given the choice between freedom and security most voters will choose the security of government handouts. Though Buffin de Chosal is more focused on democracy in Europe, most of what he says applies to the United States too. He writes: (more…)