STEPHEN IPPOLITO writes from Australia:

When I was just 17, many years ago, I met a very wise man who was then almost 100 and whom, unfortunately, I was only ever to meet that one time.

Rudolfo Cafiero came to Sydney in what was then still the British colony of New South Wales in the late 1890’s,  just a few years before federation, from his native Meta di Sorrento, on the Bay of Naples. He had been a ship’s captain like many in his wider family, but his own branch had traditionally been avvocati (lawyers), and magistrates. Each of his father and grandfather had served their community in both capacities.

After retiring from work, Rudolfo thereafter spent most of every day in his library. He was a noted recluse. On the day that I met him, he had come to our house because there was a party to celebrate my matriculation and my becoming the first in my family to win a place at University where, he had heard, I would study law. It was the legal connection that drew him.

Rudolfo spoke little to anyone but towards the end of the evening he approached me and said: “Stefano,” (35 years later and he remains the only person to have ever called me that) “Let me give you the same advice my father gave me as I set out on my path as a young man. He himself received the advice from his own father and it will aid you both as a lawyer and as a man.”

Rudolfo continued: “In all things in life be guided by the answer to the old riddle: If you count the tail as a leg, how many legs does a donkey have?” I  answered, “Five.” Read More »

ALAN writes:

In “When Feminity was Cherished” (March 6), you wrote that colleges once provided a setting that depended on strict rules. As a matter of fact, that is true. As a matter of morality, it was valid.

There is another setting that involves strict rules. It is called Life.  Life will not appease 18-year-olds who do not possess good judgment. Life is harsh. The conditions of life—“the rules” of life—will not accommodate the whims of spoiled brats.

There are two kinds of people:  Those who find life acceptable or even delightful and try to accommodate themselves to its conditions—its “rules”;  and those who resent the rules of life and try to make those rules accommodate their whims and fantasies. Read More »

Ellie Wilkinson in the role of Nancy in 1910

IN CHAPTER 60 of Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist, two very different women come together. They are Rose Maylie, the refined and beautiful adopted daughter of a prominent family, and Nancy, a prostitute who has lived on the streets of greedy London for most of her life. Nancy was trained at a young age to be a thief and is a member of Fagin’s pickpocket gang.

Nancy has come to see Rose in an effort to rescue Oliver from Fagin’s gang and the same life she has led. She knows she may be killed for doing so. As the type of person she is portrayed to be, she might have felt nothing but envy toward the beautiful Rose Maylie. But instead she is not too proud to be touched by the gentlewoman’s kindness. Rose could have felt nothing but disgust for a street walker, but instead her heart breaks with compassion.

It is a meeting between two entirely different worlds joined by something universal and eternal. They are both striving to be good. They both desire justice. They are both inspiring, without any of the neurotic narcissism of characters in modern novels and movies. Nancy’s words are a moving condemnation of the evil spirit of deformed capitalism which Dickens, perhaps more than any other author in the modern world, captured so well:

‘Oh, lady, lady!’ she said, clasping her hands passionately before her face, ‘if there was more like you, there would be fewer like me,—there would—there would!’

Nancy is subsequently murdered. Rose goes on to a brilliant marriage.

Here is the scene in its entirety:

The girl’s life had been squandered in the streets, and among the most noisome of the stews and dens of London, but there was something of the woman’s original nature left in her still; and when she heard a light step approaching the door opposite to that by which she had entered, and thought of the wide contrast which the small room would in another moment contain, she felt burdened with the sense of her own deep shame, and shrunk as though she could scarcely bear the presence of her with whom she had sought this interview.

But struggling with these better feelings was pride,—the vice of the lowest and most debased creatures no less than of the high and self-assured. The miserable companion of thieves and ruffians, the fallen outcast of low haunts, the associate of the scourings of the jails and hulks, living within the shadow of the gallows itself,—even this degraded being felt too proud to betray a feeble gleam of the womanly feeling which she thought a weakness, but which alone connected her with that humanity, of which her wasting life had obliterated so many, many traces when a very child.

She raised her eyes sufficiently to observe that the figure which presented itself was that of a slight and beautiful girl; then, bending them on the ground, she tossed her head with affected carelessness as she said: Read More »

TIM writes:

Whenever the topic of the so-called Holocaust comes up, it is useful to remind (usually inform) the speaker that the word holocaust is an Old Testament term that refers to sin offering, or blood offering, as atonement to God.

These Old Testament references presage the ultimate holocaust, that of the torture and murder of the Messiah for the redemption of mankind. This clarification of terms usually puts a damper on the conversation.

This then begs the question: for whom were the Jews offered as a sin offering?

The answer to this question is found in the new theology: Christ’s sacrifice is now replaced by man’s sacrifice; God is superseded by man; the Rights of God are replaced by the Rights of Man.

Incidentally, there are 162 references to holocaust in the Old Testament found in the Douay-Rheims Bible, which is still the only official Church translation of the bible from the original Latin into English. Beautiful use of the English language. Read More »

AMAZON HAS has banned books about World War II that question scientific and statistical details of the reported gas chambers and the “Holocaust.” The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum was among the organizations that pressured Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to remove the books. The company is, of course, perfectly free to determine which books it wants to sell. But given the retailer’s reach this is a significant form of censorship.

This censorship is a discredit to Jews who died or otherwise suffered in concentration camps during World War II, whose memory can never be honored by any association with book-banning or intellectual bullying. It is a discredit to Amazon, which has published books in favor of Satanism and a long list of moral crimes. It is a discredit to Jewish leaders who ironically have compounded the impression that they have something to hide and who by advocating this step persecute marginalized historians who have little or nothing to gain personally. It is a discredit to Jews who believe in open debate. Among the books that have suddenly disappeared from the online retailer is Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil by author Gerard Menuhin, Stanford-educated son of the late Jewish violinist Yehudi Menuhin.

Some books that question the events of the “Holocaust” are apparently still available on Amazon, at least for now, probably because they are not books exclusively on that subject. They include the excellent book on Jewish power in America, Synagogue Rising by the Catholic author Hugh Akins, a Vietnam veteran who calls the Holocaust debate “the supreme controversy of modern times.” He writes on p. 490: Read More »

MODERN academia is founded on the belief that there is no objective reality, especially in moral matters. Therefore, sooner or later it was bound to devolve into brawls, even at colleges with smart, generally law-abiding students.

Peter W. Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, writing at The Federalist, examines the recent riot at Middlebury College during a visit by the author Charles Murray. Wood alleges the college president and faculty encouraged the bullying protestors and have fostered an atmosphere of intolerance:

We have a generation of college students who reframe any idea they disagree with as “hate,” and declare that “Your message is hatred. We cannot tol-er-ate it.” Read More »

FROM AN 1855 sermon:

In the first place, then, my brethren, as men, as the offspring of a corrupted stock, self-denial is indispensably necessary for us. No sooner did our first parents transgress the divine command than labours and sufferings were declared to be their inseparable lot. Their descendants, born in pangs and in sorrow, were to eat their bread in the sweat of their brow: the earth was to yield them thorns and briars; and all nature was in some measure to disclaim the sovereignty of its fallen lord. But, if the effects of man’s disobedience were thus widely felt in the objects around him, it was in his own breast, that his transgression occasioned the most baneful revolution. From that moment, a furious and interminable war arose within him. His inferior appetites, rebellious to reason, incessantly demanded gratification at the expence of duty. All the powers of his soul were corrupted and brutalized. Read More »

TO THE VIRGIN

— by Edgar Allen Poe

At morn, at noon, at twilight dim,
Maria, thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and woe, in good and ill,
Mother of God, be with me still!

When the hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and
thee.

Now when storms of Fate o’ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine.

A BRIEF history of Tulip Mania and the subsequent crash in prices in 17th century Holland.

A COMMENT by Wallace Klink at the Clifford Hugh Douglas Institute:

Human energy is a diminishing factor of production in the modern economy, where it is being rapidly replaced by technology providing enormously greater efficiency. We must abandon the anachronistic, unrealistic and false moralistic position that access to consumer goods is only or primarily justified by direct participation by individuals in production processes. The logical conclusions to be drawn from this erroneous and dogmatic belief are that the end of man is either endless manufacture of goods and services, regardless of actual need or desire, or that efficiency is to be abjured as something evil or undesirable. Both positions are an obvious fatal impediment to the flowering of anything worthy of being called Civilization.

Crucifixion of St. Peter, Caravaggio; 1600

See more Karaoke “Catholicism,” if you have the stomach for it (barf bag strongly advised), here. And, please, be careful on the roads! You never know what dangerous cornballs might be in the next lane.

HEATHER writes:

My five-year-old son was recently diagnosed with Asperger’s. One of the red flags noted by his speech therapist, and then by the psychologist who diagnosed him, is that he “can’t play pretend.” By this they mean playing with dolls or action figures, coming up with a spontaneous little script. It’s true, he does find this difficult, especially with unfamiliar adults. With me, he can, but it’s never a spontaneous experience. I didn’t notice for years because he can spontaneously play pretend in so many other ways – he can pretend to cook, pretend a stuffed animal is a pet, pretend he’s an explorer, firefighter, or fur trapper, pretend his bed is a ship, etc. He can play with other children in these ways too. I never had to teach him any of this. But in a clinical setting he’s unsure of what to do with dolls, and labeled with “can’t play pretend.”

I don’t dispute his diagnosis, and I acknowledge that playing pretend with dolls can really help his speech and social skills (although drawing cartoon situations seems to work better for him). Read More »

HOLOCAUSTIANITY is the de facto state religion of Western society, says Michael Hoffman, who is not a “Holocaust denier” in the sense commonly used, i.e. someone who denies that many thousands of Jews suffered and died in labor camps in Germany.

FROM a collection of prayers, for children (and adults):

Indulgence of 300 days. Raccolta. 452

WATCH John F. Kennedy’s speech at American University in 1963, in which he said:

“I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war–and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task. Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament–and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude–as individuals and as a Nation–for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward–by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.”

YEAH, that’s right all you hawks. Justice for Libya is long overdue. John Wight writes:

Though it may have slipped off the radar of global consciousness, Libya’s central importance when it comes a region that has been mired in conflict and chaos over the past few years cannot be overstated. The country’s destruction and societal collapse will forever stand as a withering indictment of Western foreign policy towards the region and NATO’s role, not as a defender of democracy, peace, and stability, but as an instrument of Western imperial power. The savage murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the hands of a NATO-supported mob in October 2011 was a ghastly and despicable crime, one that stands comparison with the legal lynching of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2006. Read More »

GERMAN philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was not right about everything, but he was right about truth when he said:

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.”

COLLEGES once created an environment in which women could learn and preserve themselves for marriage or another serious vocation. That environment depended on strict rules and recognized that 18-year-olds do not always possess good judgment. This author believes these rules were “absurd.” I guess she prefers drunken hook-ups and campus rape. She writes:

Though these rules existed at both men’s and women’s schools (see Spelman below), the concept of in loco parentis became almost ubiquitous between the 1940s and 1960s, when formerly all-male schools slowly opened their doors to women and the need to keep a strict eye on the sexes and maintain women’s propriety became the primary focus of school administrators. Thus, while male students were allowed to dress as they pleased, study where they pleased, move off campus, drink, smoke, and throw parties, female students were subjected to strict curfews and dress codes, constant monitoring and supervision, and harsh punishment for even the most minor violations of these endless rules.

Anyone with common sense and a few archival photos can see that college women have undergone a dramatic loss in dignity.