WHEN I STOPPED at a “natural foods” market recently to pick up a few things and went to the checkout, I had the feeling, just the sense as I was standing there and my purchases were being rung up, that someone was looking intently at me. I looked up and realized it was the young man, about 20 years old, packing my groceries. I believe he wanted me to look at him. And once I did, he smiled as if he was relieved. He thanked me in a friendly way; I thanked him. And I left.

But as I left, I tried to process his strangeness. I then realized he was not a man, but a young woman who was impersonating a man. That explained her apparent desire for me to look at her. If you have gone to extreme lengths to change your appearance, it is only natural that you would want people to see you. She obviously had had surgery and hormone treatment (there was a slight beard on her chin). But recalling her arms, hands and face, I knew they had the unmistakable, delicate skeletal structure of the female body, which cannot be altered by surgery.

It was not surprising to see someone who had undergone the deception known as a “sex change” in a natural foods market.

These places are frequented by people who believe in absolutely natural, organic conditions for plants and animals. But they do not believe consistently in the same conditions for human beings.

It’s important for a chicken to be natural, but a human being can impose the most artificial, dangerous conditions on himself for certain acceptable reasons related to sexual identity and autonomy. Toxic birth control, mutilating surgery, hormones that destroy fertility and cause cancer — these are okay for human beings, even in a store devoted to free-range poultry.

I was saddened by this woman’s condition. She will probably never be able to have children. And she may have life-long damage from hormones and drugs. She may very well die from cancer, all to indulge adolescent confusion.

And to top it off, there is no convincing proof that sex change operations remove serious psychological distress in people like her in the long run. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary. This young woman was the victim of a very sinister hoax. How can one not feel angry at her condition? Her parents probably funded her transformation. It’s one thing to let your child go through a phase of radical clothing. It’s another to let her physically mutilate herself in a permanent, irreparable way. Doctors apparently violated fundamental medical ethics on her supposed behalf.

But then great lies have been employed to convince the clueless and the willfully stupid that this is right. The ultimate goal of “transgenderism” is clearly not to help the weak and confused. In fact, it hurts them. Even people who have been otherwise supportive of the sexual revolution are uncomfortable with these deceptions.

Alex P. Serritella is a California schoolteacher, a liberal who was nevertheless so taken aback by the widespread and sudden acceptance of transgenderism that he decided to look closely at the subject. In his book, Transgenda:  Abuse and Regret in the Sex Change Industry, he makes these important points. He has produced a common sense, well-researched critique of this disturbing phenomenon, which, as he rightly says, is going to damage many more lives. Again, Serritella is a liberal who believes homosexuality is not harmful (though the evidence that it is physically, psychologically and spiritually harmful is abundant.) But he has regrets and the sort of indignation that should be everywhere:

In the past I always supported gay rights. I was never an activist, but when it came up in conversation, I always stood up for them. Although I have no interest in it myself, I always thought that I should defend other people’s personal rights. I figured that if it’s consenting adults, indoors, and safe, then people should just leave them alone. It was a matter of principle. It was the “do unto others” philosophy. I didn’t want to be self‐righteous or judgmental. Even when the gay marriage debate was an issue, I still went along with it. It seemed weird, but I considered it their own private business.

But now I see where it has led and I am getting a different view of the whole thing. I see more of the overall picture now.

[….]

I wonder if I may have inadvertently supported this thing. If that’s the case, then I hope that this book will atone for it. (more…)

AN INDIAN reader, just baptized as a Catholic, writes:

Worshipping idols, be they human, semi-human or animal transforms the heart into stone and the mind into whatever one is worshipping which is NEVER the One True God. In this state it is impossible to love, but idolizing everyone and everything, including oneself, becomes the dominant emotion, feeling and state of being. It is death and the results of such ‘life’ are there for the world to see. (more…)

THE Saker counters the argument that Donald Trump is only a "showman" preparing us for war. Don't miss the writer's interesting comments on Russia and the USA. Does anybody in Washington DC really think that two decades of rabid russophobia have suddenly been forgotten or that anybody in Russia will ever trust a word coming out of an American politician’s mouth?  For the past two years Russia has been scrambling to prepare for war against the USA and NATO.  Now that the danger of President Hillary has almost certainly passed, yes – the Russians are delighted that a thermonuclear war has become unlikely.  But they will never forget how close it came and they will most definitely not stop their preparations.

A poem about snow and the wretchedness of one human being:

Beautiful Snow

—- John Whitaker Watson (1824-1890)

O THE SNOW, the beautiful snow
Filling the sky and the earth below!
Over the house-tops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet,
Dancing,
Flirting,
Skimming along.
Beautiful snow! it can do nothing wrong.
Flying to kiss a fair lady’s cheek;
Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak;
Beautiful snow, from the heavens above,
Pure as an angel and fickle as love! (more…)

STEVE writes:

Here is an excerpt from a column by Jonathan Emord at News with Views, where he writes of annihilating the city (and people) of Tehran: (more…)

WHEELER writes:

I know you share my disdain for the alleged “food” called pizza. I was wondering if you’ve read or followed any of the allegations about pedophilic sex rings in the Clinton circles, dubbed “Pizzagate?” It’s an offshoot of some of the Wikileaks stuff. I won’t feed you any links, because I know you like doing your own research….just curious if you’d heard/thought about this vile possibility.

May you and your family be blessed during this season of Advent. (more…)

A GROUP of veterans and other patriots are planning a second protest at Hampshire College in Massachusetts for this Sunday after the school removed the American flag from campus flagpoles after the election of Trump. Hundreds attended a protest last Sunday. The turnout must have been a shocking development for faculty and students at the expensive, private school, which receives federal aid. They are accustomed to being on the side of protestors. The flag has been of concern since last year when a group of faculty of color sent a letter to [President Jonathan] Lash after the flag was lowered to half-staff following a terrorist attack in Paris but not lowered after an attack in Beirut. That, the faculty members wrote, conveyed the message that "not all bodies are equally grievable ... not all lives matter equally." The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president rekindled the discussion, but the removal of the flag was not a political statement, Lash said.

A TOTAL of 85 languages are spoken in Buffalo public schools. From The Buffalo News:

Yakub speaks Somali; Faustina Palmatier speaks Burmese; Laura Revilla speaks Spanish; Eh Knyaw speaks Karen; Nagham Ar-Rawi speaks Arabic; and Lamin Tamang speaks Nepali. All six share space in a room near the entrance to the [language] center. (more…)

WILBUR ROSS, the billionaire financier who is Trump's pick for Commerce Secretary, is chief of Kappa Beta Phi, a secret society for elite Wall Street bankers. A journalist reportedly snuck into a gathering of the secret society in 2012.

BRANDON MARTINEZ writes at Non-Aligned Media:

Ann Coulter has been getting props from certain quarters of the alt-right because of her stance against immigration, but her substantive track record of warmongering and shilling for Zionism cannot be forgiven. She vigorously spewed untruths that enabled the 9/11 wars and was a key media voice propelling forward the neocon agenda in those crucial years after the attacks. She vocally supports the indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian children by Israel.

Moreover, she is a Johnny-come-lately to the immigration debate, and has opportunistically jumped on the alt-lite (not alt-right) bandwagon, like so many other mercenary hacks in that milieu, now that those talking points have a larger audience. She should be added to the long list of US government and media insiders who should be tried at the Hague as accomplices to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Martinez also has a post about Rudy Giuliani and 9/11. (more…)

  THE Daily Mail reports: More white people are dying than being born in a third of the states, according to new research. The death rate among Caucasian Americans outstripped the birth rate in 17 states in 2014, compared to just four in 2004, the University of New Hampshire found. While Latino, black and Asian populations continue to grow, soaring death rates among white middle-aged Americans - combined with the fact that white families are having less children - mean certain states are seeing falling Caucasian populations. White Americans are reportedly dying faster thanks to a silent 'epidemic' of deaths from suicides, drug and alcohol poisoning.

JAMES N. writes:

This article about an “all-female Antartica expedition” ran in the UK, Ireland, and Australian mass media today. The events described in the article are only tangentially related to reality.

They are going in late Spring/early Summer (naturally). They are going by ship, not flying. They will “set sail from Argentina”, even though their group is gathering in Australia. This means they are going to the coast, not the interior. The closest part of Antarctica to Argentina is the Antarctic peninsula, which reaches all the way up to 62 degrees south longitude. The weather forecast for December 2 (the day they leave) at that location is for a low of 32F, so the “subzero temperatures” they are braving will be (at most) in the high 20s Farenheit, possibly as low as –2 Celsius.

And, best of all (according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), “once they arrive, they will spend 20 days at sea carrying out important scientific work”, in other words, they aren’t even spending a night on land, not land even at 62 degrees south.

The ship, no doubt, will have an all male crew.

There are thousands of girls, maybe more, who, reading this, will imagine that these women are repeating the exploits of the great polar explorers, spending hundreds of days on foot under life-threatening cold and wind, with primitive survival equipment, which feats they have hitherto been denied because of “sexism.”
(more…)

  IN THE 15th and 16th century, small cradles for the Christ Child were used as devotional objects. They were sometimes given to women taking their vows. This example was made in 15th-century Netherlands and comes from the Grand Béguinage of Louvain, Belgium, which was opened in the 12th century for lay women. I saw this crib, which is only 13 inches in length, last weekend at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and was struck by its exquisite detail, with biblical scenes carved on the end pieces, angelic sentinels atop the posts, embroidered coverlet and tiny bells. Silk, gold thread, pearls and enamel are still visible all these years later. This lavish object suggests the royal character of the humble infant born in the stable, the infant both divine and human who would change human history forever. A tender and supernatural love must have inspired the cradle's creation and stirred those who venerated it.

HURRICANE BETSY writes:

From Market Watch:

“If you’re a young man and the breadwinner for your family, beware: It could harm your health and well-being.

A new study — presented Friday at the 111th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Seattle — found that when young men are the family’s breadwinner, it may not be good for them. “We find strong evidence that, for men, breadwinning has adverse effects,” write the authors of the study. “As relative income increases — that is, as men take on more economic responsibility in marriage — psychological well-being and health decline.” (more…)

"BARRY SOETORO" contends the real purpose of Silly Jilly's recount effort (which cannot possibly succeed) is to clean up the traces of voter fraud before Trump takes office and orders an investigation. It's an interesting theory.

M. OLIVER HEYDORN of the Clifford Hugh Douglas Institute writes: The financial system, that is, the banking, cost accounting, and tax systems, can either serve the common good, or else it will serve an oligarchic elite at the expense of the common good. The present system serves, to a greater or lesser degree, an oligarchic elite. Ever-increasing indebtedness, the rising cost of living, heavy taxation, environmental damage and decay, lack of leisure, poverty and social unrest, physical and psychological ill-health, and incremental totalitarianism are the price we pay for running the financial system as a privately owned, self-serving monopoly. In order to restore the financial system to its proper place as a humble servant of the genuine interests of the common citizens, it is not necessary to nationalize the banks nor to alter, in substance, the nature of their day-to-day operations. All that is needed is to prohibit the banks from filling, as they do at present, the economy’s underlying price-income gap with additional debt-money and to fill that gap instead with 'debt-free' credit issued directly (in the form of a National Dividend distributed independently of work status) and indirectly (in the form of a National Discount on retail prices) for the benefit of each citizen. To this end, Social Credit proposes the establishment of a National Credit Office, free from political manipulation, to monitor and regulate a country’s financial system in line with what would be a truly common and mutually…

THOMAS DROLESKEY writes at Christ or Chaos:

The nonagenarian mass murdering tyrant, Fidel Castro has died. He was an unrepentant Communist revolutionary. He was an atheist. He sanctioned terror and death by firing squads before his takeover of Cuba on January 1, 1959, and thereafter, noting that he handed over the presidency of Cuba on February 24, 2008, to his partner in crimes against God and man, his brother Raul Castro. Various counts of the executions conducted by the Castro regime number between 85,000 and 100,000. Countless other thousands were tortured and imprisoned. Hundreds of thousands fled from Cuba in the initial aftermath of the Communist takeover, and many others still flee from this “people’s (one-party) democracy every year.

Although Jorge Mario Bergoglio was very friendly to the late murderer, I was heartened to see the following statement from him on Saturday morning, November 26, 2016, the Feast of Saint Sylvester the Abbot and the Commemoration of Saint Peter of Alexandria:

“On the feast of Saint Catharine of Alexandria, there died and descended into Hell the Grand Communist Murder and Tyrant, former President of Cuba, called Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, who for more than fifty-eight years had been waging war cruelly against the Christian faith, his own people, and the nations of the Americas. All Christendom in general takes great pleasure in this death, for no one can imagine the great terror that barbarous despot had instilled in the hearts of all Christians, because of the lands he had terrorized, and those he would seek to gain each day. All Bishops are to hold held great processions through their cities, and to offer sacrifices, and many other devotions and alms, because it pleased God to deliver Christendom from so mighty an enemy.”

As readers can recognize quite readily, that message of jubilation upon the death of a murderous tyrant was not issued by Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

No, the message above is based upon the following summary of the reaction in the Christian world to the death of Mohammed II on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14, 1481: (more…)