Source.

PAUL A. writes:

Regarding mops, when I had my cleaning business, we would use the basic Swiffer mop head and just put our own rags on it. Buy a dozen bar rags from Costco or wherever, and you can wet ’em down in the sink, soap ’em up, etc. Just tuck a fold of the rag into the four little grab points for the original Swiffer wipe, and it works like a charm. Toss the rag in the laundry when you are done. Read More »

Daguerreotype of unidentified woman by Matthew Brady

GUILAIN writes from France:

I enjoyed your article on family hiking. I’ve seen a video of Mount Washington in winter. It is very impressive and I wouldn’t climb up there unless someone would promise me tons of candies.

On another note, I think you will find this collection of daguerreotypes in The Atlantic interesting.

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ACCORDING to the Center for Military Readiness, female soldiers in combat-related exercises have suffered twice as many injuries as their male counterparts.

IN the seventh undercover video produced by the Center for Medical Progress, a technician from StemExpress describes cutting through the face of an aborted baby at a Planned Parenthood clinic in order to remove his brain intact for use by the biotech company.

DON VINCENZO writes:

The feminist world and its enablers are positively ecstatic about the news that two females, both U.S. Military Academy (West Point) graduates, are soon to receive the Ranger Tab on their uniforms. The Washington Post (First women to graduate from Army’s Ranger School, by Dan Lamothe, August 18), in predictable fashion, referred to this as, “…a major breakthrough for women in the armed services at a time when each of the military branches is required to examine how to integrate women into jobs – such as infantrymen – in which they have never been allowed to serve.” Read More »

Chamouni, John Ruskin

HISTORIANS say mountain hiking as a recreational activity did not begin until the 18th century. But it’s hard to believe that human beings weren’t always drawn to mountains for purely aesthetic reasons and didn’t find them appealing places to walk and climb much farther back in history.

The first recreational mountain hiking trail, among those which are still is use, was completed in America in 1819, at Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Today, there are trails throughout the two major ranges, the Appalachians and the Rockies,  and the continuous maintenance of these paths, often by volunteers, attest to how much the mountains are loved by Americans.

Mountain hiking is one of the best activities a family can take up together, in my opinion. I say this fully realizing that hiking is not always a pleasurable activity for children and that it can’t compete in terms of instant thrills or social status with amusement parks.

But hiking has the following advantages: Read More »

A FEMALE READER writes:

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I saw this headline in my diocesan paper: “Pope’s Encyclical Said to Uphold Church Teaching.”

JACQUELINE writes:

As I was making bread I heard, “Two women have graduated from Ranger School,” coming from the living room TV. I turned around slowly to see the anchor’s wide smile. It was a face saying, “Isn’t this just swell!”

According to this Army Times article,

“The Army on Monday announced two women and 94 men met the standards of the course’s third and final phase, also known as the Swamp Phase.Two women will graduate from Ranger School on Friday, becoming the first women to earn the Ranger Tab. Their graduation ceremony will take place on Victory Pond at Fort Benning, Georgia. Read More »

ANTI-GLOBALIST EXPATRIATE writes:

Naturally, immigrants to the West from China and other Asian countries import their ingrained senses of ethics (or lack thereof) and sharp business practices along with them. This is a key reason why high levels of Asian immigration are so dangerous to the West; along with the law-abiding, we are importing casual criminality and wholesale corruption, which is far more damaging in the long term than substandard goods sold at loss-making prices in order to drive Western competitors out of business.

From a Washington Post article titled “Chinese Companies Face Culture Shock in Countries that Aren’t Like China:” Read More »

AMONG the conceits of boosters of modern-day capitalism, with its supposed free competition and “free trade,” is the idea that consumers are supplied with a wide range of choices and that the best products win out due to the forces of competition.

That this is myth is easily exposed by a trip to the supermarket or mall. The truth is, capitalism, as we know it, often consigns us to a very limited array of inferior products. There is all too often no hope for any competition to the producers of obvious junk because they are so big and so well-funded and so pervasive.

Here is one small example.

I recently set out to buy a replacement for the sponge of my kitchen mop. It was one of those mops that is squeezed out by pushing down on a sleeve on the handle. It is a simple design that was common for many years. I bought the mop  two or three years ago. But I found out, after going to five or six stores, that the sponge refill is no longer available. The mop has been discontinued and you cannot buy a refill pad anywhere, not even online. No other mop manufacturer produces a simple mop refill for this model.

That meant I had to buy a new mop, not just a new sponge. But the kitchen mops that were available were all …. technologically weird. They included this complicated Libman “Freedom Mop” (above, what a ridiculous name for a mop), which does not allow you to dunk the mop head in water and wring it out. Other mops had styrofoam pads, which do not hold water, or had other similarly complicated, counterintuitive designs. Basically none of the mops could be used with a simple pail of water and an easy mechanism for squeezing a sponge mop head out without bending down. I was in one store and spotted something that seemed to fit the bill. I grabbed it. On my very first use of this plastic mop — I am not lying — it broke. Part of the plastic head just snapped.

While I was shopping, I ran into a woman in the aisle of yet another store. She heard me talking about how bad all the mops were. She interjected and said she has looked for a simple, decent kitchen mop everywhere and could not find one. Yet think of how basic a mop is to daily life. Everyone needs a mop.

It was obvious, after searching over a two-week period, that the few mop manufacturers that supply most stores want consumers to buy the “mops” with disposable wet pads such as those produced by Swiffer. These pads are expensive and give off a strong chemical odor. I used them for a while, but I don’t like them. There’s something decadent and wasteful about pulling out a chemical-bathed diaper every time you want to clean the floor and throwing it out after one use.

I ended up buying this other mop by Libman with its cheap plastic parts and big brush. I am willing to bet that the replacement sponge will not be available for all that much longer and that the whole thing will not last for long. “Free enterprise” often seems to entail compulsory consumption of trash. The people who produce this junk in factories in China are probably paid very little and have no fondness for the product either.

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ALMOST half of British youth between the ages of 18 and 24 who responded to a survey said they are not quite heterosexual. Read More »

HERE’S COMMENTARY at Tradition in Action about Mr. Bergoglio’s revolting habit of touching the stomachs of pregnant women who are just getting married. It’s not enough that this impostor has to paw little children all the time, sometimes making them burst into tears, he also turns to unborn children to promote ever so slyly his agenda. Oh, it seems to loving! So tender! After all, he is blessing the unborn! This con artist never misses a chance for some symbolic and sentimental gesture to manipulate the public mind and undercut Catholic morality without explicitly rejecting it. Here he is clearly sanctioning extra-marital relations. TIA writes:

This is inconceivable for a Pope, whose mission is to confirm the faithful in the Catholic Faith and Morals.

But it’s not inconceivable for a Masonic infiltrator. It’s just the sort of thing he would do.

A POPE who ain’t Catholic ain’t a pope.

It’s elementary, my dear Watson. See more at Novus Ordo Watch.

“WHEN everything is a marriage, nothing is a marriage.” Consider more reflections by Edward Feser.

THOMAS DROLESKEY writes at Christ or Chaos:

Today’s Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption ought to be a major national holiday in all of the countries of the world. Our Lady is the Queen of Heaven and of Earth. Her Divine Son is meant to be honored as the King of all men and of all nations. Each country, without exception, is meant to be confessionally Catholic, thus giving God His due and affording men an opportunity to fulfill the duties of their states-in-life with a view to their eternal destiny, all aspects of national life being referred to our First Cause and our Last End. What redounds to Christ the King is to be given to the Queen Mother, that is, public honor and recognition, especially through her Most Holy Rosary and public processions and pilgrimages in her honor. No man can get to Heaven without Our Lady. No country serves God truly except by means of giving public honor to His Most Blessed Mother. God will never truly bless any country that does not honor His Most Blessed Mother, Assumed body and soul into Heaven on this very day.

Orestes Brownson’s essay, Moral and Social Influence of Devotion to Mary, speaks of this exact point. No society is “civilized” unless it refers all of its actions to the Mother of God, she who was assumed body and soul into Heaven:

The whole order of Christian civilization is founded on humility, and on respect for the humble and compassion for the poor and friendless, the needy and the helpless. The Greek and Roman civilization was founded on pride, on respect for the successful, and favored only the favorites of fortune. Read More »