IS IT possible to admire this painting, Jackson Pollack’s “Number 17A,” which was bought recently by hedge fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin for $200 million, without knowing it was painted by a famous artist and is worth a lot of money? I say it is not. Not that Pollack had no artistic talent or that this is entirely uninteresting (there is nothing in the world — even a blank piece of paper — that is entirely without visual interest), but if you came across the same image on a discarded painter’s apron in an attic somewhere, would you consider it a work of art and attempt to sell it or keep it?

It is not surprising that abstract expressionism, which shows no sense of place or personality, would be coveted by a globalist, capitalist oligarchy.

Capitalism is to a sound economic order what pornography is to intimacy. It depersonalizes everything it touches. Even art. (more…)

ZIPPY CATHOLIC writes:

Modern people are under the impression that the main function of democratic elections is to exercise individual influence over how we are governed. This is not the case. The main function of elections is to build and maintain social consensus over how we are in fact governed, which is under the political philosophy of liberalism. (more…)

  A READER highly recommends this video about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death. I am not familiar with "Lionel Nation." He makes good points about blind trust in the government and the demonization of "conspiracy theories." Here is more from him on how the Scalia investigation should have proceeded. Regardless of what happened to Scalia, the handling of his death is a national disgrace, a grotesque violation of the people's trust. (As with all links, this is not a blanket endorsement of a journalist.)

MARK MONCRIEFF wrote in a post last year on the pull of women away from home: The absence of housewives is also evident in making society more lonely, women are not at home, making it hard to connect with neighbours. Anti-crime programs have been dropped because housewives aren't in the home to even look out for anything unusual. Many tasks once done by housewives are now done for money, childcare, looking after the elderly or sick relatives or neighbours, schools now pay people to provide lunches for students instead of mothers doing it. Charities which once relied on housewives to run shops, sort deliveries, visit the sick or elderly, must now pay people to do these tasks. Wonder no more about why you get called by charities so much.

FROM "Divine Love, as a Light which Enlightens us,"  by St. Alphonsus Liguori:  One of the worst effects which Adam's sin produced in us, was its blinding our reason by means of the passions, which darkened the mind. O how miserable is the soul that allows itself to be ruled by any of the passions! Passion is a vapour, a veil, which will not suffer us to see the truth. How can he fly from evil, who knows not what is evil? Our mental obscurity increases in proportion as our sins increase. But the Holy Ghost, who is called "Light most blessed," with His divine rays, not only inflames our hearts to love Him, but also dispels our darkness, and reveals to us the vanity of all worldly things, the value of eternal goods, the importance of salvation, the price of grace, the goodness of God, the infinite love which He deserves from us, and the immense love He has shown to us: The sensual man perceiveth not the things that are of the spirit of God (1 Cor. ii. 14. ). Man absorpt in the pleasures of the earth, knows but little of these truths, and hence he unhappily loves that which he should hate, and hates that which he should love. St. Mary Magdalen, of Pazzi, exclaimed: "O love not known, O love not loved!" And hence St. Teresa said, that God is not loved because He is…

  "THOSE who've experienced hell, can be prophets." -- Jorge Bergoglio, papal impersonator, Feb. 17, 2016

JON RAPPOPORT writes at his blog:

Four days before he died, Supreme Court Justice Scalia voted to stall Obama’s plan to force drastic climate-change rules on the American economy. The vote was 5-4.

With Scalia now gone, the vote would be 4-4. (more…)

  AN INTERVIEW with Dr. E. Michael Jones on his book Libido Dominandi, Sexual Liberation and Political Control. Dr. Jones has been the victim of "dynamic silence" in the mainstream media, which treats him and his works as if they did not exist.

ANTI-GLOBALIST EXPATRIATE writes: This anecdote from an article in New York magazine about why China's super-rich send their children to America sums up Asian culture today in a nutshell. Asians make stereotypical aggressive New Yorkers look like Quakers: "When I first drove in Asia, I flashed my signal and immediately people, instead of slowing down, all sped up to cut me off. It was so maddening, and then, after a little while, I became like everyone else. I never signal when I turn in Asia. I just do it. You don’t have a choice.”

A READER writes:

This study by Catholic scholar Dr. John Rao is hands-down the best historical and philosophical explanation as to why America seemingly cannot be a normal nation and why Americans seemingly cannot be or, more appropriately, are not allowed to be a normal people.

As the author demonstrates, the Americanist Religion has both a left-wing and a right-wing, a liebral and a conservative (or ‘cuck$ervative,’ as we now so affectionately know it) version of its “Exceptionalism” (even amongst the putative ‘far-Right’) and as we see in reality, are merely the left and right wings of the same bird — the Americanist Vulture — the replacement for the American Eagle.

An excerpt:

Generations of European observers, beginning with Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America, have remarked upon the effectiveness with which American society, motivated by its Anglo-Saxon spirit, has quietly repressed the emergence of sharp differences of opinion, and channeled its population’s efforts into limited, peaceful, but indiscriminately vulgar material goals. Their commentaries have been supported by numerous American writers who have felt the obligation to “drop out” of this society in order to live as full human beings. I am speaking here of men of the Right, and not of liberals, whose “anti-Americanism” is itself a form of the same Americanist mentality. One is reminded, for example, of T.S. Eliot’s assertion that the thinking American often sought to “lose himself” somewhere outside the national mainstream, in places like New York City, in order to maintain at least the illusion of intellectual and spiritual survival. (more…)

I DEFER again to Mike King of The Anti-New York Times on the subject of Scalia’s sudden death while alone and unguarded at a Texas luxury resort owned by a multi-millionaire Obama-supporter:

In examining the post-Scalia-death mania which continues to dominate the front pages of Sulzberger’s Slimes [The New York Times], we can’t help but notice the conspicuous absence of two elements that should be part of this wall-to-wall coverage: (more…)

HERE ARE two recent letters to the editor of the Chestnut Hill Local in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia:

Local Episcopal congregations committed to inclusion

Our neighbors in Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy may have seen the news out of Canterbury, U.K., that the Episcopal Church is “temporarily sanctioned” by the leaders of the Anglican Communion because our church created a marriage service for same-gendered couples.

As the Rectors of Saint Paul’s and St. Martin’s Episcopal Churches we would like to tell the community that nothing has changed nor will it at our congregations due to this news from our communion, the third largest church in the world. (more…)

FROM a weather forum discussion between a man who loves snow and a man whose enthusiasm for the stuff has waned. The man who wants more snow writes:

 Sometimes I have flashes of a life in a parallel universe where I live in a snowbelt region that receives 200+ inches. I’m just wondering if anyone who considered themselves a snow weenie ever got tired of that much snow. I think being born and raised in central Virginia I’m hardwired to appreciate what I get and the rarity of the snow events lends intself to the awe of heavy snowfall. Who here has moved from a sparse snow region to the jackpot regions? After a few season did you ever lose the passion for winter weather? I’m seriously considering a move north once the kids are out of the house.

(more…)

FROM an 1891 sermon by Bishop Joseph Georg von Ehrler:

1. God has given us various powers and faculties, of body and soul, that all being tried and tested by temptation may be employed for his service. Our eyes must be tried in order to ascertain whether, being led astray by the deceitful phantoms of sin, they are directed to evil, rather than to the true and unchangeable goods of heaven. Our ears must be tested in order to know whether they are open to evil and eagerly listen to it, or, on the contrary, open to God and his holy word, and closed to sinful words and discourses. Our tongue, our hands and feet, and all the members and senses of our body must be tested, in order to find out whether they serve the world, rather than God. For the same purpose, God searches the various powers and faculties of the soul, in order to test their fidelity to Him, and their real love for Him. He tries our understanding, to see if in the holy obedience of faith it bows to the teachings of revelation or rather relies upon its own narrow conceits. He searches our heart and our memory, the imagination and the will, and all the depths of our souls in order to discover whether we love him or adore another before Him. He tries the king upon his throne, and the lowest beggar among his subjects; he tries the father and the mother, the son and daughter, the master and the servant, the rich and the peer–everyone according to his calling and position in life, in order to test and to reward each man according to the depth of his love and the strength of his fidelity. (more…)

MIKE KING writes at The Anti-New York Times:

With the conveeenient passing of strict constitutionalist conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the last remaining threads holding together the remnants of true America has been severed. A closely contested court that had been ruling 5-4 or 4-5 on very important matters will most certainly shift to 4-5 and 3-6 with the Marxist usurpers winning every single time. Unless, of course, we are to believe that the Republican’t Senate will suddenly ‘grow a pair’ and block the path of the inevitable ultra-libtard replacement nominee — sure to be another “minority” and sure to be sold to us by the [The New York Slimes] as a “moderate” — until the new President is sworn in next January.

Away on a quail-hunting trip in Texas, Scalia had left a private party of 40 people at a secluded ranch and retired to his cabin. When he failed to show up for breakfast, a person involved with the ranch went to his room and discovered his body. A federal official, who asked not to be named (hmmmm), said there was no evidence of foul play (how would he know that without an autopsy?) and that Scalia died of “natural causes”.

Is it possible that a 79 year old man, even one who was seemingly healthy and remained active, simply died in his sleep of “natural causes?” Of course it is. (more…)

MAY Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died this weekend at a resort in Texas, rest in peace. Scalia suffered many defeats, but was an influential intellectual force who strove mightily for the impossible and defended doomed, outdated ideas such as that a man should not marry a man.

May Constitutionalism, a cause which Scalia upheld against the tide, also rest in peace.

Constitutionalism is the view that the original intention of the American Founders should be upheld by jurists. It is a dead cause. The Supreme Court, influenced for much of its history by the anti-Christian philosophy of Freemasonry, is the leading enforcer of practical atheism, of causes and federal interventions that the Founders never would have embraced. No matter who is appointed in Scalia’s place, that fact will not change.

If you want to get a sense of what a theocratic bogeyman Scalia, who was Catholic, is believed to have been by many, read the comments at The New York Times. They’re scary. Americans are so unschooled in the basics of religion, many believe that Scalia, who publicly distanced himself from Catholic teaching on the proper relation between Church and state, personified theocratic tyranny and was the embodiment of the Christian Taliban. (more…)

ANTI-GLOBALIST EXPATRIATE writes: They think they want 'equality?' Then they should get it, good and hard. I've become convinced that the only way to even possibly reverse public policy lunacy like women in combat roles and unchecked immigration is to allow, even encourage, implementing these policies to their logical conclusions - which will then result in disaster, and force change via public backlash. This is what is happening in the EUSSR with regards to Muslim immigration today. It's essentially utilizing Marxist tactics in order to counter cultural Marxism: 'The worse, the better.' -- V.I. Lenin

JOE A. writes: I see articles like this one, by a woman who quit her smart phone, all the time now.  There is an inherent human yearning for companionship and experience.  Virtual reality is novel, and thereby attractive in a way, but it is not satisfying and, apparently, it starts to grate on a person. Organizations that further true human contact, experience, and camaraderie will be the new leaders, even priests, reintegrating the lost and the never-found into human society. Oh and for the record, there are no smartphones in my house.  No tablets.  We haven’t had cable television in years.  We use the internet for reading and research but otherwise we do real things with real people, just as Man did for the last 200,000 years of his existence.