FROM The Unity of the Catholic Church by St. Cyprian of Carthage (A.D. 200? - 258): ""Discord and ambition lead to schism. Beware of false prophets (10-11). "10. Heresies have often arisen and still arise because of this, that disgruntled minds will quarrel, or disloyal trouble-makers will not keep the unity. But these things the Lord allows and endures, leaving man’s freedom unimpaired, so that when our minds and hearts are tested by the touchstone of truth, the unswerving faith of those who are approved may appear in the clearest light. This is foretold by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle when he says: There must be also heresies, that those approved may be manifest among you. Thus are the faithful proved, thus the faithless discovered; thus too even before the day of judgment, already here below, the souls of the just and unjust are distinguished, and the wheat is separated from the chaff. This explains why certain people, backed by their hot-headed associates, seize authority for themselves without any divine sanction, making themselves into prelates regardless of the rules of appointment, and, having no one to confer the episcopate upon them, assume the title of Bishop on their own authority. In the Psalms the Holy Spirit describes these men as sitting in the chair of pestilence; they are pests and plagues to the faith, snake-tongued deceivers, skilled corruptors of the truth, spewing deadly venom from their poisonous fangs; whose speech spreads…

A LITTLE bird in our yard has a runny nose. We suspect the worst. I just wanted to warn you that the price of eggs at your supermarket may be rising again.  

"THERE are two kinds of people in the world: the people who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and the people who don't." --- Robert Benchley  

THE OLD SONGS
by Caryl Johnston

—Honoring John Jacob Niles—

In heaven they will hear your high, sweet voice—
You, with the large dulcimer on your lap,
Singing the songs you found in the mountains
Before the coal lords came to topple them.
Songs of love, distress, betrayal and loss—
Is there any other story than this?
The singers came from Scotland, Ireland, Wales—
Their forebears, at least – and set the English folksongs
To a minor key: what began with hope, in those who sailed,
Was delivered here to sorrow… those folk,
Far from home – exiles rather than immigrants.
Yankee America, self-engorged,
Engrossed with profit, squeezed the people here,
Mined the land, sheared the mountain tops; (more…)

IT'S NOT enough to close down the Human Mutilation Clinics participating in the ugly con that a woman can be made into a man, or a man can be made into a woman. The people in charge of, working in, and funding these places should be arrested, tried and convicted of fraud and assault. As long as they walk free, the chances are high that these centers of "transgenderism" will be up and running again. An actress and dangerous political agitator who says the kind things the celebrity Cynthia Nixon said in this speech in New York City this week should be arrested for endangering the welfare of the young and promoting medical fraud. She belongs in prison. Believe it or not, beautiful, wealthy and successful people can be the worst kinds of criminals. Actors and actresses, especially successful celebrities, should never be asked for their opinions about anything important. Actors and actresses tend to be uniquely air-headed and often deranged. They spend their lives in mimicry, role playing and working as human clothes hangers, none of which confer wisdom. They typically have nothing inside their heads but the latest political fads that make their often viciously competitive lives seem virtuous. Nixon proves this point most vividly when she proudly boasts that her daughter has had her breasts amputated and is now pretending in her state of advanced mutilation that she is a man. Celebrities like Nixon -- a member of…

TRUMP flashed the Masonic hand sign repeatedly at this White House chat with the press yesterday — such is his contempt for Americans that he brazenly displays his membership in an international secret society. He discussed, among other things, the plan to make Gaza a beautiful new town, using American troops and American largesse, of course. Ka-ching! Add a few more billion to the billions that already go to Israel. It’s a revolting sight for sure, these two friends-in-arms meeting in front of a cracking fire, luxuriating in the art of the deal and acting like statesmen instead of the psychopathic, genocidal liars they are. The Gaza war has been a successful hoax from the get-go for the purpose of redeveloping the coveted Gaza strip (into a profitable beach resort?), as well as emigration of Arabs to the West, ramping up of domestic conflict in Western countries and depleting of the U.S. economy.

“Peace, peace, peace,” Trump says.

“Blah, blah, blah.” What did Orwell say? When they say peace, they mean war.

By the way, has an American president ever publicly acknowledged that people don’t believe in the Holocaust (or the Oct. 7th Hamas attack), as Trump did in this press conference? I think this is a first, which means disbelief in this colossal lie is possibly approaching a tipping point. I wonder if his master approved of this. What difference does it make? Trump knows he is worshipped by his personality cult and can make his followers believe anything. After all, as he said in his recent inaugural address — you know the one he gave after he refused to swear an oath on the Bible —  he was sent by God to save America.

The audacity of it all is, well, breathtaking.

The ordinary mortal cannot comprehend such audacity. (more…)

 “THAT the illiterate may nevertheless reach a high level of culture will surprise those only who imagine that education and cultivation are convertible. The reason, I take it, why these mountain people, albeit unlettered, have acquired so many of the essentials of culture is partly to be attributed to the large amount of leisure they enjoy, without which, of course, no cultural development is possible, but chiefly to the fact that they have one and all entered at birth into the full enjoyment of their racial heritage. Their language, wisdom, manners, and the many graces of life that are theirs, are merely racial attributes which have been gradually acquired and accumulated in past centuries and handed down generation by generation, each generation adding its quotum to that which it received. It must be remembered, also, that in their everyday lives they are immune from that continuous grinding, mental pressure, due to the attempt to 'make a living', from which nearly all of us in the modern world suffer. Here no one is on the make; commercial competition and social rivalries are unknown. In this respect, at any rate, they have the advantage over those who habitually spend the greater part of every day in preparing to live, in acquiring the technique of life, rather than in its enjoyment.  ---- Cecil Sharp; English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1917)  

 MR. S. writes: I just finished learning the Virginia version of "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight." Shelia Kay Adams wrote the introduction to the Cecil Sharp book on English folk songs and after a short intro here she sings the North Carolina version of this song. She heartbreakingly describes her parents' decision to purge their lives of the “love songs” they thought of as backwards. The traditional ballads represented being stuck -- not moving forward -- and poverty. While bluegrass music (which comes from the minstrel circuit, i.e., professional entertainers) represented progress, middle class conveniences and status. It’s amazing how fast authentic culture was wiped out. Even my Dad told me about the Welsh songs his uncle use to sing. But turning on the TV hits dopamine receptors! I think this is a hugely important topic. People can't live well, perhaps even survive (think drug abuses), without a past. America is defined now as a “people” with no past. Talk about a plate of lentils!  

"IT was not until the late 1990’s, when the Internal Revenue Code was digitized (and thus made searchable) that it became possible to decipher its deliberately confusing and misleading construction. Only then could complete searches be done of all 3,413,780 or so words (not counting regulations) for every incidence of 'liable', 'imposed', 'income', 'employee', and dozens of other key or misleading terms -- checking every reference, exception, definition and source. Only then could it be established that, as written, the laws behind the code and the taxes that they impose technically comply with the Constitution, just as all the judges have said over the years. "But the same analysis also reveals that, as written, these laws don’t apply to most of the receipts of most private citizens. Indeed, the two things are interdependent -- the former couldn't be true unless the latter was also true. "What you will learn as you read this book is that specific Constitutional limitations on the federal government’s power to tax do shape related law, and have generated a coherent Supreme Court doctrine which clearly and soundly answers the question of what is taxable "income”.  Both the statutes and the doctrine acknowledge the exemption of the vast majority of private-sector receipts from that taxing power’s reach." [bold added] Pete Hendrickson, Cracking the Code, the Fascinating Truth about Taxation in America  

 THIS actor gets one star, if that, for his terrible portrayal of a redneck. Link.  

"THIS brochure introduces the novice to the concept of Holocaust revisionism, and answers some tough questions that may come to the reader’s mind, such as: "What does Holocaust revisionism claim? "Why should I take Holocaust revisio­nism more seriously than the claim that the earth is flat? "What about the pictures of corpse piles in the camps? "How about the testimonies by survivors and confessions by perpetrators? "What does it matter whether prisoners died from disease or poison gas? "Why does it matter how many Jews were killed by the Nazis, since even 1,000 would have been too many? "Whatever the circumstances, don’t Jewish victims deserve respect and compensation?" Read more here.  

IN HONOR of Black History Month, let’s remember Marcus Garvey (1887 -1940), a black leader American students learn little about despite his popularity among American blacks in the early 20th century and his significant achievements. Why is he so little honored? Perhaps it’s because Garvey fought the principles of multiculturalism and egalitarianism. He wanted blacks to create and sustain a society of their own.

Marcus Garvey was a Jamaican-born black nationalist and leader of the Pan-Africanism movement, which sought to unify and connect people of African descent worldwide. In the United States, he was a noted civil rights activist who founded the Negro World newspaper, a shipping company called Black Star Line and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a fraternal organization of black nationalists. As a group, they advocated for “separate but equal” status for persons of African ancestry, and as such they sought to establish independent black states around the world, notably in Liberia on the west coast of Africa. [Source]

He sought to repatriate many blacks to Africa (that was the purpose of the shipping line) and organized the “Buy Black” movement and the Negro Factories Corporation to encourage blacks to support each other and gain financial independence.  He said to  a meeting of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1921, “If you want liberty you yourselves must strike the blow. If you must be free, you must become so through your own effort … Until you produce what the white man has produced you will not be his equal.”

By 1920 the UNIA had hundreds of divisions worldwide. It hosted elaborate international conventions and published the Negro World, a widely disseminated weekly that was soon banned in many parts of Africa and the Caribbean. The movement’s dynamic core was Harlem, which Garvey and the UNIA helped make the cultural capital of the black world. During the 1920s the six-block radius surrounding 135th Street and Lenox Avenue contained the UNIA’s international headquarters as well as the cradle of the movement, Liberty Hall, and the offices of all major UNIA affiliated enterprises. UNIA restaurants, shops, and storefront factories spread throughout Harlem, and Garvey and many UNIA officers lived there. During the annual UNIA international conventions, the streets boasted colorful parades led by a regal Garvey, poised in an open car and wearing the plumed hat that became his indelible trademark. [Source]

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THE Canticle of Simeon by Gustav Holst is performed here by The Sixteen. Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine Secundum verbum tuum in pace: Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum Quod parasti ante faciem omnium populorum: Lumen ad revelationem gentium, Et gloriam plebis tuae Israel. Now dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, In peace, according to Thy word: For mine own eyes hath seen Thy salvation, Which Thou hast prepared in the sight of all the peoples, A light to reveal Thee to the nations And the glory of Thy people Israel.  

HE IS old and approaching death, yet he never wavers in a mysterious premonition.

One day he is drawn to the temple. He sees and he understands.

Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace. Because my eyes have seen Thy salvation.

“Happy Simeon! figure of the ancient world, grown old in its expectation, and near its end. No sooner has he received the sweet Fruit of Life, than his youth is renewed as that of the eagle, and in his person is wrought the transformation which was to be granted to the whole human race,” wrote Dom Prosper Guéranger, in his essay on today’s Feast of the Purification, also known as Candlemas, the celebration of the appearance of light in this fallen world and the purification of our souls through the elevated mysteries of the Christmas season.

“We must hold as a principle of our spiritual life, that the mysteries brought before us, feast after feast, are intended to work in us the destruction of the old, and the creation of the new man,” said Guéranger.

Happy is he whose life is animated by hope and expectation. (more…)

CEREMONIES FOR CANDLEMAS EVE
(adapted from a poem by Robert Herrick)

DOWN with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the misletoe;
Instead of holly, now up-raise
The greener box to show.

The holly hitherto did sway;
Let box now domineer
Until the dancing Easter day,
On Easter’s eve appear.

Thus times do shift; each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old. (more…)