AT Tradition in Action, Lyle J. Arnold argues that Hollywood paved the way for the ’60s.

The valuable lesson for counter-revolutionaries here is that, already in the “good ole ‘50s,” the revolutionary forces in Hollywood were subtly undermining society and giving honor and political clout to rebels.

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THIS morning, I visited the grave of Lawrence Auster. I cut these greens from our yard, decorated them and placed them on the grave, which does not have a tombstone yet but will soon. The ground was partly snow-covered under the oak tree where he is buried. The sky was blue and the temperature was above freezing. The busyness and bustle of Christmas were all around, creating an audible din. But a cemetery is always set apart. The grave of a friend is one of the most precious things in this world. I know that my friend still exists. If he is not in Paradise yet, may he be there soon.

TEXANNE writes:

An Italian woman, Costanza Miriano, has written a book so threatening that the Spanish Health Minister (apparently a woman) is calling for it to be banned.

In this BBC interview, the writer mentions that she has also written a book for men, Marry Her and Die for Her, but the interviewer quickly changes the subject before this part of the marital relationship can be discussed. :-)

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ANTI-GLOBALIST EXPATRIATE writes:

Devyani Khobragade, the Indian diplomat arrested for visa fraud this week, should not have been strip-searched, but the irony of a supposed advocate for ‘women’s affairs’ paying substandard wages to a domestic employee and then falsifying official government paperwork hasn’t been remarked upon, so far. Read More »

Eldo Kim

FROM The Harvard Crimson:

In 2009, then-high school sophomore Eldo Kim ’16 earned first place in the state of Washington in the U.S. Institute of Peace essay contest for his composition, “Cultural Genocide: A Look into the Unknown.” On Tuesday, he was charged with threatening to set off explosives in Harvard buildings.

Kim, the Quincy House sophomore who will appear in federal court Wednesday morning in connection with Monday’s bomb scare,was described by his peers as involved on campus and engaged in his schoolwork. They were stunned, they said, to hear that he had confessed to sending an emailed bomb threat to avoid a final exam.

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DOUGLAS writes:

O ADONAI is the second of the O Antiphons traditionally sung during the last week of Advent and intended to help prepare different aspects of ourselves for the Nativity. In English:

O Adonai – O Lord, and leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm. (Ex. 3,2 and Ex. 20,1)

A reader says the doctrine of original sin is an implausible explanation for the existence of evil and the suffering of children, and I respond.

Just another superficial day at The Thinking Housewife.

DON’T LOOK. Guess who The Advocate has chosen as its “Person of the Year.” The Advocate, by the way, is the oldest and largest “LGBT publication” in the United States.

I’ll give you two clues: 1) he lives in Rome; 2) he is not Catholic.

ALAN writes:

One of your readers wrote that Christmas music can inspire memories of serenity and beauty. Indeed it can.

Can you stand a memory from an America that no longer exists?  I’ll wager I’m the only one among your readers who remembers the singer Marion Worth and the gem of a Christmas song that she recorded more than fifty years ago. Read More »

Just like Homecoming Weekend — Odysseus killing the suitors, Gustav Schwab, Sagen des Klassischen Altertums (1882)

IVAR the MIDWESTERNER, who teaches at a nondescript institution somewhere west of the Mississippi and East of the Left Coast, writes:

For years now I have been collecting the wildest, most desperate statements written by college students in papers and final examinations in various college-level English courses in which students read the classics. The samples below come from three different states and two different decades; a few are recent.

On Homer’s Odyssey: “Athene helps Telemachus and Odysseus to be reunited and restore order to Troy.  This all took place around 450 B.C. but it was not written down until 800 B.C.”

On Homer’s Odyssey: “Odysseus, the main character, though having the hand of Venus (Venus-Isis) right on his side, is faced with much despair when he has to leave his wife and son’s behind before he goes on many ‘adventures’ and encounters things.  He defeats the Cycalopse after barely being eaten and meets Nausicaa while naked then stumbling over Calypso who holds him prisoner and gives him all of the winds.”

On Homer’s Odyssey: “Beginning with Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ written down around 800 BC, when infact the events took place in the 4^th century. There are many examples of order, tragedy, and some triumph.” Read More »

ANTI-GLOBALIST EXPATRIATE, following up on a previous discussion of differences between Asia and the West and his points about business practices in Japan, sends this article about a Japanese beauty queen pressured into submitting to a specific talent agency. 

CAMILLE PAGLIA, in this piece in Time magazine, once again combines trenchant attacks of feminist ideologues with her trademark cheerleading of feminism. After criticizing the demonization of men and explaining how feminism leads to female unhappiness, all very good, Paglia writes:

It was always the proper mission of feminism to attack and reconstruct the ossified social practices that had led to wide-ranging discrimination against women. But surely it was and is possible for a progressive reform movement to achieve that without stereotyping, belittling, or demonizing men. Read More »

DON VINCENZO writes:

The current dustup between the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, an Italian Capuchin (Franciscan) religious community, and Pope Francis I entails nothing less than an attempt by the pontiff through his appointees to suppress centuries-old practices and the traditional Catholic liturgy. Read More »

M. P. writes:

I work for a major multinational insurance and financial services company, located here at one of our main offices in Big City, Canada. We just moved to a new location, where we are treated to, among other things, huge-screen TVs, tuned all day long to the Business News Network (BNN). The fact that we have to constantly listen to the steady hum of talking heads would be annoying enough (my desk being ten feet away from one of these monitors), but what’s all the worse is that BNN is essentially CNN, with a focus on business. In other words, it’s hopelessly left-wing. Right now, they are having all-day coverage on the awful reality that “Most Canadian executives aren’t worried about the proportion of women on corporate boards and in executive ranks in Canada.” Read More »

“One man who has been a life mentor for me is Dostoevsky and his explicit and implicit question ‘Why do children suffer?’ has always gone round in my heart. There is no explanation.”

— Jorge Bergoglio, aka Pope Francis, in interview with La Stampa

See Novus Ordo Watch for more about the interview, in which Time magazine’s Person of the Year continues to spread his false message of a non-judgmental God and comfortingly informs us that he has known Marxists who are good people. How is that the purported pope of the Catholic Church can say there is no explanation for human suffering? Only by dismissing Catholic truths. Novus Ordo Watch writes:

Why do Children suffer? Francis says “there is no explanation”, but of course there is. Read More »

IN AN AGE when children with Down Syndrome — children who might bring so much joy and meaning to the world — are routinely killed in the womb, this 16th-century Nativity painting, which clearly depicts two people with the familiar traits of the syndrome, is especially beautiful. Erna Albertz works for Rifton, a company that makes products for the disabled. She writes about the painting:

In 1515 the painting “The Adoration of the Christ Child,” was created by a follower of the Dutch painter Jan Joest of Kalkar. A close look at the artwork reveals two characters who appear to have Down syndrome. One a shepherd–looking down at the scene from behind a post at the center of the painting–and the other an angel standing beside the mother Mary, these two participants in the nativity are situated in what would seem to be places of honor. Because the painter is unknown, his motive for placing them there can only be surmised. He may have had a child with Down syndrome or simply known individuals with the condition. At that time, the syndrome also may not have been formally diagnosed as it is today. What seems beyond doubt is that he felt they belonged there, in the midst of the holy scene.

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