KARL D. writes:

I have been on Facebook for the last several years, something which is both a blessing and a curse. It has allowed me to re-connect with people from my past which is a good thing. But on the downside it has allowed me to re-connect with people from my past. I was never a liberal, but I was more of a centrist in my late teens and early 20s.

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APPARENTLY, women have never excelled in the field of philosophy because of sexual harassment. See The New York Times’s report, which includes this disturbing bit of news:

In July, after the sociologist Kieran Healy published a study showing that women made up less than 4 percent of top citations in leading philosophy journals since 1992, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy sent out an e-mail asking contributors to make sure that entries do not cite work by white men on a given topic while ignoring prior contributions by women and other underrepresented groups.

Such “citation blindness,” scholars say, may be less a result of overt discrimination than of implicit bias, a phenomenon that has generated a rich literature in psychology, but that philosophers are only beginning to study.

FROM Fox News:

Government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms “citizen” and “brown bag” are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.

KOMO-TV reports that the city’s Office of Civil Rights instructed city workers in a recent internal memo to avoid using the words because some may find them offensive.

“Luckily, we’ve got options,” Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo obtained by the station. “For ‘citizens,’ how about ‘residents?'”

In an interview with Seattle’s KIRO Radio, Bronstein said the term “brown bag” has been used historically as a way to judge skin color. [cont.]

ARS ORANDI posted an excerpt today from St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori’s work Uniformity with God’s Will:

Let us now take up in a practical way the consideration of those matters in which we should unite ourselves to God’s will.

1. In external matters. In times of great heat, cold or rain; in times of famine, epidemics and similar occasions we should refrain from expressions like these: “What unbearable heat!” “What piercing cold!” “What a tragedy!” In these instances we should avoid expressions indicating opposition to God’s will. We should want things to be just as they are, because it is God who thus disposes them. Read More »

MARIO BERGNER analyzes in this video posted at Heteroseparatist.com the psychological forces that led him to feel sexual desire for men and turn to the homosexual life as a young man. He says the overwhelming cause was his weak attachment to his father.

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Associated Press

THE negative consequences continue to unfold for Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper, who did something so heinous he has been fined by the NFL, been widely condemned for an act of singular atrocity and has decided to leave the game for awhile. What did Cooper do? He used the N-word.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Cooper announced today that he is going to leave the team for now and enter counseling:

“The last few days have been incredibly difficult for me,” Cooper said. “My actions were inexcusable. The more I think about what I did, the more disgusted I get. I keep trying to figure out how I could have said something so repulsive, and what I can do to make things better.

The truth is there is nothing he can do. He is a permanent social outcast. He might as well find an island somewhere where he can live out his remaining days in seclusion. Cooper also said:

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HENRY McCULLOCH writes:

I’m not sure quite where I stand with respect to Edward Snowden’s disclosures of NSA surveillance.  I think a state must have the ability to classify and secure sensitive information and keep tabs on known and suspected threats (not surprising, for a military officer), but the U.S. government has run amok in its universal surveillance, intrusion, and harassment of U.S. citizens and non-hostile foreigners.  The U.S. government’s over-reaching and meddling is unconstitutional – thus illegal – and morally wrong.  Read More »

STEVE KOGAN writes:

The issue of “women’s rights” was almost a century old when Nietzsche cut it to the quick with a five word response: “Feminism: the uglification of Europe.” For years, I found nothing to match its bite until I recently came across the following reminiscence in The Dostoevsky Archive: Firsthand Accounts of the Novelist from Contemporaries’ Memoirs and Rare Periodicals (1997). The account is taken from the memoirs of a Prince Vladimir Meshchersky (St. Petersburg, 1898), a friend of Tchaikowsky’s and the grandson of Nikolai Karamzin, the 18th and early 19th-century historian, whose volumes on Russian history became classics in their time:

At the parties I gave, Dostoevsky showed himself to be a charming person. He told his stories, and he displayed his wit and humor, as well as his unusual and original way of thinking. As a new person entered the room, however, Dostoevsky became silent for a moment and looked like a snail retreating into its shell, or like a silent and evil-looking pagan idol. And this lasted until the newcomer produced a good impression on him…. If the stranger engaged Dostoevsky in conversation, one generally heard him make some rude remark, or saw a sour look on his face.

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AT her lovely blog, Resting in Apricity, Casey Ann wrote earlier this summer of her trip to Paris. She was traveling as part of a study abroad program. Below is a snapshot she took in the Louvre. Her tour guide described a group of people protesting homosexual marriage as “the archaic people,” to which Casey Ann took exception.

Apricity, by the way, is the warmth of the sun in winter.

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A New Zealand couple who refused to allow two lesbians to sleep in a double bed at their bed and breakfast, as previously discussed here, has formally apologized to the women as part of the settlement of a complaint against them before the New Zealand Human Rights Commission.

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HERE is an interesting piece in the New York Times this morning about the rejection of a women’s rights bill in Afghanistan. The article by Azam Ahmed and Habib Zahori (typical bylines for an American newspaper) describes the Muslims who rejected the law, and see it as Western imperialism, simply as “conservatives.” From the piece:

Even in Kabul, one of the most liberal cities in Afghanistan, many young men and women express beliefs that fly in the face of the messages coming from American Embassy outreach efforts. Censorship, particularly when it comes to religious offenses, summons little ire. Many consider democracy a tool of the West. And the vast majority of Afghans still rely on tribal justice, viewing the courts as little more than venues of extortion.

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FOSTER parents in Massachusetts must undergo ten hours a year of “LGBT sensitivity training” and state workers are “weeding out” foster and adoptive parents who disapprove of homosexuality. See Amy Contrada’s report at Renew America.

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A READER writes:

Kind greetings!  I was an avid reader of View from the Right and appreciated the many insightful posts and essays by the late Lawrence Auster regarding Western civilization, Christianity, and race.  However, the racial issues bothered me so that I occasionally inquired him concerning his ability to reconcile Christianity with race realism (or human biodiversity, as I like to call it).  To his credit, Mr. Auster posted some of my questions on VFR and thoughtfully responded to them.  Please see the email below for an example of my inquiries. 

My regret is that I never identified my race to him as I wanted to keep our exchanges as objective and impersonal as possible. In truth, I am a black man who has avidly studied race realism for at least ten years.  The topic daily occupies my mind from the moment I awake until night falls.

Every day for over a decade.  No exaggeration.

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THE media around the world has proclaimed that Pope Francis approves of homosexuality because of remarks he made to reporters on a plane returning to Rome from Rio. The New York Times has the story on the front page with this headline, “On Gay Priests, Pope Francis Asks ‘Who Am I to Judge?” thus suggesting that open homosexuals will be welcomed into the priesthood.

On the one hand, this is blatant distortion. The Pope did not come close to saying that homosexuals would be admitted to seminaries. On the other hand, the Pope’s remarks are disturbing, not least because he used the euphemistic label “gay” — the first time a pope has ever done so publicly — and because his words suggest that homosexuality is a permanent “orientation.”

Thetimann at the blog St. Louis Catholic has a reasonable summary of the incident:

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Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate

THE Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate comprise the second largest Catholic religious congregation that regularly celebrates the Tridentine Mass. Pope Pius V promulgated the missal for the Tridentine mass in 1570 and it was in effect for almost 400 years, until 1969. Catholic Culture reports that Pope Francis has consented to a decree forbidding the friars from using the ancient Latin liturgy without specific approval. Rorate Caeli also reports on the news.

Listen to a polyphonic choir of the Franciscans singing here.

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Martha Rebuking Mary Magdalen for Her Vanity by Guido Cagnacci, 1660

ARS ORANDI offers this reflection on the Feast of St. Martha, whose story is an example to women everywhere to value things of the spirit over necessary chores:

When Martha received Jesus into her house, she was naturally busy in preparations for such a Guest. Mary sat at His feet, intent alone on listening to His gracious words. Her sister thought that the time required other service than this, and asked our Lord to bid Mary help in serving. Once again Jesus spoke in defence of Mary. “Martha, Martha,” He said, “thou art lovingly anxious about many things; be not over-eager; do thy chosen work with recollectedness. Judge not Mary. Hers is the good part, the one only thing really necessary. Thine will be taken away, that something better be given thee.” The life of action ceases when the body is laid down; but the life of contemplation endures and is perfected in heaven.