I SAW a homemade billboard along the Pennsylvania Turnpike the other day.

It said:

“Normal” is not coming back.

Jesus is.

“PERFECTION is founded entirely on the love of God: “Charity is the bond of perfection;” and perfect love of God means the complete union of our will with God’s: “The principal effect of love is so to unite the wills of those who love each other as to make them will the same things .” It follows then, that the more one unites his will with the divine will, the greater will be his love of God. Mortification, meditation, receiving Holy Communion, acts of fraternal charity are all certainly pleasing to God — but only when they are in accordance with his will. When they do not accord with God’s will, he not only finds no pleasure in them, but he even rejects them utterly and punishes them.

“To illustrate:—A man has two servants. One works unremittingly all day long— but according to his own devices; the other, conceivably, works less, but he does do what he is told. This latter of course is going to find favor in the eyes of his master; the other will not. Now, in applying this example, we may ask: Why should we perform actions for God’s glory if they are not going to be acceptable to him? God does not want sacrifices, the prophet Samuel told King Saul, but he does want obedience to his will: “Doth the Lord desire holocausts and victims, and not rather that the voice of the Lord should be obeyed? For obedience is better than sacrifices; and to hearken, rather than to offer the fat of rams. Because it is like the sin of witchcraft to rebel; and like the crime of idolatry to refuse to obey4 .” The man who follows his own will independently of God’s, is guilty of a kind of idolatry. Instead of adoring God’s will, he, in a certain sense, adores his own.” [emphasis added]

— St. Alphonsus de Ligouri, Uniformity with God’s Will

Federal troops burn the railway station at Madison, Harper’s Weekly, Jan. 7, `1865

MANY PEOPLE to this day believe the American “Civil War” was fought to end slavery. This falsehood dates to the war itself and has been perpetuated by apologists for the sort of lawless, centralized government that emerged during the war. As Adam S. Miller, author of three books on the war, wrote:

The war between the North and the South was not fought by the North (Union) to secure the freedom of slaves, nor to end slavery itself as many were told and others still think. Here are facts which prove this:

  – At a conference in Washington, D.C., on February 27, 1861, Northern delegates met and voted against a constitutional amendment to end slavery. Why would they not vote to end slavery if they were supposedly about to go to war to do so? The reason is because the war was not fought to free the slaves. The war was fought by the North to keep the South from seceding and to strengthen Northern control over the Southern states. The North, or Union, was fighting against the rights of states; it was fighting to destroy the agricultural way of life of the South so as forcibly to bring about the dominance of the industrial way of life of the North.

 – On July 25, 1861, a bill was passed in Congress -the Crittenden Resolution- which declared that the war was being fought to preserve the Union, not to stop, or even change, slavery in its established form.” (Source)

Furthermore, as Miller points out, Abraham Lincoln and his government solicited the support of slave states, including Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. The Union included more slave states at the start of the war than the Confederacy. “Thus, the North could not have been fighting to end slavery, for it would have been fighting against a large portion of itself when the war began,” Miller states.

Only one in fifteen white Southern adults were slave-holders. The vast majority of those who fought for the Confederacy had no direct stake in the institution.

The idea that the North was fighting to end slavery was propaganda, inflaming passions and rallying both whites and blacks to the federal government’s acts of aggression against its own people. Read More »

“THE DIGNITY which chivalry required was removed at an infinite distance from any disdain of men and from any selfish vanity. It arose from a reliance upon God; it was connected with all that was pure and holy; it was united to faith and love; it abode with him only as Wordsworth says:

Who in the silent hour of inward thought
Could still suspect and still revere himself
In lowliness of heart.

— Kenelm Henry Digby, “Maxims of Christian Chivalry,” from The Broadstone of Honor or, The true sense and practice of chivalry

Any opportunity to disestablish tyrannical American government is now long past. Most Americans today have made it clear that they are perfectly comfortable with a tyrannical government so long as it papers over its tyranny with enough do-gooder slogans including the word “help” and does not deprive them of their toys and amusements (TV, rock music, movies, porn, sports, alcohol, and loud cars).    

ALAN writes:

It is remarkable to consider how seldom over the span of my life I have seen or heard any mention in the mass communications industry of Fabianism or Fabian change agents.  People who imagine themselves to be the best-informed people in the world remain astoundingly ignorant of those who have been working quietly for more than a hundred years to convert the USA into a Communist nation. In the 1940s, journalist John T. Flynn named the Fabians as more dangerous than the Communists to Americans’ liberty and rights.

In 1966, Rose Martin wrote: Read More »

Thomas Cole, Cora Kneeling at the Feet of Tamenund, 1827

IN ITS Sunday afternoon “teatime” series in the 1970s, the BBC produced serial versions of classic novels and these were then shown on Masterpiece Theater in this country as wholesome entertainment that could be viewed by all ages. Among the best was the 1971 version of James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans, the famous story of the American frontier set during the French and Indian War, when France and Britain fought for control of the American wilderness and recruited American Indians as their allies.

The TV series included eight 45-minute episodes. (Technically then, this isn’t a movie night, but many evenings.) They can be purchased today in DVD form on Amazon or viewed in their entirety on Youtube.

Other film versions of this renowned novel have apparently turned it into an action thriller, which it definitely is, but it’s not only that. This series is more true to the novel, a penetrating tale of human conflict and aspirations with romance, war, betrayal, loyalty, race, death, political intrigue, the ravishing beauty of the wilderness — and thrilling adventure. This is a tale of European fighting European, of Indian warring Indian, of confused allegiances and of heart striving for heart. The characters include both the British and French commanders, other military figures, the daughters of the British leader, a British wilderness scout and Indian allies and enemies.

This low-budget production was directed by David Maloney, of Dr. Who fame, and produced by John McRae. Harry Green was the writer who brilliantly adapted the novel to the screen. It was shot in the studio and the Scottish highlands, which serve as a beautiful stand-in for the hills and mountains of the Adirondacks in upstate New York where the novel is set, parts of which are almost a wilderness to this very day, though now devoid of those warring tribes. You can go there and almost see the scenes of the book unfold before you.

Viewers accustomed to more sophisticated visuals may definitely find this version slow-moving, clumsy and somewhat campy. But they would probably agree that the acting is superb and though this is not a dazzling spectacle, it is a riveting teleplay, as true as film can be to great literature. The dialogue and characters provide a sensitive portrayal of the lives of both colonists and the Indians.

Particularly outstanding among the actors is Philip Madoc, who plays the Huron scout, Magua. The actor communicates Cooper’s complex mixture of dignity, strength and ruthless cunning. In the story, Magua is plotting revenge against the British commander, Colonel Munro, whom he accuses of giving him hard liquor and making him drunk, leading to punishment and exile from the Hurons. Magua also despises Munro for later whipping him at a post. He is determined to recover his pride and wants the colonel’s daughter as his squaw. Here is a man ready to fight for his people to the end. Not a nice guy, but there is awe-inspiring nobility in his strength and stubbornness.

All of the actors are British; those playing the Indian characters are slathered with skin bronzer — clearly an offense by today’s standards, but the costumes (or, in the case, of the natives, lack of costumes) are so authentic, it doesn’t seem fake. And the actors so vividly convey the humanity and individuality of the Indian characters, can they really be accused of political crimes? Besides, the politically correct will not be entirely scandalized by this production, as Green has Munro boast of Cora’s deceased non-white mother. And Uncas’s attraction to Cora, and her openness to him, are movingly portrayed.

Kenneth Ives plays Hawkeye, the scout for the British who travels through the backwoods with his two Mohican friends, Chingachgook (John Abineri) and his son Uncas, (Richard Warwick.) He may be dull for those who have seen Daniel Day-Lewis in the part (I haven’t so I don’t know which is better.) Still, he comes through with an equal measure of roughness and honor. The friendship between the scout and his Indian allies is beautifully captured; we see a white man who is sincerely loved and loves in return. These are not cardboard characters.

This is a novel of masculine men and feminine women, strong in their complementary ways. Patricia Maynard and Joanna David play Cora and Alice Munro, respectively, daughters of the British Colonel Munro, who leave England to seek their father,  holed up in Fort William Henry. These are women not afraid to venture into the wilderness. The director and actresses are able to preserve the highly-civilized decorum and kindness to all of the book’s characters. These heroines are gems, so lovely and strong. The actor Andrew Crawford, who plays Munro, does not fully convey the deep attachment of the novel’s character to his daughters and his grief at the eventual tragedy of Cora.

This would be a good series for homeschoolers to watch before or after studying the novel. These are truly great performances — and the haunting theme song by Dudley Simpson, featuring only a flute and percussion movingly opens and concludes each of these wonderful episodes.

The Last of the Mohicans is a story of racial conquest told by Cooper with enormous sympathy for the defeated and with none of today’s brutal contempt for the ‘paleface.’ In light of current events, some may find this television adaptation all too painfully real.

Read More »

FROM The Free Press by Hilaire Belloc (George Allen & Unwin, 1918):

Side by side with the development of Capitalism went a change in the Press from its primitive condition to a worse. The development of Capitalism meant that a smaller and a yet smaller number of men commanded the means of production and of distribution whereby could be printed and set before a large circle a news-sheet fuller than the old model. When distribution first changed with the advent of the railways the difference from the old condition was accentuated, and there arose perhaps one hundred, perhaps two hundred “organs,” as they were called, which, in this country and the Lowlands of Scotland, told men what their proprietors chose to tell them, both as to news and as to opinion. The population was still fairly well spread; there were a number of local capitals; distribution was not yet so organized as to permit a paper printed as near as Birmingham, even, to feel the competition of a paper printed in London only 100 miles away. Papers printed as far from London, as York, Liverpool or Exeter were the more independent. Read More »

PART II is here.

RUSSIAN opera singer Vadim Cheldiyev has been sentenced to ten years in a maximum-security prison for organizing a protest in 2020 against COVID lockdowns in the North Caucasus. Cheldiyev never attended the protest because he was arrested after posting about it online. He said he planned the event because he was worried about job losses due to lockdowns, which were initiated after two alleged COVID deaths in the region.

Several years ago, Cheldiyev suspended his career at the famous Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in order to return to his native town in the Caucasus to start a charity. He explained his move in this video, which offers a fascinating glimpse of “The Man Who Quit Opera to Help the Poor.”

“PERFECT contentment is never to be found, in whatever place and condition one may be. This life is full of annoyances and troubles both of mind and of body; it is a state of continual agitation… Did Our Lord lead an easy life?”

— St.Vincent de Paul

CHRIS explains how inflation shifts the burden of public debt to the wage earner.

The government benefits by consumer price hikes. “[I]t’s much simpler to tax the people surreptitiously through inflation rather than through direct taxation to finance social largesse…”

[Disclaimer: This is not a blanket endorsement of this site.]

ALAN writes:

Your assessment of staged events is most pertinent at a time when it is hard to tell who has more power over Americans:  Their government or the mass communications/propaganda industry.  My money is on a deep alliance of the two.

The 29 indications of propaganda/theater/fakery that you listed with regard to alleged “shooting events” may be used to frame real events as well as pseudo-events.

For more than half a century, I have thought that Lee Oswald was set up to take the fall for the murder of John Kennedy, a political murder if ever there was one. (I use “political” in the broad sense, not the narrow sense in which both their government and the mass communications industry encourage Americans to use it and think of it.)

Nine of those 29 indicators could be seen in that murder and its aftermath: Read More »

Read More »

Peter Cushing and Richard Vernon in Cash on Demand

BRITISH FILM ACTING is historically superior to American. This is due to Britain’s remarkable stage tradition that goes back hundreds of years. Many British actors went from stage to film and though the two required different skills, they were able to transfer their stage talents to the movie set.

Between the early 1940s to 1960s some outstanding movies with great acting were made and I would like to recommend one: Cash on Demand, a 1961, black-and-white crime thriller, based on a television play, which you can watch on Youtube for free.

This is a thriller with no violence. It’s more a tense, and sometimes comic, psychological play about an extremely clever crime and one man’s personal failings.

The story takes place in a small bank outside London. The late Peter Cushing, who started in repertory theater and performed in Hollywood before continuing his film career in England, plays Harry Fordyce, the fastidious bank manager.

An insurance inspector arrives at the bank one day, and from that moment an attempted robbery unfolds. The entire action occurs just in a few hours and most of it in the bank manager’s office. Please do not read the Wikipedia entry. It gives the plot entirely away and will spoil it for you.

The acting in this small movie, which aired in American theaters for a few months, is truly memorable. André Morrell plays the insurance inspector and Richard Vernon appears as Pearson, the head clerk at the bank. One of the best characteristics of British movies of that era is that they are realistic. The characters are not glamorized in the way American movie characters so often are and the actors are highly believable in their roles. To me the point of a good movie or play or novel is reality. While we are entertained, we learn how to live.

The main theme here is the obnoxious boss. In that sense, it is very relevant. Do not many people work under difficult managers? Will that ever change? Fordyce is an exacting boss who is somewhat unforgiving of his imperfect employees. In the course of the attempted robbery, he must lower his standards dramatically.

One more thing about the plot: This movie somewhat painfully reminds me of a day when I was nine months pregnant and a strange man called me at home shortly after my husband left for work. He told me that he was holding my husband hostage and that if I did not do exactly what he said he would harm my husband. Of course, I immediately became … unhinged and it took me at least ten to fifteen minutes to realize that it was a scam and hang up the phone. I will never, ever forget that day or the man’s voice. Fortunately, all was well in the end though my husband’s office did receive a phone call from one hysterical, pregnant woman. The sadistic creep who called me was eventually arrested for doing the same thing to many women.

Something similar takes place in Cash on Demand so I guess I identify with the main character’s reaction.

I hope you enjoy this little film and that it offers you a brief escape into reality. Read More »

PATRICK O’BRIEN writes:

I read your commentary on Stephen Foster. He was a wonderful composer — words and music, a rare combination.

And I remember hearing Terri Gross’s comment about Stephen Foster from years ago: “How could there be so much hate in one man,” and this about the song, “Old Black Joe,” which is a very sympathetic look at an old slave missing the people he has grown up with, and looking forward to seeing them in Heaven.

I teach music, and my students love “Old Black Joe,” even the couple of Black students. And we sing several Foster songs, and “Dixie,” and the Southern national anthem…and abolitionist songs, too. I am equal opportunity.

Here is the Southern national anthem, the “Bonnie Blue Flag.”