The first American slave ship, the Desire

“IT HAS been contended that the colonists, in first introducing the negroes into this country, were to some extent inspired by religious motives, and that the ‘soul-saving’ proposition was at the bottom of it; but in course of time the cloak became woefully threadbare, to be finally converted into a shroud in no way concealing the cadaver that might fitly stand for the emblem of this disgusting traffic. Slavery at first prospered in the colonies, and, seeing this, not a few attempts were made to enslave the indigenous redmen; but it was an utter failure.

“At an early date the British entered the field as slave traders, and they succeeded in this undertaking from the very start. Royal Companies were formed, treaties were drawn and ratified, and British slave trade soon became a powerful institution (1713). “In those days,” says an authority at hand, “the shipchandlers of Liverpool made special displays in their windows of such things as hand-cuffs, leg-shackles, iron collars, short and long chains, and furnaces and copper kettles designed for slavers’ use. Read More »

“COLOR problems are permanent problems. They will die only with the obliteration of the color line. If the white man is to remain white, color problems must persist. As long as there is a color line, there will be a color problem. Our future is clouded by such problems. They will not grow less, but ever greater, and our children’ s children will bear them as intensified burdens.

“The history of higher cultures will reveal that all those which are popularly called ‘civilizations’ may be traced in origin to the white race, while the history of the contact of races will reveal that the civilizations of the white man have never survived contact with the colored. We need and must have this knowledge if we are to reverse history.”

— Earnest Sevier Cox, White America

“WE the people” is now “we the children.” Whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, what difference does it make?

The over-the-top Disney phenomenon is illustrative:

Disney is sleazy creepy. So are the commercials/ads with cartoon characters, calling everyone by their first name, adult underwear with cartoon characters, bachelorette parties that last entire weekends and involve riding around drunk in limos, over-exposed women, the entire influencer-programmed “I deserve it!”, “culture” of feeeelings and “experiences” is freakish. (Source)

Democracy is a mass of indulgent children weaponized against adults.

Read More »

FROM The Importance of Silence by St. Alphonsus de Liguori:

In the first place, silence is a great means of acquiring the spirit of prayer, and of disposing the soul to converse continually with God. We rarely find a spiritual soul that speaks much. All souls of prayer are lovers of silence that is called the guardian of innocence, the shield against temptations, and the fountain of prayer. For by silence devotion is preserved, and in silence good thoughts spring up in the soul. St. Bernard says: “Silence and the absence of noise in a certain manner force the soul to think of God and of eternal goods.”  Hence, the saints fled to the mountains, to caves, and to deserts, in order to find this silence, and escape the tumults of the world, in which, as was said to Elias, God is not found. (3 Kings, xix. 11) Theodosius the monk observed silence for thirty-five years. St. John the Silent, who gave up his bishopric and became a monk, observed silence for forty-seven years before his death; and all the saints, even they who were not solitaries, have been lovers of silence. Read More »

“IT is often said that celebrities are the new gods, attributed powers and abilities beyond the gods of Mt. Olympus. But they are phony gods, gods sought by us to fill the many voids in our own lives. They are the creatures of our collective wishes, beings who populate the country of our popular imagination. They can even acquire cultic status, functioning for us as surrogate saints and martyrs. James Dean’s hometown and burial site (Fairmount, Indiana) is a pilgrimage site, where the faithful come to ‘worship’ at the grave of the departed but curiously immortal youth, now immune from time. Marilyn Monroe has become a feminist icon, the girl goddess who was martyred by the system of exploitation that made her into a celebrity in the first place but could not make her happy. She was a victim of the phony love transacted between her and her fans, which brought her much lust and notoriety but no real love. In death, Elvis Presley has become a cult figure, and the tabloids regularly report the latest sightings of “St. Elvis,” including his intervening to comfort the troubled and heal the sick. These extremes suggest that celebrity worship is a phony religious experience, an idolatry of fame that leads ordinary people to seek sacred experience.

“The confusion of religious and celebrity worship stems from the fact that the famous exist in a kind of status of transfiguration. They live in ‘the context of no context,’ a mass-mediated world of play, figurative rather than literal existence. Celebrities do not work, they play; they do not live out textual lives, they romp in contextual limbo, the never-never land of nowhere. The celebrated country of Nowhere is their true home, the elysian fields of fame to which only the gods of celebration are admitted. (Michael Jackson built a fun park, complete with merry-go-round and miniature railroad, on a ranch he named Neverland.) But it is a phony world full of phony creations, all of whom are anxious about enhancing the one thing that differentiates them from other and unheralded human beings, their claim to fame. We should remember the fundamental concept of celebrity epistemology: if we the people do not see them, they do not exist.”

— James Combs, Phony Culture

BELOVED yesterday. Beloved today. Beloved forevermore.

Beloved by peasants. Beloved by kings.

Beloved by the wretched. Beloved by saints.

Beloved by the Father. Beloved by the Only Begotten Son. Beloved by the Divine Dove.

And so it has been — a continuous, wondrous, irrepressible devotion through the rolling centuries to the Immaculate Queen of heaven and earth.

Thomas catches the belt (Detail), by Matteo di Giovanni, c. 1474.

“SING,SING, ye angel bands,
All beautiful and bright;
For higher still and higher,
Through fields of starry light,
Mary, your Queen, ascends,
Like the sweet moon at night.

“A fairer flower than she
On earth hath never been;
And, save the throne of God,
Your heavens have never seen
A wonder half so bright
As your ascending Queen.

“O happy angels! look
How beautiful she is!
See! Jesus bears her up,
Her hand is locked in His;
Oh who can tell the height
Of that fair mother’s bliss! (Source) Read More »

Madonna and Child, Fra Filippo Lippi; 1465

FROM Orestes Brownson’s “The Moral and Social Influence of Devotion to Mary:”

Nowhere in ancient or modern heathendom do we find maternity regarded as a holy function, or any conception of its deep spiritual significance Motherhood had hardly any rights of its own, even with free mothers, and none at all with slave moth

It is mainly to the low estimate in which maternity is held among the heathen that we must attribute in both ancient and modern times the prevalence of child-murder, or the exposure of children, as in China, India, and perhaps in all nations on which the light of the Gospel sheds no ray. In ancient Sparta the law ordered all malformed children to be put to death as soon as born, and in Rome the mother had no rights over her new-born child, and the nurse must wait the word of the father to know whether the babe just born is to live or to be strangled. If the father refuses to own it and to say let it live, it cannot be reared. The father can slay the child with his own hand or with the hand of his slave before the mother’s eyes without her having any right to complain, or the law any right to intervene. If the mother herself had any proper respect for the sacredness and dignity of motherhood she could never destroy her own offspring, and infanticide by the hands of the mother or with her knowledge and consent would be an unheard-of crime. If again, the father or society had any due appreciation of the greatness and sacredness of motherhood, the practice of child-murder could never be tolerated, or even connived at. Not only did the low estimate in which maternity was held, an estimate that placed it little above a mere animal function, lead to the toleration or authorization of child-murder, but it tended to degrade womanhood, and to make woman herself a mere accomplice with man in pleasure or ambition.

Under Christianity this estimate is corrected, and motherhood, as a necessary consequence of elevating marriage to a sacrament, is elevated in some sense to the spiritual order, and made a holy function. Woman herself is elevated, ceases to be a mere drudge, or an article of luxury. She is a person, not a chattel, has her own personal existence, rights, and duties. If a wife, she is indeed under obedience to her husband, but the obedience of a person morally free, not the obedience of a slave. If the rights of the father are paramount, they are not exclusive, and the rights of the mother are recognized, and in some cases even supersede those of the father. Under this Christian view of woman and motherhood infanticide and the exposure of children ceased in the nations that became, and just in proportion as they became and remained Christian. Read More »

THE tiny village of Dundrum in County Tipperary, Ireland had until yesterday 200 residents.

On August 13, 280 ‘asylum seekers’ were reportedly brought in to be housed in a local hotel at government expense, replacing the local population overnight.

The interviews with local residents above are from three weeks ago. Below are scenes from yesterday.

 

Our Lady’s Holy Death

Mary, thy heart for love
Alone had ever sighed;
So much it loved at length,
Of very love it died.

O happy, happy death:
If death indeed could be,
Blest Virgin, that sweet end
Which God bestowed on thee.

‘Tis in a sweet repose,
With smile of heavenly mirth,
Thou takest joyful flight
To Paradise from earth; Read More »

                                                                                      Abigail Adams

“THE PECULIAR FORMS of uneasiness in the American woman of today come naturally enough from the Revolution of 1776. That movement upset theoretically everything which had been expected of her before. Theoretically, it broke down the division fences which had kept her in sets and groups. She was no longer to be a woman of class; she was a woman of the people. This was striking at the very underpinning of femininity, as the world knew it. Theoretically, too, her ears were no longer to be closed to all ideas save those of her church or party — a new thing, freedom of speech, was abroad — her lips were opened with man’s. Moreover, her business of family building was modified, as well as her attitude towards life. The necessity of all women educating themselves that they might be able to educate their children was an obligation on the face of the new undertaking. Another revolutionary duty put upon her was — paying her way. There can be no real democracy where there is parasitism. She must achieve conscious independence whether in or out of the family. Unquestionably there came with the Revolution a vision of a new woman — a woman from whom all of the willfulness and frivolity and helplessness of the “Lady” of the old régime should be stripped, while all her qualities of gentleness and charm should be preserved. The old-world lady was to be merged into a woman strong, capable, severely beautiful, a creature who had all of the virtues and none of the follies of femininity.

“It was strong yeast they put into the pot in ’76. Read More »

ALAN writes:

One day at the library, I happened by chance to see a new book about Tammy Wynette.  It caught my eye because I enjoyed some of her songs long years ago.  She made the mistake of trying to balance too many things: Marriage(s), homemaking, and a professional career.  But to some extent she was a traditionalist-minded woman. “Stand By Your Man” was not exactly an ode to feminism. Late in her life, she was not favorably impressed by contemporary music and wondered what had become of the classic, prettier, more restrained country-western music she had heard and grown to love when she was growing up and for some years after.

I picked up the book on the naive expectation that it was about Tammy Wynette. I was wrong. On one level, it may be that.  But on another and more brazen level, it is a screed using her life and career as a pretext for helping to advance revolutionary ideology and vocabulary. Read More »

Olympic fencers, one of whom is pregnant

The Female of the Species
––Rudyard Kipling

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
’Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man’s timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn’t his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other’s tale –
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations – worm and savage otherwise, –
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act. Read More »

MICHAEL SMITH was brimming with high expectations when he became a public defender in a large city in the South.

He describes his brutal lesson in reality:

If you tell a black man that the evidence is very harmful to his case, he will blame you. “You ain’t workin’ fo’ me.” “It like you workin’ with da State.” Every public defender hears this. The more you try to explain the evidence to a black man, the angrier he gets. It is my firm belief many blacks are unable to discuss the evidence against them rationally because they cannot view things from the perspective of others. They simply cannot understand how the facts in the case will appear to a jury.

This inability to see things from someone else’s perspective helps explain why there are so many black criminals. They do not understand the pain they are inflicting on others. One of my robbery clients is a good example. He and two co-defendants walked into a small store run by two young women. All three men were wearing masks. They drew handguns and ordered the women into a back room. One man beat a girl with his gun. The second man stood over the second girl while the third man emptied the cash register. All of this was on video. Read More »