I SINCERELY APOLOGIZE to readers for disappearing without explanation over the past few weeks. It was not something I did intentionally really; it just happened. In the 12 years I have run this site, I have never been away from it for so long.

Every day I woke up, hoping that the deep sadness I felt would be gone and that I would be able to post some of the many things I wanted to write. But it was still there. It wouldn’t go away. I couldn’t put words to “paper.” No words could do this sorrow justice. There are no shortcuts, no tricks, when it comes to grief. You have to live it. There’s no way around it. If taken in the right spirit though, it is never a waste of time. It is always filled with meaning. Listen, and you will learn from it. Don’t move, and you will hear its lessons.

I hope very few people noticed my absence, but I am sorry that I caused some readers concern and distress. Some have wondered whether I have given up or don’t care anymore or have been threatened and am afraid. None of this is true.

It’s not depression. It’s not hopelessness. It’s not resignation. It’s not anger. It’s not indifference. It’s not fear that I feel. It’s grief. It’s sorrow.

We are at war and it’s the most cunning and ingenious of wars. The fake pandemic — I detest even using the nauseating, official name for it, I detest the jargon, I detest everything about it — is an operation of breathtaking evil and scope. As a friend, a woman of great kindness and warmth who has been cruelly ostracized by her family and neighbors for not getting the shot, said to me today, “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Someone has to feel, no? If we were made of stone, would we be of any use to the world?

If I can look back someday and say, “Boy, was I wrong,” I will be so incredibly overjoyed.

If I could only be a nutty conspiracy theorist. Wow, what a great thing that would be. I would be overjoyed. Then my belief that we are in for much, much worse in the year ahead would be wrong. Read More »

ONCE UPON a time there was a bird.

Gray in his feathered uniform, he lived on a suburban half-acre, in harmony with other creatures except those he liked to eat.

It was midday in midsummer. He had raised one noisy brood of chicks — exhausting work — and was preparing a new nest, when he stopped on a branch to sing. Birds sing to communicate. But sometimes they just sing. It was the kind of day when to be alive was enough. The bird’s little heart dilated with a pure love of summer.

A sudden urge came to him. He took to the air.

He left the familiar oaks and wooly lawn grasses. A current of warmth carried him forward. He soared above the houses and highways. Human beings moved on their wingless wheels below. Something somewhere was his destiny. It wasn’t that tree or that underbrush or that shaggy lawn. It was elsewhere.

He flew for miles.

The meadow was waiting for him.

It received him with open arms when he arrived. Spicy aromas enveloped him. He landed on a milkweed flower, not fully open, and surveyed this land of wonders from his perch.  He saw clouds of tiny flies rising and falling amid green sentinel-like grasses on undulating hills. The green expanse was baking in the sun. He clung to the stalk as it swayed to and fro. Flowers flecked the green sea with pink and orange and white, like cheerful confetti. Purple martens and bluebirds performed soaring maneuvers overhead.  Their aerial skill filled him with admiration. Seeds glided through the air on white parachutes.

The aromatic grasses were thick with animal life. He hesitated before taking the plunge.

Imagine attending a banquet with table after table of delicacies, all of it prepared in advance, all of it free of charge, nutritious and life-giving. A bird has few vices. He only eats his fill, but on this occasion he gorged himself. He had earned this day. He thought of his noisy babies and the weeks of shuttling to and from the nest with worms and bugs and berries. His offspring would have enjoyed this paradise, ungrateful though they tended to be. He consumed toasty beetles, crunchy crickets and purple-red berries cooked in the sun so that the centers were like jam. The most expensive and exquisite wines could not compare to this.

The sky had never been such a brilliant blue. His purpose had never been so clear. He continued to forage through the grasses, now out of interest only, reading them as if they were an absorbing book.

A few solitary old trees stood in the meadow, distant from each other. The catbird headed for the shade of a sassafras tree and rested. He saw a nest with bright blue eggs, but it would be cruel to steal on a day like today. He contemplated the scene before him as the golden light of late afternoon illuminated the meadow. Then he closed his deep, black eyes. His breast heaved up and down, the only sign that he was still alive after so much happiness.

He woke with a startled thought. He called out, but his mate did not respond. A summer meadow is a moment in time. It will not last. The bird understood. A bird never worries about the future or the past.  He took wing above the humming hills, inspired by the transience of all things, even the most beautiful.

On those exhausting days when it would seem that he could never do enough for those gaping mouths, when the chicks rested in a nest woven with a few souvenirs of his special trip, he would remember sailing above that blissful sea and the messages of endless providence it had foretold. That day would not be the last day, but it had been the best day to sing. Read More »

MORE TESTIMONY at Ohio Sen. Ron Johnson’s forum on June 28, 2021 for people who claim ‘adverse’ reactions from COVID-19 vaccines.

1940s postcard view of the Dutch Girl Restaurant, later renamed Fischer’s.  Kathy and I spent many pleasant hours there.  

DAVID writes:

A quarter of my life has gone by since my friend Kathy and I met in the workaday world.  It seems to have gone by faster than any of the three previous quarters.

She and I are thus at a point where we share memories from the past 18 years, along with memories of a vanished world in St. Louis, where I grew up, and in Belleville, Illinois, a city near St. Louis where she grew up.  Neither of us will ever see 70 again.

What lingers most agreeably in memory are the many conversations and walks we shared, hours that were so alive, so vivid, so colorful, and so sparkling.  We walked along city streets and residential drives and lanes on scorching summer days and bitterly cold winter nights.  We attended Christmas parties at the Carondelet Historical Society in south St. Louis.

In 2003 we took part in a walk organized by the Illinois Trekkers throughout the grounds of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, near Belleville, and dined in its restaurant, which closed for good last year.

In 2006 we walked a mile uphill to McAdams Peak in Pere Marquette State Park near Grafton, Illinois, and enjoyed the panoramic view of the Illinois River and surrounding countryside. On the way back we stopped at roadside bluffs to see the modern reproduction of the “Piasa Bird”, a legendary, menacing-looking creature that Father Jacques Marquette reported seeing on those bluffs in the form of a painting or petroglyph during his explorations along the Mississippi River in 1673.  (And for those who collect coincidences:  When I was a boy, I played in Marquette Park, and my Aunt Elsie lived on Marquette Avenue.  Kathy’s mother’s name was Elsie.) Read More »

The Infant Saint John with the Lamb (detail), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1660

HERE ARE timely thoughts on this midsummer day dedicated for centuries with prayer and festivity to the birth of St. John the Baptist, that most extraordinary child, conceived by a seemingly barren, older couple, a child who retired early in life to the lonely desert, feeding on honey and locusts, later going out into the world to play his role as the “Precursor,” one of history’s most important prophets, preachers and martyrs. Fr. Leonard Goffine explains why children should be prepared by their parents not only for happiness, success and likeableness, but for holiness, with all the sacrifices and struggle for understanding that entails. Today’s parents, in a way, must feed on honey and locusts to bring this miracle about. From Fr. Goffine:

Whence does it come that so many parents are deceived in the expectations they entertained in regard to their children, that their advancing youth, notwithstanding all the education bestowed upon it, becomes more and more disorderly and impious? It is because parents so seldom observe that which is written of the young Tobias: From his infancy he (his father) taught him to fear God, and to abstain from all sin; (Tob. i. 10.) because they regard not the apostle’s admonition: And you fathers, bring up your children in the discipline and correction of the Lord; (Eph vi. 4.) because they forget that every child is like a young tree that must be carefully guarded, straightened, bound to a post, trimmed and protected against insects, wind and frost; because they remember no longer the wise man’s counsel: Instruct thy children, and bow down their necks from their childhood, (Ecclus. vii. 25.) and, thou shalt beat thy child with a rod, and deliver his soul from hell; (Prov. xxiii. 14.) because they pay no attention to the words: The child that is left to his own will, bringeth his mother to shame, (Prov. xxix. I5.) and, he that loveth his son, frequently chastiseth him, that he may rejoice in his latter end, and not grope after the doors of his neighbors, (Ecclus. xxx. 1.) that is, for protection, consolation and help against the rebellious child. Read More »

DOZENS of personal stories of Covid vaccine injuries and deaths are posted on Telegram at https://t.me/covidvaccineinjuries. (Click to enlarge images below.)

Read More »

THE fixtures and rituals of the new compulsory state religion of hypochondria include something pervasive and loathsome that I would like briefly to bring to your attention. I know, it’s a small thing. But it’s small and it’s fake and it’s ugly and it’s powerful.

It’s at the supermarket checkout. It is in front of elevators. It’s on restaurant tables next to the salt and pepper. In office buildings, it’s at every turn. Even now when our economies have been generously “opened up” by our lying masters, push dispensers, small bottles or wipes are everywhere. These are the equivalent of holy water placed in the vestibule of churches. One does not enter without manifesting one’s faith.

Unless one is an apostate. There are many reasons why I refuse — religious, scientific, political, aesthetic and economic reasons.

“Hand sanitizer” — the pretentious, pseudo-scientific name is all you really need to know about it and people less susceptible to mass marketing, people less lazy about words and their meaning, would consider this term crass marketing or such a bad joke they would refuse to use it. It conjures technocracy, hyper-sterility, impersonal metropolises with flying automobiles and astronaut uniforms. “Pass me the hand sanitizer, please,” one robot says to the other. People would say, “Pass me the soap.” It conjures group think, the death of individuality, a dystopian dearth of messiness. Can personality exist where there is no mess? Can love exist where personality is not? There is some mysterious relationship between our selves and bacteria. The hand assimilates invisible hordes. The human race would have been wiped out long ago if this interaction was typically lethal. A hand without regular contact with the universe of microorganisms is like a street without trees or a garden without bees or a face without a mouth and nose. It’s lifeless. It’s divorced from nature. And isn’t that the point? To put us at enmity with our own bodies and our Creator’s miraculous ingenuity? It’s funny how the very same people who promote this mythology of germ theory are always talking about preserving the wilderness. You are a wilderness. Every human body is a lush wilderness of teeming microorganisms. Read More »

KATHERINE writes:

I want to thank you for posting the marvelous quote from Phyllis McGinley!  It inspired me to do a spread in my sketchbook journal to commemorate that “elemental point” in my life, to take cognizance of it in this society that does not.

So often I encounter a young mother who assures me that she loves her new baby very much, but she just can’t stand to be home all the time with the baby.  So the baby goes to day care, or grandma’s, while the new mother escapes to the comfort of her place of employment.  The dental assistant at my dentist’s office is a recent example – she much prefers poking around in people’s mouths to caring full-time for her three-month old son.  I simply cannot begin to understand such an attitude.

Sketchbook journaling helps me keep my sanity these days.  It’s something positive that I can do.  I’m spending less time on the Internet reading about Covid or Biden or any of the other issues out there.  There is absolutely nothing that I can do about any of it.  I get depressed and frustrated.  So, my goal is to do one of these two-page spreads several times a week.  I’m still pretty much of a novice at watercolor, but even so, I feel happy and uplifted when I finish a spread.

As always, thanks for your very special website!

PEOPLE in India have a long tradition of homeopathic and Ayurvedic medicine. Many tend to be skeptical of modern medicine and its “experts.”

Read more here about the recent publicity blitz about illness in India and here about the village punished for refusing a Covid vaccine.

SUSAN-ANNE WHITE writes from Northern Ireland:

As the Covid tyranny and lies continue (with no end in sight) and the saturation media coverage of the lies and exaggerations brainwashes stupefied multitudes, other tyrannical agendas continue to gain ground and power with little or no opposition from world populations, the majority of whom are obsessed with Covid-19 and love Big Brother!

The other tyrannical agendas are those of the LGBT, Feminism, the pro-abortion lobby and the eco-warriors. These are all linked, i.e someone who is pro-LGBT is almost always pro-feminist, pro-abortion and an eco-warrior to boot!

This month is “gay” pride month when most corporations and banks trip over themselves to prove how “inclusive” and “gay” friendly they are. It is pathetic and wicked and we boycott as many of these establishments as possible but it is difficult because most of the corporate and consumer-driven world have gone a whoring after this depraved lobby.

Feminism continues its war on men and the family and has been spectacularly successful in remaking society in its (feminist) image. We have gone into banks where there are no male staff, only women. Most of these women are married and some do not need to work and are taking jobs from young men and married men. This is so wrong!

Feminism is nothing if not vulgar. It has coarsened society and nothing is taboo as far as feminism is concerned. Read More »

ALAN writes:

In an age of Big Lies of Stalinist proportions, asserted equally by Big Government and Professional Racketeers;  when millions of people agree to accept those lies in vacuum-headed acquiescence;  of streets littered with trash, vacant houses, abandoned storefronts, businesses put out of business by Big Government, and vandalized buildings;  of the vile, ugly noise called “music” blasted forth from passing vehicles, and Communist “art” and “sculpture” carefully designed to project contempt for beauty, virtue, and restraint;  and streetscapes of such ugliness as would impel my father and my uncle, both World War II veterans, to say to themselves, “We must be in 1945 Germany;  this cannot be the USA we remember,”…… Read More »

NO gloves on the nurse and he doesn’t take the cap off.

(She also looks like a mannequin, but that’s actually how Kate Middleton looks.)

We live everyday in the age of deception. Read More »

Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s

FROM Descent into Slavery by Des Griffin (Emissary Publications, 1980), pp 133-34:

In 1932, at the height of the International Banker created Great Depression and amidst an unprecedented media campaign that portrayed [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt as a ‘knight in shining armor,’ the New York Governor was manipulated into the position of being the Democratic nomination for president.

To hear Roosevelt and his backers tell their story along the campaign trail, one could have been excused for believing that the governor would make a great president. The ‘image’ presented throughout the campaign was of a man who would defend our nation’s sovereignty and work diligently in the defense of the freedoms and rights that had contributed so mightily in bringing the United States to a position of dominance on the world scene.

What the American voters were ‘sold’ and what they received were two entirely different things! The ‘Big Boys’ in the City and on Wall Street had not made a mistake. Roosevelt was their man. He was dedicated to doing the will of those who had so carefully manufactured and fostered his false ‘conservative’ image and installed him in the Oval Office. Read More »