Susan Bell,
Chair of the Board
National Audubon Society

Dear Mrs. Bell,

I am an ordinary bird lover who recently visited the society’s museum in Audubon, Pennsylvania. I am also a longtime admirer of the society’s namesake, John James Audubon, one of the greatest artists who ever lived.

I am writing in response to news that the board is considering removing Audubon’s name from the title of your organization, as have several chapters, and that it has already taken major steps to distance itself from him.

Audubon, as you well know, has been accused of “racism.” In an exhibit at the museum, on my recent visit, his life was described as, in part, “despicable.”

I do not believe Audubon, who wrote so movingly of the virtues and nobility of the American Indians he met in the wilderness, was “racist.” Not at all. Even so, I would like to join with those requesting his name be erased and his legacy officially canceled.

Please remove his name and disassociate his great works from your  “non-profit” corporation. I only offer this suggestion because your organization has solicited advice.

The truth is, Audubon doesn’t belong anymore.

A quixotic genius and self-taught explorer who experienced poverty and other hardships in his project to render the birds of America, Audubon wasn’t impressed with the Puritanical zealotry of certain 19th-century abolitionists. He would have even more so, I strongly believe, disavowed the fanatical Puritans of today, the zealots, killjoys and thought cops who rule “non-profit” corporations such as yours and who are imposing a variety of political guilt trips on every visit to the woods, mountains or wetlands.

Certainly Audubon would not have approved of the society’s use of political buzzwords such as “equity, inclusion and diversity.” He knew almost anyone with two legs could walk into the backwoods and anyone with ears could listen to birdsong. He well knew that birds are universally accessible, the most “inclusive” of creatures.

He was also a family man to the end, through great sacrifice. He wouldn’t have approved of your perverse promotion of drag queens and “queers.” Audubon loved nature. He was not at war with it, except in minor practicalities. As for your organization’s political obsession with  “climate change,” there too he doesn’t belong. He fought with weather on his exhausting excursions to capture and view birds, not against it in a cosmic political project that just so happens to coincide with the totalitarian objectives of a world state, which he certainly would have abhorred, valuing freedom and the wilderness as he did.

Audubon was a self-made man — not a crybaby or a whiner. He worked against extraordinary odds. He wasn’t anything like the pseudo-scientific technocrats, political victimologists or social engineers the Audubon Society promotes today. Audubon wasn’t even, first and foremost, a scientist.

He brought incalculable joy and wonder to humanity. His dramatic prints of birds are even better than real birds, such is the mystery of true art. Please let him be. Let him fall into obscurity.

Let those of us who love birds and beauty, who are proud of all that Americans of the past did to expand the knowledge of birds, cherish Audubon’s works without any trace of guilt. No offense, but we don’t need you as we continue to hold his legacy close to our hearts. I don’t mean this as a personal attack, but your organization has become a boring, scolding, obscene, sex-mad, equality-addled, over-funded, ornithological super-nanny, a monstrous threat to any genuine love of nature. Please let him rest in peace.

Sincerely,

Laura Wood

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ALAN writes: In the 1950s-‘60s, this corner storefront in south St. Louis was the home of Mrs. Smith’s Confectionary. On summer days in 1958-’59, my boyhood pal Jeff and I walked into this confectionary to buy as many packs of Topps baseball cards as our dimes and nickels would allow. The baseball cards were wonderful. The pink bubble gum that came with them was a challenge to endure for more than five minutes. At that time, there was no Diversity in the neighborhood. The building looked much the same as it does in this newspaper photo from 1976. Below is Mrs. Smith's Confectionary, 2022 A.D.  (After The Diversity): There is no word yet on whether a plaque will be awarded to The Diversity who added these charming touches to the building.  

"THE Religion of Man is propagated by all modern means. One of its popular appeals is to Peace, but there is no peace, only agitation. 'Peace' as constantly shouted simply means surrender --  surrender to the forces striving to bring all mankind to a condition of state slavery. The Church's most persistent enemies have always contended that it was only religion, particularly the Catholic religion, by insisting upon divinely revealed absolute truths, which obstructs a peace based on secular good fellowship. Presumably peace and the good life would follow from a worldwide brotherhood in which all men would be equal. And so it is that such words as 'discrimination' and 'prejudice' have taken on a special meaning. They are the capital sins of the Religion of Man. "'Love' is another 'relevant' word. As it is now commonly noised about, literally no one takes it to mean or even include the love of God. Man is now to be the sole object of love, which as conceived now is only sentiment and emotion. Quite certainly those who will openly oppose this new religion in the future will reap the hatred of the Love shouters, as they do even now in some degree. Pope Benedict XV warned in his time that 'all the worst and most disordered elements of society ardently desires the revolution.'  Long before Pope Benedict's time, the French revolutionists set up the guillotine in the name of Liberty, Equality and…

“SOME think that one should not speak of the dead except in sighs and tears, or in the accents of tragedy. This may be the reason why some persons absolutely bar this subject from their conversation, and sometimes even will not have the name of a departed member of the family mentioned in their presence. This indicates a false conception of sorrow and also of immortality. To live in the memory of the departed does not mean to live in the horrors of their agonies and to perpetuate the heartbreaks of separation. On the contrary, it is to live in their former presence and in its continuation in the spiritual world. It means to feed on their instructions, to rekindle the living flame of their tender affection, and to put into our lives and conduct the seal of their good example.

“This should be the aim of our conversations when we speak about the dead. These conversations might be serious, but they should remain serene, and nothing should prevent their being sweet and enjoyable; indeed the proper discipline of grief demands it. Man cannot bear the doleful and lugubrious for any length of time. To speak of our departed in such tones will soon tire others and even ourselves. In that case nothing else is to be done but to banish them from our thoughts and from the course of our daily lives, and thus bury them a second time and forever.

“We can do something better to prove that we mourn their loss; it is to allow them to continue holding the place they occupied while they were still alive, and to include them in our confidences, our chats and in our meditations as well.

“Whether our solitary meditations be silent reveries or our meditations in public be an unburdening of ourselves to friends, they must always be endowed with the same character, that of a tonic and cordial for the soul. All that might depress, weaken us, render us less apt to accomplish our task, or bear our burden less bravely, must be banished. All that can purify, strengthen us, increase our love of life and our power for greater good must be found in them.”

— Marguerite Duportal, A Key to Happiness: The Art of Suffering, 1944 (more…)

“LIVING on the surface of the soul, we come to live on the surface in everything; for he who knows not how to penetrate within the soul has forgotten how to penetrate into the depths of anything else. He is taken up with externals, and matters of detail become chiefly important to him. Thus in duties and obligations, he sees the letter rather than the spirit, the bark rather than the sap, the body rather than the soul. He knows that such and such details are prescribed, ‘and certain others forbidden. He sees the external side of the law, the material fact of the prescription, and this is the only thing to which he attaches a certain amount of importance. He does not see the inward side, the reason and end of the prescription, the spirit of the law ; and thus he brings an external and mechanical fidelity to the material observance of the letter which he sees and which killeth, without drawing any inspiration from the spirit which quickeneth,! and which he does not see. (more…)

"NOT far from the Jordan, there rises a rugged mountain, which has received, in after ages, the name of Quarantana. It commands a view of the fertile plain of Jericho, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea. It is within a cave of this wild rock that the Son of God now enters, his only companions being the dumb animals who have chosen this same for their own shelter. He has no food wherewith to satisfy the pangs of hunger; the barren rock can yield him no drink; his only bed must be of stone. Here he is to spend Forty Days; after which, he will permit the Angels to visit him and bring him food. "Thus does our Saviour go before us on the holy path of Lent. He has borne all its fatigues and hardships, that so we, when called upon to tread the narrow way of our Lenten Penance, might have His example wherewith to silence the excuses, and sophisms, and repugnances, of self-love and pride. The lesson is here too plainly given not to be understood; the law of doing penance for sin is here too clearly shown, and we cannot plead ignorance; let us honestly accept the teaching and practise it. Jesus leaves the Desert where he had spent the Forty Days, and begins his preaching with these words, which he addresses to all men: Do penance, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand [St.…

“NGOs, Think Tanks, Globalist Billionaires, and Multilateral Organizations all conspire to engineer the movement of non-European peoples into the West. Their goal: the replacement of Europeans and their cultures. The major financiers of this agenda are discussed in this [2020] video.”

Figures cited are much higher today.

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"THERE is a place in the Atlantic Ocean which sailors call the "Devil's Hole." Contrary currents hurl their torrents upon each other there, causing such commotion in the waters that navigation is always difficult. If you ever passed over it when the weather was good, you wondered why the sea was so rough and the ship rocked so much. If you asked one of the seamen for an explanation of this strange phenomenon, he answered you: 'This is the Devil's Hole; the currents meet here.' "In the voyage of life, my dear brethren, there is a 'Devil's Hole' in our track. It is the abyss of pride. Like the whirlpool, it is very much hidden; the appearances are all fair, and this makes the danger all the greater. You are, when swayed by pride, unconscious of the condition of your soul. You feel disturbed and blinded as to its cause. Envy and hatred rise up in your heart, but you do not see their hideousness because, forsooth, your self-conceit or self-will has been offended by those who are wiser and better than you, and this galls you. You can't have your own way, and you are sad. You want to rule, and because you cannot you fancy yourself wronged. The whole difficulty is simply this: You have too good an opinion of yourself. Now, when you come to look seriously into your own heart, are you not forced to acknowledge this?…

 “The enemies we have to fight with are of two kinds: internal and external. The first are our passions; the second are the devils. Both were brought on us by pride, and man’s pride began when he refused to obey his God. God forgave him his sin, but He punished him. The punishment was death, and this was the form of the divine sentence: Thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt return. Oh that we had remembered this! The recollection of what we are and what we are to be would have checked that haughty rebellion which has so often led us to break the law of God. And if, for the time to come, we would persevere in loyalty to Him, we must humble ourselves, accept the sentence, and look on this present life as a path to the grave. The path may be long or short; but to the tomb it must lead us. Remembering this, we shall see all things in their true light. We shall love that God who has deigned to set His heart on us notwithstanding our being creatures of death: we shall hate, with deepest contrition, the insolence and ingratitude wherewith we have spent so many of our few days of life, that is, in sinning against our heavenly Father: and we shall be not only willing, but eager, to go through these days of penance, which He so mercifully gives us for…

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"INFORMATION Operations and its subset PSYOPs, mind-superiority or information confrontation are actively being used by all sides in the emerging great war of continents. Unfortunately, for us civilians busy with daily routines and jobs, in modern 21st century mind wars, civilians are the targets of these operations. Our minds are battlefields whether we recognize it or not and whether we have adequate means of defense or not. "Civilians are targeted in Western democracies because they elect the lawmakers, the people that determine foreign policy. The most unfortunate thing about this situation is that most western democracies haven’t caught up with this new mode of warfare and the citizens of western countries are largely left to their own for defending their minds against military-grade, psychological attacks that most might not even be aware is happening to them. "Now that we know how Russia, China and the United States define Information Operations and the importance they assign to it, we are going to look at why it is employed. That is, what are the geopolitical objectives information operations are employed to achieve, specifically with respect to Russia?" ---- 21st Century Mindwars  

ALAN writes:

Here is a good illustration of how some American women helped to advance the Permanent Leftist Revolution.

In 1972, Cynthia Larson, 19, was hired by a private company to work as a “Santa’s helper” in a shopping center in Ames, Iowa. Was she content with that job? Not at all. What she wanted was to be Santa Claus, not “Santa’s helper.”

[UPI, “Woman Wants Santa Claus Job, But Company Won’t Hire Her,” The Raleigh (West Virginia) Register, Nov. 27, 1972]

Evidently the company looked upon that idea as absurd, which of course it was. They refused to accept her application to work as Santa Claus. But did that stop young Cynthia? Not at all.

Christmas is far from the mind at the moment, but the cause espoused by Larson, we live with every single day.

That Cynthia and her Libber-comrades got their way in American life — at the expense of the rights of business owners and to the benefit of increasingly powerful central government — was less a result of the Women’s Lib movement than of inaction and acquiescence by millions of Americans who opposed that movement, and especially of widespread abdication by American white men of their proper patriarchal authority. Such men proved thereby how easily they could be induced to surrender their rights.

Larson grew up in the Revolutionary 1960s and, like millions of other young women who served as cannon fodder for the Permanent Leftist Revolution, she absorbed the vocabulary and ideology of “Liberals” who claimed that “discrimination” was unspeakably evil and “non-discrimination” unqualifiedly good. Their role in the Revolution was not to think but to absorb and recite slogans. She may not have been a witting agent of that Revolution, but young women like her were just as useful. (more…)

A TRAIN on the Norfolk Southern line that was carrying large quantities of hazardous chemicals, including vinyl chloride, derailed a week ago in East Palestine, Ohio and some say the extent of the disaster is being covered up. The chemicals apparently were drained from the trains and then set on fire for disposal, causing toxic clouds for hundreds of miles. Whether calling it a “Chernobyl-like” catastrophe (see video) is alarmism, I cannot say, but caution against rushing to conclusions or dismissing the seriousness of the story.

A comment found here:

So, ya. I can confirm the massive budget cuts at Norfolk Southern being a likely cause of this. My brother worked for them as the railroad equivalent of a mechanic and got laid off about three years ago due to the railroad adopting a “precision railroading” policy. To very quickly simplify the policy, the idea is to cut jobs within the company by the thousands, removing mechanics, track repairmen, general maintenance, and even engineers who ran the trains, while also adding too many cars to the trains and simply not working on engines or cars when they needed repairs and simply doing the absolute bare minimum to maintain a “functional” railroad. (more…)

THE Tin Pan Alley Composer Joe Burke (1884-1950) wrote this love song, "Dear One." It was performed and recorded by Henry Burr in 1925. It's a pleasant, sentimental Valentine's Day tune.  Recording courtesy of Library of Congress

SOME St. Valentine's Day wisdom from Dawn Eden, author of The Thrill of the Chaste: Human beings are created for bonding, and we attain our individual empowerment — I would prefer to say flourishing — to the extent that we are able to actualize our full potential in society. For that reason, the sexual revolution has disempowered women, because it has fed them the lie that they will gain power to the extent that they are atomized — removed from the so-called dependence of husband and children.  

THE METROPOLITAN Museum of Art in New York City is a magnificent temple to art. Its immense galleries celebrate through painstaking preservation and exhibition the best of cultures around the world, offering the chance to explore and gain understanding of Ancient Egypt, Africa, Asia, Islam, Ancient Greece and Rome, and, of course, various ages of European civilization. You will not find anywhere in the non-Western world more sensitivity to and respect for the artistic efforts of distant strangers and races. The artworks in the museum’s collections also include many great works by Europeans depicting and often valorizing foreign cultures, such as Jean-Léon Gérôme’s “Bashi-Bazouk,” shown above.

However, a new exhibit at the museum condemns the culture that produced such a museum and its rich diversity. Heather Mac Donald writes at City Journal:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has mounted an exhibit whose curatorial philosophy, were it widely adopted, would spell the end of art and of art museums. The art press greeted the show ecstatically, as a sign of the Met’s new direction. This prognosis is undoubtedly correct.

Fictions of Emancipation (on view through March 5, 2023) is built around an 1873 sculpture by the brilliant French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. The marble bust, titled Why Born Enslaved!, portrays a black woman, bound by a rope, looking over her left shoulder with a piercing expression of defiance, incredulity, and contempt.

Why Born Enslaved! has been understood since its creation as an antislavery work. The Met, however, knows better, now that it has been reborn as an “antiracist” institution. Fictions of Emancipation argues that the Carpeaux bust furthers whites’ ongoing “domination over Black people’s bodies,” in the words of the exhibit’s curators. And Carpeaux was not the only artist to give an aesthetic gloss to racial oppression, while seeming to oppose it—Fictions of Emancipation portrays abolitionist art more widely as a fig leaf for Western colonialism and white supremacy.

I highly recommend Mac Donald’s excellent article in its entirety.

This kind of exhibit, nothing more really than bitterly ugly, Communist-style agitprop, is not surprising of course, but still it’s depressing. The great museums of this country are destined for erasure. They will be obliterated in the flames of resentment and envy. Where truth is not, beauty cannot long survive. (more…)