FROM “Have We Lost Our Common Sense?” Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty, Ph. D:

“Our culture and society today are decidedly under the influence of a philosophy of Subjectivism, an unrealistic, and even anti-realistic, philosophy which is both relativistic and pragmatic. Subjectivism is the result of the intellectual battle which has waged between the philosophies of Idealism (actually Idea-ism) and Materialism (or Naturalism) for the past several centuries.

“According to Subjectivism (whether Idealist or Materialist), there is no such thing as objective truth (truth is relative) and there are no objectively defined, universally true principles of moral behavior (morality is relative). This has led to the current situation which is permeated with intellectual chaos, resulting in disastrous practical consequences for everyone.

“There is little doubt among knowledgeable observers that our present age is on the verge of conceptual collapse. If Subjectivism is valid, then all truth is relative, and the laws of physics and the laws of civil society are simply arbitrary. If Subjectivism is valid, then morality is merely a matter of opinion and personal taste, and personal responsibility is simply a figment of our collective imagination. Subjectivism also undermines empirical science, undermines the entire concept of jurisprudence, and undermines any attempt to promote a human and humane morality. We are all subject to the whims of the moment and are all victims of the latest public poll. (more…)

"IT is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals, that their maxims have a plausible air, and on a cursory view appear equal to first principles. They are as light and portable; they are as current as copper coin, and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest, and they are at least as useful to the worst men as to the best." -- Edmund Burke  

LOST DAYS ---- Dante Gabriel Rossetti The lost days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food but trodden into clay? Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet? Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The throats of men in Hell, who thirst alway? I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. ‘I am thyself, — what hast thou done to me?’ ‘And I — and I — thyself,’ (lo! each one saith,) ‘And thou thyself to all eternity!’  

STEVE writes:

Americans, especially white, middle-aged con-servatives, have an insatiable appetite to be conned, deceived and betrayed! They are the utter personification … and perfection of ‘golem.’

A good example — but there are legions — is this article in Breitbart last September, urging conservatives to take the vax so they can “Own the Libs.” These controlled-opposition groups couldn’t possibly be any more blatant, and utterly pathetic. Yet so many keep falling for it.

Believe me, you can always “TPECT” con-servatives.

Operation Trust (операция “Трест”[1]) was a counterintelligence operation of the State Political Directorate (GPU) of the Soviet Union. The operation, which was set up by GPU’s predecessor Cheka, ran from 1921 to 1926, set up a fake anti-Bolshevik resistance organization, “Monarchist Union of Central Russia”, MUCR (Монархическое объединение Центральной России, МОЦР), in order to help the OGPU identify real monarchists and anti-Bolsheviks.[2] The created front company was called the Moscow Municipal Credit Association.[3] (more…)

ALAN writes: I've decided to partake of the World Economic Forum's "Fourth Industrial Revolution." I am now working from home. Here are two snapshots to prove it. In the first, you will see that I am hard at work in my unmentionables as I arrange books by the Dewey Decimal System.  Afterward I was exhausted from reading all those names and numbers.  So I took a nap. When I awoke, still in my jammies (second picture), I had a brilliant inspiration for my next work project:  A Deep Research essay on the Interdimensional Intersectionality of Higher Learning, Advanced Gullibility, and Modern Advertising Slogans when correlated with phases of the moon and the paramount question: How many times can Feminist TV Anchors say “Awesome!” in a single newscast?  An alternate idea that occurred to me is a study of correlations between Fauci's bank accounts, multiple levels of no-account bureaucrats, and the astronomical increase in Americans' gullibility over the last forty years. I aim to publish my Deep Research in the Journal of Psycholinguistic Imponderables or the Journal of Nescience, Nonsense, Non-Knowledge, and Non-Entities (whichever pays more). For breaks during working hours, I watch Looney Tunes. For even better laughs, I listen to Fauci-the-Carnival Barker’s latest medical advice in each day’s new episode of Follow the Flim-Flam Artist.    It is imperative for Comrades like us to pursue such Deep Drivel…..er, I mean Deep Research…..in opposition to Dissenters who must be Debunked, Demeaned, Defamed, Denounced, Derailed, Deplored, Deplatformed, Deconstructed,…

"WHAT we most need in our day are men conscientiously and invincibly attached to principle, — God-fearing, self-respecting, nobly independent while reverencing the rights of others, — incapable of betraying their conscience, their trust, or their honor; men uniting to the vigor of body inherited from chaste and temperate ancestors and sustained by personal virtue, to the strength of soul which true piety begets, that dignified and gentle courtesy which is only the flower and perfume of Christian charity." --- True Men as We Need Them: A Book of Instruction for Men in the World, Fr. Bernard O'Reilly, 1878  

ALAN writes:

One day in 1988 my father thought about holding a re-union of his grade school classmates.  Then he acted on that idea and organized the first in a series of such re-unions that would continue for 25 years.

He had fond memories of some of the teachers in the public elementary school that he attended in the 1920s.  He and all of his classmates walked to and from school.

At one such reunion, I met a woman named Marjorie who taught in St. Louis public grade schools for decades, as did her twin sister Margaret. They worked in years when the schools in St. Louis were vastly different from what they are now (meaning: much better). (more…)

The Emancipated Housewife
— H.L. Mencken (from In Defense of Women, 1918)

“What has gone on in the United States during the past two generations is full of lessons and warnings for the rest of the world. The American housewife of an earlier day was famous for her unremitting diligence. She not only cooked, washed and ironed; she also made shift to master such more complex arts as spinning, baking and brewing. Her expertness, perhaps, never reached a high level, but at all events she made a gallant effort. But that was long, long ago, before the new enlightenment rescued her. (more…)

 THE liturgical season of Christmas continues. You probably have had it with red and green, but you may still tolerate this sublime carol by a fifteenth-century English monk who was both deaf and blind. It is set to music by the composer John Rutter. There is a flower sprung of a tree, The root thereof is called Jesse, A flower of price, There is none such in paradise. This flower is fair and fresh of hue, It fadeth never, but ever is new; The blessed branch this flower on grew Was Mary mild that bare Jesu, A flower of grace; Against all sorrow it is solace.  

GOD'S GRANDEUR --- Gerard Manley Hopkins The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.