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.  

PENELOPE writes:

The story of the 13-year-old boy in New Jersey who died on New Year’s Eve leads me to comment on something tangential, albeit very indicative of our society.

This is the what I like to term ‘Beggar Culture’ – every tragedy, every calamity, ever sick pet, sick kid, person with no health insurance, any excuse you can find now requires its own ‘Go Fund Me’ page. (more…)

"O Almighty God, who hast given unto me my father and mother, and made them to be an image of Thy authority, and love, and tender watchfulness, and hast commanded me to love, and honor, and obey them in all things; give me grace cheerfully and with my whole heart to keep this Thy law. Help me to love them fervently, to honor them truly, to yield a ready obedience to all their commands, to comply with all their wishes, to study their happiness in every thing, and to bear with patience and humility all their rebukes. Deliver me, O God, from pride, rebellion, and wilfulness, from passion and stubbornness, from sloth and carelessness. Make me diligent in all my duties and studies, and patient in all my trials; that so living, I may deserve to be Thy child, who art our Father in heaven, through Jesus Christ, Thine only Son our Lord. Amen." Source