EVERY day, at this time of year, hummingbirds appear in our backyard — just a few ruby-throated hummingbirds, not the hordes this blackberry farmer attracted to his fields.

Hummingbirds are extremely popular creatures, but we don’t entice them to our yard with feeders. They just appear, spending less than a minute at a time but coming many times during the course of the day, whirring and hovering, drilling with their fantastic, needle-shaped beaks into the tubular salvia blossoms and other flowers, taking away with their speedy, trademark sips the nectar that sustains them or grabbing a few barely visible insects.

For many years the hummingbirds were afraid of us and as soon as we walked out the back door they would fly away in a flash. Now we can stand a few inches away and they don’t flee. I don’t know why this is. I assume different birds come each year, but then hummingbirds can live as long as nine years, so perhaps it is possible, after traveling thousands of miles from Central America in the spring, they come back to the same yard — and have gotten used to us. I don’t know whether this is possible. I only know I can now stand close to them, look right into their jet black eyes, see the details of their emerald backs and iridescent, red or white throats — and hear the whirring of their wings, which move so fast they cannot be seen by the human eye and make the birds appear as if suspended in air. When I’m weeding, I sometimes hear the tiny, humming motors passing very close to my ears. They don’t seem to mind my presence. Maybe some hummingbirds are just not as fearful as others. (more…)

JEFF GREEN analyzes a recent piece in the news that advocates forcing the "unvaccinated" to pay for damages. This is a rant, but a good one.  

WHEN I WAS in my thirties, I began to read books differently. I felt a bit guilty about doing things this way, but, what the heck, no one was looking over my shoulders. I didn’t have anyone to please when it came to reading but myself.

I would pick up a book and check out the title page. Then, as long as it was non-fiction, I would go right to the end. I would read some of the very last chapter, usually a few paragraphs or, if interested, a few pages.

I would then go to the middle of the book, and read a few pages or paragraphs. After that, I would read the table of contents and scan the entire book quickly, with my thumb on the edge of the pages, and stop here and there, looking at chapter headings and random paragraphs. Maybe I would stop for a while in one place.

Finally, I would read some of the beginning. If the book seemed worth reading, I would later start from the very beginning and read the book in the conventional way, from start to finish.

To this day, I start many books at the end, whether they are digital or hard versions.

This method is very similar to one described by the late Mortimer Adler in his book How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, which I later encountered and which made me realize that it was okay to do things this way with certain types of books. (more…)

EVER since my hosting company updated some of its software, the archives on this site have not been working well. If you search for posts using keywords or subjects, you may not find them. The problem is that the "theme," or framework, for this site cannot be updated by me and it has not been updated in a while. I am hoping to resolve these problems in the next few weeks, either by updating the theme or transferring the content to a new one. In the meantime, you may have difficulty finding past posts. You can always write to me and I will try to find them for you.  

CONFITEOR DEO writes from Paris: A few weeks ago in France, the retired General Dominique Delawarde appeared on CNews, a supposedly conservative news TV station, where he was pressed to reply to the question, "Who controls the media?" The aggressive, kosher journalist, who looks like a clone of Leon Trotsky, pressed him with the word "Qui?" (Translation: "Who?") and even if the General didn't reply exactly, his response was enough to get the interview shut down and motivate the interviewer into attacking the terrible behavior of the General, who will never be invited on CNews again. Of course the General is facing a charge of anti-semitism, but this isn't the end of the story. The word "Qui" is now being brandished quite often in the anti-Covid demonstrations. The government is working to introduce a pass that will prevent the "unvaccinated" from entering businesses. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets. On Saturday, the 7th of August, Cassandre Fristot demonstrated in the city of Metz with a placard asking "Qui?" and listing 11 names. The media hysteria is quite something and Cassandre Fristot was identified and arrested yesterday morning. So today, in France, the question "Qui?" (Who?) is now officially a crime. We need to remember Cassandre Fristot, who is Catholic, in our prayers. She has been on the right side of truth for many years.  

IN CHARLOTTE, N.C., hundreds turn out to protest mandatory jabs. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

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FROM JUNE of this year, this outstanding article by Brenton Sanderson at Occidental Observer looks at the “competitive victimhood” of Jews and the untold damage it has done to America.

Sanderson highlights the militant, cultish arrogance of Jews who are obsessed with their alleged victimization while simultaneously possessing elite status in America and their complete lack of empathy for those whom they (falsely) view as their victimizers, especially under the heady (and fictitious) narrative of the Holocaust, with which they are fed from early childhood and which becomes a story of their own saintliness: (more…)

I WAS visiting a mountain nature center recently and was browsing through its small bookstore when I picked up a book about mountain lovers. It had profiles of different people. In the book was an article about the well-known mountaineer and photographer Brad Washburn.

Fully aware of the infiltration of ideology into the intellectual sport of nature loving, I warily began to read a bit, while standing there for a few minutes, about Mr. Washburn’s life and his views of the mountains.

It was not long before I encountered the inevitable poison.

Mr. Washburn, who died in 2007, had a lifelong passion for mountains. This romantic fixation co-existed with an alarming hatred of people. I don’t have his exact words, but his diatribe against “over-population” left no room for doubt about his beliefs. The mountains were being ruined, Washburn said. They weren’t being destroyed because of careless hiking practices. They were being ruined because too many people existed. Where once only a few hiked, now there were thousands. He mentioned one difficult summit in Alaska that now saw some 1,100 hikers a year. Ghastly. (more…)

IF YOU knew nothing about nature and someone showed you the seed of a tree and told you that this small winged seed could grow into a towering tree as tall as 90 feet and as wide as 40 feet, would you believe it? Would it be possible even to believe it? The person who told you about the tree could not prove he was right for years. In the meantime, he might seem delusional or a little bit off. Ideas are like that. They seem insignificant. They are so small they have no material existence. Some people can live their whole lives disbelieving in them. Ideas are mere rumors. They have no consequences. It is self-indulgence to think and to dream. If someone explained an idea or immaterial fact to these disbelievers and told them that this idea or fact could build  -- or wreck -- an entire civilization it would be as impossible for them to believe as it would be for some to believe that a gigantic tree comes from a small pod. There's something equally absurd about the gardener and the thinker. They live in the imagination. They have faith in the unseen. The non-existent is often more real than the existent. They believe the insignificant is not insignificant. It has consequences.