"EVERYONE with a message nowadays is, like my venerable European friend, eager to take it to the masses. His first, last and only thought is of mass acceptance and mass approval. His great care is to put his doctrine in such shape as will capture the masses' attention and interest. This attitude towards the masses is so exclusive, so devout, that one is reminded of the troglodytic monster described by Plato, and the assiduous crowd at the entrance to its cave, trying obsequiously to placate it and win its favor, trying to interpret its inarticulate noises, trying to find out what it wants, and eagerly offering it all sorts of things that they think might strike its fancy. "The main trouble with all this is its reaction upon the mission itself. It necessitates an opportunist sophistication of one's doctrine, which profoundly alters its character and reduces it to a mere placebo. If, say, you are a preacher, you wish to attract as large a congregation as you can, which means an appeal to the masses; and this, in turn, means adapting the terms of your message to the order of intellect and character that the masses exhibit. If you are an educator, say with a college on your hands, you wish to get as many students as possible, and you whittle down your requirements accordingly. If a writer, you aim at getting many readers; if a publisher, many purchasers; if a…

  PIE LOVERS unite!! Some wish to fetishize pie. Others wish to demonize it. Some say it can only be made with the most precious of ingredients. Others make the claim that store-bought pies, which may be the best we can do at times, are just as good as homemade. Some say it is too fattening. Others say it's okay to have any time. Reject extremes. Love pie as the traditional and exceptional delicacy it is, unhealthy to eat every day or often, but so woven into our cultural history that to live entirely without pie is to live as a permanent exile, adrift and cut off from your own civilization with an existential hunger that cannot be satisfied. Pie is soul food, but don't put it on a pedestal. Please, don't ever be afraid to make it yourself! Lock yourself in a room with butter, shortening (or lard) and flour if you must. But make it!! Baking expert Abby Dodge explains in this excellent video how to use the French technique called fraisage to make a flaky pie crust. It's important to move quickly when doing this so the butter doesn't get too soft or start to melt from the heat of your hands. (Note: Wrap dough in wax paper rather than plastic wrap as she suggests.)

  "EVERY AGE is not as good as every other, but all ages are Christian ages, and there is one which for us, and in practice, surpasses them all: our own. In view of it, are our inborn resources, our graces of to-day and to-morrow, and consequently the efforts that we must make in order to correspond with them. "Let us not be like those people who always seem to be pallbearers at the funeral of the past. Let us utilize, by living, the qualities of the dead. Truth is ever new. Like the grass of morning moist with glistening dew, all the old virtues are waiting to spring up afresh. God does not grow old. We must help our God to renew, not the buried past and the chronicles of a vanished world, but the eternal face of the earth." ---- A.D. Sertillanges, O.P., The Intellectual Life  

SO MUCH has changed — but not pumpkin pie. The basic recipe, which is essentially pudding in a crust, was used by colonists in Early America. It is very easy to make. There are literally thousands of recipes online, most of them following the basic formula. (I prefer to bake the crust partially before filling and baking again.) The Library of Congress has a history by Ellen Terrell.

And here’s an ode to pumpkin pie by the fiery abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier, who writes,

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie? (more…)

ALAN writes:

This essay began as a reminiscence I wrote for my 8^th-grade classmates.

There was grey overcast with light rain in St. Louis on that Friday in November 1963. My classmates and I were seated in our classroom on the second floor of the “new” St. Anthony of Padua school building, just down the street from Behrmann’s Tavern. It was early afternoon when our teacher, Sister Rita Bernard, told us something we never imagined we would hear.

At that same time, my mother was shopping at the Sears-Roebuck department store, less than a mile away. She was on the second floor when she saw people walking over to the area where television sets were on display. So she followed them to find out why so many people were congregating there. That is how she learned that President Kennedy had been shot.

Those who fawned over the Kennedy Family and those who demonized them left me equally unimpressed. Had I been old enough in those years to understand such things, I would have opposed certain ideas and policies promoted by the Kennedy administration. But that does not alter the horror of that weekend or its effect on American life. Regardless of one’s estimate of John Kennedy, his family, or his administration, a political murder had been committed, in response to which the federal government staged a pretend “investigation” and the “independent, watchdog press” revealed an astounding degree of incuriosity. (more…)

  FOR BETTER OR WORSE, much of this practical advice from a 19th-century housewife is outdated, but the spirit of frugality and domestic care it represents remain as important as ever. IF you would avoid waste in your family, attend to the following rules, and do not despise them because they appear so unimportant: 'many a little makes a mickle.'  

ROGER DEVLIN has written a piece about Our Borders, Ourselves: America in the Age of Multiculturalism by the late Lawrence Auster. You can find it at VDare. Devlin's thoughtful summary of the book is well worth reading. (One correction: There were small publishers interested in this book. Their ideological positions were too incompatible with Mr. Auster's.) Revolutionary regimes define themselves by endlessly demonizing the regime they have deposed. Under its Communist government, China used to stage lavish theatrical productions in which the stock figure of the piggish capitalist landlord served as a hate object that legitimized the regime. The landlords played this important symbolic role even though they no longer existed, having all been exterminated. In a similar fashion, we can expect that multicultural America will continue to demonize the white man and his works long after whites have been pushed aside. -- Lawrence Auster, Our Borders, Ourselves: America in the Age of Multiculturalism    

I'VE never been to the Dahlia Bakery in Seattle, but I have the cookbook produced by Tom Douglas, the owner. The recipes are mostly versions of traditional American cakes, pies and cookies -- and the ones I have tried are all very good. The recipe for Hot Buttered Rum Apple Pie is especially good and it is a great option for Thanksgiving. You can find it online here. This is one of the best recipes I have ever made.   This recipe is definitely more work than ordinary apple pies. The apples are cooked ahead of time on top of the stove in two separate pans so it not only takes more time, it creates more dirty dishes. The crust calls for pastry flour and all-purpose flour. "Cake flour" is basically the same thing. If you use lard instead of the shortening called for in the recipe, the crust will be even better tasting, but this is already a very rich pie and it obviously will not be healthier to use lard. Making pies can be frustrating. The recipe is often not an accurate guide to how much water you should use in the crust. The dough should be wet enough to come together throughout while remaining just on the verge of crumbling apart. It should not be so wet that it becomes a solid chunk. The flakiness depends on the right quantity of water and how much you handle…

  "A COMPREHENSIVE Examination of Conscience based on Twelve Virtues" by Rev. Donald F. Miller C.SS.R, is a very helpful and systematic list of mortal and venial sins, along with reflections and prayers. It's not easy to get to heaven. But it sure beats the alternative. Please read the introduction first. (There's an especial warning there for people who are scrupulous and doubt God's mercy and love. Those who fall into despair or obsessive regret over their sins are lacking in confidence in God.)  

THE often-reported increase in bullying by children, especially on social media, is connected to their sexualization at an early age. Pauly Fongemie makes this brilliant observation in a 2014 article titled “Empathy: the Destruction of the Latency Period in Children and the Rise of Bullying.”

Fongemie contends exposure to sexual topics — the sort of exposure that is common in most schools today — “short-circuits” development of the higher faculties in a child, particularly the faculty of empathy. Children cannot easily grow in compassion and understanding of others when their attention is diverted to sex:

A lack of empathy or a reduced sense of compassion is always accompanied by a loss of innocence that is magnified by sexualization, even prior to engaging in acts that belong only in marriage.

Those well-meaning professionals who want to see an end to bullying, for instance, will cite the social media, etc. Rather than the cause, these communication outlets are more easily used to corrupt because a priori the lack of a good conscience is already absent or so malformed, that the person is predisposed to play the bully. Social media makes bullying more enticing and available, but it is not the cause in of itself. The focus on “sex education” between the years of 7 and 12, rather than defuse childhood sensuality and its perils, stirs them up because at this age the child is only starting to develop competence and self-mastery which includes conscience and empathy.  [emphasis added]

Adults wonder at the rise of feral behavior and expect children to be civilized and kind to their peers. At the same time, they think nothing of children being exposed to loud, sexually explicit songs in every retail store. (more…)

STEVE writes:

This article by James Barrett most definitely has a liberal bias, which I obviously don’t agree with, but it does make an excellent observation about mighty-rightie, tighty-whitey, right-whingers, in their obsession with Nietzschean ubermenschness, especially their mistaken, arrogant belief that they can will (or, more accurately, conjure) something into existence.. They emphatically cannot.

The only true ubermensch is the Lord Jesus Christ. (more…)

“SOCIALISM was never meant to be a system to ‘help the people’. It is, from its inception, a system of mass management of populations, on behalf of a self-appointed governing class, the “intelligentsia”. It’s a system by which that governing class uses the powers of the state to take control over (and from then on, manage) each and every aspect of society, according to its own particular whims.

“It was born out of the 19th century ideologies of “scientific/rationalist management of society”, under which individual liberty could not be tolerated, and social life had to be entirely regimented, and planned, by the ruling class. That meant *everything* would ultimately be defined by the state: economics, social creeds (including religion), politics, social habits, and even population size and composition, through the practice of population control and state-run eugenics, among certain groups (abortion, sterilization, euthanasia).

“The endgame of socialism is to have a system where the individual will “only be allowed to exist in order to serve the state (as was stated by top socialists like Trotsky, GB Shaw or HG Wells). That is, under full-fledged socialism you will only be allowed to exist if you willingly serve the ruling class that sets up and manages the all-powerful state on its own behalf.

“So, the big lie here is that socialism is ‘meant to help the people’. No, it’s not. It’s a crafty way of regimenting the people to work and be slaves for a system, on behalf of a top intelligentsia.

“That is why, throughout history, socialist systems only go after personal independence and the middle classes. They rarely ever hunt down the big banking and mercantile interests.” Source

PART 2 here (more…)

  [WARNING: Do not watch this commercial with children in the room.] IN THIS ad from Coca Cola, mothers (and one father) prepare their sons for a pride parade. With the right lighting, the right acting, the right cinematic skill, and the right emotions, anything can be made to look good.

THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES
— Rudyard Kipling

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
‘Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. (more…)

AMERICA is a wasteland of political junkies.

Every morning, or as often as possible, Democrats inject hatred of Trump into their veins. Ooh! Aah! Without that, they wouldn’t feel alive. Republicans toss needles to the ground after a fresh dose of hatred of Trump haters.

The impeachment effort is perfect for all involved. It gets everybody high.

Trump, the crude and blasphemous egomaniac who didn’t make things new, was losing support from his base. The impeachment process has possibly saved him for another term. Now he’s anti-establishment again!

As for Democrats, they are tantalizingly close to maximum revenge. The street price of a high hasn’t been this low in years.

Despite all this sectarian fervor, the difference between the country we would get with a Democrat and the country we would get with a Republican is very small. I know a lot of others have said this and it seems hard to believe, but it’s true. The cards are stacked against all of us. No matter who wins, millions of children will still go to schools where they are taught to be political junkies rather than to think. The economy will still be based on debt. We will be just as materialistic and conformist, utterly frightened by the prospect of being different or “kooky.” Our elections will still be controlled. We will have big government and high immigration and the abortion industry and fake news and a total absence of leisure and war and drag queens at the library either way.

The impeachment is theater, something to watch and to feed the cravings of addicts. It’s drugs, not democracy.

So what can you do?

You can carry your cross instead of trying to escape it. (more…)

FROM the desk of Daren Jonescu:

A follow-up on the story of Canada’s use of famous hockey commentator Don Cherry as their “Goldstein,” the enemy-of-convenience at whom everyone in Orwell’s Oceania is encouraged to shout invective for two minutes, just to purge all negative feelings by spewing them at an outsider, rather than fomenting anger against the oppressive State.

I see that Bobby Orr, whom Cherry coached during the final years of his career as a Boston Bruin, when he was arguably the best player in the NHL, has stepped up to defend his old coach and friend in an American radio interview.

He’s not a bigot and he’s not a racist. This guy is the most generous, caring guy that I know. What they’ve done to him up there is disgraceful, it really is. It’s a new world I guess. Freedom of speech doesn’t matter. (more…)