HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! Mothers who find their lives exhausting may enjoy this diary of a 19th-century Indiana farm wife. The account may make their lives seem easy by comparison. Sarah Young Bovard brought many children into the world (12 --- though not all survived childhood) and gave herself entirely to the vocation of motherhood. She was the sustaining heart of her home before refrigerators and dishwashers helped with the work.

CHRISTOPHER writes:

We were in London in yesterday and crossed a road at Trafalgar Square when a strange pedestrian signal caught my eye. I thought I had seen something a little strange but wasn’t sure, so I went back across the road to get another look. It was exactly what I thought: an LGBT logo.

It turns out, they have been there for quite some time.

Here’s the film:

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THE fifth-century hymn Aeterne Rex altissime, on the Feast of the Ascension, is sung here by the Choir of St. John’s College. A translation by J.M. Neale:

Eternal Monarch, King most high,
whose blood hath brought redemption nigh,
by whom the death of Death was wrought,
and conquering Grace’s battle fought.

Ascending to the throne of might,
and seated at the Father’s right,
all power in heaven is Jesus’ own,
that here his manhood had not known.

That so, in nature’s triple frame,
each heavenly and each earthly name,
and things in hell’s abyss abhorred,
may bend the knee and own him Lord.

Yea, angels tremble when they see
how changed is our humanity;
that flesh hath purged what flesh had stained,
and God, the flesh of God, hath reigned. (more…)

  I say that we are wound With mercy round and round  As if with air: the same Is Mary, more by name. She, wild web, wondrous robe, Mantles the guilty globe, Since God has let dispense  Her prayers his providence: Nay, more than almoner, The sweet alms’ self is her And men are meant to share Her life as life does air. ---- Gerard Manley Hopkins, "The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe"

  SARA writes: I have been reading your blog for a while, and want to thank you for being a voice of sanity in an insane world.  I don't know what I would do without your words. It seems one of the biggest issues in today's world is what few are acknowledging.  It takes place in our skies daily and if people would just look up they would see it. Euphemistically called "geoengineering," it is the aerosol spraying of aluminum particulates, ostensibly to moderate climate change.  There is a website the explains all of this better than I ever could, done by a man who has given his life to wake people up to this global threat to all living things. [Here is Dane Wigington's introduction to the jet spraying of aerosols or "chemtrails."] The scope and implications of this demonic activity are shocking. This documentary is comprehensive, a must-watch on this issue. It is eye-opening (and disturbing); if you can take the time to watch it, you will see this health crisis approached from multiple angles.

STEPHEN IPPOLITO writes from Australia:

Kyle does  excellent work pointing out that those who so loudly and so often shriek their membership in the so-called “resistance” are the people least resistant to all forms of temptation – bodily or spiritual.

I had an experience just a week or so ago that taught me a lesson very much along the same lines.

It occurred, of all places, at the new KFC outlet in my neighborhood.

(Yes, mea culpa! I confess it: I have a weakness for the Colonel’s chicken fillet burgers – and his coleslaw too. Since its opening, it has run some great dinner specials  and that, combined with the unusually comfortable tables and chairs, has caused me to stop off there once or twice a week. In my defense, I can only plead that at least I am not at the local Pizza Hut or Dominos!)

Anyway, I was approached at my table by a lady who introduced herself as the store manager. She was accompanied by a few of the young staff from behind the counter. The manager explained that she had been told by “my kids,” (in the usual way of fast food places the staff are all about 17 or 18), that I was always very polite to them and always treated them courteously. The lady explained that very few customers did that and that “so many” customers were rude to her young staff over even minor things. She appeared a very kind, motherly lady and was protective of her young staff, (as all good mothers and true leaders are). She then presented me with  some lovely corporate freebies as a thank you. (more…)

KYLE writes:

“Resist” is the moniker of the cultural revolution and a call to action for those who share in impotent, child-like rage towards patriarchal authority. If anger qualifies for proof of their sincerity, then those who use this slogan must be for real but, does it seem that the average person resists much of anything these days? Is there a solitary moment in their daily lives when they don’t indulge their every desire?

Recent studies show that the average person touches [his] cell phone 2,617 times per day. Do they resist picking up their iPhone every 30 seconds to receive their brain treat dopamine from a text message or Facebook notification? Do they resist the urge to eat out every day of the week? Nope, as  American obesity rates have hit all-time highs according to the most recent CDC study on the prevalence of obesity among adults and youth in the United States.

We live in a world where one can purchase anything on their Amazon wish-list and have it delivered to their doorstep the next day. In the days when stores closed at 6:00 pm, if you needed an item not carried in the store, you special ordered it from the catalog and sometimes had to wait for weeks to receive it. Today you can sit in bed and do some online shopping on your iPhone before dozing off, increasing the chance of impulse purchases. Where’s the restraint in consumer spending when Americans are headed towards $1 trillion in credit card debt? (more…)

KIDIST PAULOS ASRAT, at Reclaiming Beauty, briefly analyses a photo of this year's "UN Champions of Change for Gender Equality." The vast majority of women today favor black --- the color of death. Perhaps they are unconsciously mourning their own femininity. Power masks emptiness. The UN wants women around the world to be black-clad drones. As a commenter at Tradition in Action says, in analysing a photo originally posted here: Satan's hatred for women knows no bounds. Indeed, the Prince of Darkness is immensely enjoying the spectacle of female "empowerment."

AN OREGON man has refused to pay taxes since 1999 because the American government funds abortion, Lifesite News reports. Planned Parenthood receives more than $500 million per year from the federal government, and performs more than 300,000 abortions. Federal law forbids taxpayer dollars from being directly spent on abortions, though pro-life groups argue that the money still enables abortion facilities to grow their reach and influence, and spend more revenue from other sources on abortions. “All the government has to do is put a check box on the tax forms that says check here to support Planned Parenthood, and write in your donation amount," Bowman proposed. "Then, just like any church or charity, Planned Parenthood will be funded by those that have no problem with it, and the 150 million people like me that are pro-life, can pay their taxes and live knowing we kept our conscience clean.” He vowed that he will continue his resistance as long as the government continues funding the abortion industry. More Americans should do this.

   A PRAYER IN SPRING --- Robert Frost OH, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year. Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the happy bees, The swarm dilating round the perfect trees. And make us happy in the darting bird That suddenly above the bees is heard, The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill, And off a blossom in mid air stands still. For this is love and nothing else is love, The which it is reserved for God above To sanctify to what far ends He will, But which it only needs that we fulfil.

DAN R. writes:

Apparently there is a new trend catching on among the younger generation: companies celebrating new “Dads”** with a rough equivalent of the baby shower. My niece is pregnant. Her husband works at a medium-sized tech company. Recently they held a recognition for the “Dads” whose wives are expecting a child.  Never mind that the original baby shower was a tribute to a woman becoming a mother. In the new world “dads” are just as important as “moms,” with wives nearly fully integrated into the work force. For many, being at home with the baby is barely a consideration. I was admonished by my sister to “be happy for them” and recognize that the company’s celebration was both “lovely” and “very thoughtful.” If you’re unsure of the meaning and significance of things, what better way to convince one’s self than with a celebration!

**What happened to the words “mother” and “father?”

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  ANOTHER example of the beautiful music which I came to appreciate because of my beloved father, who died this week, this is from Act III of Richard Wagner's Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), the second of the four works that form Wagner's operatic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), based on Norse mythology. Wotan, king of the gods, must punish his favorite daughter Brünhild for her disobedience. He reduces her to mortal status and decrees that she marry the first man she meets. She begs him to make it a brave man. He finds a way to answer her request. He puts her into a deep sleep on a mountaintop, surrounding her with a magic ring of fire, through which only a brave man can step. He then says goodbye to his cherished daughter.  

A "PHILOSOPHY PROFESSOR" celebrates the achievements of Karl Marx in the distinguished pages of The New York Times. The Anti-New York Times responds.

Banking is for banks, converting enterprise and hard work into bank profits with little to no effort, depriving the masses of wealth that would naturally acrue to them with mechanisation but was unnecessarily converted into bank profits because of the treachery and underhand fraud and outright criminality of a few people that went national and then global. We have the power to take this wealth back, every cent of it that was ever stolen. Mike Rivero paints it as a religion. I do not, but it relies on the power of a religion to keep the fraud hidden in plain view — the religion of witchcraft. The average wage worldwide would have had the purchasing power of $100,000 in today’s money, and that includes Africa, South America, and Asia all of which would have been allowed to develop up to the standard of Europe, North America, Australia and now China with this wealth. This wealth was and is continuing to be siphoned off by the banks to enable them to become undisputed masters of a bankrupted world. -- Comment posted here

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KYLE writes:

The Boys Scouts program will become the Scouts BSA in February 2019 to reflect the 108 year-old organization’s decision to include young women, the Boy Scouts of America announced today. Following the organization’s reversal on policies regarding homosexuals, “transgender” people and single-gender environments, the convergence of Boy Scouts is complete and it becomes another traditional American institution that has fallen to cultural Marxism.

No one who has been following news of the organization’s shifting social views is surprised by this final coffin nail. In 2013 the Boy Scouts of America voted to allow homosexual children to participate in activities–a move publicly advocated by former Secretary of State and national president of the Boy Scouts, Rex Tillerson. In January 2017 they voted to allow children to participate regardless of their sexual identification, thus opening the door for transgender children and Scout leaders. (more…)

AMERICAN composer Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings is posted here today in memory of my much-loved father and the many times he filled our lives with beautiful music.

The music is the setting for the composer’s 1967 choral arrangement of Agnus Dei, based on the invocation from the Latin Mass, recited after the Canon, when the Host and the Chalice are lifted heavenward, the unblemished and bloodless sacrifice offered in expiation for our sins.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant us peace. (more…)

LOSING A PARENT is like having a taproot severed. A cord that holds us to the ground is cut. Difficult it is for those with difficult parents, and even more so for those with good parents.

My father, William Paul Quinn, died yesterday at 11:54 a.m. in bed at home in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was 91 years old. All seven of his children were at his bedside when he took his last breaths. Having a parent for so long doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready to say goodbye. (If you know any couple who would be willing to adopt seven pre-elderly orphans, we’re open to offers.) We still need parental attention. We need parents to take care of and cherish too. The brutal fact is, we never truly outgrow the need for a father and a mother. Now both our parents are gone.

My father survived his wife of 64 years by a little over six months and spent much of that time in a recliner in his bedroom, unable to walk much, unable to control his basic functions, almost defeated, grieving, anxious to die but cheerful and interested in others nevertheless. He was mentally sharp up until the very end. The last few days he fell into a deep sleep, like a boxer who’d been flung back against the ropes for the last time. His hands were so swollen they actually looked like boxing gloves. He had put up a good fight. The bruises on his hands said so. But it was done.

Before the humiliations — and the good times — of old age, my father was a bright and accomplished attorney who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania; went to law school at the University of Pennsylvania and worked for the Reading Railroad. Then later as a partner in a firm he specialized in interstate commerce and railroads. (more…)