DON'T DIE, dear reader. Please don't die. I am experienced enough with this regrettable phenomenon to advise you -- without hesitation or doubt -- that you should not die. Do something else instead. Go for a walk in the woods. Get a haircut. Have a glass of wine or start a new hobby or write poetry. Anything, for Pete's sake. But, die? It's not worth it. Interesting yes, but not worth the trouble. If death comes knocking at your door, politely decline. There are some experiences you don't need on your resumé. But ... you must die someday, you say? "I have no choice," you say? Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. Well, in that case, it is my editorial duty to inform you that if you must die, you must strive to do it well. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. But only at your finest. How, you might ask, can you die well? That's a good question. Now that I think of it, the answer is lengthy. Let's start with one small and essential tip: Don't wait till the last minute. Procrastination is risky, and besides it takes a long time to die well in many cases. Start now. Everyday, without fail, for a few moments, contemplate your own death. Even if you are smart and young and busy and active with a hundred plans for tomorrow. Contemplate your own death. That's a morbid subject, you say!…

ARCHITECT Joel Sanders wants to reinvent the public restroom.

Sanders presented his vision in a recent interview with the architecture critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer. His brave, new designs eliminate old-fashioned and oppressive sex-segregation in lavatories.

Warning: Please approach Mr. Sanders’ words with a mirror. His frequent suggestions that human beings were psychologically sick because they believed in sex-segregated accommodations for this basic process reveal the sickness of a certain distressingly common state of mind —  a mind haughty enough to deem universal public opinion wrong.

From the interview:

I’m interested in bathrooms, and have been for the past 20 years, because [I want to make loads of money] they exemplify the way in which everyday common spaces reflect our cultural values. The bathroom is where social, political, psychological, technological, and legal forces all converge. Bathrooms tend to be the most expensive room per square foot [loads of money], yet we tend to take them for granted. The bathroom is just one way designed environments shape how the body interacts with space, yet architects often forget that what we’re supposed to be designing for the human body. It’s perhaps the most intimate architectural space we inhabit.

His plan?

We advocate a multi-stall solution that treats the public restroom as one single open space.  No longer will gender non-conforming people have to choose between two unacceptable options .

Instead, the gender conforming will have only one unacceptable option.

It’s a communal space based on the model of the agora, which encourages mixing.

Ancient Greece was one of the most sex-segregated societies in history. Nice trick though to conjure a traditionalist, relatively appealing society when you are planning to introduce some modern, soulless form of perversion. Rather than the agora, Mr. Sanders design is more reminiscent of the cow barn.

Animals relieve themselves with no concern for sex differences or hang-ups about modesty. In this age of mass herding, our restrooms will be even more cattle-like as well. (more…)

  MICHAEL WATSON writes at the Clifford Hugh Douglas Institute, which is dedicated to the promotion of the economic theory known as Social Credit: In our modern, fast-paced society that holds servile work and the fanatical pursuit of money to be the primary aim of our very existence, every adult man and woman must have a paid ‘job’ in order to survive and feel ‘dignified’ lest they suffer the curse of unemployment and the poverty and stigma associated with it, and this despite, or perhaps because of, the paltry and condescending ‘dole’ payments the state may hand out to them. We are not only expected to work, we are expected to compete and battle with one another to get that job or to obtain that promotion in order earn the money to pay those expensive bills and to purchase those precious goods that we need to survive and thrive. We must climb that corporate ladder or work that extra hour just to get those few extra dollars to pay off that mortgage or to make one’s marriage last just a little bit longer.      Everything else apart from that is an irrelevance. Leisure, that is free time in which activities that do not involve working in some sort of servile occupation that serves some financial or materialistic end, is deemed ‘useless’, a sign of childishness, unimportant and is even open to outright scorn or viewed as devilish idolatry by our…

  "The recognize-and-resist people are sedevacantists in practice. Indeed they are. The problem is, however, that to be a sedevacantist in practice while verbally acknowledging Francis as Pope, does grave violence to the Catholic teaching on the Papacy, precisely because “Pope” is not simply an honorary title with no substantial meaning (as in Theodosius’ mere “nod that he is the one in Peter’s see”), as though nothing of consequence followed from holding the papal office. Indeed, to ascribe the Papacy to someone is to affirm of him all that Catholic doctrine affirms of the Papacy — and that is a lot more than simply the charism of infallibility when making ex cathedra statements ...." --- "Anything but Sedevacantism," Novus Ordo Watch

  Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus. As a hart longs for the flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God. [Recommended by Samuel Willodson]

FOR THE third time since January, Donald Trump today commemorated the “Holocaust.” In a passionate speech at the Capitol Building, the president promoted the falsehood that six million Jews were killed in gas chambers, eulogized the proven fraud and profiteer Elie Wiesel, viciously defamed the German people, misrepresented the sacrifices of American soldiers in World War II and smeared historians and scientists who have sought accuracy with the slur “Holocaust denier.” Trump used quasi-biblical language to describe the creation of the theocracy of modern-day Israel, which, he said, had “arisen from the desert,” as if miraculously, when, in fact, it arose through international political machinations, war, theft, terrorism and mass expulsions.

There are four categories — make that five — (with some overlap) of people who endorse the popularized version of the “Holocaust:” the intellectually lazy, the gullible, the fearful, the distracted and the deceitful. Trump appears to fit into the last category. It defies belief that he could not know of the voluminous evidence — such as that provided by the Committee for Open Debate of the Holocaust — available at the click of a mouse.

No order commanding the extermination of Jews by the Hitler government has ever been found. No convincing evidence of gas chambers has ever been located and evidence that there could not have been homicidal gas chambers in detention camps such as Auschwitz is overwhelming. Zyklon B was a delousing agent used to prevent the spread of typhus and to protect Jewish inmates of labor camps. No mass graves have been found. No bodies with traces of lethal gas have been found. No ovens that could have processed so many bodies have been found. According to statistics provided by Jewish organizations, the Jewish population was 15,748,091 worldwide in 1938 and 15,753,638 in 1948. Official accounts of the number who perished have been quietly and repeatedly revised by the millions downward and yet these revisions are never called “Holocaust denials” or taken into account in the “six million” story. The revisers of these figures have never spent time in jail, as has the 87-year-old German woman Ursula Haverbeck, whose offense was openly writing about the evidence, or been beaten up by Jewish thugs, as was the French historian Dr. Robert Faurisson (below).

Some “Holocaust” survivors (the abundance of survivors being yet another clue) promoted by the media have even admitted to fabricating stories. See more here.

The stench of this holy tale is overwhelming. Trump’s foremost loyalties lie with Israel, not America.

(more…)

PAUL C. writes:

This is a long rambling article.  The point is that Southern people love grits, and Obama took them away for “whole grains.”  Grits are just corn for goodness sake.  Who doesn’t love a nice buttered, salted piece of boiled corn on the cob?   (There is an entertaining movie starring Johnny Depp 2004, in which he loves corn on the cob.  You need to like Johnny Depp to like the movie, I suspect.)

Grits are very tricky to cook.  African Americans always get it right.  Some whites (at least my mother and grandmother) get it right.  I have done it successfully, but I usually find a good source, and buy them cooked.  They are cheap, cheap for heaps of the stuff.  I do plan to practice, so I can cook them right for myself.  The worst is when they are watery.  My family did not use butter on the stove; we each added butter later according to our tastes.  I added little and still do now only because of the supposed bad effects of butter (margarine).  But when I buy retail, I love them no matter how much butter.  I could eat a ton but don’t in order to guard against weight gain.  They are like rice to Asians.  You can’t get tired of them.

I hate when people add cheese or other newfangled stuff to them.  (more…)

THE mainstream news is presenting the results of the first round of the French presidential election as an “earthquake.”

In fact, the sudden rise of the relatively young investment banker, Emmanuel Macron, 39, who is likely to triumph over nationalist Marine Le Pen (always identified as “far right” by journalists) in the final election on May 7, is a victory for the establishment. As the French writer Yves Daodaul put it, Macron is “a doormat of the financiers.”

Recommended reading: Galliawatch, and “Emmanuel Macron: Rothschild’s Choice for President of France.”

Tiberge at Galliawatch writes:

[T]he candidates have defects, but Marine’s are not the catastrophic defects of Macron/Mélenchon [Melanchon was also a candidate in the recent run off] that would mean the end of France as a sovereign nation, either through submission to Brussels (which is already a fact) or through a return to the forefront of French politics of undiluted Communism.

French presidents of recent times have been extremely poor models in their private lives. Macron is no exception. (Neither is Marine Le Pen) He is “married” to a woman, Brigitte Trogneux, who is 24 years his senior. The 64-year-old Trogneux is his former teacher.  Their relationship began when Macron was a teenager and she was a married mother of three. We’re supposed to see it all as very romantic. In fact, it’s creepy.  (more…)

ELIZABETH REBECCA WARD, writing as Fay Inchfawn, produced popular verse from her home in the English village of Freshford in Somerset, mostly between the two World Wars. Here are a few of her simple and charming poems: on early spring, on domestic chores and on a thinking housewife’s day. (On the last, I cannot get the indentations right in this format.)

EARLY SPRING

— Fay Inchfawn

Quick through the gates of Fairyland
The South Wind forced his way.
‘Twas his to make the Earth forget
Her grief of yesterday.
“‘Tis mine,” cried he, “to bring her joy!”
And on his lightsome feet
In haste he slung the snowdrop bells,
Pushed past the Fairy sentinels,
And out with laughter sweet.

Clear flames of Crocus glimmered on
The shining way he went.
He whispered to the trees strange tales
Of wondrous sweet intent,
When, suddenly, his witching voice
With timbre rich and rare,
Rang through the woodlands till it cleft
Earth’s silent solitudes, and left
A Dream of Roses there! (more…)

  I HAVE BEEN especially busy the last few weeks with a dying relative who needs a lot of attention and whose care I am supervising. I hope to be back in action at the regular pace shortly.

ALAN writes:

In 2010, Laura Wood wrote that “elaborate toys are a mistake for children.”

 Elaborate toys, especially mechanical toys, deaden the imagination…

In 1895, Agnes Repplier wrote similar thoughts:

We are doing our best to stunt the imaginations of children by overloading them with illustrated story-books and elaborate playthings.

She continued:

Little John Ruskin, whose sole earthly possessions were a cart, a ball, and two boxes of wooden bricks, was infinitely better off than the small boy of today whose real engine drags a train of real cars over a miniature elevated railway, almost as ghastly as reality, and whose well-dressed soldiers cannot fight until they are wound up with a key. ‘The law was that I should find my own amusement,’ says Ruskin; and he found it readily enough in the untrammeled use of his observation, his intelligence, and his fancy.  I have known children to whom a dozen spools had a dozen distinct individualities; soldiers, priests, nuns, and prisoners of war; and to whom every chair in the nursery was a well-tried steed, familiar alike with the race-course and the Holy Land, having its own name, and requiring to be carefully stabled at night after the heroic exertions of the day.  The romances and dramas of infancy need no more setting than a Chinese play, and in that limitless dreamland the transformations are as easy as they are brilliant.  But no child can successfully ‘make believe’ when he is encumbered on every side by mechanical toys so odiously complete that they leave nothing for the imagination to supply.

                     [Agnes Repplier, In the Dozy Hours, Houghton Mifflin, 1895, pp. 52-54 ]

Both women were right.  The difference is that between 1895 and 2010, it got much worse.

Agnes Repplier was a prolific essayist, born in Philadelphia in 1855, but largely forgotten today.  She was not fond of do-gooders.  Consider what she would think if she were here now and could see the situation of American children today:  “Encumbered on every side” not only by mechanical toys, but by electronic toys, gadgets, playthings, pictures on big screens, pictures on little screens, cartoons, DVDs, movies-to-go, music videos, book CDs, video games, TV in their home, TV in their bedroom, TV in motor vehicles, TV in restaurants, TV in medical offices, and computers for kiddies. (more…)

And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought sweet spices, that coming, they might anoint Jesus. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they come to the sepulchre, the sun being now risen. And they said one to another: Who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And looking, they saw the stone rolled back. For it was very great. And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed with a white robe: and they were astonished. Who saith to them: Be not affrighted; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he is risen, he is not here, behold the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee; there you shall see him, as he told you. But they going out, fled from the sepulchre. For a trembling and fear had seized them: and they said nothing to any man; for they were afraid.  Mark 16 1-8

FROM J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion:

 Nr. 74: Rezitative (Bass)

Am Abend, da es kühle war,
Ward Adams Fallen offenbar;
Am Abend drücket ihn der Heiland nieder.
Am Abend kam die Taube wieder
Und trug ein Ölblatt in dem Munde.
O schöne Zeit! O Abendstunde!
Der Friedensschluß ist nun mit Gott gemacht,
Denn Jesus hat sein Kreuz vollbracht.
Sein Leichnam kommt zur Ruh,
Ach, liebe Seele, bitte du,
Geh, lasse dir den toten Jesum schenken,
O heilsammes, o köstlichs Angedenken!

At evening, hour of calm and peace,
Was Adams fall made manifest;
At evening, too, the Lords redeeming love.
At evening homeward turned the dove
And bore the olive-leaves as token.
O beauteous time! O evening hour!
Our lasting peace is now with God made sure,
For Jesus hath His Cross endured.
His body sinks to rest.
Go, loving servant, ask thou it,
Go, be it thine, the lifeless Saviour’s body.
O, wondrous Gift! O precious, holy burden. (more…)

    CALIGAVERUNT, third responsory of the third nocturne of Tenebrae for Good Friday. Sung by the Benedictine Monks of Solesmes.

  THE APOSTLE Peter denied Jesus Christ three times after Our Lord was arrested, as was foretold by Christ at the Last Supper: And Peter answering, said to him: Although all shall be scandalized in thee, I will never be scandalized. Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee, that in this night before the cock crow, thou wilt deny me thrice. Matt 26:33-34 "In the Judaic Imperium's inverted Holy Week Passion play, the Apostle Spicer is crucified for denying the Suffering Supremacists 3 times." (Maurice Pinay) Peter was forgiven. Spicer is done.

In the midst of life we are in death
of whom may we seek for succour,
but of thee, O Lord,
who for our sins
art justly displeased?

Yet, O Lord God most holy,
O Lord most mighty,
O holy and most merciful Saviour,
deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death. (more…)