A BRITISH COLUMBIA teacher at an elite private school mentioned to his class that he disapproved of abortion and was subsequently subject to days of ritual humiliation and forced contrition before he was fired from his job. Christie Blatchford at The National Post reports:

“When I didn’t show contrition,” he said, “I was summoned upstairs and grilled by two administrators who told me my job was on the line.”

Now panicking — he has a family to support and had just recently returned to teaching after several years in business with a relative — he apologized profusely and promised to apologize the next day to the offended student. (more…)

[WARNING: Disturbing images.] PHOTOS of a 2011 fundraising gala at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles exemplify the work of the Serbian "performance artist" Marina Abramovic, now famous for inviting Clinton campaign chair John Podesta to a "spirit cooking" dinner. At the gala, cakes were made to look like dead bodies. They were sliced by Abramovic in a red dress wielding an enormous knife. The female guests were all asked to wear lab coats. The centerpieces were live heads, which were considered a bit "exploitative" by some of the artists in attendance. A total of 750 guests paid $2,500 a piece to attend the dinner. With its hatred of beauty, modern art leads to the worship of death and demons. It doesn't matter whether this was all just "performance art." All Satanic ritual is performance art.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception (more…)

"The family has become a subversive institution, almost an underground conspiracy, at war with the state and the state-sponsored culture." -- CONTRA @VistaContra

S.M. HUTCHENS writes at Touchstone:

I have for many years dealt with feminism, particularly in its religious form, as an adversary, regarding it as an enemy of the human race because it is the enemy of half its members.  If I were to be asked to explain briefly what it is, and what is wrong with it, I would reply it is a form of utopianism, essentially an insanity, founded on refusal to accept the male as male.

If the lovely, but very young, Emma Watson wonders out loud before a United Nations audience why so many strangely take feminism for man-hating, the answer is that even if someone feels no ill-will toward men in general, but supports programs that proscribe maleness in accordance with a formula that makes them “equal” to women despite their manifest differences, this denies their being as male and prohibits them from exercising it. What better practical example might there be of hatred, especially interesting among those who invariably find it among people who refuse to accept sexual deviation as personal identity?  What about granting the same to men who will not submit to castration? (more…)

WHEN a white, male presidential candidate used a crude and demeaning term for female anatomy (in a private discussion), feminists cried, "Misogyny!" When a group of NGO-financed, feminist agitators known as ''Pussy Riot" use the same term -- and much worse -- as they trounce around naked in public places to protest the remaining shreds of sanity and social order, they are considered valiant defenders of freedom. (See more here. Warning: Obscene images.)

A READER sent this post by Aedon Cassiel, who examines the evidence that John Podesta and others connected to Hillary Clinton are pedophiles: (more…)

It is one among many stories; only it happens to be a true story. It is one among many philosophies; only it happens to be the truth. We accept it; and the ground is solid under our feet and the road is open before us. It does not imprison us in a dream of destiny or a consciousness of the universal delusion. It opens to us not only incredible heavens, but what seems to some an equally incredible earth, and makes it credible. This is the sort of truth that is hard to explain because it is a fact; but it is a fact to which we can call witnesses. We are Christians and Catholics not because we worship a key, but because we have passed a door; and felt the wind that is the trumpet of liberty blow over the land of the living. --- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man. Ignatius Press, 1993; p. 249  

THIS video is from 2011, but the phenomenon continues.  (more…)

WHEN I STOPPED at a “natural foods” market recently to pick up a few things and went to the checkout, I had the feeling, just the sense as I was standing there and my purchases were being rung up, that someone was looking intently at me. I looked up and realized it was the young man, about 20 years old, packing my groceries. I believe he wanted me to look at him. And once I did, he smiled as if he was relieved. He thanked me in a friendly way; I thanked him. And I left.

But as I left, I tried to process his strangeness. I then realized he was not a man, but a young woman who was impersonating a man. That explained her apparent desire for me to look at her. If you have gone to extreme lengths to change your appearance, it is only natural that you would want people to see you. She obviously had had surgery and hormone treatment (there was a slight beard on her chin). But recalling her arms, hands and face, I knew they had the unmistakable, delicate skeletal structure of the female body, which cannot be altered by surgery.

It was not surprising to see someone who had undergone the deception known as a “sex change” in a natural foods market.

These places are frequented by people who believe in absolutely natural, organic conditions for plants and animals. But they do not believe consistently in the same conditions for human beings.

It’s important for a chicken to be natural, but a human being can impose the most artificial, dangerous conditions on himself for certain acceptable reasons related to sexual identity and autonomy. Toxic birth control, mutilating surgery, hormones that destroy fertility and cause cancer — these are okay for human beings, even in a store devoted to free-range poultry.

I was saddened by this woman’s condition. She will probably never be able to have children. And she may have life-long damage from hormones and drugs. She may very well die from cancer, all to indulge adolescent confusion.

And to top it off, there is no convincing proof that sex change operations remove serious psychological distress in people like her in the long run. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary. This young woman was the victim of a very sinister hoax. How can one not feel angry at her condition? Her parents probably funded her transformation. It’s one thing to let your child go through a phase of radical clothing. It’s another to let her physically mutilate herself in a permanent, irreparable way. Doctors apparently violated fundamental medical ethics on her supposed behalf.

But then great lies have been employed to convince the clueless and the willfully stupid that this is right. The ultimate goal of “transgenderism” is clearly not to help the weak and confused. In fact, it hurts them. Even people who have been otherwise supportive of the sexual revolution are uncomfortable with these deceptions.

Alex P. Serritella is a California schoolteacher, a liberal who was nevertheless so taken aback by the widespread and sudden acceptance of transgenderism that he decided to look closely at the subject. In his book, Transgenda:  Abuse and Regret in the Sex Change Industry, he makes these important points. He has produced a common sense, well-researched critique of this disturbing phenomenon, which, as he rightly says, is going to damage many more lives. Again, Serritella is a liberal who believes homosexuality is not harmful (though the evidence that it is physically, psychologically and spiritually harmful is abundant.) But he has regrets and the sort of indignation that should be everywhere:

In the past I always supported gay rights. I was never an activist, but when it came up in conversation, I always stood up for them. Although I have no interest in it myself, I always thought that I should defend other people’s personal rights. I figured that if it’s consenting adults, indoors, and safe, then people should just leave them alone. It was a matter of principle. It was the “do unto others” philosophy. I didn’t want to be self‐righteous or judgmental. Even when the gay marriage debate was an issue, I still went along with it. It seemed weird, but I considered it their own private business.

But now I see where it has led and I am getting a different view of the whole thing. I see more of the overall picture now.

[….]

I wonder if I may have inadvertently supported this thing. If that’s the case, then I hope that this book will atone for it. (more…)

AN INDIAN reader, just baptized as a Catholic, writes:

Worshipping idols, be they human, semi-human or animal transforms the heart into stone and the mind into whatever one is worshipping which is NEVER the One True God. In this state it is impossible to love, but idolizing everyone and everything, including oneself, becomes the dominant emotion, feeling and state of being. It is death and the results of such ‘life’ are there for the world to see. (more…)

THE Saker counters the argument that Donald Trump is only a "showman" preparing us for war. Don't miss the writer's interesting comments on Russia and the USA. Does anybody in Washington DC really think that two decades of rabid russophobia have suddenly been forgotten or that anybody in Russia will ever trust a word coming out of an American politician’s mouth?  For the past two years Russia has been scrambling to prepare for war against the USA and NATO.  Now that the danger of President Hillary has almost certainly passed, yes – the Russians are delighted that a thermonuclear war has become unlikely.  But they will never forget how close it came and they will most definitely not stop their preparations.

A poem about snow and the wretchedness of one human being:

Beautiful Snow

—- John Whitaker Watson (1824-1890)

O THE SNOW, the beautiful snow
Filling the sky and the earth below!
Over the house-tops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet,
Dancing,
Flirting,
Skimming along.
Beautiful snow! it can do nothing wrong.
Flying to kiss a fair lady’s cheek;
Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak;
Beautiful snow, from the heavens above,
Pure as an angel and fickle as love! (more…)

STEVE writes:

Here is an excerpt from a column by Jonathan Emord at News with Views, where he writes of annihilating the city (and people) of Tehran: (more…)

WHEELER writes:

I know you share my disdain for the alleged “food” called pizza. I was wondering if you’ve read or followed any of the allegations about pedophilic sex rings in the Clinton circles, dubbed “Pizzagate?” It’s an offshoot of some of the Wikileaks stuff. I won’t feed you any links, because I know you like doing your own research….just curious if you’d heard/thought about this vile possibility.

May you and your family be blessed during this season of Advent. (more…)

A GROUP of veterans and other patriots are planning a second protest at Hampshire College in Massachusetts for this Sunday after the school removed the American flag from campus flagpoles after the election of Trump. Hundreds attended a protest last Sunday. The turnout must have been a shocking development for faculty and students at the expensive, private school, which receives federal aid. They are accustomed to being on the side of protestors. The flag has been of concern since last year when a group of faculty of color sent a letter to [President Jonathan] Lash after the flag was lowered to half-staff following a terrorist attack in Paris but not lowered after an attack in Beirut. That, the faculty members wrote, conveyed the message that "not all bodies are equally grievable ... not all lives matter equally." The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president rekindled the discussion, but the removal of the flag was not a political statement, Lash said.

A TOTAL of 85 languages are spoken in Buffalo public schools. From The Buffalo News:

Yakub speaks Somali; Faustina Palmatier speaks Burmese; Laura Revilla speaks Spanish; Eh Knyaw speaks Karen; Nagham Ar-Rawi speaks Arabic; and Lamin Tamang speaks Nepali. All six share space in a room near the entrance to the [language] center. (more…)