GAIL L. AGGEN writes:

While the mortality rate is rising among middle-aged whites who are less-educated, the more educated ones are having their own problems, as this New York Times article, Stressed, Tired, Rushed: A Portrait of the Modern Family illustrates.

Beyond the obvious answers that the dissolution of the family as it traditionally functioned is the major factor in the misery, we might consider what has led to this decline and devolution. Absolutely, the family and our traditional way of life have been shredded by elitist ideology hammering away at us with its hedonistic, anti-God, perverse agenda. I am also thinking, however, about the economic factors that have been so crucial to the family’s collapse. Who or what caused these factors is beyond my level of expertise, but I would like to share some of my thoughts, based on my own experience. (more…)

THE Army is accused of destroying records related to two of three female graduates of the elite Ranger School. The women are believed to have received preferential treatment. According to Ray Starman at U.S. Defense Watch,  There is no longer any doubt that a massive cover up is underway in the Department of Defense and the Army. As I have mentioned before, there is a political agenda driving the cover up. The White House wants women in the combat arms and special operations. Therefore, the Army, from Secretary of the Army John McHugh down to Major-General Scott Miller down to the Airborne Ranger Training Brigade command group, are involved in this conspiracy to deceive the American people, regardless of the consequences to our national security.

THE mortality rate among middle-aged, working class whites has spiked dramatically, reports The New York Times. Two Princeton professors say the change is due to suicidal behavior:

Analyzing health and mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from other sources, they concluded that rising annual death rates among this group are being driven not by the big killers like heart disease and diabetes but by an epidemic of suicides and afflictions stemming from substance abuse: alcoholic liver disease and overdoses of heroin and prescription opioids.

The analysis by Dr. [Angus] Deaton and Dr. [Ann] Case may offer the most rigorous evidence to date of both the causes and implications of a development that has been puzzling demographers in recent years: the declining health and fortunes of poorly educated American whites. In middle age, they are dying at such a high rate that they are increasing the death rate for the entire group of middle-aged white Americans, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case found.

The mortality rate for whites 45 to 54 years old with no more than a high school education increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014.

“It is difficult to find modern settings with survival losses of this magnitude,” wrote two Dartmouth economists, Ellen Meara and Jonathan S. Skinner, in a commentary to the Deaton-Case analysis to be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Wow,” said Samuel Preston, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on mortality trends and the health of populations, who was not involved in the research. “This is a vivid indication that something is awry in these American households.”

No kidding.

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I ONCE had a neighbor who worked for many years on rebuilding his house. He did a lot of the renovations himself and the place was transformed from a hideously ugly ’50s ranch house into a very attractive, two-story colonial. In time, our friend and his wife borrowed some of the equity they had accumulated on the house, equity which was generated by the increased value of the house resulting from the labor he had put into it. They borrowed the money to send their children to private school. And then they borrowed more to send them to college. And then his income declined. And then his wife left him. And then he drank too much. The bank reclaimed the house. The house he had spent years rebuilding and infusing with his own artistic personality no longer belonged to him.

Leaving aside the great injustice that was done to him through divorce, let me focus for a second on those banking transactions. The bank that held his final mortgage took the house not because it had lost any of its own real money on the house. It reclaimed it because it had not made enough money on the house. Our friend and his wife had, of course, paid tens of thousands of dollars in interest payments over the years, but they could no longer afford the credit that had been extended to them. The interesting thing about the loans they procured is this. They had put up something real — a house — to obtain the credit. The bank had put up nothing. It had risked nothing other than the opportunity to profit from extending credit elsewhere. It had simply created figures in its accounts, made money out of nothing, to make the deal with him. The credit the bank had extended to him was part of its share of the national reserve of credit that constitutes our collective goods and services. The bank takes some of the credit that rightfully belongs to all and sells it for a profit.

Something doesn’t quite make sense here, don’t you think? That’s what Jerome Daly thought when he was about to be foreclosed on his Minnesota house in 1969. He said, “Wait a minute. The bank put up nothing, and now it is taking my house.” He challenged the foreclosure in court.

In this video excerpt from a movie called Zeitgeist: Addendum (I have only seen this clip not the whole movie), the case of National Bank of Montgomery vs. Daly is explained. Jerome Daly won the day. Unlike my neighbor, he did not lose his house because the court agreed that the bank did not rightfully own it.

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A GERMAN writer contends that the "refugee crisis" in his country is an apocalyptic event and has all the hallmarks of a military intelligence operation. He writes: Even if this is a genuine refugee crisis, why is that none of the policies of the German/European government make any sense? And why is the press acting continuously and uniformly in favor of their policies, and is downright hostile toward the European populace? If millions of people have to flee immediate peril, there are a lot of different ways to care for them without endangering the integrity of Europe and ruining several national budgets. But instead of discussing what to do, how to do it and how to pay for it, the plan seemed to be predetermined, decided and fixed long ago. Notice that in the comments section the writer is sneered at and accused of exaggerating.

ANTI-GLOBALIST EXPATRIATE writes: I'd wager that feminism fatigue, the ethnic backgrounds of the bar employees, or both played at least some role in why the men in question in this incident failed to assist a woman who had been punched in the face by a man. And my guess is that she is a very obnoxious person in general (explaining the snide comments she alleges they made to her, and perhaps the initial assault itself -- she may well  have been harassing the fellow wearing the Afro wig about how his getup was 'racist'). I'll bet she supports women in combat, all the while complaining that 'three grown men' refused to help her. [Warning: Profane language, stupid people.]

  YOU can't be a self-respecting conspiracy theorist unless you delve into the activities of the CIA. Thus I offer this interesting new interview by Ron Paul with David Talbot, author of "The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government." Talbot discusses the CIA's role in manipulating events and public opinion. The Kennedy assassination is discussed but the main issue is the ongoing expansion of the CIA's subversive activities.

  Offertorio Lord Jesus Christ, glorious King, free the souls of all the faithful dead from punishment in the inferno, and from the deep pit. Deliver them from the lion's mouth, lest the abyss swallow them up, lest they fall into darkness. But may the standardbearer St. Michael bring them into the holy light, as once you promised to Abraham and his seed. Sacrifices and prayers we offer to you, Lord, with praise. Receive them for the souls of those whom today we commemorate; make them, Lord, to pass from death to life, as once you promised to Abraham and his seed. [Herbert von Karajan conducts the orchestra and choir of Teatro A La Scala in 1967 with soloists Leontyne Price, Fiorenza Cossotto, Luciano Pavarotti, and Nikolai Ghiaurov.]

WENDIE W. writes:

I couldn’t begin to express to you what your blog has meant to me, how much I enjoy it, how much I have learned, and how much I have benefitted from your writings, perspectives, and references.

Due to your recent interest, I have decided I must at least forward to you a most compelling video on the topic Building 7 that perhaps you have not yet seen.

 I remain ever grateful to you and your benefactors. (more…)

THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

I recently asked the students in my “Writing about Literature” course to compose a short essay by applying the criticisms made by Romantic writers and poets like William Wordsworth and Samuel T. Coleridge – and their modern defenders – against the purely rational society that modern people have inherited from their Enlightenment ancestors.  I asked, what would those authors say about a modern university?  In assessing the responses, it is probably a good idea to correct for the fact that students frequently write or say what they imagine the instructor wants to read or hear and for the tendency of contemporary college students to take things with alarming literalness.  Nevertheless, the responses hold out some interest.

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FATHER Francis Xavier Weninger explained in 1876 why we pray for the souls in Purgatory:

“In that abode of sorrow the departed souls hunger after the possession of God, and with so famishing a desire that nothing on earth can be compared with it. They thirst after the fountain of eternal life with that thirst which knows no comparison in this world. They suffer; poor and destitute of all worldly goods. Yea! they are even deprived of all those consolations which at times lessen our desires, and afford us moments of repose. Here upon earth, though we long and sigh ever so much after a thing, still we can sleep; and the pains produced by our heart’s desires in our waking moments leave us, we feel them no longer. We can engage ourselves in other occupations; other cares may distract our minds. We may, at times, enjoy various pleasures, and partake of the good things of this life. Now all these things remove, or, at least, soothe the pain and care of our desires. Not so, however, is the condition of these distressed souls. They have no refreshing slumber; they are incessantly awake; they have no occupation; they can not indulge in other cares, in other distractions. They are wholly and continually absorbed with the burning desire of being liberated from their intense misery.” (more…)

THIS Rosh Hashanah sermon by Rabbi Jeremy Gordon, of New London Synagogue in England, is quite a piece of work, a succinct statement if ever there was one of Jewish advocacy for the mass invasion of Europe by Middle Eastern refugees. The ordinary Jew, Gordon says, must not fear the radical transformation of Britain and other European nations. The refugees should be permanently accommodated because to do otherwise would be a betrayal of Jewish history. In the sermon, which is posted at the website of Support Refugees, a consortium of Jewish organizations offering assistance to the asylum seekers, Gordon explains:

We are in danger of forgetting that we are the people who are supposed to have the deepest understanding of the life of a Fiddler on the Roof; understanding the way in which people flee the country of their birth because staying is just too horrible a fate to wish upon our children is the deepest insight of our Jewish national memory. Loving the stranger is our central ethic. This is what it means to be a Jew. There may well be less Jews keeping Kosher than was the case a hundred years ago, and there may be less Jews here on Second Day Rosh Hashanah than was the case even thirty years ago, and I can live with all that. But I can’t live with this. I can’t live with the notion that the Jewish people have forgotten what it means to be Jews.

Loving the stranger is our central ethic. Gordon does not mention that the principles he advocates for Britain are not endorsed by Israel, which offers automatic asylum only to Jews. Why is Gordon not advocating the same policy for the Jewish homeland?  Nor does he mention that the brotherhood advocated by Maimonides is a brotherhood extended only to other Jews. Hating the stranger is closer to the central ethic of the Talmud, which even says it’s okay to murder, defraud and lie to gentiles. (more…)

DR. Hsiu-Ying “Lisa” Tseng was convicted of second-degree murder last week for allegedly over-prescribing prescription painkillers to three men who were addicted to the drugs. According to The New York Daily News: (more…)

ED HUNTER writes:

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation wanted to do a video on the Trump movement. They are a Leftie organization, but they treated us more or less fairly. I am in the video and they tried to trip me up with the usual racist stuff, but I think I deflected it, Auster-style. I refused to toe the PC line, which shocked them. (more…)

KEVIN MacDONALD writes about the Jewish reaction to Donald Trump, whose anti-immigration stance some see as reminiscent of Nazi Germany. This is not surprising, as Jews are taught from infancy by their own culture that they are hated.

There has been extraordinary, almost unhinged anxiety among some Jews about Donald Trump’s campaign for the GOP Presidential nomination. It has no solid basis, but unfortunately it does speak to their profound neurosis and alienation from the historic American nation. (more…)

Dr. THOMAS A. DROLESKEY writes at Christ or Chaos:

One of the many consequences of the lack of a superabundance of Sanctifying and Actual Graces flowing out into the world involves the false, infantile belief that to criticize someone for anything is to “hate” him.

Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro and many of his supporters are quick to denounce any and all criticize of him and his lawless policies as racists who are filled with resentment against a black president (who happens to be half Caucasian as well, of course).

To oppose the chemical and surgical slaughter of the innocent preborn is said to engage in a “war against women.”

Those who oppose the promotion of the sin of Sodom under the cover of civil law and all throughout what passes for popular culture are said to “hate” homosexuals, lesbians, mutants and other practitioners of perverse sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. “Homophobia” has even been denounced by officials of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. (more…)

  FEMALE convicts in Italy celebrate Antipope Francis's message of universal salvation. Halleluia! Everyone goes to heaven.