DON VINCENZO writes:

  IN a short video, the organization Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth shows raging fires in skyscrapers around the world that did not result in buildings collapsing: This three-and-a-half-minute video — "9/11 In Perspective"— presents footage of eight buildings, ranging from nine to 62 floors, that have been either partially or fully engulfed in flames and yet remained standing despite massive internal destruction. Their major fires shown in these clips range from 1988 to 2008, and took place in U.S. cities (Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles) and abroad (Caracas, Madrid, Beijing, Delft). Seeing the stubborn resilience of these high-rise steel structures makes one question the U.S. government's contention that the Twin Towers were leveled by jet crashes and kerosene-fueled fires, and that a third building, World Trade Center 7, was destroyed by fires alone on September 11, 2001.

A writer at Henry Makow's website argues that suburbs are "sinister places" because they offer so little meaningful social interaction.

TOMORROW is the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, so I thought I would, for the sake of those who mistakenly believe that Catholics practice idolatry in their devotion to Mary, post this clear and brief explanation of the reasons for veneration of Mary. This is by Adolphe Tanquerey in A Manual of Dogmatic Theology (quoted here):

III. DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

843 A. State of the Question.

1. Errors. The cult which Catholics pay to the Blessed Virgin Protestants bitterly attack as superstitious, illusive, even idolatrous.

2. Catholic doctrine. The cult of the Blessed Virgin is not the cult of latria, which is due to God alone, nor is it the simple cult of dulia due to the saints. But it is the cult of hyperdulia because of her singular supernatural superiority. Therefore devotion to Mary embraces:

1) Veneration and reverence because of the dignity of the divine maternity conferred on her and because of her outstanding holiness; (more…)

FOR many years now, major toy manufacturers have been producing demonic “action figures” for children, particularly for boys. This is not a new story. But it is still a shocking story.

Just to give you an idea of the latest, here are a few figures that Walmart recommends for children between the ages of two and four. In other words, these are recommended for toddlers.

What are we to think of these hideous “toys?” We are to think of them as child abuse. They desensitize children to extreme ugliness, impoverish their imaginations and acclimate them to the satanic. It would be better to have no toys at all. (more…)

CHERYL SULLENGER at Tradition in Action writes about the "full, uncut video of the undercover visit to the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Houston, Texas." "That longer video contains new revelations that some aborted baby remains sold by Planned Parenthood go to biotech companies for the purpose of creating 'humanized' mice."

WILLIAM writes from the Netherlands:

After the unveiling of the satanic ‘Baphomet’ statue in Detroit, people can now also rejoice in the projection of the Hindu goddess Kali on the Empire State Building.

The Kali projection was part of a visual show on the building’s exterior last weekend, a display on threats to endangered species and Kali was included for “giving mother nature a fierce avatar against pollution.’ I suppose the fact that ‘mother’ nature pollutes the world much more than humans by way of volcanic eruptions or that humans, in the modern view, áre nothing but mammals, i.e. themselves part of ‘mother nature,’ does not make anyone pause for a second.

So now we have the goddess Kali to project ‘change.’ Her name means “black, time, death, destruction” and could be connected with “hell” and the Germanic goddess ‘Hella’ or ‘Holda.’ She, like Kali, was a goddess of death and associated with the (skin) colours blue and black, being the same in ancient understanding.

In recent years, the people who have tatto-ed or body-painted themselves with skeletal features have increased tremendously and Hella was often half skeletal. There is a skeletal goddess or aspect of Kali in Hinduism too (Chamunda). (more…)

THE former public school teacher and well-known anti-school crusader, John Taylor Gatto, explains his views of mass schooling. The primary purpose of modern schools, he argues, is not knowledge, but social engineering. There are many other videos of his talks here and here. I don't understand his points about eugenics, but his general idea of the industrializing of schools is his most important criticism.

FROM an essay by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: “Judas, dost thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” Both faces were close to each other at the memorable moment of this infamous kiss and terrifying question. Giotto depicts this scene in another painting in the same chapel. With his low forehead, flabby flesh, grim look, vulgar nose, loathsomely soft and drooping lips, Judas reveals an inexpressible infamy in his whole being. Jesus-noble, infinitely superior, and possessing an ineffable moral loftiness-looks upon him with a gaze wherein a sparkle of love, rebuke, severity, and total repulsion can be found. Poor, miserable Judas, who did not want to open his soul to the love or fear which this gaze elicited and to which this doleful and pungent question invited him. And, because his soul resisted every invitation to love and to fear, it sank from theft to deicide and from deicide to despair.

THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

In a poem so oft-quoted that it embarrasses me slightly to quote it again, W. B. Yeats, gazing with a prophetic eye on the disintegrating world of modernity, writes

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.  (more…)

ANTI-GLOBALIST EXPATRIATE writes:

I guess black lives don’t matter, after all, since the race of this perp and his victims has been completely downplayed by the media. (more…)

"THE soul as it leaves God's hands projects His image without hindrance, for it is utterly sinless and immortal. Marie des Vallées, the extraordinary seventeenth century mystic to whom St. Grignon de Montfort and St. John Eudes owe so much of their eschatology and Marian doctrine, was privileged over the course of a week without interruption to see newly created souls before they were joined to their bodies. St. John, her confessor and biographer, quoted her as saying that Divine Love showed her, "pointing them out merely with the finger, an incalculable number of souls just as they are when issuing from the hands of the Creator, before being soiled by original sin. I saw them adorned with a beauty so great that man is incapable of understanding or experiencing it. Oh, it didn't surprise me that God came down from heaven to redeem such beautiful creatures!" Solange Hertz, The Passion of the Church; "Death's Door"

ANTI-GLOBALIST EXPATRIATE writes: This is a continuation of the saga involving former California State Senator Leland Yee, racketeer and would-be arms-smuggler.

SEE more paintings by Spanish artist Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923) at It's About Time.

SUZANNE VENKER writes at Time that corporate parental leave policies create an illusion of balancing parenthood and child-rearing:

As a society, we’d do better to acknowledge the fact that women (and men, for that matter, though in a different way) change as a result of having children, and often do care less about work. And what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that why people have babies? To make life more meaningful? And, dare I say it, less focused on work?

Offering new parents full pay for up to one year is akin to putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. The needs of children are huge, and they do not end at one year. On the contrary, they just begin. Taking a year off of work to meet those needs merely scratches the surface. (more…)

FATHER Klaus Luhmer, one of eight Jesuits who survived the bombing of Hiroshima unscathed (some say miraculously) described in this interview five years ago what he saw that day. He was praying in the garden of a Jesuit residence on the outskirts of the city when the bombing occurred. Today is the 70th anniversary of the nuclear bomb attacks. See the recent lengthy discussion of the morality of the bombing here.