TOMORROW NIGHT (Monday, September 26), Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, will make its closest approach to earth since 1963. It will be 367 million miles away. At its farthest point, it’s 600 million miles from earth. That’s a big difference.

It will also be “in opposition,” which means it will be directly aligned with earth.

With its 74 moons (three of which might be visible to those with good lenses), the planet will be as bright as it can possibly be to the human eye. There will be no moon interference. Even in urban environments, with thick light pollution, Jupiter will be visible and dominate the sky. Looking at this wondrous spectacle, you might imagine the dizzying light of the Star of Bethlehem, understand why two great composers — Gustave Holst and Mozart — wrote stunning tributes to the planet and have a better idea of why Jupiter was the Zeus of Rome.

Since the planet will be “in opposition,” it will rise at the same time as the sun sets. When darkness intensifies at about nine o’clock, it will be unmistakable, the brightest object in the sky, twice as bright as the nearest star. Jupiter does not “twinkle” like a star, but its cream-colored light draws those who see it heavenward — and perhaps reminds them of how very much they are loved from above.

Laurence Sterne by Louis Carrogis; 1762

FROM the works of Laurence Sterne (quoted here):

“THERE are two kinds of eloquence; one scarcely merits the name. It consists in a fixed number of periods, arranged and measured, and of artificial figures, brilliant with words and pretension. This eloquence dazzles, but does not enlighten the understanding. Admired and affected by the half-learned, whose judgment is as false as their taste is vitiated, it is entirely stranger to the sacred writers. If it was always considered as beneath the great men of all ages, with how much more reason must it appear unworthy of those writers whom the spirit of eternal wisdom animates in their watchings, and who ought to attain that strength, that majesty, that simplicity, which man alone never attains! Read More »

The Angelus, Jean-Francois Millet

From “DON JUAN” by Lord Byron

Ave Maria! o’er the earth and sea,
That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee!

Ave Maria! blessèd be the hour,
The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft
Have felt that moment in its fullest power
Sink o’er the earth so beautiful and soft,
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower
Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,
And not a breath crept through the rosy air,
And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer.

Ave Maria! ’t is the hour of prayer!
Ave Maria! ’t is the hour of love!
Ave Maria! may our spirits dare
Look up to thine and to thy Son’s above!
Ave Maria! O that face so fair!
Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove,—
What though ’t is but a pictured image?—strike,—
That painting is no idol,—’t is too like.

Sweet hour of twilight! in the solitude
Of the pine forest, and the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna’s immemorial wood,
Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o’er
To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,
Evergreen forest; which Boccaccio’s lore
And Dryden’s lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!

Pope Leo XIII in the 19th century condemned what we know today as “Traditional Catholicism”

“TRADITIONAL CATHOLICS” either recognize a false pope or join schismatic sects that are outside the unchangeable government of the Catholic Church. On the latter point, let’s hear from an eminent authority:

“14. It is necessary, therefore, to bear this in mind, viz., that nothing was conferred on the Apostles apart from Peter, but that several things were conferred upon Peter apart from the Apostles. St. John Chrysostom in explaining the words of Christ asks: ‘Why, passing over the others, does He speak to Peter about these things?’ And he replies unhesitatingly and at once, ‘Because he was pre eminent among the Apostles, the mouthpiece of the Disciples, and the head of the college’ (Hom. lxxxviii. in Joan., n. 1). He alone was designated as the foundation of the Church. To him He gave the power of binding and loosing; to him alone was given the power of feeding. On the other hand, whatever authority and office the Apostles received, they received in conjunction with Peter. ‘If the divine benignity willed anything to be in common between him and the other princes, whatever He did not deny to the others he gave only through him. So that whereas Peter alone received many things, He conferred nothing on any of the rest without Peter participating in it’ (S. Leo M. sermo iv., cap. 2).

15. From this it must be clearly understood that Bishops are deprived of the right and power of ruling, if they deliberately secede from Peter and his successors; because, by this secession, they are separated from the foundation on which the whole edifice must rest. They are therefore outside the edifice itself; and for this very reason they are separated from the fold, whose leader is the Chief Pastor; they are exiled from the Kingdom, the keys of which were given by Christ to Peter alone.” [emphases added]

— Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, 1896

THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT (1951). Courtesy: Rialto Pictures

NOT many movies are more charming and amusing than the 1951 British comedy, “The Man in the White Suit,” available for free viewing on the Internet Archive.

Starring Alec Guinness before he became Alec Guinness (the megastar), this Ealing Studios classic provides some gentle and truthful commentary on industrial capitalism. The witty script, written by Roger MacDougall, John Dighton and Alexander Mackendrick (who also directed the film) is about a young textile chemist, played by Guinness, who after much trial and error in the laboratory invents an indestructible, synthetic fabric. It’s an unusual subject that takes you into a little-celebrated world and laboratories with absurdly bubbling and glowing test tubes. There’s just enough exaggeration and just enough realism to make a great screen tale.

From Wikipedia:

Sidney (“Sid”) Stratton, a brilliant young research chemist and former Cambridge scholarship recipient, has been dismissed from jobs at several textile mills in the north of England because of his demands for expensive facilities and his obsession with inventing an everlasting fibre. Whilst working as a labourer at the Birnley Mills, he accidentally becomes an unpaid researcher and invents an incredibly strong fibre which repels dirt and never wears out. From this fabric, a suit is made—which is brilliant white because it cannot absorb dye and slightly luminous because it includes radioactive elements.

Stratton is lauded as a genius until both management and the trade unions realise the consequence of his invention; once consumers have purchased enough cloth, demand will drop precipitously and put the textile industry out of business. The managers try to trick and bribe Stratton into signing away the rights to his invention but he refuses. Managers and workers each try to shut him away, but he escapes.

The bosses negotiate with Daphne, the daughter of the owner of Birnley Mills, that she will trick Stratton into giving it all up and she asks £5000 for this, but when she meets Stratton she has a change of heart and encourages him to announce his invention to the press. Going back to his rooms he is confronted by a woman who he thought was on his side, but suddenly realises that no-one wants his invention.

The climax sees Stratton running through the streets at night in his glowing white suit, pursued by both the managers and the employees.

Cecil Parker, an actor known for characters who are alternately supercilious and bumbling, plays the industrialist, Mr. Birnley. Joan Greenwood is his seductive daughter and Vida Hope is the tough trade union’s shop steward who befriends Stratton but then turns on him in favor of union jobs. Also not to be missed and thoroughly enjoyable is Ernest Thesiger as the cunning, elderly industrialist, Sir John Kierlaw. There are two especially memorable bit characters, a little girl played by Mandy Miller and the elderly landlady, Mrs Watson, played by Edie Martin. The latter is classic Ealing Studios as in just a few moments she conveys a parsimonious, lower-class British landlady so well it is hard to believe the actress wasn’t just that. All the acting is first-rate. Guinness has a deadpan delivery that is much more subtle than his more famous roles.

This is British theater, translated to the screen, at its finest, offering an enjoyable evening without violence or vulgarity. How many movies have you seen about the textile industry? It works, and I wish there were more.

AH, the joys of multiculturalism.

“THE priests, ministers of my Son, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, have become cesspools of impurity… vengeance is hanging over their heads.”

— Our Lady of La Sallette, Sept. 19, 1846

NOBLE PRIZE-winning biochemist Kary Mullis, inventor of the PCR test used to declare the Covid pandemic, blasted Anthony Fauci in this interview, which took place before Mullis’s death at the age of 74 in 2019.

Mullis said the test he invented should never be used to diagnose viral illnesses.

Lazar Kagonovich

IN A 9,100-word article at The Unz Review, Larry Romanoff looks at the greatest mass murderers of modern times — Hitler isn’t remotely on the list.

They include Lazar Kaganovich, whom most Americans have never even heard of:

Lazar Kaganovich was a close associate of Joseph Stalin and the brother of Stalin’s wife. As noted above, Kaganovich was the Jewish head of the CHEKA and famous for his purges of those who opposed Jewish control of the country, having ordered the deaths of millions. Kaganovich openly boasted of personal responsibility for killing at least twenty million people. It was Kaganovich also who presided over the total destruction of Christian churches and clergy, the man famous for standing atop the rubble of a Russian church and proclaiming, “Mother Russia has been cast down! We have torn away her skirts!”.[23]

This Jew truly “made life a living hell” for the people of Russia, killing countless millions of innocent peasants in a sea of blood. Not everyone objected: One Jew in Hollywood was reported to have said, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs” and, in a statement variously attributed to both Stalin and Kaganovich, “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic.” On the other hand, the Jewish Virtual Library seems to know only that Kaganovich “managed the construction of the Moscow underground”, and that, rather than being Stalin’s main Jewish handler, his “subservience to Stalin was made abundantly clear” in some obscure article he supposedly wrote.[24]

 Kaganovich was just one of the Jewish mass murderers; there were many other Jews who contributed to the massacre of Russians under the cruelest circumstances.

Romanoff states:

This topic is important not only for its own sake but because it provides linkages that help us to put other historical events in perspective, and even more because it is an astonishing, even astounding, example of how history is spun, of how the omission of only a few crucial facts can totally distort an entire vital segment of history. One result is that much of what we “know” of our history is factually wrong, but also it provokes us to despise innocent people while sympathising with the guilty.

[This post is not an endorsement of all of Romanoff’s writings, especially his views on Russia today.] Read More »

“WHEN the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people will hate the new world order and will die protesting against it.”

“When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people.”

— H.G. Wells, The New World Order, 1939

Market Scene, Jan Van Horst

THE economic writer Werner Sombart (1863-1941) described the “buy local” spirit of European economic life before the rise of modern capitalism, when even advertising was considered unseemly:

The centre of this whole was the individual man. Whether as producer or as consumer, his interests determined the attitude of the community as of its units, determined the law regulating economic activities and the practices of commercial life. Every such law was personal in its intent; and all who contributed to the life of the nation had a personal outlook. Not that each person could do as he liked. On the contrary, a code of restrictions hedged about his activities in every direction. But the point is that the restrictions were born of the individualistic spirit. Commodities were produced and bought and sold in order that consumers might have their wants sufficiently satisfied. On the other hand, producers and traders were to receive fair wages and fair profits. What was fair, and what sufficient for your need, tradition and custom determined. Read More »

HERE IS the scene from “A Man for All Seasons,” the 1966 historical drama, in which  Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor of England under King Henry VIII is convicted of treason and sentenced to death. More, played here by Paul Scofield, refused to recognize Henry VIII’s marriage to Ann Boleyn and take an Oath of Supremacy declaring Henry Supreme Head of the Church of England.

More stated:

I am the King’s true subject, and I pray for him and all the realm. I do none harm. I say none harm. I think none harm. If this be not enough to keep a man alive, then in good faith, I long not to live.

The scene takes place in Westminster Hall, where Queen Elizabeth II lay in state this week.

Westminster Hall, a reader points out, was also “where Edmund Campion and his fellow defendants were tried, and during which he declared: ‘In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors, all our ancient bishops and kings, all that was once the glory of England — the island of saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter.'”

A READER writes:

[1532: Henry VIII, after having divorced Catherine Aragon, his wife of 24 years, participates in a secret wedding service with Anne Boleyn, leading ultimately to the establishment of the Anglican Church and the severing of England from the rest of Christendom.]

1930s: Edward VIII gives up the throne to wed a double-divorcée. The abdication is necessitated by the Anglican Church prohibition on remarriage when a partner has a living, legitimate spouse. Edward’s action will eventually allow his niece Elizabeth to become queen.

1950s: Elizabeth refuses assent for her sister, Princess Margaret, to marry a divorced British war hero who has a legitimate spouse. Margaret submits. (She later marries and divorces another man.)

1990s: Elizabeth orders the divorce of her son Charles from Princess Diana. The legal action becomes final the year after Charles’s paramour divorces her own husband. During that decade, three of the queen’s four children divorce their spouses. Diana dies in 1997.

2000s: Charles marries his divorced paramour despite that her husband remains alive.

2010s: Charles and Diana’s son Harry marries a divorcée.

2020s: Charles, as king, becomes Anglican Defender of the Faith, the first divorced person to hold that title since Henry VIII, who founded the church in a series of actions stemming from his desire to escape a marriage.

So, as we can see: In some ways this timeline reflects an Anglican decline, but ultimately is faithful to that heretical religion’s roots.

Camilla Parker Bowles at her wedding to Andrew Parker Bowles, who was allegedly unfaithful to his wife and married again the year after their divorce.

IN THIS video, the British commentator “Way of the World” comes to a liberating realization. I’m not very familiar with his work and like many dissident videos, there are some amateur moments here. But his description of his personal discovery is moving.

“Way of the World” realizes there are no political solutions to the moral chaos we see or to the conquest of once Christian nations. “Our zombie civilization has fallen because men have lost sight of their divine purpose … As the West abandoned God, God abandoned the West.”

The answer, he says, is for the people of the West to return to God, especially in their hearts and minds. “God is not a distraction from the issues we face, but the key to understanding and dealing with them.”

Our purpose in this world is simple in the end. It’s not to elevate ourselves, nothing that we are, but to bring glory to God.

“IT is a law of history often verified that social egalitarianism, whether in the form of democratic radicalism or socialism and communism, is the most favorable to Big Business and money makers, because it breaks the political and social frameworks and families that impede the preeminence and the absolutism of money. Under an economic conception of civilization, egalitarianism appears both as a ransom and as a lever. It is always the middle classes, especially the rural classes, representing the largest wealth in the diffuse and fragmented state, which bear the brunt of egalitarian social movements, for the benefit of big businessmen, financial magnates and complicit demagogues. It should be added that from a strictly financial point of view, the disasters of history, the wars or revolutions, do not ever represent disasters to the handlers of money and shrewd businessmen, who can profit from everything, on the condition of knowing in advance, of being informed. This is why International Finance, placed on the very ground of [Capitalism’s economic theorist David] Ricardo, to combat him, many of his conceptions, his arguments, his theories and his conclusions.

“The mysterious bond, the secret affinity that unites despite everything the Mercantilists and Puritan businessmen with the Bolsheviks come from the fact that they have in common, while drawing different conclusions and ends, the same design and the same worldview.”

— George Batault, 1921