Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
Aug 29 2023
Upsetting, Terrifying, And Vital
You can approach a movie many ways. Directors view it as a kind of statement. Cinematographers and set designers view it as a kind of visual art. Actors view it as a demonstration of their skills. And producers – mustn’t forget them! – view it as a kind of muscle-flexing: “See what I can …
Aug 28 2023
The Entertainer’s Narrow Path
“Pictures were made to entertain; if you want to send a message, call Western Union.” – Samuel Goldwyn Yesterday’s brief piece about film director Peter Weir evoked quite a bit of comment and email. Our Gentle Readers largely concurred with my sentiments. I expected that, as our readers tend to be older than …
Aug 27 2023
Massive Concurrence
Every now and then, an artist in some medium will come along to remind us about what really matters. Today, AoSHQ co-blogger “The James Madison” highlights one such artist: Listening to [Australian film director Peter] Weir in interviews, I find it hard not to really like the guy. He’s soft-spoken, unassuming, and very …
Aug 27 2023
Can Everything Be Digitized?
From a recent essay by Leo Hohmann: Technocracy is much different than Marxism or communism. In a Marxist state you have government ownership of the means of production. But in a technocracy, which is the preferred model of self-appointed globalist elites at the World Economic Forum, the Rockefeller Foundation, Gates Foundation, Club of …
Aug 26 2023
The Downside Of Deceit
“A thousand truths do not mark a man as a truth-teller, but a single lie marks him as a damned liar….Lying to other people is your business, but I tell you this: once a man gets a reputation as a liar, he might as well be struck dumb, for people do not listen to …
Aug 25 2023
Crime And The Individual Perspective
John Hinderaker asks in a plaintive tone: Is Crime Still Illegal? All of these descriptions are somewhat sanitized. We have seen the videos: gangs of twenty or more criminals will descend on a store, often blocking the street in front of the store with their vehicles, and rampage through the establishment stealing whatever …
Aug 25 2023
The Last Stand
Apparently, what’s been widely rumored is true: I listened to Sid Rosenberg on WOR radio [CBS NY], and he said he’s hearing that the masks, lockdowns, and other restrictions are returning. They are coming back. You must resist. They are changing America, and that includes taking your freedoms away. […] This …
Aug 25 2023
Things To Think About (UPDATED)
First, an old commercial: Getty made more than one such commercial. (I think I have the full set.) They embedded the same premises. Whether they stimulated much thought is unclear. But the message is not. Now a picture: Reflect on that for a moment. Freedom must perforce include the freedom to …
Aug 24 2023
When The World Is Too Much With Me
I’m old: 71. The older I get, the less patience I have for a great many irritating and inconveniencing things. A barrage of those things will send me to one of my “escape hatches:” fiction; music; yard work; chess; weapons (this is a big one lately); cooking; or some other. Each of them possesses …
Aug 24 2023
Targets And Guards
If you’re a longtime Gentle Reader, you’ve surely seen this Clarence Carson quote before: [W]e are told that there is no need to fear the concentration of power in government so long as that power is checked by the electoral process. We are urged to believe that so long as we can express …
Aug 24 2023
Skirting The Laws 101
If you’re determined to break a law, the one thing you must not do is say so plainly. Now that the Supreme Court has struck down racial preferences in higher education, those “institutions of higher learning” that want to favor one race over the others must exercise some subtlety: The Biden administration is …
Aug 24 2023
Interesting Contrasts Dept.
Does anyone else remember how the mainstream media treated President George W. Bush on September 11, 2001? When Dubya received notice of the attack on the World Trade Center, he was reading a story to a classroom full of kids. He continued to do so for a few minutes before attending to the horrifying …
Aug 24 2023
Newsworthy But Underreported
Animal lovers pay attention to stories that feature animals in important roles. And no, it’s not all about skateboarding dogs or cats playing table tennis; we look for incidents in which animals have been important in people’s lives in unusual ways. We’re especially alert for incidents in which domesticated animals – pets – come …
Aug 23 2023
Moral Decisions
One of the philosophers vitally important to the development of Western thought, Immanuel Kant, propounded some theses that have gotten him lambasted by…let us say…persons with another agenda. The Randians dislike Kant for having criticized “pure reason:” i.e., reason divorced from longstanding postulates, empirical data, and the yearnings of the soul. Many Christian polemicists …
Aug 22 2023
An Ugly Open Secret
We know from interminable experience that the overwhelming majority of men who go into politics are utterly vile. The professional politician – and these days, for all practical purposes there is no other kind – is the lowest sort of man allowed to walk the streets today. Persons we wouldn’t be willing to have …
Aug 22 2023
PolSpeak For The Masses
If you’ve been a regular Gentle Reader of Liberty’s Torch for any length of time, you’re surely aware of two things about my crap: It’s long, wordy, and circuitous; There’s a lot of it. Well, that’s your humble Curmudgeon. I’ve had that sort of writing style all my life, though I struggle against …
Aug 21 2023
Reinhold Niebuhr Was A Cockeyed Optimist
Why are you here, Gentle Reader? I don’t ask that question in the metaphysical sense that demands a discussion of theistic cosmogony and the alternatives to it, but rather in the immediate and supremely practical sense. Why are you here, at Liberty’s Torch? What has brought you here, and – should you decide to …
Aug 20 2023
An Unmet Need
These days, I am perpetually weary. I know I’m not alone in that. A great many Americans feel more beleaguered than they’ll openly admit. We’re supposed to be the “Can Do” nation, ready for anything and fully prepared to cope with the worst. (“We walk around with hardons and guns blazing all the time.” …
Aug 19 2023
Right, Wrong, Or Socially Unjust?
In analyzing the phrase “social justice,” we see how prefixing the word justice with any modifier inverts its meaning. It turns something easily understood – inherently unambiguous, in fact – into something for noisy groups to argue and negotiate. But then, attempts to redefine “justice” to accommodate some trendy Cause are as old as …
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