Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
Mar 16 2021
Some Audible Fiction
For those who prefer listening to reading, I’ve recorded my short story “Norms.” If you like this sort of presentation, let me know and I’ll record some of my other short pieces.
Mar 16 2021
Getting It Through The Thickest Heads
I have a graphic of which I’m particularly fond: It’s critical not to appear weak. Weakness invites disrespect. Weakness shown to an enemy invites a savage attack. Even if you’re secretly strong behind a facade of weakness, inviting disrespect is bad policy. Tempting an enemy to attack is lunacy. This is hardly rocket …
Mar 15 2021
“Sex-Positive?”
Caricature has become impossible: Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B brought the body to the Grammy Awards Sunday night. Megan Thee Stallion, coming fresh off her win for best new artist earlier in the evening, took the stage and gave a jaw-dropping performance for her hit singles, “Savage” and “Body.” Then …
Mar 14 2021
Some Dark Thoughts
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” – Originator unknown, though often attributed to Albert Einstein “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.” – Thomas Sowell, concerning the “War on Drugs.” “If what …
Mar 13 2021
Social And Commercial Evolution In Action
If you don’t remember this story, from a year and a half ago, I can’t fault you; I had to go poring through my stacks to locate it, remembering only that it was race-related: COLLEGE PARK, Ga. (CBS46) — Stereotyped, intimidated, racism, and uncomfortable, all words used by shoppers to describe their shopping …
Mar 13 2021
On Rereading Old Favorites
If you’re a reading junkie – which I am – and find yourself bereft of unread material that strikes your fancy, you’re blessed if you have a pile of old favorites into which to plunge. I have such a pile, and it’s both large and varied. The reference works alone fill eight large bookcases. …
Mar 12 2021
Denouncing The Obvious
A little thought can go a long way. However, on some subjects, thinking is effectively forbidden. Here’s one. Let’s say you’re a college professor, and that you teach a first-year class whose enrollees arrived at that class with a fairly wide distribution of high-school grade point averages. At the end of the semester, …
Mar 12 2021
“Normal”
I just found this brilliant little piece at Ace’s place: Suppose you have a kid your age who finds that he has the urge to fuck a toaster. In the past, he’d either keep it to himself and learn to live with it, or, if he mentioned it to someone else, they’d tell …
Mar 11 2021
This Should Piss A Few Folks Off…
…which, to my mind, is a good reason to post it: I’m a Boy / The Who One little girl was called Jean-Marie Another little girl was called Felicity Another little girl was Sally-Joy The other was me And I’m a Boy My name is Bill and I’m a head case They practice making-up …
Mar 11 2021
The Public Service Pitch Du Jour
Hey, remember public service pitches? I do. We don’t see or hear them much any more, possibly because air time has become so expensive, whether on radio or television. At one time they seemed endless. The one – actually, it was a family of them – that lingers most vividly in my memory is “The …
Mar 10 2021
I Thought I Was Beyond Being Stunned
I was wrong: Milo Yiannopoulos, the gay man whose conservative messaging and willingness to speak the truth sparked riots on university campuses may well trigger more outrage now that he describes himself as “Ex-Gay” and “sodomy free,” and is leading a daily consecration to St. Joseph online. Two years ago, when Church …
Mar 10 2021
Rejoining One Another
A passage in Bookworm’s piece for today resonated powerfully with me: One of the things that has helped me be a nicer person is discovering that, if you ask the right questions, everyone has something interesting to tell. For that reason, I always start conversations with people — clerks, gardeners, guard gates, whomever. …
Mar 10 2021
You Think You’re On Top Of The Lunacies…
…and then something like this scrolls by: Black Lives Matter protesters badgered young cheerleaders while they entered the Kentucky International Convention Center in downtown Louisville for a cheer competition on Saturday. One of the protester leaders Carmen M. Jones, who said Sunday that she stands by her comments, yelled at the girls …
Mar 10 2021
What Comes Of The Loss Of Trust
“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 …
Mar 09 2021
What More Will It Take?
Retired Lieutenant General Russel Honoré has proposed a permanent military guard force for the District of Columbia: A task force charged with making recommendations to boost congressional security after a deadly Jan. 6 pro-Trump mob assault on Capitol Hill has proposed establishing a permanent military presence ready to go at a moment’s notice …
Mar 08 2021
The Poison As Antidote
This short piece at the website of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) is a sharp, well focused destruction of federal welfare policy these past fifty-five years. It’s not the first, of course; many have remarked on the failure of federal welfarism in much the same fashion. Yet it serves as a reminder …
Mar 08 2021
Conversations
Anyone who’s worked for or with the military is aware that it’s terminally infested with acronyms. There are acronyms for everything: in many cases because the thing’s proper name goes on for days; in others, simply because of what you might call a tradition of acronyming. In consequence, one who has spent several decades …
Mar 06 2021
A Warning
It’s gratifying and more to see the proliferation of alternatives to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. However, there’s a need for vigilance. Robert Conquest’s Second Law of Politics tells us why: Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing. This law describes a state reached by a process Conquest did not …
Mar 06 2021
Unspeakable Notions
To suppress a truth is to give it force beyond endurance. – Originator unknown The attempts by the Democrats and their media handmaidens to render unspeakable any suggestion that the presidential election was stolen, or that Joe Biden is deep into senile dementia, or that the Usurper Regime is working hand in glove …
Fran’s Recent Novels
Margaret’s Recent Novels
