Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
Jun 08 2023
Something You Might Not Have Realized
As the official school year dribbles out to its close, school-age kids are celebrating in anticipation of their summer vacations. What will they do with their time off? Well, when I was in that age band, I was sent to spend the summer on my wealthy aunt’s country estate in Dutchess County, where I …
Jun 07 2023
Worse Than Communism
They said “It can’t happen here.” They said “This is America, where we have rights.” And they said “He wouldn’t dare!” But he has: Scared yet? How would you, Gentle Reader, defend your privacy and property against a ukase such as that of New York City Mayor Eric Adams? Adams will have …
Jun 07 2023
Call The CSI Macro!
What’s that, Gentle Reader? You don’t remember that one? Oh, it’s simple. Just four little words: “People lie; evidence doesn’t.” I should add, for completeness, that “people” also: Are frequently mistaken; Can be deceived about what they saw or heard; Come with agendas and priorities of their own; Can be “bought.” The …
Jun 06 2023
Evidence, Interrupted
Yes, friends, you guessed it: Christopher Wray has refused to surrender the “Biden bribery” FD-1023 after all: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna has said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is afraid its informant who provided information about an alleged bribery scheme by the Biden family will be killed if their identity is exposed. …
Jun 06 2023
An Irrational Exclusion
The original Constitution included a couple of things that should have been left out…but today, I have in mind a provision that should have been put in: Three Christian organizations will host a prayer vigil on the west steps of the California state Capitol in Sacramento on Monday as a member of the …
Jun 06 2023
The Imperative Question
Toward the end of Atlas Shrugged, Hank Rearden has a final meeting with the “looter elite” in which they propose a “Steel Unification Plan.” That “plan” is plainly just as vampiric as every other that emerged from the looter-ruled economy described in the novel. Yet the elite are solidly behind it…which causes Rearden to …
Jun 05 2023
The Trope That Never Expires
…is racism. Supposedly, American society is so pervaded by racism and the attendant maltreatment of Negroes that their physical health is being degraded: Health disparities are the topic under scrutiny in today’s episode of Everything Is RacistTM. According to an investigative series by the Associated Press, black people are the biggest victims of …
Jun 05 2023
Disingenuous Or Merely Sarcastic?
John Hinderaker, one of Web commentary’s brightest lights, penned this: For reasons I can’t explain, the Left, including the Democratic Party, has made sex change operations on minors its signature issue. It has become a litmus test: in order to be considered progressive, one must now advocate the mutilation of children’s genitals. If …
Jun 05 2023
Expect To Miss A Few Meals
…if this atrocity gains force: Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration signed a global agreement with twelve other nations, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, and Spain, to crack down on farming to “save the planet” from “climate change.” If it’s like the plan implemented throughout the Western World, it will crush American farmers. …
Jun 05 2023
Perhaps Things Are Turning Around
One hopeful sign of a rising consciousness of what’s really going on – the sign that the public’s eyes are turning from the distraction to what the prestidigitator is actually doing – is when “respectable” sources begin to cop to it: Christianity Today published a curious piece by Paul Miller on Thursday calling …
Jun 05 2023
When Smart People Say Foolish Things
Folly, the late Barbara Tuchman has told us, is “knowing better but doing worse.” The power of wishful thinking is so great that even demonstrably highly intelligent people can fall into this zone. I say this with a certain authority. Today, we have an example from a generally smart commentator: The GOP …
Jun 04 2023
Love And Suffering
With today, Trinity Sunday, the liturgical year continues into “ordinary time.” That’s a misleading title for this period. It’s intended to mean that we’re beyond the special season of Easter and have not yet entered the special season of Advent. Yet any part of the year in which believers practice the Christian faith is …
Jun 03 2023
The Low-Trust Society: A Case Study
I snagged the graphic below from Ace of Spades HQ. The story it tells, though four and a half years old, is an important one. It’s easy merely to allow yourself to be appalled and then pass on to other things. In today’s sociopolitical environment, that’s no longer wise. Anyone could be caught in …
Jun 02 2023
Sociopolitical Impossibilities
Many years ago, a wise man named Rev. William J. H. Boetcker wrote these lines: You cannot bring prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You …
Jun 01 2023
Assorted
Welcome to June, the traditional month for weddings – the heterosexual kind – and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It’s also a fine month for having the roof ripped off one’s house and replaced by…well, by something I’ve been assured will make a much better roof. And of course, every month is …
May 31 2023
Miracles And Faith
A few days ago, I mentioned two “candidate miracles” that recently occurred on this continent. One was a case of Miraculous Multiplication; the other was the incorrupt body of a deceased nun. As I’m already a Catholic and serious about it, these don’t “prove” anything to me, though they say that God continues to …
May 30 2023
Memorial Day 2023
For many years, I was reflexively patriotic in the naïve sense. I would immediately jump down the collar of anyone who chose to denigrate these United States or its military involvements. I had my reasons, of course; don’t we all? But many of them don’t look so good to me these days. Today …
May 29 2023
Evil Policies Part 2: Underlying Motivations
The previous piece on this subject evoked some unusually revealing responses. As I remain unwilling to condemn anyone by name, I’ll say only that some of my Gentle Readers aren’t very Gentle after all. They expressed a willingness to countenance deliberate harm to innocents for the sake of a good tactic. That’s not on, …
May 28 2023
Gifts
Not long ago, I encountered the following passage in a secular novel: “Things should make sense. If they don’t, there’s no point to anything. It wouldn’t even be worth trying to figure things out any better. Why would our universe make sense with rules that make things like this ship work among other …
May 27 2023
When We Need A Miracle…
…God, who always knows what we need, will provide one: The small rural Missouri town of Gower has become an unexpected pilgrimage destination after a nun’s exhumed body showed no visible signs of decomposition — four years after her burial. Hundreds of people have been flocking to the town 40 miles north …
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