Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
Jul 25 2024
Never-Ending Wars
War has been part of the human condition for millennia. That’s not an endorsement, just an observation of the historical facts. You’d think, after so many centuries of bloody strife, we’d have learned something about how to avert it. After all, it takes lives, destroys wealth, and leaves giant messes for the survivors to …
Jul 24 2024
The Weapon
Much of what passes for political discourse today is essentially empty. What’s discussed has little bearing on how the American political system actually functions: the forces that drive it, the consequences the interactions of those forces produce, and the responses of private citizens desperate to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their property. …
Jul 23 2024
Things I Can’t Figure Out Dept.
There are plenty of things I can’t figure out. Many pertain to differences in tastes; others to people’s varying perceptions of risk and reward. And I’m sure that they make sense, for some values of that word, to those intimately concerned with them. But that doesn’t keep them from baffling me. Take breakfast …
Jul 22 2024
The Evil That Dare Not Speak Its Name
The following is from my pick for the best thriller ever written in English: When we landed we went directly to the office where Randall Wolfe was waiting for us. He was a very large, tall man with dark hair and a beard and wore old-fashioned thick black-rimmed glasses. He seemed pleased to …
Jul 21 2024
But Will It Matter?
By now you’ve heard: Joe Biden has announced that he will end his campaign for a second term as president. He’s also endorsed Kamala Harris as his choice to assume the nomination… but that will require the consent of the Democrat National Convention. Whatever the Convention may decide, the scramble for money and endorsements …
Jul 21 2024
Sanity Tests
They can be just as important as cognition tests. The political scene is agog (“No, really?” “Shut up, you.”) over two things: the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and the prospect of Joe Biden resigning from the Democrat ticket. Of course, the former of those things is an actual fact, despite the attempts …
Jul 20 2024
Concerning Vice Presidential Selections
Time was, it was understood that the function of the vice president – his Constitutional job definition – was simple: Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 6: In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, …
Jul 19 2024
Authorities
I’d intended to let this wait for tomorrow, but the pressure inside me has built to an irresistible level. First, a brief vignette from about twenty years ago, when I hadn’t yet gained much confidence in my ability to tell a story. I attended a critique group that met once a month. Most …
Jul 19 2024
Cincinnati
No, not the city in Ohio. If you don’t know about Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus: Lucius Quinctius (or Quintius) Cincinnatus (c. 519 – c. 430 BC) was a Roman patrician, statesman, and military leader of the early Roman Republic who became a legendary figure of Roman virtue— particularly civic virtue —by the time of the …
Jul 19 2024
Turning It To 11
The Left is striated into several layers: The “base:” people who don’t think, but vote… sometimes. The “street workers:” some political activists, some looters and rioters. The “promulgators:” mostly they write snippy things on X / Twittter. The “top crowd:” mostly concerned with how to get the rest energized. Ah, but it seems …
Jul 18 2024
If You Thought Kevorkian Was A “One-Off”
There’s a new “Dr. Death,” and he has an invention for us: A suicide pod dubbed the “Tesla of euthanasia” will be used for the first time next week. Sarco, a 3D-printed capsule, was unveiled at the Venice Design Festival in 2019 and reportedly offers a painless death within 10 minutes of …
Jul 18 2024
Was It Really Simple Negligence?
The evidence is accumulating that the Secret Service has secrets of its own and means to keep them: The agency run by impeached migration czar Alejandro Mayorkas is interfering with the House’s investigation into the attempted murder of President Donald Trump, Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas), told Breitbart News. […] Cloud is …
Jul 17 2024
Shame And Guilt
Last Saturday’s disastrous performance by the Secret Service detachment assigned to President Trump has evoked huge amounts of commentary. Some opinioneers are claiming that the evidence can’t point to anything but a Secret Service tasked to permit Trump’s assassination. Others are of the opinion that it was merely a demonstration of the low estate …
Jul 15 2024
Further Thoughts On The Assassination Attempt And Its Sequels
It could not have been otherwise: the news coverage yesterday, whether “mainstream” or “alternative,” was all about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. So was the commentary, of course; how could commentators talk about anything else? And now, in the aftermath of this “hinge event,” there will be other consequences and developments that will …
Jul 14 2024
The Insanity Is Not Yet Complete
The following is from the New York Post: Local police encountered attempted-assassin Thomas Crooks just moments before he tried to kill former president Donald Trump — but failed to stop the gunman despite the clear threat, according to a report. After rallygoers spotted Crooks on the roof of a manufacturing plant just …
Jul 14 2024
The Elevators Of The “Rhetorical Temperature”
Conveniently collected for your edification: Fact check: Democrats are the ones calling for violence or physical confrontations❗️❗️ pic.twitter.com/RVetbNlbWY — ͏͏͏𝐉𝐚𝐲 2.0 (@JayMaga47) September 3, 2022 Spread it around, Gentle Readers.
Jul 14 2024
On Sacrifice And Self (UPDATED)
Happy Bastille Day, to those Gentle Readers who celebrate such things. It wasn’t a genuinely great occasion, mind you, but it deserves recognition as the heralding event to the more significant French Revolution. Then again, that wasn’t exactly something to celebrate, either, was it? Gentle Readers with some knowledge of the philosophy of …
Jul 14 2024
The Assassination Attempt
You know all about it by now. The coverage will be wall-to-wall for days. It will probably dominate at least the opening day of the GOP convention. Public figures are either outraged or pretending to be outraged wherever there are cameras to see it. And that will be the sum and substance of it …
Jul 13 2024
Media Duplicity
Beware claims from major media spokesmen that “We didn’t know!” about Joe Biden’s dementia. Also beware claims that they didn’t know that he’s the most corrupt political figure since Caligula. They’re not in the business of reporting things that reflect badly on Democrats. Remember this exchange from the 2016 campaign, between Mike Cernovich …
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