Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
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 …
Mar 04 2021
Assorted 2021-03-04
My “future columns” folder is once again overflowing, and I’m disinclined to slough any of the contents, so here’s a round-up of things that have poked me somewhere sensitive these past few days. *** Have a trio of election-related links from Gateway Pundit: FBI seized and shredded suspicious ballots. Follow the Arizona Audit; …
Mar 02 2021
“Not Perfect”
Have you said or written any of these things, or anything like them? “The GOP isn’t perfect.” “America isn’t perfect.” “Trump isn’t perfect.” If so, I have a question for you…no, let me rephrase that: I have a demand for you: Either define perfect Or shut up. Take your time. Show your …
Mar 02 2021
A Jewel From A Cesspool
Once in a great while, even that festering stew of hatred-soaked Leftists we call Twitter will yield up a gem: I could not have put it better. The Left, after all, was the source and bastion of racism during the Jim Crow years that followed emancipation. A Leftist’s natural inclination is toward force, …
Mar 01 2021
The End Of Justice
Do any Gentle Readers remember the 1991 Rodney King incident, and the trial that followed? Do you remember that, though provided with a complete video recording of the incident, Los Angeles news station KTLA chose to show only the most damning, easily misinterpreted part? Do you remember that once the whole video had been …
Feb 28 2021
A Price Willingly Paid: A Lenten Reflection
In his defense of Christianity as a mystery religion, C. S. Lewis has told us that we must deal with the facts, and as John Adams has said, facts are stubborn things. Among the facts at hand, we have the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth and His subsequent Resurrection. The Passion …
Feb 27 2021
Mask Slippages Dept.
There are days when the cleavages become all too clear…when the battle lines are too bold and bright for anyone to dispute that there’s a war on. Today is such a day: La Mesa, California Trustee Charda Bell-Fontenot told fellow board members that in-person school learning is “a very white supremacist ideology.” She …
Feb 26 2021
The Truth Crisis
Today’s miseries are founded on a single central problem. It’s not a new problem, even for the United States. We’ve seen it in many contexts and guises, here and elsewhere. It’s the problem we must solve if we’re to restore any semblance of normality to American public discourse. I once ranted about it …
Feb 24 2021
When A Right Is Made A Permission
I’m regaining a little dexterity in my hand, even though I still have a splinted finger, so let’s see how this goes… I’ve ranted before about the insidiousness of licensure. In effect, it reduces a right to a permission that can be denied at the government’s whim. It’s usually introduced under the rationale …
Feb 22 2021
It May Be A While Before I Write Anything More…
…because earlier today, one of my dogs – Precious, the Pit Bull mix – mangled my right hand. I have a cast on one finger and two others swollen from a “crush” injury. I’ll give you the whole story when I can type again. I’m sure Linda, the Colonel, Margaret, Historian, Dystopic, and …
Feb 22 2021
I’d Thought There Were No Surprises Left
As usual, I was wrong: Disney has decided that “The Muppet Show” — featuring Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy — contains “offensive content” and can now be seen only on an adult account. When viewers open the streaming service, which made five series available last Friday, viewers are greeted …
Feb 21 2021
Thank You…
…to all those responsible for this: Over the past 26 hours – i.e., since midnight February 20, Pacific time ¬– Amazon customers have downloaded just under 2900 free copies of Antiquities. That’s as of 5:00 AM EST today. A little visibility at last!
Feb 20 2021
Need Something To Read…
…but haven’t got any spare cash? It’s a sad problem, one I’ve suffered in the past. Back then, I did a lot of rereading, which was made possible by my habit of never, ever parting with a book. But today there’s a superior alternative. The Baen Free Library is exactly that: books Baen …
Feb 20 2021
Like Yesterday
[My dear friend F. James Dagg has sent along a short story of his early years. It possesses the sort of surprise punch that characterizes his short fiction. Enjoy. — FWP] Like Yesterday… I was almost thirteen, and a contradiction. Short, still childlike at a glance, no one took me to be nearly …
Feb 20 2021
Attention: Free Fiction!
For today, Saturday, February 20 through Monday, February 22, my latest novel, Antiquities, is free of charge at Amazon: Gail was a has-been singer from a forgotten band, surviving by performing for small crowds in coffee houses and bars, near to giving up on everything. Evan was a venture capitalist, widowed by …
Feb 19 2021
A New / Old Emission
My collection of religiously-themed stories, previously available only from Smashwords, is now available from Amazon: A baker’s dozen journeys in faith, replete with miracles, mysteries, and gentle explorations of God at work in the lives of men. Only $2.99 as a Kindle eBook. (The paperback isn’t quite ready yet.)
Fran’s Recent Novels
Margaret’s Recent Novels
