Francis W. Porretto

Mount Sinai, NY USA

Author's posts

Doubts

     One of the most illuminating things ever to emerge from the mind of a pope was this from Pope Benedict XVI: faith is inseparable from doubt. He who holds to a faith of any sort will be plagued by doubts now and then.      That insight applies to more than just religious faiths.      …

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Protection Rackets: The Latest Trend

     You’ve heard about the black racialists demanding “reparations,” haven’t you? Translated from the Thuggese, that amounts to “Pay us and maybe we’ll stop trashing your cities.” They might as well walk into your store, look around appraisingly, and murmur “Nice place you’ve got here. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it.” …

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Tragedies

     Once again I’m up too early in the morning for…well…for anything, really. And I find myself bemused by the state we’ve lurched into, and unable to suggest anything but prayer.      I’m not knocking prayer. Prayer is highly beneficial. However, it has an indifferent track record at correcting the ills that beset us, when …

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A Critical Lexical Shift

     Yesterday’s column by Mike Gonzalez illuminates yet another tactical stroke against American conceptions of equality: the substitution of the word equity, a quite different concept. The core of the thing:      Equality is the standard of our old Constitution, the one framed in 1787 and amended since then, most memorably in the Bill of …

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Fossil Fuels And The Tyrants Among Us

     Aspiring tyrants’ hostility to the fossil fuels has a long history. It goes back to the early Twentieth Century at least, and has never lapsed since then.      Mind you, it’s a political hostility rather than a principled one. The point is power over others. You can tell by this: the rationale for opposing …

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The Fearful And What They Fear

     Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity They seem more afraid of life than death. – James F. Byrnes      There was no security in this world and only damn fools and mice thought there could be. – Robert A. Heinlein, Glory Road      These past two days, I’ve encountered several …

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The Genes Will Tell

     I’ve gotten quite a giggle these past few months over the entrance into women’s sports events of biological men who claim to be women. A curious thing happens when that’s permitted: the winner of the event is always a biological man. As my Roman ancestors might have said, mirabile dictu! (Or as a contemporary …

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Read This To The Very End

     Then reflect on the profound wisdom it contains: The Importance Of Fellowship      You’re welcome.      “I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for …

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The Acquittal

     “They say ‘It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.’ I say ‘It’s not who you know; it’s what you’ve got on ‘em.’” – Lawrence Block      It was a foregone conclusion that every Senate Democrat would vote to convict President Trump of inciting the January 6 disturbance at the Capitol so inaccurately …

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By The Numbers

     If it cannot be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. – Robert A. Heinlein      I only recently became aware of this Prager U video:      It’s an excellent, facts-and-figures based refutation of the “renewable energy” con the enviro-Nazis have been promoting. And therefore, the Left has put a lot …

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Forked Tongues Dept.

     I didn’t bother to watch any of the “debates” among the various Democrat aspirants to the 2020 presidential nomination. Thus I was unaware of much that took place in those exchanges that would later become items of controversy. Most recently, the following surfaced:      Yes, Gentle Reader: Kamala Harris really did say all those …

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Turning It Around: The Prospects

     Paper constitutions raise smiles on the faces of those who have observed their results; and paper social systems similarly affect those who have contemplated the available evidence. How little the men who wrought the French Revolution and were chiefly concerned in setting up the new governmental apparatus, dreamt that one of the early actions …

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We Really Can’t Help It…

     …we humans have a hard time separating people’s personalities and characters from our opinions of the ideas they espouse. We tend to assess the validity of a Cause according to the strengths and weaknesses of those who promote it: their public conduct, their cumulative reputations, and whatever we can learn about their pasts. The …

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Ace Does It Again

     Striking the jugular in a minimum of words is becoming his specialty:      [O]nly the dishonest attempt to panic other people into making decisions.      Please read the whole column. Now, Gentle Reader: Which side of the political spectrum has made a specialty of screaming that “There’s no time to waste!” and “We’ve got …

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Religion and Realism in Fiction

     There’s “religious fiction,” of course. Everyone is aware of the “Left Behind” series, which despite its many flaws was widely read and applauded. We also have the works of writers such as C. S. Lewis, Taylor Caldwell, Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker, Karen Kingsbury, and others. Their novels are explicitly religious, almost polemic about the …

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Too Important Not To Publicize

     “When a man shows you who he is, believe him.” – Maya Angelou      Here is Massachusetts’ Undersecretary for Climate Change David Ismay, showing you exactly who and what he is: a totalitarian who would rather that we freeze to death, and sacrifice forever the power to go where we please, when we please, …

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NOOO!

It’s back! And bigger than ever! What must I do to be free of it?

The Sacrament Of The Hour

     For a long time, I’ve referred to abortion as “the sacrament of the Left.” Having an abortion, or having had one in the past, is one of the ways a woman establishes her bona fides as a trustworthy (?) leftist. (Men who are responsible for pregnancies terminated via abortion receive a “derived” form of …

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Marginalia 2021-02-08

1. Missings.      Just about the only way to know how important something, or some activity, really is to you is to go without it for awhile.      The C.S.O. and I were once pro-football addicts. Sunday during the NFL season, we would watch at least two, and more often than not three games. It …

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“Where Do You Get Your Ideas?”

     If you write fiction, it’s inevitable that you’ll be asked the title question. I’ve faced it innumerable times. Typically, it will come after a forlorn announcement by the questioner that “I’d love to write, but I can’t seem to come up with any ideas.” The questionee – that’s you – will be tried to …

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