Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
Feb 19 2021
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. …
Feb 18 2021
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.” …
Feb 18 2021
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 …
Feb 17 2021
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 …
Feb 16 2021
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 …
Feb 15 2021
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 …
Feb 14 2021
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 …
Feb 14 2021
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 …
Feb 14 2021
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 …
Feb 13 2021
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 …
Feb 13 2021
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 …
Feb 12 2021
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 …
Feb 11 2021
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 …
Feb 11 2021
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 …
Feb 10 2021
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 …
Feb 09 2021
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, …
Feb 09 2021
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 …
Feb 08 2021
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 …
Feb 06 2021
“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 …
Fran’s Recent Novels
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