Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
Nov 23 2023
A Double-Edged Gift
[This piece is an old favorite. It first appeared at The Palace of Reason on November 27, 2003. It expresses the meaning I find in the Thanksgiving celebration better than anything I’ve written since then. Twenty years later, it still rings true for me. Make of it what you will. — FWP] *** …
Nov 22 2023
A Little Pre-Thanksgiving Silliness
I’m no longer allowed, for the sake of my health, to eat my way into a coma. That makes the annual Thanksgiving Day dinner a bittersweet event: all those goodies, and I’m allowed perhaps a tablespoonful of each! But I have my memories of Thanksgiving feasts in bygone years. They must suffice. But …
Nov 22 2023
Parasitism, Freedom, And The State
There aren’t many mornings, in these waning days of my life, that I find myself heartened and energized by something a relatively conventional columnist writes in a relatively conventional media organ. This is one. Apparently, the election of Javier Milei to the presidency of Argentina has made possible the public exploration of ideas …
Nov 21 2023
Why Don’t We Have Soccer Riots?
Well, there are at least two reasons: There aren’t that many fanatic soccer fans in the United States; So we have Black Friday instead. “But why,” I hear you ask, “don’t the British have Black Friday?” The C.S.O. maintains that most of their energies are dispersed in soccer riots. (The rest go to …
Nov 20 2023
For Those A Great Distance From Their Loves
A little something from the great Tom Rush: To those who have their loves close by: Be grateful.
Nov 20 2023
Death Cult News
From Thaddeus G. McCotter: While breathing, you drive the fossil fueled vehicles to the party where the host uses his charcoal grill to smoke the meat of methane-spewing cattle raised by big agriculture and shipped by the fossil fueled vehicles to stores where it is refrigerated by coal burning electric plants, which you …
Nov 19 2023
The Three-Percenters
Among the interesting aspects of a constantly-changing lexicon is the process by which a word becomes attached to a particular function or occupation, the two never thereafter to be parted. A pattern of common usage, if it persists long enough, can separate the word from its original meaning. That’s the way languages work: a …
Nov 19 2023
This Needs To Be Viewed Widely
Not because I’m a Tucker Carlson fan or a Trump supporter…but because it’s the Gospel truth: Trump 2024. Make America Great Again!
Nov 18 2023
Techniques In Dissimulation
It pays to stay abreast of developments in deceit. Those who fail to do so might not recognize occasions when someone is striving to mislead them. That can lead to unpleasantness. One that is seldom appreciated for its ironic beauty recently poked its head above the high-slime line: Late Wednesday, the Capitol …
Nov 18 2023
More On “The Narrative”
I just encountered the following image: The salient part here is that “the authorities” – in this case, school administrators – are deterred from doing what should be done by the fear of being called racists. This is a common problem that affects other authorities as well, including police forces. Consider, for example, …
Nov 17 2023
Pride Crap
[I’m in a bit of a state just now, for reasons that don’t bear on anything my Gentle Readers would (or should) care about, so have a reprint from January 2017, over at Liberty’s Torch V1.0. After rereading it, I must report that my attitude toward “pride crap” has only hardened and grown more …
Nov 16 2023
Defending The Narrative
Call it what you will: “the narrative,” “the official position,” “the received wisdom,” or perhaps just what “everybody knows.” It’s Big Lie technique, straight from Dr. Josef Goebbels: circle the wagons around the falsehood, relentlessly repeat it in the loudest possible voice, viciously and violently denounce anyone who contradicts it…and with time everyone will …
Nov 15 2023
Interventionism
Some years ago, Dr. Robert Mendelsohn wrote a provocative book titled Confessions of a Medical Heretic. Dr. Mendelsohn’s thesis was essentially that the trend toward medical interventionism – i.e., the willingness of doctors to intrude into the processes of the human body for ever vaguer and less compelling reasons – was accelerating at a …
Nov 14 2023
A Wandering Mind
“Don’t let your mind wander. It’s too little to be let out alone.” – From a lapel button *** Hey, remember those buttons and bumper stickers from a few years back? I’m beginning to get that feeling again. *** My day is looking bad – very bad, actually – and besides, …
Nov 13 2023
Critical Recognitions Dept.
When you’ve been saying something vital to the survival of your civilization, year after year – now and then in an ear-piercing shriek – it’s gratifying to see that someone else actually gets it: What is Islam? To answer that question, it’s more important to know what Islam isn’t. Islam is not a …
Nov 13 2023
Progress Of The Purge
Courtesy of Maura Dowling, we have this outrage: More whistleblowers have stepped forward to tell Congress that high-ranking FBI officials are targeting agents, specifically former military members, for their political beliefs and trying to force them out of the bureau. A Marine and other military veterans at the FBI have been accused …
Nov 13 2023
Medicine Today
What need be said about this story? Man Has Wrong Organ Removed By Surgeons Who ‘Couldn’t Find’ His Appendix A Washington state man is suing the University of Washington (UW), after two UW surgeons failed to locate his appendix and instead removed part of his colon – leaving the man with a …
Nov 12 2023
The Days Ahead
It’s become staggeringly evident – utterly undeniable without first denying the evidence of our senses – that those who wield the powers of the federal government serve an agenda that is opposed to the best interests of the private citizens of these United States. There is simply no other way to interpret what we …
Nov 11 2023
The Poles Of Human Life
Now and then I feel the hand of destiny. Or fate. Or God. On rare occasions a man can feel it poking him. Penning the first words of my next novel – working title Ex Nihilo — seems to be the occasion. Contrary to what the predestinationists believe, we have free will and …
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