Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
Apr 04 2024
Have We Given Up On Ourselves?
First, a brief Tucker Carlson video: Carlson is asking a critical question here. It pays to spend a few moments over it. There are three polar attitudes toward time that a man can have: Past-oriented: He can spend his conscious hours reminiscing, recalling past experiences and achievements, and grousing over past failures …
Apr 03 2024
Things That Make Me Sad
Good morning, Gentle Reader. It’s Wednesday, or “Hump Day,” as the gainfully employed have long styled it. The rain is pissing down on my kinda-sorta-beloved Long Island home, yet the dogs keep demanding to be let out…and let back in five minutes later. Thus, the house is accumulating a great number of muddy tracks …
Apr 02 2024
“…But I know it when I see it.”
Does anyone remember that little phrase? It became notorious in the early Seventies, after the Supreme Court issued a ruling in a pornography case. The original speaker was Associate Justice Potter Stewart. The stimulus, of course, was the question “What is pornography?” The Court did not issue a definition. Instead, the ruling centered …
Apr 01 2024
From Tolerable To Intolerable…
…can be a very short journey indeed. Whether it’s possible depends on whether the State decides the protection and promotion of some human aberration would serve its interests. Buckle your seat belt and fold your tray-tables; this ride could get bumpy. *** I’ve ranted before about how the politicization of transgenderism has transformed …
Mar 31 2024
Evidence That Demands A Verdict
That’s the title of a famous book by a notable Christian apologist. It’s also suitable for labeling this obscenity: Protesters calling for a cease-fire in Gaza interrupted a Saturday night Easter Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, chanting “Free, free Palestine” before being removed from the service. Thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators gathered in …
Mar 31 2024
Promise Kept
In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from …
Mar 30 2024
Fears And What Lies Behind Them
If a man should tell you that he’s “extremely fearful” of some possibility, it immediately has you inquiring for his reasons. In some cases, some of those reasons will be (damn it all) “obvious.” You might have known about them before he expressed his fear. But in others, the more important of his reasons …
Mar 29 2024
On Being Alone Far From Home
[After returning to and contemplating this piece, I was moved to repost an old item. It first appeared at the late, lamented Eternity Road in December, 2007. – FWP] He was far from home, alone in a sterile room in a cookie-cutter businessmen’s hotel, a storage warren for men on the road for …
Mar 29 2024
The Beginning Of The End
The materialists say that there is nothing beyond the veil of Time, that the material is all. They say that life begins, and ends, and is over. But then, they say a lot things. They have a lot to say… and one can’t help but get the sense that their aim is mainly to …
Mar 28 2024
Concerning NBC And Ronna McDaniel
I sometimes wonder if my function in this life is simply to remember things others have forgotten. The recent hiring-then-firing of former RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel has widely been treated as an unprecedented event…which it isn’t. Hearken to Ann Coulter’s narration of the media “career” of one Susan Molinari, former Congresswoman from …
Mar 27 2024
Based Book Sale
Hans G. Schantz, author of the Hidden Truth trilogy, has once again organized a Based Book Sale. It runs from today, March 27 through Wednesday, April 3. All the books in it are available in their Kindle editions for $0.99 or less. Many are free. If you like to read, are dissatisfied with the …
Mar 26 2024
Extrapolation Is Easy…
…but realism is hard. Isn’t everyone familiar with the investment flacksters’ line that “past performance is no guarantee of future returns?” Aren’t we all aware that trends become more dubious the longer they continue? Haven’t we seen enough trends implode “unexpectedly,” and all too often ruinously? The quotes at the opening of …
Mar 25 2024
Realism In War
I hope the shade of the late, great Ursula Le Guin won’t mind the following longish excerpt from her short novel The Word For World Is Forest: “In Rieshwel, New Java. Fourteen days ago. A town was burned and its people killed by yumens of the Camp in Rieshwel.” “It’s a lie. …
Mar 24 2024
Questions For God
You might think that once we’re dead and in heaven, there are no more rules. But there’s still a need for discretion. Werner Heisenberg once said that if he got the chance, there were two questions he wanted to ask God: Why relativity? And why turbulence? They’re good questions – I’d certainly like the …
Mar 24 2024
Clubbings
Two weeks ago journalist Emerald Robinson published a startling article about How The GOP Committed Suicide Trying to Stop Trump. Much of it is about Mitch McConnell (R, KY), whom Robinson accuses of doing his damnedest to prevent Donald Trump from functioning as president, and of subsequently aiding the anti-Trump forces in their attempt …
Mar 23 2024
Now For Something Lighthearted
Weird Dave asks us: My answer: Engelbert Humperdinck, “Please Release Me.” Yours?
Mar 23 2024
The Strangest Temptation
“Truly, this was the Son of God!” – Matthew 27:54 Tomorrow begins Holy Week for this Year of Our Lord 2024. If you’re a Christian, you already know the significance of this portion of the calendar. If not: it’s the week when Christians commemorate the entry of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, into …
Mar 22 2024
Inversions
The C.S.O. does most of our grocery shopping, which insulates me against certain data that would otherwise arrive regularly in my awareness. However, now and then we go together to a “warehouse” style discount store for items we know to be available there in bulk, usually less expensively than at a commonplace supermarket. On …
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