Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
Dec 16 2022
Things You Can Rely On Part 2
Just as “environmentalists” (who should really be called “anti-humanists”) are reliable in their opposition to anything that supports and enriches human life, vocal “diversity” activists are absolutely reliable about certain things. Most prominent among those things is their hatred for any manifestation of Christianity or practices associated with it: This happened in Dedham, …
Dec 15 2022
No Title Could Possibly Suffice
Some days, the outrage mounts to a level that gets me shaking and screaming, unable to form a coherent sentence for the power of the emotion. Such an occasion leaves me weak for hours and upsets my wife rather badly. Fortunately, such days are uncommon. But they’re not uncommon enough: TORONTO – …
Dec 15 2022
Free Fiction!
Starting today, through January 1, all my novels without exception are free downloads at Smashwords. You can get them in any and all popular formats, suitable for reading on your handheld device or your computer. Amazon won’t allow me a giveaway promotion any more, so hie thee to Smashwords for the freebies.
Dec 14 2022
Things You Can Rely On
Have a blinding flash of the obvious: People who want you dead can be relied upon to oppose Any development that’s likely to keep you alive. Now, I don’t happen to know anyone who personally and identifiably wants me dead. But I do know of a category of people who want all of …
Dec 13 2022
Accountability: A Conundrum
From the most recent dump of Twitter Files: 38. Outside the United States, Twitter’s decision to ban Trump raised alarms, including with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, and Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. 39. Macron told an audience he didn’t “want to live in a democracy where …
Dec 12 2022
Identity, Attribution, And Affiliation: Some Thoughts
Apologies, Gentle Reader, but the immortal words of Becker and Fagin,in I’m about to do it again: My self-imposed exile wasn’t for any particular purpose. Maybe it served one even so. —No maybes about it, Al. You are not who or what you were. You’re far more. Some of it is invisible …
Dec 11 2022
TITS Up!
Here we are: Gaudete Sunday, when Advent transforms from a season of spiritual preparation to an anticipation of joy. We’ve been here before, we Christians. We know the Savior is coming. We know that He will be born of a virgin in a rude stable, placed in repose in a manger surrounded by animals; …
Dec 10 2022
“Why Is He Sitting Alone?” A Meditation On Political Affiliation
“Anarchists’ rally disorganized. Film at eleven!” – old gag Have you ever gone to a restaurant for lunch or dinner and seen someone sitting at a table entirely alone? Did you watch him surreptitiously, certain that at any moment his companion – spouse, friend, child, lawyer, what have you – would emerge from …
Dec 09 2022
Errors Eternally Embarrass Everyone Erroneous Everywhere
Yes, I enjoy alliterations. What of it? The thing public figures least like to do is admit to error. They regard being compelled to say “I was wrong” about as warmly as a public bowel movement. Thus it doesn’t happen often. The best known occasion in history – Anwar Sadat’s admission that the …
Dec 08 2022
A Word I Hate To Use…
…is slowly but inexorably forcing its way into my vocabulary. And no, it’s not should. Let’s spend a few moments on the incentive structure of retailing. For simplicity, let’s focus on a merchant who buys all his stock-in-trade from others, and attempts to sell it at a profit sufficient to be worth his …
Dec 07 2022
Competence Deemed Racist!
Seems like it, anyway: In 2019, we decided to host anti-racism events in white women’s dining rooms for one specific reason: To turn the age-old adage, “it’s rude to talk about politics at the dinner table” on its head. This is what we’ve learned—if you don’t talk about racism, you can’t dismantle …
Dec 07 2022
The Signs Point To The Return Of…A Sign
We all remember what happened to Sweet Cakes By Melissa, Jack Phillips’s Masterpiece Cakeshop, and Memories Pizza in Indiana. Those are recent enough that the names are practically self-explanatory. But soft! What fresh contretemps through yonder website breaks? A Virginia-based conservative Christian advocacy group was turned away from a local restaurant just an …
Dec 07 2022
Life, Death, and Decay: A Coda
Old people think about such things far more frequently than young people…but now and then, a young person will think about them. It’s about mindset: The lecture hall had emptied, but Armand and Teresza remained in their seats. Armand had not moved since the closing bell, and Teresza was afraid to nudge him. …
Dec 07 2022
An Early Morning Thought
What the statistics tell us, quite clearly, is that when it comes to rates of violent crimes and crimes against property, demographics matters, while the legal availability of firearms does not. Where there are large numbers of persons predisposed to ignore the laws, the laws – including laws about firearms acquisition – are more …
Dec 06 2022
Largely Personal Scatterings
I’m in a strange place this morning, for miscellaneous reasons some of which might become evident as you proceed, Gentle Reader. I don’t have a coherent subject in mind just now, as is usually the case when I light off on a piece for Liberty’s Torch. All the same, I feel the usual (for …
Dec 05 2022
“Freedom: I Won’t!”
This will be an extremely trying day here at the Fortress, for doggie reasons: our Newf must go back under the knife yet again, this time to correct a dangerous abdominal hernia. So I doubt I’ll be posting anything much. Accordingly, I’d like to recommend that anyone who hasn’t yet read Eric Frank …
Dec 04 2022
Apparently “No Law Abridging” Cannot Mean No Law Abridging
“I have always read ‘no law abridging’ to mean no law abridging.’” – Associate Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black Time was, Black was regarded as a jurisprudential giant, especially by liberals. Of course, we don’t really have liberals any longer; they’ve been swallowed up by the “progressives.” You know, the political creed that’s …
Dec 04 2022
A Light In The Darkness
Quoth Neil Oliver: I love Christmas … always have and always will. In every conceivable way, Christmas is light in a time of darkness and for many of us, that light has never been more welcome and so can’t come soon enough. Especially since the festival is once again under attack by …
Dec 04 2022
More Than Coincidence?
Maine is also a Constitutional-carry state. No permit required, though I think the state will issue you one on request, for use in other states that observe reciprocity. Considerate, eh?
Dec 03 2022
Yesterday Was Newsworthy
And for more reasons than one. 1. The Twitter News. Elon Musk has made good on his promise. I hardly need tell my intelligent, observant, highly skeptical, exceedingly handsome Gentle Readers what I mean by that. Despite the flood of revelations he’s provided through journalist Matt Taibbi, there remains enough ambiguity for any …
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