Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
Aug 25 2022
Prime Ministers Just Wanna Have Fun?
Well, maybe. Consider Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin: Finland’s Prime Minister is Sanna Marin, 36 years old and pretty. Over the last week or so, Marin has been caught up in a series of scandals–or are they pseudo-scandals? What is clear is that she likes to party, while her husband apparently doesn’t. …
Aug 25 2022
Partisans Versus Ponderers
By now, the Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch will be aware that I’m firmly non-partisan: I hate politics in general, and (pretty much) all who have made it their trade. Nevertheless, it’s largely safe to be around me. This nation of 330,000,000 people has approximately 500,000 elected-official positions: a mere 0.15% of our numbers. …
Aug 24 2022
Stop! Stop! It’s Too Much!
Apologies, Gentle Reader. It’s a grab-bag day. If I delay clearing my “Future Columns” folder any longer, it might just give birth. *** “Church” and “radical” don’t go together…but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen: Pope Francis’ lead-up to the Synod on Synodality is entering the “continental” phase. And this moment raises …
Aug 23 2022
Just Because I Feel Like It
…and because too many fail to remember, and too many have never known: Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc As she came riding through the dark; No moon to keep her armour bright, No man to get her through this very smoky night. She said, “I’m tired of the war, I want …
Aug 23 2022
“Make It Stop” — ?
Just how do you plan to do that, hmm? Anthony Bradford, 19, approached a 12-year-old girl in a park on Detroit’s east side around 10 p.m. last Tuesday and demanded that she surrender her shoes. When the girl told Bradford to pound sand, he shot her. Bradford was arrested and charged with …
Aug 23 2022
What Is Fanaticism?
As my Gentle Readers might have expected, I got a number of emails about yesterday’s piece. There were a few mild disapprovals (“too long”), a few strident disagreements to be expected a priori (“religion is for fools and the weak-minded”), and two missives I’d rather not discuss in detail. But one rather interesting case …
Aug 22 2022
The Church Under Attack
Political matters can go hang for the moment. Just now, my focus is on more permanent things…some of them eternal. *** Surely this piece is not so far in the past that my Gentle Readers will have forgotten it. It may have drawn more giggles than sober ponderings, but the true import of …
Aug 21 2022
Strokes
I’d intended to write a Jeremiad about this bit of viciousness — thank you, John Hinderaker, for bringing that to my attention — but I’m just recently back from Sunday Mass, and events, or perhaps non-events, have pointed me in another direction for today’s tirade. You’re unlikely to read anything else today like …
Aug 20 2022
The Cancelers’ First-Priority Target (UPDATED)
It’s none other than Libs of TikTok: These are the people teaching your kids pic.twitter.com/2xGO1UYM8R — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 9, 2022 This is but an item from the fringe of the transgender-evangelists’ madness. Madness, when both tolerated and celebrated, engenders further madness. The unwillingness to confront madness and label it as …
Aug 20 2022
Poor Besieged Compton, CA!
Gee, I can’t imagine what brought this on: Dozens of people who were part of a street takeover also looted a 7-Eleven convenience store in Harbor-Gateway, and police are asking for help identifying some involved. “I live in the apartment next door,” said neighbor Lisa Trafton. “I was ready to go to …
Aug 19 2022
Death Cult Chronicles
They mean it, folks. They really mean it: It’s impossible to overstate the significance of the Death Cultists’ recent, in-your-face brazenness. They think their hour has arrived. They’ve achieved so much, over such a long period, that they’ve come to feel unstoppable. They certainly won’t stop because you dislike the notion of exterminating …
Aug 18 2022
Gauges Of Popular Confidence
Today, David Reavill at Independent Sentinel writes about one of the financial mainstays of Americans who pursue home ownership: the 30-year mortgage: For most of us, purchasing our home is the largest single financial transaction we will ever make. It is also a tremendous obligation. As we sign that mortgage loan for the …
Aug 17 2022
“Fuck You America, We’re Doing This”
That line is from a recent novel by K. M. Breakey. The novel itself is undistinguished, essentially wish-fulfillment fiction, but that line is a perfect summary of the interval from November 7, 2020 to the present day. Indeed, nothing else could capture the grim arrogance of the Usurpers who have stolen this country from …
Aug 16 2022
A Few Words On Classification
As this is likely to be a hot topic for the next few weeks – say, up to and possibly well beyond the DOJ’s near-inevitable attempt to indict President Donald Trump for something — I thought I’d throw what I learned about the classification system and the authorities pertinent to it into the pot. …
Aug 15 2022
“Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition” — ?
If you seek to destroy a community united around a set of ideas, but you can’t effectively refute the ideas or persuade the allegiants to abandon them, the most promising alternative is to attack the community’s icons and its symbols. We’ve already seen quite a lot of this, these past few decades. Note …
Aug 14 2022
Awakenings
This one is particularly piercing: The Six Flags CEO is having to explain the decision to raise prices and eliminate discounts at the company’s parks, in light of the emerging fact that attendance is down by 22% since the decision was made. He said in a statement that the price increase was a …
Aug 13 2022
The Lawless FBI
If you still think of the FBI as a repository of “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity,” read this stunning piece. Apparently the Bureau’s willingness to act outside the law in pursuit of its objectives goes way, way back. Applause to Mike Miles for the link.
Aug 12 2022
Agents Of The Status Quo
Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket. – a misquote of Eric Hoffer Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a …
Aug 11 2022
“But Then They Might Not Get The Shot!”
Everyone on Earth – certainly, everyone with a minor child – should read this incredible conversation between a distraught father and a pharmacist: Father: Are you a pharmacist? Pharmacist: Yes, how can I help? Father: Yeah. Hey, I’ve got a question. My wife, against my wishes, brought my seven-year-old son a few days ago …
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