Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
May 08 2021
Death Of A Nation
In 1915, a man named D. W. Griffith made a movie that – as we like to say these days – excited some controversy. It was titled Birth of a Nation. It was a Civil-War movie – that’s the War Between The States for any Copperheads in the audience – that was mostly about …
May 06 2021
Onus Of Criterion
A weird-looking phrase, eh what? I first encountered it in Michael Emerling’s recorded talk on “The Essence of Political Persuasion.” The tactic he described was a real eye-opener – and smashingly relevant to conditions today. The “onus of criterion” tactic relies upon your adversary’s unwillingness to admit that there’s no imaginable evidence that …
May 06 2021
Can “They” “Lose It?”
In 1990, when Timothy Hutton was still a young man, he starred in a movie titled “Q & A” about a young assistant DA assigned to investigate a case of police corruption. It wasn’t a great movie, but its climax, such as it was, said something terrifying about those who dwell in the corridors …
May 05 2021
Barefaced Thuggery Part 2
What relationship is defined by having no rules? Trust me: it’s not one of the more obscure puzzles you’ll encounter: “Are you ready?” Christine raised her chin and presented her mentor with a feral smile. She had waited for this morning with a Christmas-like anticipation. “Bet your ass.” I’ve never …
May 03 2021
Barefaced Thuggery
The word thug derives from a foreign source, the Thuggee of India. That cult worshipped Kali, the Hindu goddess of death. Human sacrifices to her were part of the cult’s rituals. In particular, the Thuggee liked to sacrifice anyone caught peering into actions of the Thuggee. Rather efficient use of resources, that. The …
May 02 2021
There’s No Escape
I suppose I ought to have been more fatalistic. After all, it’s an old maxim that when your number’s up, your number’s up. (And a tautology’s a tautology.) But after defeating the last one – it took quite a lot of butter and salt – I’d hoped I could relax. Give up the cholesterol …
May 02 2021
Three Lives, Three Deaths
She was young. Far too young, by most reckonings, to be equipped to cope with tragedy. She’d been married only a short time when she discovered that she was pregnant…and only a short time later discovered that her baby daughter was anencephalic, incapable of living outside the womb. Against medical advice and …
Apr 30 2021
To Be Or To Do? A Rumination
Before I launch into today’s indulgence in sententiousness, allow me a few prefatory words. Several Gentle Readers have written to ask why I’ve been writing so much about subjects in moral-ethical thought. I expected to be asked about it, and have been thinking about the answer for my own benefit as well as that …
Apr 29 2021
The Virtues And Virtue: A Rumination
If you’ve had any kind of education at all, you’ll be familiar with the three “theological” virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity. …and if you managed to graduate high school without being incarcerated for a major felony, you’ll probably know about the “cardinal virtues:” Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude. I shan’t expend server space expounding …
Apr 28 2021
Faith And Fiction: A Rumination
The more you look, the more you see. — Robert M. Pirsig It’s amazing the way the realm of the mind expands, providing ever more room to prowl, and hopefully to grow, to him who is willing to look at significant subjects synthetically as well as analytically. Consider this observation from the great …
Apr 27 2021
The Political Function Of Racism
I cribbed the title above from a chapter in one of the books on my Most Admired list: Jean-Francois Revel’s masterwork The Flight From Truth: The Reign of Deceit in an Age of Information. In that chapter, Revel does a masterful job of delineating the Left’s perversion of what was once a simple, precisely …
Apr 27 2021
Freudian Slips Dept.
This one is courtesy of Wes Rhinier at NCRenegade: Laugh? Cry? Or bellow in fury? In this particular multiple-choice test, there are no wrong answers.
Apr 26 2021
Misplaced Faiths
Some years ago – I hesitate to say how many – a colleague and I got into a wrangle about the compiler he was using in his development work. I’d found a fault in the generated code – I did my debugging in machine language, back then – and, upon comparing it to the …
Apr 25 2021
Cumulative Acceptance
I’ve been watching the trends that run through the various genres of fiction I’ve occasionally produced: Science Fiction, High Fantasy, Urban Fantasy / Horror, Romance, …and I believe I’ve deduced a few things about both reader and writer behavior, all of which pertain to the important consideration called willing suspension of disbelief. …
Apr 25 2021
From Tim
I’ve been in a bad way lately: physical problems, difficulties in managing my household, a persistent emotional trough, and low levels of energy and motivation. Some of that’s to be expected in a septuagenarian. As for the rest, I try to cope. Still, it can be very hard when the negatives gang up for …
Apr 23 2021
Unspeakabilities
There are things we of Polite Society are not supposed to discuss. Indeed, throughout the history of Mankind there have always been such things. Mention of them was forbidden by custom and the threat of ostracism. However, the specific subjects within the realm of unspeakability have changed as time has passed. I’ve written …
Apr 22 2021
Survey!
Everybody’s taking surveys and polls lately. Seems that way, anyway. So I figured it’s time to survey the Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch on a few subjects of current importance. For each of the statements below, please indicate, on a scale of 1 to 5, whether you: Disagree strongly; Disagree somewhat; Are indifferent; …
Apr 21 2021
Concerning The Judicial Lynching Of Derek Chauvin
This only just sprang to mind: “We are not fighting against single individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. Do not look in materials you have gathered for evidence that a suspect acted or spoke against the Soviet authorities. The first question you should ask him is what class he belongs …
Apr 21 2021
Capturing The Moment
Were you under the impression that the United States is not currently in a state of civil war? Minneapolis City Council Candidate and Former City Employee Encourages Rioters to Burn Down Wealthy Neighborhoods Right On Cue: Portland Rioters Go On Destructive Rampage After Chauvin Verdict, Police Actually Intervene BLM Minneapolis: ‘I Don’t Want to …
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