Every trade has its peculiar hazards. Priests agonize over confidences. Engineers become obsessed with perfection. Lawyers argue about everything. Writers read obsessively, ever anxious that someone’s “been there before them.” Accountants – no! Sweetie! Put down that cleaver! Anyway, he who chooses some occupation should be aware of its specific dangers before he decides …
Category: early-morning thoughts
May 17 2025
Women, Children, And Natural Law
Natural laws baffle quite a lot of people. They’re not in the lawbooks. They don’t have a legislature’s seal of approval. The police don’t arrest offenders and the district attorneys don’t prosecute them. Yet they exist. They sneer at those who sneer at them, for they are un-repealable, um-modifiable, and self-enforcing. Here’s one …
May 10 2025
Pride Goeth, And Goeth, And Goeth…
The following verse from the Book of Proverbs is well known, at least in part: Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty sprit before a fall. [Proverbs 16:18] The exact meaning of pride in the above may not be clear to some. I take it to mean overweening pride: the sort that …
May 03 2025
Freedoms That Aren’t
You and I, Gentle Reader, are aware of the limitations that come with employment… at least, I am, and I hope you are. What the boss tells you to do, you do; what he tells you not to do, you don’t. Roger-wilco acceptance of one’s supervisor’s decrees is the price of one’s paycheck. Neither …
May 02 2025
A Critical Category Not Yet Defined
This morning, prompted by this article, Weird Dave asks this: Question: Can/should the 1st Amendment be re-written to exclude religions like Islam? The problem isn’t as stiff as one might think, because it isn’t really “to exclude religions like Islam.” It’s to define religion in a fashion that includes only creeds that …
Apr 30 2025
“The Good Old Days”
I just stumbled upon this rather revealing bit of dialogue between a company president and a new hire. Please read it. What was the president trying to say to his new hire, albeit without actually saying it? Every workplace possesses a culture of some kind. Newbies are expected to learn what that culture …
Apr 24 2025
Ego Defense
Yet another provocative graphic courtesy of Mike Miles: That’s not a completely new observation, but it does highlight one of the human psyche’s great vulnerabilities. No one wants to admit to having been gulled. Gullibility is considered shameful. The longer and more completely one has been misled, the greater the wound to the …
Apr 23 2025
Love Of Evil
I’ve seen this sentiment many times lately: Mind you, Leftist Democrats don’t actually say “I love those MS-13 gangbangers.” Their behavior says it for them. (Not one of them went to any trouble over the American hostages being held by HAMAS. Remember that.) And of course, we must ask why they’re so fond …
Apr 22 2025
Monopolies Come In Many Flavors
According to yesterday’s news – please forgive me; I’ve lost the link – the legislatures of eleven states are considering making ivermectin an over-the-counter drug, available to any adult purchaser without a prescription. I haven’t read of any open reactions from the medical establishments, but my prediction is that we’ll find out, sooner or …
Apr 16 2025
“We Don’t Want That Strongman! We Want OUR Strongman!”
Remember Stalin? Well, all right; you’d have to be a lot older than I am to have been an adult during Stalin’s term of power. Anyway, Stalin was an old-fashioned strongman: he ruled the Soviet Union absolutely, personally decreeing what was to be and brooking no opposition. And the American Left loved him. …
Apr 13 2025
Choosing The Thief
Catholics call today Palm Sunday: the day commemorating Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. That event had features that suggested that the Redeemer would be hailed, even lionized, by the people of the city. As anyone familiar with the story of the Passion is aware, that turned out not to be the case: [Applause to …
Apr 12 2025
Pernicious Passphrases
All our Gentle Readers know what a password is, right? It’s an indicator to a guard – human or otherwise – that you have permission to go where you’re headed. It protects the destination from persons unauthorized to visit. If you don’t have the proper password, the guard will refuse to admit you. …
Apr 08 2025
A Disputable Observation
Just now over at Ace’s place, I saw this from commentator David Winston: Violence directed at people, businesses and property based on political differences is the antithesis of democracy. The silence from many elected Democrats in terms of this violence has very disconcerting. Charting the direction of the country is done through elections, …
Apr 06 2025
Political Marketing
When you get as many cold-call importunings (mainly from pitchmen with Indian accents) as I do, the subject of marketing can frequently be on your mind. Political marketing isn’t entirely unique, though it is distinct from the commercial sort in several ways. The one on my mind this morning is its aspirational / emotional …
Mar 24 2025
An Ugly Thought
After reading Ashe Schow’s account of Matt Van Swol’s “SWATting,” a possibility occurred to me that I can’t dismiss. Indeed, the longer I dwell on it, the more plausible it becomes. Quite a few persons in the Right have been SWATted recently: 🧵 THREAD: Unmasking Swatting Patterns 🧵 Three additional MAGA X influencers …
Mar 22 2025
The Counter-Flood
There’s been a lot of chatter about how, by moving in so many directions simultaneously in its first weeks, the Trump Administration completely confused its opponents on the Left. The shorthand applied to this effect is “flooding the zone.” And it does seem to have flummoxed the Democrats… for a little while. But …
Mar 07 2025
Knots
Among the developments least remarked upon as the Twentieth Century progressed were the steadily swelling bureaucracies that have come to be known as the Deep State. They seemed innocent at first, yet they gradually swallowed our nation, rendering elected officials largely impotent. By the end of World War II, they threatened to render the …
Mar 04 2025
The Last Refuge Of The Elected Scoundrel
A friend was known to ask what contemporary conservatives are determined to conserve. As Robert Conquest has noted, everyone is conservative about something – usually, the thing that provides them with their living. In that sense, all elected officials are “conservative.” Every one of them wants to remain in office. They’ll do whatever they …
Mar 02 2025
On Approaching The Lenten Season
This coming Wednesday, March 5, is Ash Wednesday for the Year of Our Lord 2025. The Lenten season begins on that day and extends through Good Friday: April 18 of this year. It’s supposed to be a season of penitence and reflection, during which Catholics strive to deepen our appreciation and gratitude for Jesus’s …
Feb 09 2025
Cui Bono?
That penetrating question has raised its head again: Inquiring minds want to know why @SenatorDurbin has blocked release of the Epstein client list for years. What could possibly be the reason? 🤔 https://t.co/pVDkImsdN2 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2025 What conceivable interest could a United States Senator have in suppressing information about …
Fran’s Recent Novels
Margaret’s Recent Novels
