I didn’t watch last night’s game against with the New England Patriots going against the undefeated Indianapolis Colts. We do not have a TV and neither does the family who invited my wife and me to a turkey dinner. I’m … Continue reading
Category: Politics and Society
The Social Web, an Apologia and a Warning
With the invention of movable type, the Catholic, Johann Gutenburg printed a Latin Bible (and a Papal Indulgence), thus inaugurating the age of modern publishing in a very Catholic way. But his invention came in time for certain anti-Catholic forces … Continue reading
The Code of a Gentleman
This code of conduct was extant at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), circa 1839–1997: Without a strict observance of the fundamental Code of Honor [cf., that a gentleman does not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do], no man, … Continue reading
The Thirteenth The Greatest of Centuries
“It had great thinkers, great rulers, great teachers, great poets, great artists, great moralists and great workmen. It could not be called the material age in any special degree. It was equally poetic, political, industrial, artistic, practical, intellectual, and devotional. … Continue reading
The Southern Poverty Law Center: Putting the Hate in the Hate Indistury
Consider for a moment a large barn housing hundreds of head of cattle. The industrious, scientifically advanced farmer sees to it that the bovine fecal matter is collected and stored in vats. The resultant methane is gathered and used for … Continue reading
Catholicism is Also a Manner
CATHOLICISM is not only a matter: a truth to be told; it is also a manner: a way of telling it. Manner makes meaning quite as much as matter does. To say what Christ said, but not in the way … Continue reading
Time for Kings
This coming Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King for us Extraordinary-type Catholics. You know what that means, kids! Yes, it’s time to announce the winner of the annual “Why Monarchy Is Superior” essay contest. (Didn’t hear about it? … Continue reading
The Crescent Phenomenon of the Privatization of Warfare and Security-Services
The Crescent Phenomenon of the Privatization of Warfare and Security-Services: New Oligarchic Feudalities, Special-Operations Networks, and Ambiguous Mercenaries in a Time of Borderless Economies and Finance This essay on the arguably grand-strategic – but unmistakably permeating – privatization of “military … Continue reading
Humility, Hubris, and (Neo-) Paganism
Over at Chronicles, Dr. Thomas Fleming has a concise piece of writing that covers lots of ground on how pagans, old and new, consider the virtue of humility. He contends that the best of the Greeks and Romans had an … Continue reading
Democracy as Cow Herding
Clyde N. Wilson has an incisive piece over at Chronicles, on the Wilson-Obama debacle. The following paragraph, near the end, says a lot about the status of public “debate” in the fine Res Publica in which we find ourselves: What … Continue reading
Truth, Trust, Forgiveness: Three Aids To Peace Without Humbug
On 17 July 2005, Saint Alexis Epigraphs „They are vulnerable to the truth …. Let the truth then be known …. Let us put the truth more sharply …. The truth, however, does not automatically take care of itself …. … Continue reading
The Faith All But Dead in Quebec
O Canada! In “Neither practising nor believing, but Catholic even so,” we learn of the tragic state of the Church in Quebec. The article summary reads: “The ‘baptized pagans’ of Quebec, the most secularized society in the Western world, have … Continue reading
‘The Greatest That Ever Lived’ (On the Apotheosis of Michael Jackson)
Think of a civilization as a fruit. The interior of the fruit — its meat — consists of the ideas, principles and beliefs professed by the members of a society, and thence of the civilization of which that society is … Continue reading