BRITISH composer John Tavener (1944-2013) had “a profound sense of silence.” In his book Surprised by Beauty: A Listener’s Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music (read an excerpt here), Robert B. Reilly, who made this comment, says Tavener was one of three influential composers who have laid the atonality of modern music to rest. “The tyranny is now gone and tonality is back,” Reilly writes.

The words to Tavener’s choral composition, Mother and Child:

Mother and Child

Enamoured of its gaze
The mother’s gaze in turn
Contrived a single beam of light
Along which love may move.
Hail Maria!
Hail Sophia!
Hail Maria! Read More »

RETIRED MAJOR GEN. Albert Stubblebine, who died earlier this year, describes his gradual disillusionment with the official story of the events of Sept. 11, 2001 in this powerful video. He is one of many retired and active military members to challenge the story and the highest ranking military member to say publicly that the official story is not true.  Despite all his military experience, it was his wife who initially got him to see that something was not right.

Stubblebine was the commanding general of the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command from 1981 to 1984. He graduated from the United States Military Academy and received a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Columbia University. He received the Bronze Star, a Distinguished Service Medal, two Legion of Merit medals and two Air medals. Beware of Internet disinformation suggesting Stubblebine is a kook.

He didn’t put all the pieces together but his knowledge was unfolding. The last few minutes of the video are moving as Stubblebine speaks of his intense patriotism.

[Note: I am not familiar with other statements Stubblebine may have made about 9/11. This is not an endorsement of all he may have said. Nor is it an endorsement of the simplistic idea that “the government did it.”]

NBC reports:

A husband and wife from Queens have pleaded guilty to enslaving two children from Korea, forcing them to do housework, provide massages, and turn over pay from outside jobs, prosecutors in New York said Wednesday.

The Flushing couple — 54-year-old Jeong Taek Lee and his wife, 50-year-old Sook Yeon Park — were charged on two counts of labor trafficking. Lee was sentenced to five months’ probation, while his wife faces six months in prison followed by five years’ probation.

Frances Gabe with a model of her house

DID you ever hear a plumber say, “I hate unblocking pipes. I hate it! I wish there was no such thing as the sewer line?”

Did you ever hear an electrician say, “I can’t stand wiring houses! Oh, I just hate electricity and wish it didn’t exist?”

Or how about a construction worker? Have you ever heard one say, “I hate nailing. I wish we all lived in grass huts so I didn’t have to nail anything together ever again?”

Probably not. For it is only the modern woman, under the influence of the Great Home-Hating Feminist Psy-Op, who goes about saying how much she hates, hates, hates the menial labor she has to do, as if she were a forest-clearing slave in the Siberian gulag rather than an independent domestic boss surrounded by nifty home-cleaning innovations that would be the envy of pre-industrial peasants.

Frances Gabe (1915-2016) was a housewife who detested and resented housework. She became especially ticked off when her children got fig jam on the walls. Jam on the walls! Oh, how boring, tedious and totally beneath the “educated” (or miseducated) woman! Gabe reportedly was so fed up that she decided to invent and build a self-cleaning house (we don’t know whether she tried to teach her children how to clean instead). She invented one over a long period. The result was entirely impractical and necessarily ugly due to the need to encase everything in plastic or other waterproof coverings to withstand cleaning from jets of water.

The self-cleaning house, though its invention certainly did involve hard work and creativity, has been consigned to the dustbin of useless creations. Mrs. Gabe, whose idea of a really clean house eventually meant one without her husband (she reportedly tossed him out), apparently did not have enough appreciation for the various objects made of fabric and wood that make a house beautiful (when not covered in plastic or resin) and prevent it from being the sort of thing that can be scoured with hoses. This appreciation might have helped her get through the tedium of cleaning or focus on a less ambitious invention.

The New York Times, in its extended eulogy of the maker of this ultimately useless invention, says she died recently in obscurity. (My condolences to her family.) This is not true. There are dozens of articles about Gabe. No one knows the names of many male inventors who made the appliances and little gadgets that make the housewife’s lot so much easier. I bet when Herbert Johnson, the inventor of the wonderful and very useful stand mixer, died, The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times did not run lengthy obituaries.

But now many know the name of the woman who hated housework. May she rest in peace — and be someplace where everything is spic and span. If only ….

IF ONLY
— Fay Inchfawn

 If only dinner cooked itself,
And groceries grew upon the shelf;
If children did as they were told,
And never had a cough or cold;
And washed their hands, and wiped their
boots,
And never tore their Sunday suits,
But always tidied up the floor,
Nor once forgot to shut the door.

If John remembered not to throw
His papers on the ground. And oh!
If he would put his pipes away,
And shake the ashes on the tray
Instead of on the floor close by;
And always spread his towel to dry,
And hung his hat upon the peg,
And never had bones in his leg.

Then, there’s another thing. If Jane
Would put the matches back again
Just where she found them, it would be
A save of time to her and me.
And if she never did forget
To put the dustbin out; nor yet
Contrive to gossip with the baker,
Nor need ten thunderbolts to wake her.

Ahem! If wishes all came true,
I don’t know what I’d find to do,
Because if no one made a mess
There’d be no need of cleanliness.
And things might work so blissfully,
In time — who knows? — they’d not need
me!

And this being so, I fancy whether
I’ll go on keeping things together.

The two convicted criminals accusing “Cardinal” Pell (middle) Courtesy of TheMediaReport.com

THE “editorial board” of this website does not recognize the heretical, modernist Vatican II Church as the Catholic Church. But in the eyes of the world (and many sincere Catholics), it is the Catholic Church, and thus allegations of crimes by its clergy are publicly imputed to the Catholic Church. The media coverage of sex abuse charges, when that coverage is slanted or false, and the prosecution of false allegations, constitute a war against the Catholic Church.

The headlines recently announced that Australia’s “Cardinal” George Pell had been formally charged with “sexual assault.” This was a big, big story. People all over the globe were told, in so many words, that Pell was an evil scoundrel.  But in the first few days, the stories were uniformly and glaringly scanty on details, leaving the public to assume very ugly deeds. Here’s a typical story by ABC. It made note at the top that Pell was the “most senior Vatican cleric to ever be charged in the Roman Catholic Church.” The New York Times managed a lengthy, soberly-alarmed report with no mention of the actual events that allegedly occurred or anything about the accusers.

If it had been more explicit, readers might have been suspicious about why this story made top headlines. You see, the accusers are both criminals and the accusations do not involve actual sex acts but allegedly inappropriate touching under water in a swimming pool 40 years ago. All sex abuse of children is heinous and extremely serious. Let me repeat: sex abuse, including fondling, of children, is serious criminal activity. But these accusations of foul waterplay are highly suspicious. A full interview with the details left out by so many reports can be found here. Judge for yourself.

LYNDON MONUMENT: He’d play games like throw the kids out of the water, like, and you’d put your leg in his hands and he’d, “One, two, three,” and then he’d throw you out of the water. But it was only ever with boys.

DARREN MOONEY, FORMER ST. ALIPIUS STUDENT: There was never any girls flying off his shoulders or playing with him in the pool, it was always boys.

Monument says that Pell touched his private parts under the water. Damian Dignan says the cleric was very rough and grabbed him in the wrong places when he was throwing him in the water.

According to TheMediaReport.com, a website covering the sex abuse scandal as reported in the press: Read More »

A tattooed Tahitian

AMY writes:

I am a longtime blog reader and appreciate your unique website dearly. Your entries are always thoughtful and challenging, compelling me to ponder a multitude of important topics.

I was recently pursuing your archives on beauty after a rather shocking experience. I saw a facial tattoo in person for the very first time, and on a woman no less. Tattoos have always repulsed me but with their prevalence in our culture, they no longer shock me. This facial tattoo left me speechless and frankly I was thankful my young child was not present to witness this disturbing sight. It seems almost demonic to alter one’s face in such a way and I cannot begin to imagine what convince a person such a body modification is a good idea.

I’ve noticed body modifications of all kinds being more grotesque in recent years and am terribly disturbed to consider why these trends are happening. It seems to suggest a wicked bent in our culture, one wholly out of touch with all that is beautiful, good, and right. I loathe the idea that we must all accept such ugliness and pretend as if it’s a mere aesthetic choice and not indicative of something being very wrong.

What are your thoughts on the ever more disturbing tattoos and so-called “body modifications” that becoming frighteningly mainstream these days? Read More »

A Procession in the Catacomb of Callistus, Alberto Pisa; 1905

FROM Tumultuous Times: Twenty General Councils of the Catholic Church and Vatican II and its Aftermath by Fr. Francisco Radecki, CMRI and Fr. Dominic Radecki, CMRI (St. Joseph’s Media, 2004):

In 1534 St. Thomas More and a relatively small number of faithful Catholics refused to sign King Henry VIII’ s Oath of Supremacy because it amounted to a denial of the Catholic Faith. “If More had sworn the oath as it was presented to him. . . he would have concurred the forcible removal of the Pope’s jurisdiction and the effective schism of the Church in England. This he could not do, even at the cost of his life.”

When St. Thomas More stood before Parliament he was taunted by Audley, Duke of Norfolk:

‘Indeed, Master More, you wish to be held wiser than all the bishops, all the nobility, all the realm entire!’ It was the old sneer he had heard so often, and now he flung back challenge for challenge in a voice ringing with the glory of belonging to Christ’s Mystical Body. ‘My lord, for one bishop of your opinion I have a hundred saints of mine; for one Parliament of yours, and God knows of what sort, I have all the General Councils of a thousand years; for one kingdom I have all the Kingdoms of Christendom! ’

Unafraid of the violent death awaiting him, the saint joked with the executioner as he mounted the rickety scaffold: “I pray you, sir, see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.”

More’s last words portrayed his deep faith and courage: “I am dying in the faith and for the faith of the Catholic Church, the king’s good servant and God’s first.”

It would be a mistake to claim that traditional Catholicism is false simply because it is not what most people now believe.  … [T]he Catholic Church is distinguished by the purity of its doctrine, not defined by the number of followers. In the fourth century, such multitudes of the faithful were seduced by the Arian heresy, that it appeared to be Catholicism’s great defender “(St.) Athanasius against the world.”

Catholicism is not defined by the possession of church buildings. During the sixteenth century hundreds of Catholic churches were occupied by “Catholic” priests who were, in fact, subtly replacing the true Faith with Protestantism. Catholicism is not guaranteed by those who bear titles of authority; during the Western Schism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, several of the men who bore the title of “pope” were not popes at all.

The New Church created by Vatican II is not the Catholic Church. Because its “popes” are illegitimate, there is no moral obligation to follow such men or their new religion. On the contrary, we are obliged to follow the doctrines handed down by  Christ and His Apostles and to avoid this New Church as we would any other false religion. Read More »

The Fishmongers Shop, Frederick Walker; 1872

READERS WHO enjoyed Alan’s terrific essay on a long lost St. Louis drugstore might also enjoy “The Bluff of the Big Shops,” by G. K. Chesterton.

Doesn’t everybody hate big retail? Then why do we put up with it? There is no physical law of evolution that demands stores get bigger and bigger or that colossal retail chains exist, as opposed to many more independent stores.

Chesterton argued that big stores are not better stores. They also lead to the concentration of wealth. Thus he wrote in 1926:

Twice in my life has an editor told me in so many words that he dared not print what I had written, because it would offend the advertisers in his paper. The presence of such pressure exists everywhere in a more silent and subtle form. But I have a great respect for the honesty of this particular editor; for it was, evidently as near to complete honesty as the editor of an important weekly magazine can possibly go. He told the truth about the falsehood he had to tell.

On both those occasions he denied me liberty of expression because I said that the widely advertised stores and large shops were really worse than little shops. That, it may be interesting to note, is one of the things that a man is now forbidden to say; perhaps the only thing he is really forbidden to say. If it had been an attack on Government, it would have been tolerated. If it had been an attack on God, it would have been respectfully and tactfully applauded. If I had been abusing marriage or patriotism or public decency, I should have been heralded in headlines and allowed to sprawl across Sunday newspapers. But the big newspaper is not likely to attack the big shop; being itself a big shop in its way and more and more a monument of monopoly. But it will be well if I repeat here in a book what I found it impossible to repeat in an article. I think the big shop is a bad shop. I think it bad not only in a moral but a mercantile sense; that is, I think shopping there is not only a bad action but a bad bargain. I think the monster emporium is not only vulgar and insolent, but incompetent and uncomfortable; and I deny that its large organization is efficient. Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization. The only thing perfectly organic is an organism; like that grotesque and obscure organism called a man. He alone can be quite certain of doing what he wants; beyond him, every extra man may be an extra mistake. As applied to things like shops, the whole thing is an utter fallacy. Some things like armies have to be organized; and therefore do their very best to be well organized. You must have a long rigid line stretched out to guard a frontier; and therefore you stretch it tight. But it is not true that you must have a long rigid line of people trimming hats or tying bouquets, in order that they may be trimmed or tied neatly. The work is much more likely to be neat if it is done by a particular craftsman for a particular customer with particular ribbons and flowers. The person told to trim the hat will never do it quite suitably to the person who wants it trimmed; and the hundredth person told to do it will do it badly; as he does. If we collected all the stories from all the housewives and householders about the big shops sending the wrong goods, smashing the right goods, forgetting to send any sort of goods, we should behold a welter of inefficiency. There are far more blunders in a big shop than ever happen in a small shop, where the individual customer can curse the individual shopkeeper. Confronted with modern efficiency the customer is silent; well aware of that organization’s talent for sacking the wrong man. In short, organization is a necessary evil–which in this case is not necessary.

[….]

The truth is that the monopolists’ shops are really very convenient–to the monopolist. They have all the advantage of concentrating business as they concentrate wealth, in fewer and fewer of the citizens. Their wealth sometimes permits them to pay tolerable wages; their wealth also permits them to buy up better businesses and advertise worse goods. But that their own goods are better nobody has ever even begun to show; and most of us know any number of concrete cases where they are definitely worse. Now I expressed this opinion of my own (so shocking to the magazine editor and his advertisers) not only because it is an example of my general thesis that small properties should be revived, but because it is essential to the realization of another and much more curious truth. It concerns the psychology of all these things: of mere size, of mere wealth, of mere advertisement and arrogance. And it gives us the first working model of the way in which things are done to-day and the way in which (please God) they may be undone to-morrow.

Call Me Jorge writes:

Francis says that the biggest expenses in life are the essentials: food, medicine, and clothing.  After that follows cosmetics (beauty products) and then pets!  Don’t believe him?  Francis says he has the statistics!

His answer AUSTERITY!!!

Francis conveniently omits usury, rents, insurance, automobile costs,mortgages, taxes, regulation, children, and education!  This is telling as it shows truly who his bosses are.

A READER writes:

ALFRED SCHAEFER’S home in Germany was recently raided by police and his video recording equipment confiscated. It was the second time the Canadian engineer has been harassed by police, who were taking orders from B’nai Brith, the extremely powerful, Jews-only secret society, for his videos protesting pervasive psychological warfare (the videos are posted online). Schaefer says, “1984 is here today. We have lost our ability to think and to speak clearly. ” He stands unofficially accused of “hate crimes” for his challenges to the public understanding of the “Holocaust” and 9/11. He writes:

Dear Friends!

A few days ago, on July 6 at exactly 6:00 AM, our door bell rang ferociously, as if some berserk madman was about to kick in the door. My wife and I jumped out of bed. I told her do not open just yet, but hold them off for a few seconds. OK, then in they came, seven armed thugs with guns, bullet-proof vests and handcuffs, accompanied by one “witness” from the town administration.

Fortunately, Schaefer is amassing supporters around the world, including Jewish supporters — those who know they also have been victimized by lies and want to fight them. He writes:

The timing of this raid and the consequences are amazing. I just returned from a Canadian speaking tour that consisted of 14 presentations in 11 cities, from Toronto to Victoria. After arriving in Toronto I learned that Global TV wanted to interview me in Calgary when I was due to arrive there about a week later. Upon arrival, they backed down with a pathetic excuse after our team insisted on recording the entire interview as well. It may also have something to do with the fact that they (B’nai Brith) were the ones who provided me with priceless material for my most recent video’s, in particular this one: 1984 + 33 = 2017

My latest video ought to get them even more upset. In this video I show the “anti-Holocaust” meme. It works very well. “Anti-Holocaust meme“.

The speaking tour in Canada gave me great optimism, learning that many people are coming to the same conclusions, independently, and finding their new direction and purpose, by working to resolve this. In fact, most young people no longer need explaining when the meme “JQ” is used. They know it is the “Jewish Question”.

Every move that the Jews now make seems to accelerate the inevitable total implosion of their unsustainable construct of lies and deceptions. They will have a lot of explaining to do.

If you are Jewish and innocent of any wrongdoing because you simply believed the lies like almost all of us non-Jews also did, see this as an opportunity to help us come out of this mess together. You can help me financially to get my studio back up and running. When B’nai Brith orders my things stolen, their treasonous stooges here in Germany never ever return any of it, and it leaves me with large bills. Helping me now will certainly put you in a better light than if you did absolutely nothing. I already have some very good “ex-Jewish” friends who have provided me with moral support and good information. [emphasis added]

Some people may be depressed by what is happening, but I am so happy to be living now, with the ability to do constructive work to remedy an otherwise seemingly hopeless situation. With your help, we can do so much more.

JOURNALISTS typically deal with questions about 9/11 with abrupt dismissal and ad hominem attacks. The scientific evidence does not support NPR Neal Conan’s claims in this radio clip.

“Portrait of Three Boys” by Thomas Badger (1830s)

“When a child is born, his soul leaves the hands of God with the seal of God’s image and likeness. This image and likeness, a potential of great force, will attract the soul to God throughout his life.

For this reason a child has a strong tendency to see the image and likeness of God in the ensemble of the universe or in each one of its parts. This tendency toward contemplation, nourished in the child, can develop in the man and become one of his most precious possessions. “The child is father to the man,” wisely observed the poet. Thus the man, to the degree he keeps his innocence, continues to see the reflection of God in the things around him.

In this state of innocence the child has a tendency to communicate with the angels. This makes the child open to a kind of world that is different from the concrete and pragmatic world of adults who have lost their innocence.”

— From “Nourishing an Appetite for the Marvelous,” by Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.

A woman mourns her son at the World Trade Center Memorial during the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

STEVE E. writes from Virginia:

I am a long-time appreciative reader of your blog. I am wondering if you can recommend one or more serious web sites that are dedicated to pursuing truth about 9-11.
Read More »

The Railway Exchange Building, St. Louis

ALAN writes:

My first job was as a clerk in a corner drugstore.  Most of the people with whom I worked are gone now, and the drugstore was demolished more than 35 years ago.  It was locally owned and operated.  It was one of a kind.  Not a trace of it remains.  There is no historic plaque reading: “On this corner stood the only drugstore in downtown St. Louis that was open all day, all night, every day of the year for 62 years.”

It was in some ways a relic from a time when Americans had some understanding of proportion, form, and function.  It had one purpose:  To offer prescription medicine and sundries.  It catered to ordinary, unpretentious people, most of them working class, some of them poor, most of them middle age or older.

There was a steady stream of customers and prescriptions, but the soda fountain/lunch counter kept the store afloat.  The floor was white ceramic tile.  The store had glass display cases with marble foundations.  Pharmacists filled prescriptions on the catwalk-balcony.

It was not a fun house.  We did not sell toys, tires, or beach balls.  The only sound was that of conversations at the lunch counter or sales counter and the bell on the cash registers.  It was never annoying.  You could hear yourself think.  Try that today in the midst of the noise absurdly called “music” that large chain drugstores love to inflict on their customers.  Mercifully, it was long before the cell phone was invented.  We had one pay telephone for customers.  On one wall were dozens of shelves and small wooden cabinet drawers.  Candy, cigars, and cigarettes were always in demand.  We sold Fatima cigarettes, Velvet tobacco in tins, and Bull Durham tobacco in the pouch.  We had “Prince Albert in the can”, and thoughtful people would phone in to say we should let him out.

To borrow a line spoken by Margaret Sullavan to James Stewart in “The Shop Around the Corner” (1940), I was an “insignificant little clerk”.

When I worked in the basement, my only companions were the mice.  One day a pharmacist and I were standing down there talking.  One of our mice was unaccounted for and we were concerned.

I delivered prescription medicine to elderly residents who lived in tall apartment buildings nearby.  There were no locked doors in my path, I needed no push-button security code, and I never had to justify my presence.  All I had to do was walk through the entry door and to the elevator.  And Americans today think they are “free”.  Self-deluded fools.  There is no better guarantee of arrogance than ignorance of the past.

The midnight shift was quiet and uneventful.  We sold and served no liquor.  There were no security guards at the drugstore because none were needed.  There were no spy cameras in the store and no bars on its door or windows.  I never saw more than one police officer in the store, and he came in every evening to talk with the pharmacist or the cashier.  Read More »