Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
Mar 22 2022
Back In The News?
No, not the Hunter Biden laptop. (I almost typed “Hunted Biden laptop,” which might soon be “breaking news,” but we’ll have to wait and see.) Rather, it’s one of the ideas that was floated shortly after Gregor Mendel discovered that fruit flies like sex: deliberately, eugenically breeding people as a way to improve us …
Mar 20 2022
The Numbing
I wrote not long ago about the fraying of the norms that bind Americans together as a coherent society. That process is been going on for long time now, and has almost reached the level necessary for complete social collapse. However, while the fraying of our norms is necessary for collapse, it is not …
Mar 20 2022
I Try Not To Use Certain Words
Indeed, I try really hard. But sometimes, I can’t resist. Today’s word is inevitable: Analysis of the Russian attack on Ukraine has rightly focused on the strategic, military and humanitarian considerations of the conflict itself. Soon, however, domestic implications will begin to impinge on the geo-political. Maintaining public support will be critical …
Mar 19 2022
The Wide World Of Pranks
We’ve all heard about them. Some of us have perpetrated them. The easier and more common ones – filling someone’s bedroom with Styrofoam® peanuts, or turning every item in his room upside-down – have lost their humor value through overuse and are merely irritating. But there are still a few that can tickle one…as …
Mar 19 2022
The Neglected Patriarch
Today is the feast day of a remarkable saint, the stepfather and protector of the most important Child ever to be born: Joseph of Nazareth. Yet few give him much thought, as virtually nothing about his life is included in the New Testament. For a modest taste, one must turn to a “non-canonical” document: …
Mar 18 2022
Theorizing Unbounded
First, a few quotations – hey, quotations are my thing, you know: “The Shing law forbids killing, but they killed knowledge, they burned books, and what may be worse, they falsified what was left. They slipped in the Lie, as always. We aren’t sure of anything concerning the Age of the League; how …
Mar 17 2022
The Gods Of The Not Quite Copybook Headings
You know the old Kipling poem, don’t you? You should, really. Like many of his poems, it speaks of something beyond our preferences: laws that no amount of human effort or ingenuity can repeal. That there are such laws is a reflection of what Clarence Carson called “the moral order of the universe.” That …
Mar 16 2022
One Melody, One Rhythm, One Agenda
It’s Ukraine all day, these days. You can hardly go to the corner store for milk without hearing some talking head blustering about Ukraine. Congress is feverishly debating how to help the Ukrainians resist the Russian invaders. Elected officials of both parties bloviate endlessly about Ukrainian sovereignty and the evil of Vladimir Putin. And …
Mar 14 2022
Fun As A Sociopolitical Weapon (UPDATED)
Good morning, and Happy Pi Day, to all my Gentle Readers. It comes but once a year, so make the best of it. Do something round. Do something irrational. Perhaps – if you can work it out – do something Eulerian: eiπ + 1 = 0 And do it loud! Now, on …
Mar 13 2022
No Title Could Possibly Serve
There are days I wonder if it’s even possible for a human being, however vigilant, to keep track of all the truly significant events and precursors that flood past us each day. I read several dozen news sites and aggregators, and I still miss developments that make me kick myself when I finally do …
Mar 12 2022
Painful Remedial Lessons
If you’ve seen Tucker Carlson’s show of last night — I catch it on YouTube – I hope you paid close attention to his exposition on inflation. The Usurper Regime and their media handmaidens are doing their damnedest to persuade Americans that the cause of today’s inflation, which we experience as price increases in …
Mar 11 2022
Love, Duty, And Adventure
Politics? Bah! Economics? Please! Current events? Enough already! Perhaps my Esteemed Co-Conspirators will provide some such material a bit later in the day. Just now I have storytelling in mind. *** Some years ago, when I was finding my stride as a fictioneer, I had something of an epiphany about plotting. Crafting …
Mar 11 2022
If You’ve Been Puzzled By The War on Cash…
…have a brief video from a British subject that will chill your blood: Rogan: “Do you feel like you are sounding the alarm for People that don’t understand what the Fuck is going on?”@MaajidNawaz @joerogan pic.twitter.com/2pJCq3D0K2 — Peter Lardelli (@QuestCovidTruth) February 20, 2022 Could it be any simpler?
Mar 10 2022
The Anti-Reproduction Movement
There are things we’re “not supposed to say.” Quite a number of those things are tied up with sexual variations. The reason we’re not supposed to say them is that a small community of activists has deemed them “offensive.” And of course, we wouldn’t want to be “offensive,” we confrontation-averse Americans of the Twenty-First …
Mar 09 2022
Fidelity To “The Narrative”
A reposted Jack Cashill article (the original American Thinker posting is apparently inaccessible) on the George Zimmerman / Trayvon Martin episode illuminates exactly where the media stands on “facts” and “truth.” Cashill was offended by the appearance of a deceitful Trayvon Martin canonization piece, on February 26 of this year, the ten-year anniversary of …
Mar 08 2022
Assumptions
Assumptions, premises, postulates, stipulations…call them what you will. There’s no getting away from them. We all have them, because we must have them. There is no system of rationality that obviates the need for a set of assumptions beneath its reasoning. Sometimes, in attempting to understand some strange aspect of reality, we leap …
Mar 08 2022
Conversations
FWP: [pouring his third cup of the morning] Thank You, God for coffee, the chemical without which modern life would be impossible….You know, that’s one of the great mysteries of human history. CSO: Hm? What do you mean? FWP: Well, the coffee plant is native to South America, right? CSO: Yeah… FWP: And Europeans didn’t …
Mar 07 2022
The Left’s Approach To Facts And Truth
Dig this: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been taking some punches by activist media for “bullying” a group of young men by explaining to them that they don’t need to wear masks that are useless just to virtue signal mask compliance, and saying that people need to cut it out with the ridiculous …
Mar 06 2022
Faith, Hope, And Confidence
As has been happening more and more frequently of late, I’ve got a large number of entries in my “Future Columns” folder, and absolutely no interest in writing about any of them. That the topics themselves might not go unnoticed or undiscussed, here are the links: Can a state law override your freedom of …
Fran’s Recent Novels
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