Recent posts about the United States and England, and especially those concerned with the decline, decay and ultimate disintegration of England have prompted my musings on the mutability of nations and cultures. Is everything subject to change? If so, is there any permanent value attached to these mutable things? Why bother about the USA or … Read more
Our musical adventures this month will take us through the twenthieth-century to contemporary times. You need not fear. Despite the temporary triumph of cacophony for about half a century, beautiful music was written even under the siege of the avant-garde and is still being created today. I begin with the great good news that one of … Read more
Christopher Lasch (1932–1994) has often posed a categorical problem for conservatives despite his insightful criticisms of liberalism. On many issues, conservative intellectuals find common cause with him. He castigated trendy postmodern relativism, the death of the family, the insularity of academics, bloated bureaucracy, and a culture saturated by an endless feel-good industry, which includes everything … Read more
Leyna Gonzalez is a precious little girl – a 20 month old bundle of energy and joy. Against all odds, she is with us today. While in utero, an ultrasound was performed at seventeen weeks that revealed she had a rare tumor protruding from her mouth — an oral teratoma — making her survival highly … Read more
“Where,” asks the editor, “will your town get the money to build new school rooms, and pay better salaries to more teachers? Thousands of communities are wrestling with this problem, or will soon be faced with it. We offer a suggestion.” It is really quite simple. Everyone, from the PTA to the local Rotarians, should … Read more
St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Second Part of the Second Volume of his Summa theologiae, considers in a little over 1000 pages in Latin a massive number of sins and vices – injustice, gluttony, anger, greed, lying, etc., etc. Sexual sins are considered under the technical scholastic rubric of “luxury” (i.e., lust), and like the … Read more
After decades of strategically choosing to ignore the transgendered community, the GLB (Gay Lesbian and Bisexual) activists have added the T and in some case a Q to their coalition. T stands for transgendered, defined as anyone who wants to appear in public and be accepted as the sex they were not born, whether or … Read more
In his 1911 preface to Dawn of All, Robert Hughes Benson proposes: to sketch—again in parable—the kind of developments, about sixty years hence which, I think, may reasonably be expected should the opposite process begin, and ancient thought (which has stood the test of centuries, and is, in a very remarkable manner, being “rediscovered” by … Read more
The gruesome gorgon of Marxist historiography has been finally and thoroughly discredited by the very historical process in which it reposed ultimate faith for its own “scientific” vindication, yet this is a fact that a still largely Marxist, or Marxist-tainted, tenured historical profession is most unwilling to acknowledge. An Italian journalist recently and prominently interviewed … Read more
There are some things in Catholic and Christian life that are not often discussed, or consequently a regular part of our thinking. It has been suggested, for example, that one will not find a single Christian hymn devoted to the dogma of “the resurrection of the body.” St. Augustine said centuries ago that, “No doctrine … Read more
This essay is adapted from the 2012 Lyceum college preparatory school commencement speech. I am grateful to the founding parents and benefactors of the Lyceum that you have not had to grow up in a cultural wilderness as I did. Why anyone would be nostalgic for the 70’s I do not know. To give you … Read more
An academic scandal is afoot. Heedless of economic turmoil and a vortex of national spending, American college students continue to borrow a staggering amount of government-subsidized loans. Making matters worse, these students dump this funding not in profitable coursework like business or accounting, medicine or science, but in studying transvestite drama queens, lewd comedies, and … Read more
No one would guess it from even a passing acquaintance with popular television shows, but there is increasing concern among parent and professional groups about the sexualization of girls. Responding to this concern the American Psychological Association appointed a taskforce to study the problem in 2006. The resulting report shines a light on a real … Read more
In the first part of this essay, I suggested that an educational system dominated by the philosophical baggage of logical positivism and reductivist materialism, animated by fear of “falling behind” others in math, science, and technology, and focused primarily on training students for a job, had left America’s children bereft of the knowledge and skills … Read more
“Personally, I’d prefer a kinder, gentler set of relationships: more like the give-and-take of an elegant dance than the rough-and-tumble of the full-contact sport that is the modern hook-up culture. For that to happen, however, parents would have to remember that teaching their children how to dance, how to date, and how to court and … Read more
It was a distressing report from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) – a May 2012 update on HIV and AIDS among Gay and Bisexual Men. The report details the degree of HIV/AIDS infection in the population of men who have sex with men (MSM). Though the report is both startling and disturbing, I am … Read more
As I was saying before we were interrupted by the time and space constraints of May, we will now address some of the fine music from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that recent CD releases have made available to us. As usual, my focus is on composers whose works were, quite undeservedly, nearly … Read more
In a our present milieu where dogs are our darling pets, fed on choice delicacies, shampooed and bathed in fancy dog tubs, housed in designer kennels, and taken around for joy rides sometimes in flamboyant doggy clothes, canine fans may be puzzled by the derision dogs receive in the pages of the New and Old … Read more
Fans of traditional country music have a lot to complain about in the modern era of country music, but one of its biggest faults is the pervasive materialism seeping into the lyrics. Do the things that symbolize country living define the meaning of the music? Ask an outsider what country music is about and they … Read more
Imagine needing the grace of the confessional yet unable to find a priest. Imagine being unable to find a priest to baptize your baby or to witness your marriage. Imagine a country without confirmations or ordinations. Imagine longing to receive Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, but having no Mass at which to assist. Indeed, … Read more
