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MEMORIAL DAY: Masculine Publics and Family Weekends

[first published May 30, 2014]

by Dr. David Pence 

In 2009 Dr. Pence gave this Memorial Day speech.

2017 Secretary of Defense Mattis at Arlington-a warrior's testament.

Posted by Farmer at 2:30 AM No comments: 


Map on Monday: America's Unified Combatant Commands 

Posted by Andrew Lynch at 6:00 AM No comments: 


Religion and Geopolitics Review: May 27

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch


President Trump's visit to three sacred lands was a dramatic reformulation of the war on terror in a religious key. In Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, the home of Mecca and Medina, President Trump addressed fifty Sunni and Arab heads of states. His major message was that civilized nations must form a coalition against "barbaric criminals." Religious language and national loyalties were unmistakable. "Terrorists do not worship God, they worship death." "If we do not stand in condemnation of this we will be judged not only by our people and by history [the Marxists' favorite line] but we will be judged BY GOD."  "The nations of the Mideast cannot wait for American power to crush this enemy for them. A better future is possible only if your nations drive out the extremists and terrorists. Drive. Them. Out. DRIVE THEM out of your places of worship. DRIVE THEM  out of your communities. DRIVE THEM OUT of your holy land. And DRIVE THEM OUT OF THIS EARTH. " "This means honestly confronting the crisis of Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires." "Religious leaders must make this absolutely clear: barbarism will deliver you no glory. Piety to evil will bring you no dignity. If you choose the path of terror, your life will be empty, your life will be brief, and your SOUL WILL BE CONDEMNED."

This the exactly the religious message that must be delivered to Sunni nations and young Muslim men. For the greatest conflict within Islam is not Shia vs Sunni, but one type of Sunni against everyone else. In Trump's speech there was a specific condemnation of two Shiite groups: Iran and the Houthis of Yemen. However, this was a talk to a "coalition of nations" about Sunni jihadists (the Wahhabi salafists) who specifically reject the nation as a non-Islamic form of social organization. Especially when King Salman dies, what will it mean for a coalition of Muslim nations set against the Salafist death cult to "drive them out of your holy land"?

In Israel he was the first President ever to visit the Western Wall and pray. He visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where Jesus was buried, as well. He called Jerusalem "a sacred city" and the Western Wall "a monument to God's presence and man's perseverance." This was not lost on Israeli reporters who said it was the real-estate trader Trump who first brought God to land negotiations in the Promised Land.

At the Vatican he met with the Pope for thirty minutes and promised at the end, "I will remember what you said." The "great honor" of that meeting left President Trump "more than ever committed to peace in the world." Trump's peace platform set him apart from the huge Republican field of war hawks he defeated in the primaries. This is never mentioned in sophisticated conservative Catholic commentaries because long ago to win tepid pro-life support from Republicans like John McCain the Catholic "intellectuals" gave their considerably more fervent support to a Darwinist foreign policy agenda. Trump is still fighting the 'perpetual war' foreign policy neocons and their Fox news allies in the first months of his presidency. After Mr. Trump and the pope met, there was an equally important but longer discussion at the Vatican. The 50-minute meeting between Trump, McMaster, Kushner and Tillerson with the top two Vatican diplomats is a welcome signal that a US-Vatican Axis is being developed for the diplomatic peacemaking ahead.

Trump's speech to NATO leaders telling them to pay their share for defense rather than promising immediate war with Russia over border incidents was a great disappointment to Republican war hawks, the new Democrat war hawks, and the old Fox News Russian despiser, Charles Krauthammer.

Finally, the beautiful women of the presidential party wore no veils in Riyadh but respected the sexual segregation of worship at the wall in Jerusalem. They were looking quite modest and beautiful in their Vatican mantillas. In this year of Fatima, Mrs. Trump from Catholic Slovenia asked the Pope to bless her rosary. The world's oldest living cultures sanctify the separation of the sexes. They reveal in their customs and organization of space that a culture of life must be a culture of protection, and a culture of protection separates the mothers from the soldiers.


THE PATRIARCH AND THE POPE: Patriarch Kirill on meeting with Pope Francis emphasizes persecuted Christians.




IRAN'S ELECTION: Before the Vote, After the Vote. Reformers win in Tehran and country.

TWENTY TWO YOUNG PEOPLE SLAIN -- CANDLELIGHT VIGILS MAY NOT BE ENOUGH: The righteous anger of citizens. The father of the killer in Manchester was a "salafist jihadist" who fled the Khadafi regime in Libya. The father said his son was headed to Saudi Arabia in a few days and everything seemed normal. This is a preliminary report but it reminds us that the Salafist jihadist form of Islam is particularly appealing to young males not in traditional Muslim villages raised under the three largest legal traditions in Sunni Islam. Fed by Saudi ideology, the "de-territorial" Muslim is especially ready for the Salafist murder narrative of Islam. This kid was not rebelling against his father. Once again the grand narrative and the ties of this terrorist will not be linked to Shia Iran but to the Hanbali school of Salafist jihadism taught in Saudi Arabia for export.

DUTERTE DECLARES MARTIAL LAW IN PHILIPPINES FOR ISLAND COMMUNITY OF 22 MILLION: A police chief beheaded, a priest kidnapped, the southern isles and the Salafists.  AOA background map and profile of the Philippines.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES - BETHLEHEM AND NAZARETH: One of these cities switched from control by Israel to control by Palestinians in 1995. Since then, the Christian population dropped from 20% to 2%.



SOLZHENITSYN, CHRISTIANITY, RUSSIA, AND THE WEST: By Joseph Pearce. "At another point in the interview, Solzhenitsyn declared that he no longer saw Russia as being distinct from the West but that, on the contrary, Russia and the West were essentially part of the same threatened Christian civilization, and that both had succumbed to the evils of post-Enlightenment modernity."

Our argument at AOA is that Russia and America are two parts of Christian civilization reemerging from godless Modernism which was an attempt to construct a civilization based on science and technology without God. The West elevated democracy and individualism while Russia fell to Marxism -- a form of science applied to social structure. Marxism is an utterly Western ideology and another bitter fruit of Modernists. Feminism has taken its place and settled over the "West"-- a polite word for the white peoples of Europe and the US with the old white dominions of the British Empire. A Christian Europe with Russia as a member allied with the Christian Americas could bring world peace. But we have to shake the godless paradigm. As A. Joseph Lynch wrote, "Weep not for the West, build global Christianity."

LEAKING SECURITY IS DEADLY -- THE CHINESE EXPOSURE AND EXECUTION OF US SPIES: The NYTimes is still a newspaper. This is good reporting of a deadly business. Does the Times see its own willingness to compromise present-day national security leaks may have dire consequences as well?

The national security leaks by Americans  to the NY Times about the name of the Manchester bomber, pictures of the early carnage and descriptions of the bomb were properly condemned by Britain's leaders as harmful to their ongoing police response to the terror. The Brits expected that intel to US agencies would not reach the US press and tip off terrorists about what officials knew about them. This national security official leaking to the press hurt an ongoing operation by our ally rather than their usual target: President Trump. Maybe this will wake government and press alike. This should be an ample trigger for patriots of both parties to understand the urgency of sealing presidential and top intel information from betrayal. Much more than "campaign collusion by Russians," this security betrayal by Americans is real news demanding that President Trump and our government get control of the ship of state.

Posted by A. Joseph Lynch at 5:31 AM No comments: 


[first published March 6, 2015]

by David Pence 

The Trinitarian Nature of God

Humanity and Sin

Christ and Salvation

The Holy Spirit and Spirituality

The Church

UPDATE: Here is Richard Mouw's take on the book.

Posted by Farmer at 12:20 AM No comments: 


ASCENSION THURSDAY: Thus began “his participation, in his humanity, in God's power and authority”

[first published on May 29, 2014]

"Yea, angels tremble when they see

how changed is our humanity;

that flesh hath purged what flesh had stained,

and God, the flesh of God, hath reigned." Doc Pence writes on this feast of the Ascension:

An old nun reflecting on the Ascension said it had always been her least favorite mystery of the rosary. "We wait two thousand years for the Messiah.  He comes. He is killed, but he conquers death and rises victorious from the dead. He is back for just forty days and then He’s gone again—and we call that a joyful mystery?"

But it really is such a glorious feast. We should stop the work week and devote this 40th day after Easter to contemplate this very good news. For Christ finally brings Adam where he was meant to be – in communion with the Father through the Son. "The nature of our Humanity in Christ was raised above all the host of heaven, over all the ranks of angels, beyond the height of all powers, to sit with God the Father," said Leo the Great (d. 461). Christ the alpha male who constitutes humanity into a single organism shows humans our heavenly place in the divine Plan. We will be the body of Christ at the right hand of the Father.

The netherworld of Death has been lit up. The Prince of this world witnessed the greatest prison-break in history, as the King returned and claimed as his own not only Abraham and Moses but Adam and Eve -- the Chosen People and the human race. Christ took back the nether-world -- all that space and time where man enters the land of the dead is now a place not to be imprisoned by the Devil but to encounter the risen Christ.

One kind of earthly absence allows His Sacramental Presence everywhere else. One Divine Person goes behind a cloud and the host, while the Person of the Spirit becomes more prominent.

There has been a righting of the spiritual universe with the Son reunited with the Father allowing human beings to come into ‘theosis’ with the Son. Christ now with the beginning members of his new body is returned to the right hand of the Father with these new "creature persons" allowed to participate in their Divine Communion. This restoration of the Beloved Son to the Father after his great battle creates a huge magnetic field penetrating the biosphere where men are meant to form ourselves into the patriarchal fraternity of the apostolic church. This will create a central protected space for the Marian Church where virgin mothers receive the Holy Spirit and work their works of mercy.

But even as Christians exalt in our sanctified humanity, St. Augustine in his Ascension Day sermon reminded us: "Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but He still suffers all the pain that we the members of His body have to bear. He showed this when He cried out from above,  'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' and when He said, 'I was hungry and you gave me food'."

The angels (who seem to appear whenever a ladder is extended from Heaven for them to ascend or descend) have the final word. As they assured Jacob that his descendants would be blessed and restored to this very Land, they designate the Apostolic Church as the site of the Lord's Return:

"Men of Galilee...This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven."
 


The largest Christian pilgrimage in Russia Here are some more pictures of the pilgrimage. Posted by Farmer at 12:02 AM No comments: 

CATHOLIC SOCIOBIOLOGY: Getting the universe right

[first published April 12, 2016]

All of physical reality is in some way a sacramental expression of deeper spiritual truths. There is so much violence and dissipation in the Universe that, often, scientists (especially physicists) take a dim view of the Creator's Benevolence or any notion that mankind's eventual outcome is anything but another extinction event.

Dr. Pence had teaching licenses in Earth and Space Science, as well as Life Science. He thought the depressed physicist was seeing something very real in the violence of the Universe. At the same time, many Catholic apologists downplay the radical divergence in the fate of most of the physical Universe and the election of the biosphere and earth for mankind. Here is  Dr. Pence’s essay: We must get the Universe right. 


Map on Monday: KURDISTAN The Physical Ecology, Communal Loyalties, and Geopolitics of Kurdistan

By. A. Joseph Lynch

I. The Physical Ecology of Kurdistan

II. The Communal Loyalties of Kurdistan

III. The Geopolitics of Kurdistan 


Religion and Geopolitics Review: May 20



Saudi Arabia May 20-21; Jerusalem, Bethlehem May 22-23; Vatican, Rome May 24

President Trump is deliberately framing his first foreign trip as a kind of pilgrimage to the capitals of the three great monotheistic religions. The only way to understand the historical and geopolitical causes and solutions of this war is to talk religion and nations. This is a respectful and deeply intelligent gesture. For now President Trump seems to be doubling down with the Israel-Saudi alliance against Shiite Iran. The huge arms deals of both President Trump and Obama have encouraged the indefensible bombing campaign of the Saudis against the Houthi Shiites of Yemen. This is the signature program of King Salman's favorite son (31-yr-old Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman) who is consolidating all the protective institutions under his control, though he is second (he's not the Crown Prince) in line for succession. His militant anti-Shiite campaign is to curry favor with the Wahhabi clerics to support him in a succession battle with many older relatives with claims to the throne as well. The argument that the Houthis are Iranian proxies is a Saudi smokescreen to hide their genocidal hatred of Shiites in their homeland, in Iraq, in Iran and in Syria.   The Wahhabi Salafist form of Sunni Islam preached in the Kingdom sees the purification of Islam as depending on the destruction of any serious Shiite military power. Whenever they kill a Shiite they tell the West: "Don't look, just another Iranian proxy." The Israelis are not anti-Shiite, but they have been at war with Iran since 1979 and see them as the one nation powerful enough to be a real threat to their existence. Thus they have allied with the state sponsor of the religious purification movement that gave us 9-11.

The visit in Rome will bring new eyes to these matters. President Trump and Pope Francis have very different job descriptions and world roles. We have seen strong Peronist tendencies in both men, and expect an interesting first meeting that could lead to important Gingrichian contacts in the future. The Pope and the President are not in any way two deeply incompatible personalities suggested by so many political and religion commentators who understand neither man.

Any religious understanding of the Islamic conflict will eventually have to hear Orthodox Russia and Shiite Iran explain "the rest of the story." The same day Trump meets with the Arabs in Riyadh, the Persians of Iran will be holding an election of their own. Rome understands there are more civilizations to be heard from. If at some point a major news network could escape from the Trumpian hysteria, there is a very complicated, very interesting but very understandable religious and political situation here that needs clear reporting and description.


THE VATICAN, RUSSIA, MIKE PENCE, FRANKLIN GRAHAM AND PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS: Christian unity, Vatican diplomacy, and the role of the Orthodox Church in the life of the Russian nation have all been concerns of Robert Moynihan for years. He is a good source. Now, it seems, Protestants like Franklin Graham and Mike Pence are learning about these connections in the post-Soviet Russia. Could it be in the 'weirder than fiction' camp that Callista Gingrich, as ambassador to the Vatican, may play a role too?

MIDEAST CHRISTIANS - A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE THEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES THAT BEGET THE EASTERN RITES AND CHURCHES: by Martino Diez. He is scientific director of the Oasis International Foundation and researcher in Arabic Language and Literature at the Catholic University of Milan.


THE GLOBALIST LEADERS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION - NO GOD, NO NATIONS, NO KIDS! "According to a new study, a quarter of European women born in the 1970s may remain childless. That trend is reflected in the fact that Europe’s most important leaders are all childless. That’s the case with the German chancellor, and with the British, Swedish, Dutch, Italian, Scottish, and Luxembourg prime ministers. The newly elected president of France, Emmanuel Macron, is also childless and is likely to remain that way since the 39-year-old is married to his 64-year-old former teacher." William Kirkpatrick at Crisis magazine.


WHICH WAY SYRIA: Kurdistan and a buffer state?

AQAP CALLS FOR SIMPLE ATTACKS INSIDE WESTERN COUNTRIES:" We don't believe in nationalism. We believe in the Ummah. You are not alone. You are acting for the Body."

THE ODD COUPLE SENATORS FROM SAUDI ARABIA ARE LINDSEY GRAHAM AND JOHN MCCAIN: McCain in Riyadh. McCain with the UAE military chief. McCain and Graham promise "a fix" of anti-Saudi law favored by 9/11 families. A left-wing expose of McCain financial ties. McCain non-profit and Saudi charity.

ISRAEL DROPPING THE WESTERN MYTH: Israelis are not Europeans with guns.



GIRL SCOUTS AND CATHOLICS: Sorting out socialization strategies. We are going to raise boys and girls to become men and women. How should we do that? Who do we trust?

MINNESOTA BISHOPS, LIKE MINNESOTA DFL, STILL BEAR THEIR LAVENDER MAFIA: Bishop Hoeppner shows his colors - one of Winona's finest. Now in Crookston. Bishop Hoeppner, as Vicar General of the Winona Diocese, was part of the corrupt mostly homosexual inner circle of that diocese which has recently declared bankruptcy to pay lawsuits for the fraction of their priestly abuse cases that actually  came to litigation. A more complete story of how Bishop Hoeppner threatened an honest deacon and concealed a corrupt homosexual monsignor. Finally there is a brave priest standing with the layman against the bishop.

ANTHONY ESOLEN ON SEXUAL CONFUSION: "Consider how many of our political conflicts are predicated upon denying nature, or upon embracing the unnatural and perverse. Any farmer’s kid could tell you the difference between a cow and a bull, but we pretend for political purposes that it is all a matter of perception. Our grandparents did not have ultrasounds, so they wondered about the sex of a child before it was born. We are more sophisticated now. We wonder about it after."


THE FATHER, THE SON, AND PILGRIM'S PROGRESS: Matthew Schmitz at First Things.



At AOA we have argued what they call the "white left" is the remnant of the WASP elite. The globalist gender ideology faction is the privileged white baby-boomer generation and their children who have broken the three fundamental loyalties: 1) to God and religion, 2) to marriage and family, and 3) to country and military brotherhood.

The Chinese see the spiritual nature of this depravity very clearly. How much longer must we endure the "baizuo"?

SOUTH KOREA'S NEW PRESIDENT: This is a very good time for a leader in favor of dialogue as tension rises and that's what we got. Good cop, bad cop may give more movement than the strategic patience strategy. Remember President Trump also said in the right situation talking with the North Korea leader would be good. Even more important is for the Koreans to talk. The end game in Korea is the political order of a reunited Korea -- one of the last tragic national divisions of the WWII/Cold War era.
Posted by A. Joseph Lynch at 6:00 AM No comments: 


Captains Courageous: Kipling and Esolen on Boys to Men

(First published July 10, 2012) 


What is Realism in Foreign Policy?

[first published February 25, 2016]


Four Standard Principles of International Relations:

A good discussion of realism by Columbia professor Richard Betts. A very short lesson from Henry Kissinger.
 


A 17th-century artist and monk of southern Spain The reaction of Theodore Dalrymple to Juan Sánchez Cotán:

Here is another writer's take on the painting.

Posted by Farmer at 12:00 PM No comments: 

CATHOLIC SOCIOBIOLOGY: The unity of man and cosmos

[first published April 5, 2016]

Much of modern thought explains the laws of physical matter and the Universe in one lexicon; and principles to understand man and ethics in another.

Remi Brague looks at different cultures that unified man and the cosmos, and revolutions that separated them: The Structure of the Cosmos and the Purpose of Man.
 



Dr. Pence has a lengthy essay in the Minneapolis 'Star Tribune.'
[A much more readable version is in our Essays section].

Certainly we can summon the nimbleness as a nation to re-order our alliances. Posted by Farmer at 6:00 AM No comments: 


Religion and Geopolitics Review: May 13, 2017



Today is May 13, 2017. It is 100 years since the girls in Portugal saw the Lady at Fatima. Her message was about prayer and a turning of hearts in consonance with the hearts of Our Lady and Our Lord. Let us calibrate our hearts and order our loves. She has promised the conversion of Russia. Let us approach that miracle with Russian Christians with the hearts of two lost Christian brothers who need one another to confess our sins and face our common demonic enemy. When we approach the world as brothers we will see more clearly. We know at the heart of reality is an ordered hierarchical love relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Bowing to the Sacred Hearts is ordering our loves to include all mankind. Mankind is a symphony of nations and Our Lady has assured us that Russia can be converted. We cannot leave this national moment to atheists. We are being distracted from fraternity by hysteria. Let us be silent and pray. Why the deep hatred now for Russia as she recovers the soul of her own Christian nation after a century of armed atheistic science?

In our own land many people fell away. They were not physically oppressed but spiritually bored. We ask God, however,  to look not upon our sins but the faith of the Church. Many simple people prayed the Hail Marys after every Mass. They petitioned in a thousand chapels of adoration. They kept  Mass and Confession on First Fridays and First Saturdays. Let us hope God hears His little ones. The message of the loving hearts and Christocentric love is not to be home-bound. Let us bring the message of love and fraternity among the nations and within our own nation. Let us ask forgiveness for our sins as a nation that we have celebrated the abominations. Let us chastise the criminal and embrace the immigrant. Let us save our hatred for the Serpent, and love our brother nations with the heart of the Anointed One drawing all the nations under his Kingship. Our Lady spoke with children but she wants men of authority to heed her words and adopt the way of her heart. Let us build a brotherhood in Christ of holy priests and righteous nations  and so honor our Immaculate Virgin and Merciful Mother.


HOMOSEXUALS IN CATHOLIC MALE RELIGIOUS ORDERS: Bishop John Stowe argues for more mercy and less talk of disordered sexuality in his talk to male religious superiors. He follows with a public friendly encounter with New Ways Ministry -- a group trying to change church teaching on homosexuality. For forty years most US male religious orders and a plurality of seminaries have been extremely "gay friendly" to priest applicants. It is Catholics, not Unitarians, who have huge same-sex institutions particularly susceptible to the demoralizing effects of tolerating an abomination. Homosexuality in male religious orders is like incest in a family: it destroys the group bonds based on non-erotic forms of love. The problem with Catholic practice is not that we have failed to welcome   homosexuals in the priesthood. Quite the opposite. The problem is that we have a general teaching defining homosexuality as intrinsically disordered and a clerical practice of welcoming intense erotic male bonds. We are living a lie. It is actually a step toward reform the more homosexual priests and bishops become emboldened. They are deeply meshed in the episcopacy, chanceries, seminaries and religious orders. All the insiders know this. Now Catholics in the pews, as well as fellow Christians and fellow Americans  will get to see the real reason that Catholic politicians are so confused about publicly ordered sex roles.  Pope Francis has said when evil presents itself as a good (an angel of light), it is often best to allow it room rather than initial opposition. These kind of lies are best exposed in as much light as possible.

ANTHONY ESOLEN, THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC POET PROFESSOR: Moves from Providence College in Rhode Island to St. Thomas More in New Hampshire. His own Benedict Option. He explains.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IS NOT AN INDIVIDUALISTIC CLAIM BUT ROOTED IN MAN'S OBLIGATION TO WORSHIP GOD: Gunnar Gunderson explains why religious liberty is not a license for Satanism.

GOOD NEWS VS FAKE NEWS: A CHRISTIAN SOLDIER WITHDRAWS AS SECRETARY OF THE ARMY -- ANY STORY HERE? The withdrawal of Tennessee senator Mark Green to be considered for the Secretary of the Army after the nonchalant approval by the Senate of homosexual Eric Fanning by President Obama shows Christians are losing the battle about the properly ordered loves of a nation under God. The fear of top military officials to back Mr. Green and the negative comments of Sen. John McCain (currying favor with the media and sexual Left) did not bode well for the ex-soldier. The sexual confusion in our military after three baby-boomer administrations have tried to destroy the masculine nature of our fighting force will not be fixed from within. There is no more politically correct social environment than official military institutions where any sign of "sexism, homophobia or a commitment to the gender binary" is considered evidence of an inability to lead the "new sexually diverse" military.  "We are all soldiers. We are all professionals. We have a technological job to do. No men here. No women here. It is a job. It is a profession which has nothing to do with the traditional gender role of male social protection." This is exactly the Catch-22 logic that filled Catholic seminaries in the 1970's and 80's as homosexuals and feminists tried to break down that ancient all-male gender code. Masculine seminarians who resisted were deemed unfit to lead the new non-patriarchal non-fraternal church that the gay priests and feminist nuns promised was right around the corner. The protector males were told to leave (see Goodbye, Good Men). We all know what came next.

Defending public male protective roles is a major part of the movement to make America great again by bringing her back to common sense and biblical morality. This is a battle not for President Trump or his military leaders right now. First, the Christians must take back the moral high ground and wage this battle as Christians.

The Good News is that God is sovereign and our nation's covenant under God is built on a public brotherhood of men and monogamous marriage covenants between man and woman. The fake news is that freedom of speech and religion means we ban the Our Father in public settings and we allow profanity, obscenity, and blasphemy to drown our public life. The Good News is that all men are brothers in Christ and a Christian nation extends that brotherhood to men of every color, religion, and social class inside our territorial boundaries to form the sacred covenant of the nation. The fake news is that all-male civic groups should be banned and male couples should be honored. The Good News is that motherhood has been sanctified by Jesus being born of a virgin-mother. The fake news is that the domestic violence of abortion is maternal health care that should be subsidized. Good News vs fake news from the Christian front.

The tip of the spear in this struggle is not opposition to the twin abominations of sodomy and abortion, but a positive reassertion of Christian brotherhood and manly civic friendship as the proper love between fathers, sons, and brothers whose covenant forms the American nation. We cannot allow the US military to undergo the sexual brainwashing that corrupted so many Catholic seminaries in the 1970's and 1980's.


ON JORDAN: An excellent summary of the growing split between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Hashemite Kingdom.

TRUMP MEETING THE SAUDIS: An excellent short historical review of American-Saudi relations by Bruce Riedel, a very well-informed commentator who never fails to show Americans another way to ally with the Saudis. He is always worth reading. But...

THE SAUDI PLAN TO TAKE A PORT IN YEMEN TO CUT OFF FOOD: Starving Shiites is one way to strike at the Iranians. Should the US really be part of this?

ON ISRAELI POLICY IN MIDEAST: This is an article at American Conservative by an ex-CIA man, Philip Giraldi. It is about changing alliances and goals in Syria with special emphasis on the goals of Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. The article is particularly good at outlining two important lines of thinking in Israeli strategy -- the Yinon Plan of 1982 and the American neoconservative 1996 paper called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." Between these two documents was a fundamental realization among Israeli national security thinkers that the existential threat to Israel was not the Palestinian fight, but strong regional states who might strike them with nuclear weapons or population-killing technology. For Israel the states of  Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran were all much more serious threats than Palestinians. They are much more manageable when fighting in balkanized civil wars. Giraldi, like most men of his generation in the military and CIA, does not take the virulent Salafist character of the Saudis enough into account. But the nature of Israeli policy and the Saudi commitment to an anti-Assad campaign is well outlined.


ON FRANCE: The rural periphery, the metropolitan Parisians, the nations, and Brussels. A nation faces the perils of globalism where Christopher Caldwell reviews a French geographer's explanation of the French elections. Terrific work at the City Journal. The French election was 66% for Macron and 33% for Le Pen showing there is a good base for a better representative of the French nation. In many ways Ms. Le Pen is much more like Hillary Clinton of an old party than the Donald Trump of a new national movement. Three reasons why she was not really the Donald Trump of France. Donald Trump said he would protect Christians here and abroad. Le Pen is militantly atheist. She is as much against the public cross as the veil of Muslims (so much for Christianity which is the soul of both France and America). Donald Trump loves his father. Ms. Le Pen betrayed her dad (so much for patriarchy and filial piety). Mr. Trump fought his way to the top. Ms. Le Pen inherited a party from her father and got hold of it by siding with opportunists of her own generation willing to sacrifice the old man without ceremony (so much for true leadership). A non-inspiring female driven by personal ambition made her way up the party hierarchy by way of familial ties -- whose profile is that?

CHINA, AFRICA, AND FISHING: There is surely another side to this story but this reminder about the basic world food economy and the role of fisheries in supplying protein is important. Man doth not live on bread or rice alone.

PRESIDENT FORD ASKED DEMOCRATS TO HELP REFUGEES FLEEING FROM COMMUNISTS IN VIETNAM -- IT WAS 1975: He wrote in his memoirs about the problem of the Vietnamese refugees: "More than 120,000 of them had managed to escape, but they had nowhere to go. Thailand didn't want them. Neither did Malaysia, Indonesia nor the Philippines. The United States, I felt, had a special obligation to them, and on April 30 I asked Congress to approve a bill that would provide $507 million for their transportation and care. The House rejected my request on May 1st. Unbelievable!"
What twisted hatred could take such a position? The refugees were not potential terrorists but soldier-allies and their families who needed safe harbor. Those who shut the door were not jingoist hard-hearted conservatives, but self-righteous liberal Democrats who washed their hands clean of the Vietnam War by leaving the boat people in the muddy bloody waters of the Mekong Delta.

SOLZHENITSYN ON NATIONS: "Literature transmits condensed and irrefutable experiences from generation to generation. Language and literature preserve and protect a nation's soul. Nations are the wealth of humanity: its generalized personalities. The least of them has its own special colors and harbors within itself a special aspect of God's design... Nations are like individuals -- they can sin and they must repent."



BARRY, WE BARELY KNEW YE: From a new biography, Obama told his former girlfriend that he considered and then decided against going gay. He reasoned that "a same-sex relationship would be less challenging and demanding than developing one with the opposite sex." That's one way to think about it. As we delve further into the mind of Barack Obama and as his life post-presidency reveals itself, we will see he is best understood as the son of a white feminist anthropologist. It turns out a white feminist anthropologist of his own generation was a major love influence as well. Both his mother and former girlfriend can be proud. He carried out their project better than anyone could have dreamed. He built the public sisterhood everywhere he could from the chief of White House ushers to the head of a US military regional command center. It is another reason Hillary had trouble  motivating the sexual left -- there really was no more sexual confusion to spread. The son of Stanley Ann Dunham got there first.

JOHN HORVAT ON THE NEED FOR CAPTAINS -- AQUINAS ON AUTHORITY: "This is largely because people do not have a proper notion of what captains are. They think authority consists only in ordering people to do things. They do not realize it also involves unifying, reassuring, and harmonizing. Saint Thomas Aquinas defines authority as an animating and ordering intelligence, the vis regitiva that overcomes the resistance of the individual tendencies in men, organically directing and coordinating many wills toward the common good. Thus, captains respect order and do not violate the rules, however difficult or absurd such rules might appear. Captains do not pander to those under them to please them. They do not make grand promises yet fail to mention the sacrifices needed to get the job done. Captains recognize that people need direction, and act accordingly."

WOMEN IN VEILS -- A CHRISTIAN TRADITION: It is hard to imagine a movement that would do more to restore a holy order to public life than for women to wear hats and veils in America. Especially veils in Church.