To the myth: man escapes the devil, does good, and gets the girl. God bless you, Jack Kirby.

John Zmirak
So the Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to pass a resolution denouncing anti-Semitism. Until, that is, they’d diluted the resolution by including almost every other kind of prejudice, including the made-up, politicized crime of “Islamophobia.” It had just a few exceptions. White people, males, and Christians are not included among the groups that Congress forbids you to hate.

That exclusion is telling. It tells you that the ideology reigning today has no interest in fairness. Or even in fighting hate. It wants to direct that hate toward acceptable targets. Toward “out-groups” that once were “in-groups,” which are now legitimate scapegoats. This is precisely the worldview which philosopher Rene Girard described as Victimism. He also said that it was the ideology of Antichrist.
— Read on stream.org/why-did-obama-import-a-somali-congressional-district-for-ilhan-omar-to-represent/

A fascinating article.

Warner Bros. has big plans for Batman’s 80th anniversary – Superhero News
— Read on superheronews.com/warner-bros-has-big-plans-for-batmans-80th-anniversary/

Many on the left believe that as a woman of color, a Muslim, and an immigrant, Omar cannot, by definition, be a purveyor of hate and prejudice. One way that identity politics manifests is that those who are considered oppressed receive immunity to do things that those considered more privileged cannot do. Hence many Democrats, particularly members of the Congressional Black Caucus, sought to defend Omar rather than to disavow her.
— Read on www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/democratic-surrender-on-anti-semitism/

How blind does one have to be? Racism is racism is racism.

I have written something close to 1,000,000 words for internet essays over the past eight or so years. Some of these have been historical vignettes; some have been album reviews; and some have been bizarre and personal musings. Students often ask me how I can write so much. By what motivation? To what purpose? Using what tools? Thinking of which topics? As a professor, of course, I spend a considerable amount of my professional time teaching writing. I will freely admit, if I do it well at all, I do it far more by example than by explaining mechanics.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/03/loving-tools-writing-bradley-birzer.html

At Hyde Brothers Books in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the fall of 2001, I found a first American edition hardback of Christopher Dawson’s seminal 1942 book, The Judgment of Nations, published by Sheed and Ward. Hyde Brothers, to this very day, remains my all-time favorite used bookstore, and I can state with absolute certainly that the discovery of the Judgement of Nations—especially after conversations with Gleaves Whitney and Winston—changed my entire world and outlook upon it. I spent my Thanksgiving break that fall reading and contemplating every aspect of that book—from its sentence structures to its arguments to its implications for academic writing. I can also state with certainty that Sam Hyde, the owner of that glorious Fort Wayne bookstore, knows his stuff.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/03/on-loving-bookstores-bradley-birzer.html

Reflections on the Psalms – Kindle edition by C. S. Lewis. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Reflections on the Psalms.
— Read on www.amazon.com/Reflections-Psalms-C-S-Lewis-ebook/dp/B01EFM8NOS/ref=sr_1_16

Though not advertised, a number of C.S. Lewis’s books on Kindle are incredibly cheap today. I just spent about $50 trying to complete my collection. Enjoy.

When it comes to the saints, the power of their stories is rooted in their mysterious interiority. One of the most haunting poems in The Hanging God is “Some Will Remember You,” which is addressed to Edith Stein/St. Teresa Benedicta. Born to a German Jewish family, Stein was a brilliant philosopher who converted to Catholicism in 1922 and joined the Carmelites after reading St. Teresa of Avila’s autobiography: “The interior mountain beckoned you to climb, / The floors of the self-darkened room first creaked. / You wrote out what you saw and then sought stillness.” The Nazis later killed Stein at Auschwitz: “After the smoke, bones left forgotten, / Your jotted notes shut in a metal trunk, / As others bore reprisals and arrests, / Your thought lived in the study of a priest.” The second section of the poem begins: “In evil times and aftertimes, in times / When all the stubbled fields of action smolder, / Bowed heads can’t help but make their patient study / Of how the person worlds.” It goes on to depict a young Karol Wojtyła sitting in his wired room behind the Iron Curtain reading Stein’s words aloud “for all / The stashed and sensitive microphones to hear. / In those times, your words, carried on the quiet, / Fostered his own. Thought, act, and judging person, / The self in solitude revealing God, / Clicked like the murdered signal of your voice / Across a telegraph and moved his hand.” She becomes “A sainted sign / Named Edith Stein” whose mysterious love and fortitude nourished by the contemplative life contrasts sharply with the reductionist ideologies of the twentieth century.
— Read on kirkcenter.org/reviews/an-unflinching-theological-aesthetic/

Every schoolboy learns that Franklin Roosevelt cured the Great Depression with his New Deal programs. This is false, as libertarians well know. But it’s still
— Read on tomwoods.com/ep-1353-the-disastrous-new-deal/

My personal letters, though, are another story. Between 1982 and, roughly, 2002, I wrote thousands upon thousands of personal letters. In those letters, I really learned (at least as far as I know) the craft of writing. Those letters contained everything from experienced moments and hikes, to philosophical discussions, to book reviews, to bizarre fictional stories (blades of grass would bizarrely spring to life and have discussions with dandelions), to album analyses, to worries and frustrations. Many of those letters I typed out, but an equal number I wrote out long hand. Looking back almost two decades after writing so many personal letters, I can see how much of a life line those were for me during my teens, 20s, and early 30s. While much of that personal element transferred to emails and social media (I’m certainly not proud of this), the philosophical elements all went into writing for web or publication.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/03/on-loving-writing-bradley-birzer.html