I recall the remark by Chesterton that “birth control” meant really no birth and no control. Of course, in the West since at least the 1920’s artificial birth control has become the norm. I remember a young couple I knew almost broke up because the young man said he believed (he was Polish) that all birth control within the sacrament of marriage was wrong. As an older man I gave him my counsel . I asked him if his girlfriend wanted to have children. He said she did but she wanted to finish her MA before she had children. He said he wanted to get married right away. I told him he need to decide what was the most important to him. He could choose not to marry her right away and wait or choose not to marry her at all. I told him if they practiced non-chemical non abortifacient birth control they would be doing what the majority of American Catholics do who de facto ignore the Catholic Church’s teachings on this issue. He decided to compromise. They got married immediately. They did not have children for a few years. She wanted children and they eventually had two. Neither made much money but as teachers the two could work and thus could have a middle class lifestyle. As for myself the most important value my wife and I had in common is that we wanted to start a family as soon as possible. We married relatively late in life. I was 26 and she was 27. But we were blessed with three children. Two of our children are married and within a few years of marriage each has one so we have two grandchildren. All are gainfully employed and wish to have more children. If one gives children a happy childhood and if one teaches them to have a reverence for life one hopes they will choose well. Today that is the best one can hope for. The reality is one’s children could decide to be childless. For me that would be very sad. I did not exhort my children to have children. I just encouraged them and prayed. All my children love children and our grandchildren seem very happy and healthy. One cannot un-invent artificial birth control. One must, it seems to me, peacefully coexist with it knowing it could wipe out -if uncontrolled- your family tree.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/1999/04/catholics-protestants-and-contraception

The story of Balder is one of the oldest in the Northern tradition, and it makes its way into a number of different Scandinavian myths and sagas. Always referred to as Balder (Baldr, Baldar) the Beautiful or the Good and a son of Odin, he experienced terrible nightmares that suggested some imminent danger. Worried, Odin descended into Hel and raised the corpse of a dead witch, seeking her advice and knowledge. Trying to hide his identity from her, Odin forces her to speak, though she is beyond reluctant to do so. Finally exhausting herself beyond recovery, she names Odin as the desecrator of her death. Upset that she has discovered his identity, he curses her. “You are not a prophetess nor a wise woman,” he yells. “Rather you are the mother of three ogres.” Mockingly, she retorts: “Ride home, Odin, and be proud of yourself! No more men will come to visit me, until Loki is loose, escaped from his bonds, and the Doom of the Gods, tearing all asunder, approaches.”
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/03/c-s-lewis-truth-balder-bradley-birzer.html

As the pilots of the doomed Boeing jets in Ethiopia and Indonesia fought to control their planes, they lacked two notable safety features in their cockpits.

One reason: Boeing charged extra for them.

For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons.
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/business/boeing-safety-features-charge.html

The 2019 Truly Epic Fantasy Bundle, curated by Kevin J. Anderson: From legendary authors like Alan Dean Foster (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Star Trek: The Original Series: The Rings of Taute), and James A. Owen (1 Million Sales), to rising stars like James Hunter (Viridian Gate) and Craig A. Price Jr. and Angelique Anderson, this collection will take your imagination to places it didn’t know existed.

Epic Fantasy is a genre that stretches the boundaries of the quest. Whether a triumph of good vs. evil, or a search for meaning or truth, these stories take readers to a new place.
— Read on storybundle.com/fantasy

When last we caught up with Stranger Things’ heroes of Hawkins, they’d successfully managed to fend off yet another inter-dimensional threat seeking to breach the divide and enter our world. For about a few seconds it seemed as if Eleven and her friends were going to be able to enjoy their childhoods in peace. This trailer for season three suggests otherwise.

— Read on io9.gizmodo.com/in-the-first-stranger-things-season-3-trailer-its-all-1833430633

So you can imagine the celebration that ensued. We were all thrilled with the book. It is compelling, radical, original, brilliant. It revivifies the first four volumes of Conceived in Liberty, and is a delight to read, with a great introduction by Patrick, who also edited Murray’s hitherto unpublished book, The Progressive Era. As you can imagine, we’re very proud of our former student. I can almost hear Murray exclaiming, “Attaboy, Patrick!”

The fifth volume, entitled The New Republic, 1784–1791, charts the course from the freeing of the 13 states from British mercantilism to their shackling with a new American form of it.
— Read on mises.org/library/lost-fifth-volume-conceived-liberty

I first met Dave Brubeck when I was in my twenties, and writing my book on West Coast jazz. Dave deeply impressed me, and not just as a musician. How many celebrities have a marriage that lasts 70 years? I think Dave is the only one. He was a very caring family man, a good dad and husband – never a given in the entertainment industry. He was a pioneer on civil rights, threatening to cancel concerts when faced with complaints about his integrated band. He served his country as a soldier (at the Battle of the Bulge) and as both an official and unofficial ambassador. When Reagan met Gorbachev, Dave Brubeck was there, bringing people together with his music. I’ve talked to many of his friends over the years, and they tell stories of his kindness and loyalty. You could a learn a lot from Dave Brubeck just by watching how he conducted himself offstage. And then there is the public side of his music career, with all those concerts and recordings that reached tens of millions of people. I was privileged to know him, but many who simply experienced his artistry through his music will also miss him and grieve at his passing. God bless you, Dave!
— Read on blog.oup.com/

The great ideas of the nineteenth century changed as well. One might even state without too much hyperbole, the great ideas not only changed, but they devolved. More than anything else, the greats of the western tradition of the nineteenth century narrowed the thoughts of those who had come before them. Whereas Jefferson, Edmund Burke, and Adam Smith—the great greats of the eighteenth century—began with the beginning, the nature of nature, the nature of natural law, and the nature of rights, the greats of the nineteenth century narrowed, narrowed, narrowed, and then exploded one truth to insanity, allowing it to overpower all other truths. With Karl Marx, everything was economic. With Charles Darwin, everything was biological. With Sigmund Freud, everything was psychological. True enough, the human being is, of course, economic, biological, and psychological. Yet, the human person is so much more than this, almost infinitely complex and various. Jefferson, Burke, and Smith not only fought systematic thoughts, men of system, and what would be called ideologies, but they also each contented themselves with the beginnings of the human person, not the ends of the human person. In other words, in contrast to their nineteenth-century inheritors, these eighteenth-century thinkers found the minimum equality necessary for a dignified life, allowing the individual person and community to make its own way through trial and error, success and failure, charity and failing.

Because the greats of the nineteenth century—each to his own varying degree—accepted one truth at the expense of all others and relied, entirely, on materialist explanations of the world, they fundamentally failed to understand the nature of the human person, the nature of existence, and the nature of history. This is not to deny their individual and particular brilliances, but rather only to note that by ignoring the spiritual element of humanity, they offer nothing that can be seen as successful in the long run of society. From Heraclitus forward, the greats of the western tradition have sought to understand both the material and spiritual elements of existence, recognizing the overwhelming complexities not only of life, but also of each individual life.

As such, history will, most likely, understand the nineteenth century as a failure in human thought, but it will also recognize that even the failures had successes, especially rather grand if temporary ones. To be sure, it would be nearly impossible (and utterly foolish) to dismiss the influence that Marx, Darwin, and Freud had on those who came after them.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/03/nietzsche-short-nineteenth-century-bradley-birzer.html

THE SOLDIER’S RETURN: This was the music the band played i n Glasgow, May 1919 as the Argylls mustered out to join their families. Only a handful had made it through whole and hearty the grim gap of death and mutilation that was the Western Front. As I realize now AULD POP was one of those who survived almost miraculously to tell the tale though he carried with him the suffering and internal wounds his entire life.

My father was four years old but remembered it clearly and his first look at his father THOMAS MUNRO, SR. who seemed to him a huge bronze bemedalled hero- god in kilt and Glengarry. One of the THIN RED LINE OF HEROES.

For gold the merchant ploughs the main,

The farmer ploughs the manor;

But glory is the sodger’s prize,

The sodger’s wealth is honour.

The brave poor sodger ne’er despise,

Nor count him as a stranger:

Remember he’s his country’s stay, In day and hour o’ danger.

ROBERT BURNS

The Astonishing Hypocrisy of Media Matters