Response to an "Angry Reader"

In this link, Victor Davis Hanson writes a dignified, finely honed, fact-filed response to his "Angry Reader." It's definitely worth reading--first the "comment," then VDH's response--because this "angry reader" typifies the sanctimonious attitude found in most Clinton voters.

It's going to be a very long four years.

Regretfully Right

Mark Steyn called it, ten years ago, in his book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. In 2005, Steyn predicted with startling accuracy the perilous situation the world now finds itself in with radical Islamic jihadism.

If you haven't read it, you should. I read America Alone when the book was first published, and I enjoyed Steyn's sparklingly humorous writing style as much as I learned from the facts and research presented in its pages. It's disconcerting to see that modern history is unfolding quite similarly to what Steyn foretold over a decade ago.

Steyn's later book, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon was published in 2011. It is a lengthier, more in-depth, more concerning forensic of the dire consequences facing the world in the wake of American withdrawal. I read that book, also, and I'm sorry to say that Mark Steyn was correct again. We are today witnessing, actually living and dying in, the results of the USA "leading from behind." Unsurprisingly, it's neither a safe place nor a pretty sight.

No one knows what the future holds. But we can be reasonably certain that it will be much more difficult than it should have been, had we only heeded and acted upon obvious warnings.

History in Chains

Riga, Latvia

I stumbled across Jay Nordlinger's "Baltic Journal, Part I" and it captivated me. In one short paragraph, he sums up the hidden history of the Baltic states: Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia:

"Everyone in the Baltic states has a story — a story of parents and grandparents, if not themselves. Every family endured horrors — at the hands of Nazis, Soviets, or both. Often both."

I know these stories, and so do my children, because my husband's Latvian family escaped the Soviet devastation of their country following the Second World War. Very few people know this shadowed history, because it isn't taught anymore. What happened to the Baltic people should never be forgotten, but to the world's shame, it's as though the atrocities they suffered never even happened.

I'll be following Nordlinger's journey through the Baltic states with interest and appreciation.

Feast of Guardian Angels

October 2 ~  The Catholic Church celebrates Guardian Angels