A Dozen-Plus Stimulants, Gathered for Your Edification and Inspiration
Dear Intelligent American,
Be tolerant, ecumenical friends. Back when the faithful went every Sunday, Mass lasted about 50–55 minutes because the following Mass started at the top of the hour. NowaSundays, the service may last 40 minutes, give or take a few. So much for “An Hour Once a Week.”
Hence: It’s not as if the gospel or epistle readings need slimming down and premeditated short-cutting, but that is nowadays the fashion. Last week’s gospel was, as these things go, long—John 9:1–41, about Jesus healing the blind man who was then interrogated by the Pharisees. Boy were they peeved.
Anyway, the lectionary bosses—they’re not freewheeling, but do what they do as empowered by bishops—declared that the entire enchilada (holy) did not require a full reading. It was kosher to bracket out verses 2–5, 10–12, 18–33, and 39–41—reading them was optional.
Say what? Is the reading too long? Are Their Excellencies worried that the pewsitters came to pewsit and won’t darken the vestibule again because they got too vertical?
In the opinion of this amateur theologian, the text-cutting has less to do with length and more to do with ignoring pesky teachings out of sync with prevailing liberalism, such as the reading’s straggling verse, John 9:39: “Then Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgment . . .’”
What? We are going to be judged? For what? Our sins? How can this be when we don’t sin. (Of course, they do!) Sigh. How about next time these lectionaries are printed, the liturgical copyeditors omit the bracketing?
Some of us prefer our Word straight up.
Try Our Delicious Pu-Pu Platter of Intellectual Delicacies
1. At The Imaginative Conservative, Bradley “Double B” Birzer reminds that America is a republic, not a democracy. From the article:
One of the most frustrating aspects of modern times is its insane and dangerous sanction of democracy. The word itself has become something sacred or so pervasively employed that it means next to nothing, though it also has become a god-term, meaning everything to everyone. Again, as such, it means nothing and everything.
This is in deep contrast to the vast span of the Western tradition. Essentially from Plato through the American Founding, democracy was associated with conformity, violence, upheaval, instability, and placating the lowest common denominator of society. During the Founding, Adams was by no means alone in challenging democracy. At the very beginning of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in late May, the opening statements of the delegates witness explicitly the fears of democracy and its growing influence in the post-revolutionary thirteen states. Representative Gerry stated, “The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue; but are the dupes of pretended patriots [“demagogues” in the original; later corrected].” Later that same day, Representative Randolph agreed. He “observed that the general object was to provide a cure for the evils under which the U.S. laboured; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.”
2. At The American Mind, fan favorite Daniel J. Mahoney exposes the tragedy that has been Cuba since Castro brought Communism to the island nation. From the article:
The dark empirical realities about Cuban Communism are finally making the revolutionary mirage look like the delusory wish-to-believe—or outright lie—that it has always been. A 2024 report from the Madrid-based Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, along with a useful summary published at VOZ News, made clear just how far the Cuban dictatorship has impoverished the Cuban people. As of the summer of 2024, 72% faced significant food shortages, with “seven of 10 Cubans” having “stopped eating breakfast, lunch or dinner due to lack of money or food shortages.” Western progressives (most egregiously and pathetically, the leftist propagandist Michael Moore) praise the Cuban health care system to the hilt even as 89% of Cubans “view Cuba’s public health system negatively.”
Cuba has long suffered under medical apartheid, with shiny state-of-the-art facilities for the party elite in Havana camouflaging the lamentable state of medical clinics that cater to ordinary Cubans—where even bandages and other minimal essentials are in desperately short supply. Thirty-three percent of Cubans “were unable to acquire the medicine they needed due to price or scarcity,” according to the report. Meanwhile, poorly paid Cuban doctors—many of whom defect when given the opportunity—were used as pawns by the regime and sent abroad, along with secret police and military personnel, to countries like Venezuela in exchange for oil and political influence. A tawdry exchange and hardly “social justice” at work. And draconian repression remains in place in Cuba, with a full-scale, if hated, secret police apparatus and omnipresent Committees in Defense of the Revolution spying on ordinary people.
3. At Tablet Magazine, Alana Newhouse explains what she believes are the real reasons people are fighting over Israel and Zionism. From the article:
In response, Jews and their allies pathetically try to argue with this lunacy. The Jews are history’s most deserving victims, they say. Zionism isn’t a threat! It’s just a movement advocating for the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and the establishment of a state in their ancestral homeland—a privilege enjoyed by everyone else in the West. Who could argue with that? Smarter people are mystified, even annoyed, that we’re talking about this at all.
What few on either side focus on is that almost everyone else in the West is losing, or giving up, their own privileges of self-determination—which is what’s making it possible to imagine that Israel is somehow getting away with what no one else can. If it’s a truism of today’s politics that, especially for bad actors, every accusation is a confession, a corollary has also emerged: Expressions of disgust are often evidence of envy.
Years from now, it will be obvious why, in this specific moment in human history, as we faced high-powered technologies and political ideologies aimed at paving the way for their dominance over humans, what emerged—what had to emerge—was an intense, global debate about, of all things, Zionism. Israel is no longer an outlier in the pantheon of free societies and people; it’s a blueprint for human defense and flourishing in the coming century.
Thoughtus Interruptus . . .
On April 30th the Center for Civil Society will host another groovy and important webinar, this one on “The Power of Planned Giving”—something overlooked by way too many nonprofits. Yours Truly will emcee the discussion with some of AmPhil’s primo planned-giving experts—it will all take place from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. (Eastern) via Zoom, and of course, it’s free. Get more information, and register, right here.
. . . Now, Back to Those Tasty Excerpts
4. At The Daily Signal, Katherine Matt bemoans the loss of local news. From the article:
That closure is not an isolated tragedy. Local newspapers across the country are closing at a rate of nearly two per week. The Chesterton Tribune, a 141-year-old newspaper in Indiana; Eagle Times, a local newspaper from New Hampshire; and News Media Corporation, which published nearly two dozen newspapers per week. These are just some of the many companies that closed their doors in 2025-26.
This rapid rate of closure is a civic crisis. Across America, more than 130 local papers closed in the past year, leaving millions of Americans in “news deserts” with little to no reporting on the decisions that directly affect their lives.
For conservatives who prize limited government and individual responsibility, the decline of local news should set off alarm bells. The free press was enshrined in the First Amendment not as a luxury, but as a critical check on power. When that check weakens, government becomes less accountable.
5. More from The Daily Signal: Sarah Newman and Rich Todd advise nonprofit leaders that their finances and values must be aligned. From the beginning of the piece:
Tis the season: Quite soon, a slew of large public companies will be holding their annual shareholder meetings, which can feature voting on resolutions of all sorts of subjects and motivations—many of them advocating social and ideological causes that can be, intentionally, at odds with Judeo-Christian values and free-market principles.
Because of the controversial subject matter of these proposals (often given a spotlight courtesy of well-funded public relations efforts), they can and often do receive significant attention from the finance press.
And yet, despite the near-certain media attention and despite the controversy that can ensnare institutions—particularly religious denominations and non-profit advocacy groups—that own stocks and invested funds, there is widespread disinterest by faith-based groups in how they will deploy their moral standing, and investment muscle, in the realm of finance.
6. At RealClear Religion, nepo writer Andrew Fowler spotlights George Washington’s emphasis on the importance of religion. From the article:
Nevertheless, for the nation to prosper and bind together, religiosity is not only a crucial aspect of civil society, but vital to its sustainability. This sentiment was expressed by none other than the country's first president, George Washington.
Although private in his own religious convictions and skeptical of fanaticism, in his Farewell Address (1796), Washington’s clarion, prescient warning to contemporary and future Americans—on national and international affairs—definitively emphasized that “[o]f all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Moreover, to “subvert” such “great pillars of human happiness”—like the freedom of religious expression—would be considered unpatriotic.
Indeed, Washington believed religiosity served as a bedrock for national stability and individual virtue, and a lack thereof would cripple cohesion, writing “And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
7. At Journal of Cold War Studies, John Earl Haynes offers a mammoth analysis of a new book, Rewriting Hisstory, whose author attempts to relitigate America’s most consequential Communist-spy case. From the review:
As the dual testimony proceeded, Hiss gave more ground. Asked about Chambers’s claim that Hiss had loaned him use of the Hisses’ old apartment for two months in mid-1935 at no cost after the Hisses had moved to a newer place, he insisted that he had subleased, not loaned, his old apartment to Chambers. He admitted that he did not ask Chambers to sign a sublease agreement and that he did not have any receipts for rent, but he claimed that Chambers had failed to pay most of the rent in any case. (Some committee members were skeptical that Hiss, a lawyer, would have failed to execute a sublease agreement.) Hiss also confirmed Chambers’s claim that the Chambers family had stayed for several nights with Hiss’s family at their new residence and that he and Chambers had taken long car trips together, including one to New York City, neither of which seemed compatible with Hiss’s claim that his relationship with Chambers was merely casual.
As the dueling testimony of Hiss and Chambers proceeded, media support for Hiss began to wane. Hiss’s amendment of his testimony to deal with Chambers’s claims and the difficulty of explaining away incidents such as the fate of his 1929 Ford ending up in the hands of the Communist Party eroded Hiss’s credibility. Hiss’s support in the Washington establishment also began to weaken. Still, he could have ridden out the controversy. Bentley had accused various individuals of a serious crime, espionage, but not Hiss. Nor had Chambers accused Hiss of espionage. Instead, Chambers had alleged that Hiss was a hidden Communist in the 1930s, a serious political charge, but not a crime. Nor had Chambers indicated he had any documentation of his claims; no Hiss signature on a Communist Party document, no internal party memorandum listing Hiss, and no other items of that sort. Nor had HUAC investigators located any credible witnesses who were willing to testify that they, too, had known Hiss as an underground Communist. Instead, it was only Chambers’s testimony versus Hiss’s testimony. Hiss’s reputation had been bruised, but he could have left it at that. However, he chose not to, and this changed everything for him—for the worse.
8. At National Affairs, Daniel E. Ritchie stands up for English Lit and its ability to broadly inform on human ways and means, on success and failure. From the essay:
If the first, great English dictionary recounts instability and loss within our language, our greatest poem, Paradise Lost, recounts the failure of the entire human race. No one worked harder than John Milton to bring about the political changes he believed would create a just English polity. He triumphed when Oliver Cromwell triumphed, and he continued to serve “the Good Old Cause” after Cromwell’s death in 1658. Two years later, he was frantically writing tracts on how to establish an English republic just a few months before the monarchy was restored under Charles II. After great success, Milton found himself a political failure. Arrested for his role in the execution of King Charles I, he was in great danger of capital punishment. Were it not for the intervention of his friends, he could have been hanged, drawn, and quartered like other regicides. But freed from that fate and liberated from political exigencies, Milton was also free to release his literary genius in Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes.
Paradise Lost is a 12-book poem about one event: the failure of Adam and Eve to keep a single rule. Like all epics, however, it is also a poem about everything—including rivalry. Never did anyone depict the corrosive effects of rivalry better than Milton in his portrait of Satan. Deprived of his pride of place when the Father announced the begetting of the Son and his headship over the angels, Satan “[d]rew after him the third part of heaven’s host” in rebellion against God.
9. At Providence Magazine, D.P. Curtin explains the antagonizing result of the Hagia Sophia’s return to mosque status. From the piece:
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision to reconvert Hagia Sophia into a mosque was framed as a correction of historical injustice committed by Atatürk, an abrupt turn away from Western secularism, and a reassertion of Turkish identity over the history of Constantinople. For Orthodox Christians, the reconversion was perceived as an aggressive act of religious exclusion. The building was not simply returned to Islamic worship. It was removed from shared cultural memory. Christian icons were once again obscured during prayer. The universalism implied by the museum status gave way to Islamic confessional exclusivity.
Orthodoxy remains deeply tied to national identity in much of Eastern Europe and so Hagia Sophia’s status resonates with contemporary anxieties about cultural survival, religious freedom, and historical erasure. The Turkish government has pivoted away from emphasizing its Byzantine past to re-establishing the imagery of Ottoman triumphalism through cultural jingoism. Turkish education has reframed the Byzantine government as corrupt, Godless, and decadent; commemoration of Byzantine accomplishments is minimized, if mentioned at all. Visitors have noted the robust maintenance of Ottoman monuments in the city, while artifacts of the Eastern Roman Empire are purposefully neglected.
10. At Front Porch Republic, K.E. Colombini lauds the small town. From the reflection:
Small towns not only engender local and national patriotism, but they also create the conditions for the arts to flourish. Recently on the social media channel X—formerly Twitter, as we must always say—someone pointed out that Renaissance Florence produced more art in 70 years with a population of 70,000 than the whole world in the last 70 years. The writer noted the same thing about music, with the influence of Salzburg and Vienna, concluding that “the law of diminishing returns in city size and population is an iron law.”
One commenter on the original post noted, as another example, the small city of Chartres and its famous cathedral. The population of Chartres in 1200 was less than 10,000, and I am reminded of the many beautiful churches built over the centuries in smaller towns. Driving across the United States on Interstate 70, for example, one can gaze south at a certain point and see the “Cathedral of the Plains,” the Basilica of St. Fidelis in Victoria, Kansas (pop. 1,100). Out in the middle of flat farmland, this historic church has a capacity similar to that of Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago and could hold its town’s entire population.
There is, of course, one especially significant precedent for small-town superiority. The greatest person who ever lived, and who inarguably had the most influence on the global stage across millennia, came from a small town with a population counted only in the hundreds. This town was historically mocked; its critics often wondered, in fact, whether anything good could ever come from Nazareth.
11. At Editor’s Journal on Substack, Myrna Blyth grieves over her late brother, who loomed large. From the remembrance:
He also went to restaurants where the portions were large and introduced my sons to all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets and racks of ribs. All bad, I know. But still, he didn’t eat enough to be as fat as he was. I know that, too. And I know when I see a very fat person, that is probably true for them as well.
His body defined his life. But there was something else. He couldn’t leave my parents. I know he was very smart, but he just did okay in school. I was too busy getting A’s and trying to win awards to really notice his grades. He went to a local college and lived at home. And after he graduated, instead of trying to get a job, he worked for my father in his small fabric business. Was it because he was ashamed of how he looked? There were times he would go to diet doctors and look all right. Of course, the pills that were given then were a type of speed. They would stop him from sleeping and make him very, very irritable. Then he would shout at my parents, and they would shout back. My mother cried when he was fat. My mother cried when he was nasty. But he lived at home and went to work every day with my father, who could be very nasty too.
I went away. I got married. He said he was happy for me. We saw each other occasionally. But then I had my first son. He would babysit whenever I needed him. And then I had another little boy. He finally bought an apartment in the city, not only to get away from my parents but to be close to my sons. He was Uncle. He played with them, kept them at his apartment on weekends, took them for pizza and Chinese, watched Blazing Saddles with them. My husband never played much with my sons; he always had something else to read or to write. My older son began to buy Uncle an extra Father’s Day card.
12. At The Coolidge Review, Marcus M. Witcher explains how Black Americans overcame massive obstacles to achieve successes in the Civil War’s aftermath. From the article:
These economic and educational gains enabled Black Americans to create a robust civil society—institutions that educated and supported future leaders of the civil rights movement. The Black church featured prominently among these institutions. So did mutual aid societies such as the Black Elks, which trained Black Americans in the history of the United States, discussing the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the civil rights amendments. The Elks also trained many lawyers who would one day staff the NAACP. Further, they and other mutual aid societies provided material, educational, and emotional support for Black businessmen and women who were trying to figure out how to use the market to truck, barter, exchange, and get ahead.
These organizations proved essential to the civil rights movement later on. As sociologist Theda Skocpol concludes, Black fraternal societies “developed the collective and strategic capacity to mobilize human and financial resources on behalf of the widespread, popularly rooted protests that, in the 1950s and 1960s, finally broke the back of legal racial segregation in America.” The chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Thurgood Marshall, “publicly declared that without Masonic financial assistance, many of the NAACP’s victories before the Supreme Court would not have been possible.”
Where did these organizations earn their money? It wasn’t from government programs—it was through the marketplace. Black Americans were extraordinarily entrepreneurial. They engaged in the market and flourished. They created vibrant and prosperous communities, even in the American South. Unfortunately, government—at both the state and federal levels—didn’t protect their rights to life, liberty, and property for much of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This resulted in tragedies like the 1921 destruction of Black Wall Street in Tulsa.
Lucky 13. At Law & Liberty, Nadya Williams wonders about the era of robots and the outsourcing of life. From the piece:
Last fall, across the country in Waco, Texas, I met another robot. I was on the campus of Baylor University to give a lecture. To thank my children for exemplary behavior during said lecture, I took them on a walk to procure the junk food lunch of their choice. And there, as we sat in the shade next to the student center, a little robot passed us by, and then another. Over the course of a half-hour, we lost count as this parade of robots rolled past us at regular intervals, each one on its own food delivery mission. The sight was utterly mesmerizing. There they were, tiny harbingers of the anti-human apocalypse, each one calmly proceeding on its well-programmed route, sometimes rolling smoothly, other times a bit more jerkily, avoiding obstacles on its path or near-tripping over a crack in the sidewalk pavement.
I do not see a problem with my in-laws—or, for that matter, anyone else—outsourcing lawn-mowing or similar tasks, like meal delivery or vacuuming. I do see a problem, however, with the general principle we see all around now, whereby increasingly more tasks can be outsourced to machines—a phenomenon that has led Paul Kingsnorth to write his manifesto, Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity, in eloquent opposition. Since the Industrial Revolution or even earlier, Kingsnorth argues, it has become ever easier to outsource various tasks in all areas of life to machines. But the result has been an increased dehumanization of persons—ironically by themselves, albeit with the aid of various ever-more-available (and human-made) tools. Indeed, this was the original concern behind Wendell Berry’s refusal to buy a computer. I typed this essay on a laptop, so clearly I do not agree with Berry on the computer issue, even as I share his general concern about technology’s effects on our lives and our character. Not all technological innovations entail dehumanization, but some do—whether always or under certain circumstances.
Bonus. At The Lamp, Dominic Lynch attends a light show staged at a Montreal basilica, which illuminates some concerns. From the piece:
Meanwhile, all natural light from the outside world is blocked out. For the show, the only illumination is generated artificially by one hundred forty specially installed lights. The show itself is divided into three parts and lasts about twenty-five minutes, although there isn’t any narration to denote when each act begins. Act I is titled “The Birth of Light,” Act II is “The Obstacles,” and Act III is “The Open Sky.” In general, it is easy to follow the show’s progression. AURA combines music, lights, images, and, of course, lasers (in addition to the lights, the show uses twenty-one projectors, twenty mirrors, and four lasers). A few scenes are memorable, such as in the third act when an image is projected onto the ceiling to create the illusion of, well, the open sky. In another interesting moment, set to synth music, the main altar is turned red and lasers are projected onto the walls and ceilings, an effect eerily reminiscent of the Netflix series Stranger Things.
AURA is one of the most impressive uses of advanced light projection that I have ever seen. I’m not surprised it has been popular for so long. Still, about halfway through the show, I couldn’t help but wonder what the point of it was. In the case of the Castel Sant’Angelo show—crass as it may have been—everyone watching understood that we were there to witness the release of a new gaming console. AURA doesn’t have an obvious message or even a subtle one. It seems to have no message at all.
It is strange to contemplate the installation of a permanent light show in an active minor basilica. And it is uncomfortable to consider that the show is completely devoid of reference to religion. The altars, pillars, and paintings were lit up—and it was interesting to see them this way—but the show-runners made no attempt to connect, even loosely, their canvas to the images displayed on it. The basilica was built explicitly for worship and evangelization, but no one seemed to notice or care. Anyone who attends the AURA Experience who is not already catechized will leave with no greater understanding of Christianity, even though the building’s immense architectural beauty is quite loud about it.
For the Good of the Cause
Uno. At Philanthropy Daily, Philip Smaldone explains how AI challenges the human creator and artist. Read it here.
Due. More PD, where Shaka Mitchell details his deep admiration for the late civil rights activist Jo Ann Bland. Read it here.
Point of Personal Privilege
At Philanthropy Daily, Yours Truly thought it worthwhile to pen a piece on the Continental Congress’s call 250 years ago this month for formal humiliation—of the spiritual kind—to prepare for the coming break. Read it here.
Department of Bad Jokes
Q: Why did the chef put a clock in the stew?
A: He’d run out of thyme.
A Dios
This missive makes a point to ignore the names of politicians and parties. But: Have you seen the completed Obama Presidential Center? Wow, that is ugly. By the way, curiosity getting the best, Yours Truly clicked on the Center’s mission. It states, “We seek to build an active democratic culture where people are equipped and motivated to make change in the communities where they live, work, and play.” Wow again. This ain’t your father’s presidential library, folks.
May We Remember to Do Unto Others,
Jack Fowler, who reminds himself to be not afraid at jfowler@amphil.com.
