It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

It's a Wonderful Life, originally a box office flop, has now been part of the American Christmas movie repertoire for decades. My husband owned a VHS copy when I first met him and after we were married it became our custom to watch it at least once during the Christmas season. We are always struck by the emphasis on the preciousness of a single human life. George Bailey, who thinks himself a failure, is granted the gift of seeing what the world would be like if he had never been born; it is not a pretty sight. One life touches so many others, even in a backwater town like Bedford Falls. Although most of the characters appear to be Protestant, there are many Catholic elements in the secular film. The power of intercessory prayer, the mediation of the angels and saints, are central themes. Yes, I know that departed souls never become "angels." Clarence calls himself one and is trying to "win his wings;" we always saw him as one of the Holy Souls on the brink of Paradise. He is sent to earth through the mediation of "Joseph" who I always assume is St. Joseph, patron of fathers. Frank Capra was an Italian Catholic, after all. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times:

In media interviews at the time, Capra did not portray it as a holiday film. In fact, he said he saw it as a cinematic remedy to combat what he feared was a growing trend toward atheism and to provide hope to the human spirit. In a moment of possible revisionism decades later, Capra said that he also realized that with the holiday season comes an inherent vulnerability in all humans, and that this uplifting tale might just ride on that sentiment.

The town of "Bedford Falls" where the film takes place could be any number of towns in Pennsylvania that we have known, and James Stewart, who played George Bailey, thought so, too, saying:

Two months had been spent creating the town of Bedford Falls, New York. For the winter scenes, the special effects department invented a new kind of realistic snow instead of using the traditional white cornflakes. As one of largest American movie sets ever made until then, Bedford Falls had 75 stores and buildings on four acres with a three block main street lined with 20 full grown oak trees.

As I walked down that shady street the morning we started work, it reminded me of my hometown, Indiana, Pennsylvania.

The very ordinariness of the town, all the mundane, everyday actions, the hidden tears and disappointments and heartbreaks, as well as the joys, and even the petals from a small girl's rose, are shown as being the elements which go into making a "wonderful life," rather than great deeds and worldly successes. George Bailey had to give up all his youthful dreams of setting the world on fire in order to save the family business. Because he is man who loves justice and hates iniquity, he must stand up to the local tyrant on behalf of the poor of the town. An unfortunate turn of events leaves him frustrated and despairing. He is about to take his own life but is stopped by an act of Divine intervention.

Donna Reed is radiant as Mary, George's wife and his saving grace, who asks her children to pray for their father. She is an ordinary girl who becomes an ordinary wife; in spite of hardships she never loses her dignity or her hope. As for the other characters, they are what make it a most enjoyable film; it is bursting with unsophisticated but colorful personalities, just as in certain small towns I have known. As James Stewart himself would later say:

Today I've heard the filmed called 'an American cultural phenomenon.' Well, maybe so, but it seems to me there is nothing phenomenal about the movie itself. It's simply about an ordinary man who discovers that living each ordinary day honorably, with faith in God and selfless concern for others, can make for a truly wonderful life.

Share

Eight Ways Trump’s New FBI Is Actually Working

 From Amuse on X:

The latest report from the National Alliance of Retired and Active Duty FBI Special Agents and Analysts has been widely described as damning. Headlines highlight words like “toxic,” “paralyzed,” and “in over his head.” Some commentators present the document as proof that Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are failing. This is a mistake. A close reading of the Alliance’s own data, set against its earlier 2023 and 2024 reports, reveals something quite different. The new report, covering the first six months of Patel’s tenure, documents a Bureau in painful transition, not a Bureau in collapse. It records resistance, fear, and bruised feelings, which is exactly what one should expect when a stagnant institution is finally being forced to change. Crucially, it also records eight concrete areas of improvement that are large, measurable, and directly responsive to the Alliance’s earlier criticisms.

To see this, it helps to recall who is speaking. The Alliance is not a cheerleading squad for Trump’s second term. Its prior work was sharply critical of the pre 2025 FBI. In 2023 it warned of “alarming trends” in agent recruitment and selection, describing a decline in standards and a drift toward ideological hiring. In 2024 it documented how local law enforcement had lost trust in the Bureau, with working relationships frayed and federal help increasingly unwelcome. The new report carries forward that institutional memory. When such a group concedes that things are headed “in the right direction,” and when its own sources describe improvements in day to day operations, we should take that seriously. It is rational to weigh these developments more heavily than anonymous grumbling about tone, social media habits, or perceived slights.

The first and most striking improvement is operational effectiveness. Under the prior administration, agents describe a culture of “walking on eggshells.” Field squads had to persuade managers, US Attorneys, and Main Justice that politically sensitive investigations were worth the risk. The Alliance’s sources now say that this dynamic has been turned on its head. Counterterrorism and criminal squads report that prosecutors are backing their work rather than burying it. One veteran agent states flatly that “operational effectiveness has dramatically improved” and that there is “no more walking on eggshells” to convince leadership to act. Another reports that complex cases stalled under the old regime are now moving with full support from DOJ and local USAOs. This is not a minor tweak. It is a structural correction, from a system in which law enforcement actions were filtered through political anxiety to a system in which prosecutors and agents share the same mission and are willing to pursue it. (Read more.)

Share

The Russian Terrorist-Revolutionary Movement, 1866 – 1876

 From It Can Always Get Worse:

The Russian intelligentsia had emerged in the 1840s dedicated to the overthrow of the entire structure of Tsarism. The logic of cumulative radicalisation implanted by literary critic and novelist Nikolay Chernyshevsky had dictated a turn from literary agitation to active revolutionary methods, specifically terrorism, the objections of leading intelligént Alexander Herzen notwithstanding. The result was the first attempt to assassinate a Tsar in April 1866 by Dmitry Karakozov. This was the onset of a new phase of the Russian revolutionary movement.

Karakozov had not acted alone: he had been part of a secret revolutionary group, run by his cousin, Nikolai Ishutin, whose death sentence in 1866 was commuted by the Tsar (a detail those who present the Imperial Government as a proto-fascist regime might take note of). By some accounts, the group was founded in 1863, with an inner core called “Hell” and an outer circle called simply “The Organisation”. In truth, thanks partly to Ishutin’s wilful mystification, nobody really knows the structure of the Ishutin Society, even all this time later. It seems very unlikely, for instance, that the Society was one faction of a “European Revolutionary Committee” with branches in every State in Europe awaiting the order to murder their monarchs, as Ishutin told his cadres,1 but the Russian terrorist-revolutionaries would become highly integrated into a transnational infrastructure that extended as far west as Britain,2 and it is not impossible international links of some kind were forged in this period.

What is clear is what the group stood for. In ideology: socialism, violence as a virtue, and revolution to thwart industrialisation and constitutionalism in Russia, an idea that would gain increasing salience for the intelligentsia. And the conduct of its members accorded to the principles of Chernyshevsky’s “New Man”: self-sacrifice, ascetism to the point of renouncing family ties and not marrying, and the rejection of all conventional morals, expressed most clearly in its unscrupulous fund-raising methods (namely robbery; one member even planned to murder his father for the inheritance) and its use of deception (not least against its own members).3 The group, a component of the Russian Jacobin stream, was devoted to conspiracy in bringing off revolution and the rule of a despotic minority afterwards, with “Hell” at the centre of the new regime and the (largely non-existent) “Organisation” staffing the State. The economy would be nationalised, counter-revolutionaries exterminated to ensure equality, and officials in the new government who fell short would be removed by assassination.4 (Read more.)

Share

Le Bal des Débutantes 2025

 

 

In which the daughters of celebrities mix with aristocrats and princesses at a traditional event. From Vogue:

Anticipation for this year’s Le Bal des Débutantes—known simply as Le Bal—had been mounting for weeks on TikTok, with no shortage of videos decoding what to expect. The renowned, invite-only debutante ball is akin to the Met Gala for haute couture-wearing teenagers, scions, heiresses, and royals, and the latest edition held at the Marie Antoinette-worthy Shangri-La Paris hotel on Saturday evening did not disappoint in the old world glamour stakes.

As per usual, the debs and their families landed in the city during Thanksgiving week in order to prepare for the event, practice their dancing, and select their diamond jewelry from V Muse. This year, Carolina Lansing—granddaughter of designer Carolina Herrera—made her debut with her little brother Magnus Lansing serving as her cavalier. For the big moment, she opted for a floor-length strapless black and white polka dot gown with a bell-shaped skirt, bow, and a matching sash designed by Wes Gordon, creative director of the Carolina Herrera label. Lansing revealed that she met with her grandmother for advice on the gown too. “We ended up paying homage to my grandmother’s first runway collection,” she told Vogue. “That collection featured a lot of polka dots, so we decided to do black and white with a low waist and ruching, and a big bow because it felt very ’Carolina.’ There’s a lot going on, but it is also very elegant and simple at the same time.” Lansing teamed the gown with a ribbon choker with an antique diamond and sapphire brooch. “The pin immediately reminded me of my grandfather when I saw it, and he just recently passed away in March,” she said. By the end of the night, her brother ended up jokingly wearing her bow as a supersized bowtie.

Attending Le Bal is an established tradition amongst celebrity offspring, with Lily Collins, Margaret Qualley, Apple Martin, Ava Philippe, and Scout Willis among those who have stepped out in the past. This time around, Bronwyn Golden Vance—whose parents are actors Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance—was ready for her close-up. The Harvard student helped kicked off the festivities in the rococo-style ballroom with an opening daughter-father dance. Vance glided across the dance floor in an ivory tulle confection with flecks of gilded details, designed by French haute couturier Stéphane Rolland. Like Lansing, she called upon her sibling to be her cavalier, with her twin brother Slater Vance taking up the task. “I think Le Bal is about being in a space with successful women who are around my age from all over the world–it’s very rare that you can share such a beautiful night with accomplished young girls who are slowly reaching adulthood,” Vance said ahead of the event. “It's a moment to cherish friendships with women who have similar aspirations in life. But yet we are all so different, so it’s a chance to blossom and meet a lot of new people, which I feel like a lot of people don’t get to do. I feel very blessed that I have this opportunity.” (Read more.)

 

Featured at Le Bal were the Churchill emeralds. From Tatler:

What does one wear to Le Bal des Débutantes in Paris when one’s father is the 12th Duke of Marlborough? Couture by Armani and a diamond necklace once worn by your ancestor to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, of course. Few jewels possess the history or pedigree of the emerald-and-diamond piece adorning the neck of Tatler cover star Lady Araminta Spencer-Churchill.

For Lady Araminta, wearing the necklace – loaned from Le Bal jeweller V Muse – marks not only her debut into society but her place within the Churchill family history. Its appearance at Le Bal des Débutantes, held at the Shangri-La hotel in Paris, links her directly to generations of Spencer-Churchill women who wore the piece at pivotal moments in their own public lives. (Read more.)

Many tiaras could be seen. Also from Tatler:

Eulalia de Orleans-Borbón is the daughter of businessman Álvaro de Orleans-Borbón (himself a distant cousin of King Juan Carlos, who is Eulalia's godfather) and descends from several of Europe’s royal houses; her great-grandmother was Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, daughter of the Tsar, who married Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, son of Queen Victoria.

Already an accomplished influencer with 13,000 followers, the 19-year-old is currently studying economics and finance at St Andrews in Fife – that favourite university of royals the world over – and speaks six languages. In the ultimate meeting of two grand royal houses, Eulalia was accompanied to Le Bal by Albert Windsor: the grandson of the Duke of Kent and late Duchess of Kent, who made his debut as the royal family's newest eligible bachelor when he was crowned the hottest young singleton in Britain in Tatler's annual Little Black Book in October.

Naturally, the Princess was the epitome of regal glamour in an embellished, haute couture gown by Lebanese designer Tony Ward, which featured a low neckline and a dramatic train. The perfect partner for such a dress? The sweeping lines of the Fleur-de-lys Tiara, made by Viennese jeweller Moritz Hübner in 1912, are inlaid with ancient diamonds that were originally set in the Order of the Holy Spirit, awarded by King Charles X of France.

Superbly presented, the three large, fleur-de-lys motifs can also be detached and worn separately as brooches. Passed down through the Bourbon family, this tiara once belonged to Princess Maria Anna of Parma and served as the ideal finishing touch for Princess Eulalia's look. (Read more.)

Read more HERE and HERE.

Share

Surrounded

 From Tierney's Real News:

I hear from so-called “conservatives” every day who call themselves “Libertarians” and they want me to hate Trump and hate Israel. Their latest narrative is to tell me how stupid it is that Trump is focusing on Venezuela. They say he’s clueless and needs to put America First.

Let me tell you why focusing on Venezuela right now IS putting America First.

Where do conservative voters get these constant Never Trump narratives from? Primarily from Koch Libertarian RINO “influencers” who have large followings on X.

Many Soros-Koch Libertarian RINO influencers, like Jesse Kelly, MTG, Tucker, Emerald Robinson, Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, Michael Tracy, Candace Owens, etc., keep telling their followers on a daily basis that President Trump is letting America down.

They say he must focus on America First because Venezuela isn’t an important issue and voters don’t care. WRONG. Smart and informed voters DO care.

Here’s just a few examples of the garbage that Koch Libertarians spew on a daily basis - I could give you lots more but you can research their feeds yourself. Their constant Trump hate is documented if you just look. (Read more.)

Share

Be Very Careful About Letting AI Take the Place of Humans in Your Life

 From John Hawkins at Culturcidal:

However, you feel about this, from “Oooh, creepy,” to “Wow, I can’t wait,” I would tell you that AI is truly amazing, but you do not want to get emotionally entangled with it in any way, shape, or form.

As a starting point, it’s not human, and therefore, it can’t scratch that itch we all have for companionship like another person. Worse yet, even if you assume that it generally has good “motives” (and we really can’t do that), we’re talking about products here. You know how you sell products and keep your customers coming back for more? You please the consumer by telling them what they want to hear.

AI grandma may tell you that it’s fine that you’re losing your teeth because you’re using meth, but real grandma is probably going to cry and beg you not to do that to yourself. Your AI girlfriend is going to cater to you and what you want all the time, while your real girlfriend is going to be in a bad mood sometimes, wants to go to a restaurant you don’t like, and complains because you have week-old dishes in the sink. AI Jake Paul will probably… well, they both may give terrible advice to their great grandkids, so that may be more of a wash.

Still, the point is that it’s not healthy to be catered to, told what you want to hear, and to live life on easy street ALL THE TIME. So many of the most worthwhile things in life, like relationships, kids, learning, and skill building, require a lot of discomfort, pain, and boredom. The more you lean on AI EMOTIONALLY, the more it’s going to limit your ability to connect with other people and your life. In the short term, it may seem fun, but long term, it will cripple you emotionally. (Read more.)

Share

The Tree of Jesse in Sacred Art

 From The Liturgical Arts Journal:

The season of Advent is synonymous with many things; Advent wreaths, Advent hymns and so on, but another symbol that is strongly associated with this liturgical season is that of the Tree of Jesse. This is manifest in the scriptural readings associated to this period of liturgical time, and it is also manifest in the O antiphon, O Radix Jesse. To understand what "Tree of Jesse" intends to refer to, we need to back up and consider the following passages from sacred scripture:

"There shall be a root of Jesse; and He that shall rise up to rule the Gentiles, in Him the Gentiles shall hope." (Romans 15: 11-13)

"On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength; a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. Not by appearance shall he judge, nor by hearsay shall he decide, but he shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land's afflicted. He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness the belt upon his hips. Then the wolf shall best a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf the young shall browse together, with a little child to guide them. The cow and the bear shall be neighbours, together their young shall rest... There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as water covers the sea. On that day, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious." (Isaiah 11: 1-10)

In essence then, the image of the tree relates to a family tree; that is to say, the genealogy of Christ coming from the line of David and born in Bethlehem. It is within this context that we can understand why there is an association between the "Tree of Jesse" and the season of Advent which leads us up to the birth of Christ.

The Tree of Jesse is something we have frequently seen depicted within sacred art. It shows Christ and the Virgin at the top of this tree (or in some instances, the Virgin holding the Christ-child) with Jesse reclining at the bottom and trunk proceeding forth from his side; proceeding upward to Christ are various Old Testament figures, including King David and often King Solomon. This imagery has appeared in various forms through the course of two millennia, from stained glass to manuscripts, icons, murals, sculptured carvings and more. (Read more.)

Share

America’s Child Crisis

 From Splice Today:

The child problem is simple. Fewer people are having children because the conditions required to raise them have collapsed. The supports that made family life possible for previous generations no longer exist. Stability, affordability, healthcare, childcare, time, and margin have eroded to the point that adding a child feels like stepping off a cliff. This is a system failure, not a spiritual one.

From a family’s perspective, none of this is abstract. You feel the pressure in grocery bills, rent, medical premiums, childcare costs, and the constant guesswork of whether one sick day or one broken car will throw everything off. The margins are thin. Friends delay having kids because they can barely afford themselves. Couples who want children fight over numbers, not values. This isn’t about faith. This is about a country that stopped making space for families to survive.

Men are told to provide, be steady, be responsible, and lead their households. At the same time wages have flattened, job stability has evaporated, housing has priced out entire generations, healthcare bills can wipe out a savings account in one night, and childcare costs more than rent. Men get blamed for not stepping up while the tools they need to do that have been stripped away piece by piece. It’s not a moral failure. It’s economic sabotage dressed up as personal weakness. (Read more.)

Share

Remembering Jean Raspail

 From Chronicles:

Like many writers and artists, Jean Raspail eludes easy typecasting. He’s most famous for The Camp of the Saints, a novel that careless readers interpret as a xenophobic screed. Yet he made his reputation as a writer of travel stories, recounting the plights of vanishing aboriginal peoples around the world, in a tenor akin to other postcolonial writers. He was certainly a Catholic traditionalist, but he drew insights from other religions. Because he was never involved in politics and his books aren’t really about politics, it’s hard to classify him as a man of the political right. “I’m a novelist,” he wrote in an earlier preface for The Camp of the Saints. “I don’t have a theory and I don’t have a system or ideology to offer or to defend.” 

Nevertheless, Raspail’s works do evince “metapolitics,” what Joseph de Maistre called the “metaphysics of politics.” They show the intuitions and insights required to grasp deeper realities, or at the very least, identify the ones that are missing from the present. For the first time in a generation, English speakers can discover Raspail’s metapolitics for themselves. His most famous novel, The Camp of the Saints, is now back in print, with a fresh new English translation by Ethan Rundell published by Vauban Books. Read alongside Raspail’s other works, it captures his determination to preserve and pass on the best of Western civilization, especially during moments of catastrophe.

Jean Raspail was born in 1925 in Chemillé-sur-Dême, a town in the Loire Valley. The youngest of four children, he was a solitary child: by the time he was eight, his siblings had married and left the house. His family, bourgeois and Catholic, was well-connected to Parisian commercial and civic life, and so he grew up in the city’s affluent 16^th arrondissement, attending the best Catholic schools. 

Raspail, however, never felt at home in this milieu. A restless student, he found his summer vacations spent outside the city far more formative. They nourished his provincial roots and his imaginative connections to the distant past. Legend had it that the family was descended from Visigoths vanquished by the Frankish armies of Clovis in 507. Tall, blue-eyed, and fair-haired, Raspail seemed to embody that ancient heritage that endured long after defeat.

Scoutisme, the French Scouting movement, played a particularly important role in forming his character. Now best known for teaching leadership and appreciation for the outdoors, Robert Baden-Powell’s scouting movement was, in fact, founded upon Christian virtues and practice. Unlike many other scouting movements, French scouting embraced Baden-Powell’s explicitly spiritual outlook. The Scouts de France was founded in 1920 by the Jesuit priest Fr. Jacques Sevin, who was later beatified. It blended the precepts of scouting, Catholicism, and the nation’s oldest chivalric customs. Properly done, scoutisme was meant to turn fidgety boys into self-disciplined men, whose love of adventure and pursuit of the noble are coupled with a mission to help others discover their roots and origins. Whereas French schooling failed to shape Raspail, scoutisme did. (Read more.)

Share