How to Start a War

 From Townhall:

Every new American president is tested to determine whether the United States can still protect friends such as Europe, Japan, South Korea and Israel. And will the new commander in chief deter U.S. enemies Iran and North Korea -- and keep China and Russia from absorbing their neighbors?

Joe Biden, and those around him, seem determined to upset the peace they inherited. Soon after Donald Trump left office, Vladimir Putin began massing troops on the Ukrainian border and threatening to attack. Putin earlier had concluded that Trump was dangerously unpredictable, and perhaps best not provoked. After all, the Trump administration took out Russian mercenaries in Syria. It beefed up defense spending and upped sanctions.

The Trump administration flooded the world with cheap oil to Russia's chagrin. It pulled out from asymmetrical missile treaties with Russia. It sold sophisticated arms to the Ukrainians. The Russians concluded that Trump might do anything, and so waited for another president before again testing America. (Read more.)

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Medical Mystery of Usermontu

 From Ancient Origins:

When the Rosicrucian Museum acquired a sealed ancient Egyptian coffin back in the 1970s, they were unaware that it still contained a mummy. In addition, investigations revealed that this mummy was not the original owner of the sarcophagus – it belonged to a priest named Usermontu (‘the power of Montu’) – and that long after death, the mummy had been placed in Usermontu’s coffin. Nevertheless, the mummy of unknown origin has come to be known by the name of the original sarcophagus owner.

Analysis of the embalming procedure revealed that ‘Usermontu’ was an upper-class Egyptian male who lived during the New Kingdom of Egypt (between 16th–11th century BC). His mummified remains are 5ft (1.5m) tall and display traces of red hair.

In August 1995, Professor C. Wilfred Griggs from Brigham Young University, Utah, and a team of experts, carried out x-rays on six mummies housed in the Rosicrucian San Jose Museum in advanced of a lecture he would be giving there, including the mummy of Usermontu. They were stunned when the x-rays revealed that one of the mummies had a 9-inch metal pin in its left knee. Brigham Young University (BYU) reports that it was impossible to see that the metal implant was ancient from the x-ray alone, leading Professor Griggs to believe that the pin had been placed there in more modern times to reattach the leg to the rest of the body.

"I assumed at the time that the pin was modern. I thought we might be able to determine how the pin had been inserted into the leg, and perhaps even guess how recently it had been implanted into the bones," Griggs says in a report released by BYU. "I just thought it would be an interesting footnote to say, 'Somebody got an ancient mummy and put a modern pin in it to hold the leg together. (Read more.)

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Love Letter to My Home

From Galerie:

The house is really exceeding expectations and has accommodated us all in a sustained way. There’s enough space, so we can all go in separate directions. We move all around, changing week by week. We didn’t expect to spend weeks on end here, and we change things around. The coffee table becomes the puzzle table, and it’s constantly changing. And we had to move things for the ducks. I’m learning to be easygoing about that in a way that I probably historically have not been. But the attic is the only place with a television. So making something out of that room is the next project—turning that into somewhere we can really hang out

My home makes me feel safe. That’s been the biggest gift—to seem safe and at ease. It seems corny, but it’s true. (Read more.)

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How Catholic Men Can Rise Up

 From Crisis:

You may have to try a few different times to create something viable. Two years ago, I attempted to gather a men’s group precisely with the hope that these men would feel what I’m feeling and want to discuss these serious matters and sharpen each other for battle. It failed, for various reasons. But it was worth attempting. And I have found my “sharpening” in smaller, incidental interactions with men—other fathers in our homeschooling group, fellow men in my parish, online discussions, etc. 

I think that, optimally, you’d find at least two other like-minded people in your parish who see the same problems and have the same sense of urgency to do something about it. These allies, by the way, don’t have to be exclusively men. There are many women who feel the same and want the abuses stopped and the Gospel preached unabashedly. Work together—just don’t let the women do all the work. It’s unseemly and part of the problem. I know the phenomenon that tends to happen when the women come in—the men go out. We see it in sports and clubs and altar serving. Be aware of it and fight against the tendency to just let the women handle it. Get in and stay in the fight, even if you’re not leading it. (Read more.)

More HERE.

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The Incompatibility of Catholicism and Feminism

 From Crisis:

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Why the Middle Ground is So Elusive

  From Chronicles:

As with many terms, a lack of context distorts the true meaning. The assemblymen who sat on the right did indeed favor retaining the king, but for a reason that constitutes the opposite of “governmental power.” King Louis XVI was known in France at that time as “The Restorer of Liberty.” After the tyrannical reign of Louis “I am the State” XIV and the wishy-washy rule of Louis XV, Louis XVI extended freedoms to French entrepreneurs to an extent never before known. His predecessor had asked French businessmen what the state could do for them, and they had famously answered, “Laissez-nous faire”—“let us make our own way”—and this, of course, is the origin of “Laissez-faire,” the byword of free-market economics. But it was Louis XVI, not Louis XV, who acted on it, withdrawing regulations and lowering taxes so as to encourage the flourishing of businesses. That is why those sitting on the right wanted the king to remain connected to his head, so that he might continue to ensure the liberties of the French middle class. Freedom from government control was the desire of the right-sitters.

What did the left-sitters want? Equality.

For leftists then as for leftists now, there is no true freedom when people are divided by class and condition. Freedom as independence from state control is for them superficial freedom, freedom in name only. Until people are made equal—as the Terror made them equal under the blade of the guillotine, destroying wealthy businessmen, ordinary shop owners, landlords, servants, and priests—there can be no freedom, because the critical point is that equality is fundamental to true freedom. Neither “liberality,” nor “compassion,” nor any other shortcut definition of the left will do, because this is the common denominator: For the left, there can be no real freedom without equality as a starting place, while for the right, freedom is the starting place, the fundamental social condition required for a just world. Equality enters into it, but only in the sense that in a truly just society, every individual is free in a degree equal to all others; if one person has the right to pursue happiness, all people do.

By now it should be clear that a “middle ground” between left and right can no more be found than can a middle shape between a square and a circle. How could there be compromise between a view that sees freedom as the one essential ingredient of a just society, and the view that freedom is meaningless without the prior elimination of all inequalities? There simply cannot be. (Read more.)

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R House

I do not care for modernist design but this house in Malaysia is interesting. From Habitus Living:

When it comes to writing about residential architecture, one quickly becomes attuned to spotting the hallmarks of a good project story. Is it climate-responsive, for instance? Is it in keeping with the perennially popular ideals of modernist design? Better yet – is an architect’s own abode? In the case of R House by Ken Yeang, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’ to all three.

Ken Yeang describes himself as “an ecologist first, an architect second”. So, when it came to designing his family house in Malaysia, a climate-responsive design was imperative for the house to be at one with its tropical context. Treating the project as an exercise in bioclimatic experimentation, Ken created a comfortable, modern family home with passive solar design at its core.

Originally designed in 1985, R House was ahead of its time in terms of sustainable architecture – and belies the modest abode one might expect. Heralding a distinctly modernist design, R House comprises a sprawling, linear form. It’s a far cry from the small footprint commonly expected when the motive of sustainability is involved, but accommodating a family of eight – three generations of one family, plus a housekeeper – the house’s scale might be grand, but not superfluous.

With windows for walls; a seamless flow between indoors and out; and a show-stopping swimming pool splicing the floorplan in two, R House is deeply grounded in its tropical environs. It’s climate-responsive design elements like these that grant the residence its passive design credentials as well as its powerful sense of place. “The swimming pool serves as an evaporative cooling device,” says Ken, adding, “for good cross-ventilation, the side walls at the ground floor are sliding glass panels that can be adjusted to control airflow throughout the house.” (Read more.)

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America's Media-Poisoned Well

 From Michelle Malkin at Chronicles:

On Monday, as vandals and looters tore apart Minneapolis again in the wake of a cop-involved shooting, a suburban police chief tried to report on the dangerous conditions outside his station.

"Just so that everybody's clear, I was front and center at the protest, at the riot," Brooklyn Center (Minn.) police chief Tim Gannon told the media. He was there. They were not. This did not, however, deter the know-it-alls from castigating Gannon for using the word "riot." Cue the collective outrage and the ululations of the aggrieved.

"Don't do that!" one journalist exclaimed. "There was no riot," another propagandist retorted. "It was not a riot!" another indignant media wag chimed in.

Gannon did what reporters are supposed to do: Report. In a rare show of public courage by an elected official in these hellish days, Gannon remained undeterred. Several officers were injured; 40 demonstrators were arrested, and 20 businesses were invaded and robbed. "The officers that were putting themselves in harm's way were being pelted with frozen cans of pop, they were being pelted with concrete blocks. And yes, we had our helmets on and we had other protection and gear, but an officer was injured, hit in the head with a brick ... so we had to make decisions. We had to disperse the crowd because we cannot allow our officers to be harmed."

Outraged journo-activists apparently disagree. These same types of professional word massagers who bark at police not to call riots "riots" are the same types who've been calling the deadly conflagrations of every major American city since George Floyd's death last May "mostly peaceful protests." Our airwaves and newspaper pages have been saturated with loaded language and warped narratives about every high-profile police encounter exploited by Black Lives Matter and antifa from George Floyd to Ahmaud Arbery to Jacob Blake and now Daunte Wright.

Not only are these "protests" immune from criticism about their violent criminal nature, but they are also miraculously immune from COVID-19. When citizens in flyover country have gathered to resist lockdowns and mask mandates, the national media pounces on these peaceful protesters as selfish, reckless menaces to public safety. When inner-city thugs burn down auto repair shops, firebomb courthouses and police precinct offices, cart off diapers from Walgreen's, and raid liquor store shelves in the name of social justice, pandemic paranoia and condemnatory headlines suddenly evaporate.

Rigged media coverage. Rioters run amok. The threat of violence hanging overhead like thick cumulonimbus clouds. How is it possible for anyone accused in a riot-triggering incident to obtain a fair trial? In a remarkable act of self-delusion, the presiding judge in the ongoing trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin rejected a defense request to immediately sequester the jury in the aftermath of this week's new bumper crop of riots. Stating the gobsmackingly obvious, defense attorney Eric Nelson argued that the violent outbreaks would be at the "forefront of the jury's mindset."

Judge Peter Cahill, however, shrugged off the threats and ruled that the jury doesn't need to be shut off from media and social media exposure until closing arguments begin next Monday. Never mind the barricades and barbed wire outside the fortified courthouse. Never mind the half-billion dollars in damage already done by George Floyd's vigilantes. Never mind the blaring, front-page stories about shopkeepers preparing for bloody chaos if the jury doesn't rule the "right" way.

Instead, Cahill nonchalantly advised the jury to simply avoid the news during the trial. Sure, just ignore the acrid smell of anarchotyranny permeating the air. Take no notice of wall-to-wall coverage of Gannon's resignation Monday afternoon after he pushed back against the media. Pay no attention to the journalists raging at police officials calling out rioters. Tune out the black-clad militants screaming "All Cops Are Bastards" and "No Justice, No Peace." Pretend away the pretrial publicity and nightly news jeremiads from racial demagogues Al Sharpton and Benjamin Crump painting Chauvin as an evildoer on par with Ted Bundy or Adolf Hitler. (Read more.)

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Alexander the Great's Tomb

 From Greek Reporter:

The location of the tomb of Alexander the Great is one of the greatest mysteries in history. Theories abound, with the most consistent being that the King of Macedonia is buried in Alexandria, the city in Egypt that he founded.

Now a Cambridge University history professor says that the tomb of Alexander the Great is definitely buried there, dismissing multiple theories that the remains of the great general had been transferred elsewhere.

In fact, he says there are four possible locations of the remains in the Egyptian city.

Professor Paul Cartledge claims that Alexandria is the only city in which Alexander the Great could possibly have been buried. Furthermore, his remains have never since been moved from there.

“He died in Babylon. That much is undisputed,” the professor says in a “History Extra” website podcast. “His corpse was mummified so that it could be transported back ultimately to the capital of Macedonia, a place called Pella in northern Greece.

“But as it was passing Damascus in Syria, one of his successor rulers, future King Ptolemy I of Egypt, interrupted the procession when he grabbed the coffin and hijacked the corpse. He took it to what was then his capital, which was Memphis,” Cartledge relates.

Memphis is the old capital of Egypt, the first city Alexander and his army conquered from the Persians in 332 BC. He was the one who designated Alexandria as the new capital of the country. (Read more.)

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