You Are What You Eat and Big Ag and Big Pharma Are Killing Us!

We often hear about American exceptionalism. Well, there's one area that it would be better to be unexceptional -- health and life expectancy. In the USA, we are sicker, fatter, and live fewer years than those in every developed nation on the planet. Study the chart and read the article linked below. Big Agriculture and Big Pharma are killing us! Big Pharma did it fast with COVID and the jab. Big Ag is doing it slowly with the corruption of the food supply.

Looking for Something Fun To Do? Hat Tip to My Granddaughter for a Great Idea!

I'm enjoying my granddaughter's book bingo for 2025. One idea struck me as super fun and wonderful. 

"Read 3 historical plaques to learn a town's history."

Did you know that there is a historical marker database? It occurred to me to do a search and, sure enough, there is. I checked it for the markers in Woodstock and there are dozens here. If I expand the search to nearby counties, there are hundreds. Sounds like future dates!

Random Thoughts on Monday

• 
  In the traditional Catholic calendar, tomorrow is the Feast of the Apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes. Interesting coincidence: I'm readinga biography of Pio Nono, Pope Pius IX so I checked the shelf where I keep encyclicals of the popes. Among those in the rubber-banded stash for Pio Nono I found Ineffabilis Deus, the Apostolic Constitution defining the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. I happen to have two copies. While I was reading my Benedictus today, I noticed that the feast for tomorrow is Our Lady of Lourdes. Then when I came in to check out my email and news on the computer, I saw that I left both copies of the apostolic constitution front and center on the desk. What a great time to re-read the pope's declaration about Our Lady. So I will invite my dear husband to do an after dinner reading before we pray our daily rosary. It will be a gift to ourselves and to Mary, the Immaculate Conception. How I love that dear mother. I will use one of my mom's many rosaries. I think she had a rosary in every coat and jacket pocket she owned. Mom, please join me today in glorifying the Blessed Mother, whom you taught me to love so much. 

Sunday Meditation: Thinking About Faith

The women's day of reflection which I attended yesterday focused on the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. Of all the virtues these three let us reach out and touch the hand of God. All the other virtues support these three which take the prominent place in the hierarchy of virtues.

I Never Did Like Descartes!

I'm going to a women's day of reflection this morning. But I have a little time before I leave and this article caught my eye as I checked my email.

Descartes, Trumpian Thomism, and ‘Pronouns’

Descarte's statement, proof of being, "I think therefore I am," always seemed a bit silly to me. Why not, "I breathe, therefore I am?" Or "I speak, therefore I am." But no, like John M. Grondelski points out in the article, Descartes created a dualism and a rift between body and soul. Read the article and think about it. Have you. read 10 Books that Screwed Up the World? by Benjamin Wiker? Descartes is among the screw ups. Ideas have consequences and some ideas have really bad consequences. Just look at how gender ideology, an insane idea, has destroyed the lives of so many children.

Bob Marshall outlines another of Trump's Great Executive Orders Protecting Children!

Chicken Thieves, the Constitution, and Trump’s Gender Transition Ban for Minors:

Make Your Charity Dollars Count -- Our Lady of the Poor, Pray for Us!

USAID isn't the only government "welfare" organization targeted by the new administration. Catholic Charities (CC), a well-funded NGO, is also on the chopping block these days. No tears from me, that's for sure! I'll be happy to see them get the boot. 

The Blessed Mother was no "ordinary girl!"

Sad to say, there are many people who have no idea about Who the Blessed Mother was during her life on earth and is now in heaven. Not only is she often disrespected and even blasphemed by non Catholics, but by Catholic laity and clergy as well. After Vatican II, despite the council honoring Mary, many tried to knock her off her pedestal and grind her rosary and other Marian devotions into the mud. It was nothing new. Mary has been the target of Protestants and others for centuries. The disrespect was so great, that the Lord led the Church, through the witness of Lucia of Fatima, to promote the First Saturdays devotion in reparation for the outrages against Our Lady.

Do Virginia Parents Have Rights? Virginia Democrats Don't Think So!

It's time to turn Virginia red again and we have a chance to do that next year. There's only a one-seat Democrat majority in the House of Delegates. Sadly, the Democrats are a pathetic party who won't even protect a baby born alive after an attempted abortion and usurp the rights of parents over their minor children. I received an e-mail this morning from Sheriff Timothy Carter, who heads up the Shenandoah County Republican Committee:

Monday Musings: On David Deleiden, Climate Change, Lent, and Pio Nono

• Good news indeed! I'm thankful for David Deleiden's victory against Planned 
  Parenthood and the state of California. It would not have happened with a Harris/Walz administration. And neither would the pro-life activists be free.  There is much for pro-lifers to cheer about in this brief beginning of Trump's 

California Settles with David Daleiden, Pro-Life Activist who Exposed Planned Parenthood: