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Epistle to Ansgar Letter 11: God and Conscience

Posted February 11, 2025 By John C Wright

9 Feb AD 2025
Feast Day of Saint Cuaran the Wise

Dear Godson,

Today is the feast day of St Cuaran the Wise, also known as Curvinus or Cronan, and Irish Bishop of the Eight Century. When the press of bishopric work crowded out his prayer life, Cuaran fled to Iona, hid his name, and became a monk. However, he was found and recognized by St Columba and returned to his duty. He was called wise for his wide knowledge of canon law, but perhaps his flight from worldly offices to pursue intimate prayer with heaven was the better part of wisdom.

We can ask St. Cuaran to pray for the wisdom we need to face the question of man’s moral nature. If conscience is indeed the still, small voice of God within us, if it is supernatural, then God is known to us through the conscience: His voice reveals Him.

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Queen Zixi visits Oz

Posted February 11, 2025 By John C Wright

Apropos of a discussion in an earlier column, here is an illustration by John R. Neill of the visit by Queen Zixi of Ix to Oz on the occasion of Ozma’s birthday, as described by the royal historian, L Frank Baum, in ROAD TO OZ.

Her appearance is somewhat changed from the depiction by Frederick Richardson, but since, canonically, her appearance is an illusion that fools all eyes but her own, she could have as many heads and hair colors as Princess Langwidere of Ev.

For those of you who are interested, here are some of the other Guests of Oz, and their native storybooks.

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Not Tired of Winning Yet CCIX

Posted February 11, 2025 By John C Wright
  • The Jeffrey Epstein files are being released in the next ten days.
  • Tulsi Gabbard has officially been CONFIRMED as President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence.
  • AG Pam Bondi has just announced she has CHARGED NY Gov. Kathy Hochul and Letitia James for failing to enforce immigration law.
  • The Secretary of Defense just announced that he signed the memorandum reversing the naming of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg. Bragg is back, baby!
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Not Tired of Winning Yet CCVIII

Posted February 10, 2025 By John C Wright

I will add links if an when I can find them. For now, I am not tired of winning, but I am not able to keep up. It is too much winning. TOO MUCH!

  • Trump signs and Executive order asking Federal agencies to reverse ban on plastic straws.
  • Google Calendar no longer includes Pride Month
  • The indefatigable Scott Presler announces “We just got Pennsylvania voter registration data. We’ve been using AI to uncover duplicate & fraudulent voter registrations. The PA State Dept. just did a massive purge.” So the voter rolls in corrupt states are being cleansed.
  • CDC employees are reportedly preparing to submit their resignation letters in large numbers following the announcement that RFK Jr. will head the Department of Health and Human Services.
  •  International Planned Parenthood to lose $61 million due to Trump’s executive order.
  • Trump signs full and unconditional pardon for former Governor Rod Blagojevich for his corruption conviction.

  • Eliminating the Federal Executive Institute

    The Federal Executive Institute is a program that was set up during the Johnson Administration to train senior level government bureaucrats. Trump just axed it as wasteful.

  • Re the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Trump is ordering the Department of Justice to use its prosecutorial discretion to ameliorate the negative effects of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This is to allow Americans to do business abroad and to allow our foreign Partners to do business with Americans without fearing unjust prosecution.
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Not Tired of Winning CCVII

Posted February 9, 2025 By John C Wright

Today, I am very honored to recognize February 9, 2025, as the first ever Gulf of America Day.

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The Envy of Queen Zixi of Ix

Posted February 7, 2025 By John C Wright

This is a story by L Frank Baum, author of the Oz books, one of his lesser known works, called QUEEN ZIXI of IX it was written in 1905.

The tale is now 120 years old, but this point is more poignant and potent in our day than when it was written.  Allow me to quote the whole passage at length, so that my dear readers might see and savor the simple wisdom here, and also the delicate beauty of the illustrations by Frederick Richardson.

The conceit of the tale is that the fairies have bestowed on mortals a cloak to grant its wearer his spoken wish.  The cloak is given to two innocent children, King Bud and Princess Fluff of Noland, but when the Witch Queen of the neighboring kingdom of Ix hears rumor of it, she vows a mighty vow to obtain possession of it.

This vow, and her many efforts and deceptions, she expends to achieve it, unbeknownst to her, are in vain from  the outset. For the fairies who wove the magic cloak wove in the blessing that the cloak grants no wish to anyone who steals it.

The author insists Queen Zixi is not a bad person, despite being a witch, but is carried off by her envy.

What I find fascinating about this 1905 children’s book is the resolution of the Queen’s fascination with envy is brought about by the chance encounter with three weeping figures: an alligator, an owl, and a ferryman’s daughter.

Note in particular what it is the third weeping figure pines to have, and how it was used in the tale as an epitome of foolishness.

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Not Tired of Winning Yet CCVI

Posted February 7, 2025 By John C Wright

More winning:

President Donald Trump on Friday announced he is revoking former President Joe Biden’s security clearances and stopping his daily intelligence briefings.

“There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Friday night.

The privileges will be revoked immediately, according to the president.

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Meanwhile, In a Continuum Nearby

Posted February 7, 2025 By John C Wright

Meanwhile, in a continuum nearby to ours, but not ours, the Star Wars franchise was true to the original

In our continuum, Disney squandered the greatest and best intellectual property of our generation, which, if treated with respect and nurtured, could have thrilled and enchanted generations to come, winning them wealth and praise. Instead, dreck.

On an utterly unrelated noted, the second book of my Starquest series, SECRET AGENTS OF THE GALAXY, is coming out next month.

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Not Tired of Winning Yet CCV

Posted February 6, 2025 By John C Wright

Not tired of winning yet, but I admit I am getting a little lightheaded from all the good news. My cheeks ache from grinning too widely, too long, day and night, waking and sleeping.
I cannot write a column for each of these, or even make a comment. Just keeping a running list of winning outruns my lagging steps, because there is awesome wins in news I have missed, or repeated.

From the Executive Order:

In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports. This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.

Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy. It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.

More details here:

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Protects Safety, Fairness, and Dignity in Women’s Sports
  • AG Pam Bondi just ordered the Justice Department to freeze all funding for sanctuary cities and has instructed attorneys to begin prosecuting officials preventing ICE from doing their job.

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The Art and Craft of Writing Romance

Posted February 5, 2025 By John C Wright

My lovely and talented wife is kickstarting her first Kickstarter campaign.

Beauty and the Beast, Scarlett and Rhett, Lizzie Bennett and Mr. Darcy… we love to read and re-read our favorite couples falling in love.

Do you yearn to know how the authors wove these timeless tales and how you can do the same?  

Then this course, The Art and Craft of Writing Romance, is for you!

kickstarter.com/projects/artcr

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The Golden Transcendence 06: Tale of the Silence

Posted February 5, 2025 By John C Wright

From THE GOLDEN TRANSCENDENCE, vol. III of my debut trilogy.

In the far future, the Golden Oecumene has elevated the immortals of the solar system to untrammeled triumphs of abundance, liberty, and splendor. But, hidden by masquerade, a sinister threat arises from the dark star Cygnus X1, man’s sole exosolar colony, the long-lost Silent Oecumene.

Phaethon of Rhadamanth, bedeviled and beguiled by agents of the Lords of the Silent Oecumene, returns from exile to confront them. He must battle them in the core of the Sun, the core of his mind and memory, and at the apex of all abstraction, when the Golden Transcendence gathers all minds in the solar system into one communion, and all truths are laid bare.

The Golden Transcendence Ep. 06: Tale of the Silence

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Cecil Chesterton on the Colonial Revolution

Posted February 5, 2025 By John C Wright

It is instructive to read history from the point of view of the other side of a war. Here is a quote from an insightful account of the Colonial War from Cecil Chesterton, brother of the celebrated GK Chesterton. This passage deals with the Stamp Act, but the whole book is worth reading.

A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

CHAPTER II

ARMS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN

[I]n the year 1764, shortly after the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, George Grenville, who had become the chief Minister of George III. after the failure of Lord Bute, proposed to raise a revenue from these colonies by the imposition of a Stamp Act.

The Stamp Act and the resistance it met mark so obviously the beginning of the business which ended in the separation of the United States from Great Britain that Grenville and the British Parliament have been frequently blamed for the lightness of heart with which they entered upon so momentous a course. But in fact it did not seem to them momentous, nor is it easy to say why they should have thought it momentous. It is certain that Grenville’s political opponents, many of whom were afterwards to figure as the champions of the colonists, at first saw its momentousness as little as he. They offered to his proposal only the most perfunctory sort of opposition, less than they habitually offered to all his measures, good or bad.

And, in point of fact, there was little reason why a Whig of the type and class that then governed England should be startled or shocked by a proposal to extend the English system of stamping documents to the English colonies. That Parliament had the legal right to tax the colonies was not seriously questionable. Under the British Constitution the power of King, Lords and Commons over the King’s subjects was and is absolute, and none denied that the colonists were the King’s subjects. They pleaded indeed that their charters did not expressly authorize such taxation; but neither did they expressly exclude it, and on a strict construction it would certainly seem that a power which would have existed if there had been no charter remained when the charter was silent.

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Not Tired of Winning Yet CCIV

Posted February 4, 2025 By John C Wright
  • Canada just caved to Trump. This is Castro Trudeau’s graceful surrender:

I just had a good call with President Trump. Canada is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan — reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl. Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working on protecting the border.

In addition, Canada is making new commitments to appoint a Fentanyl Czar, we will list cartels as terrorists, ensure 24/7 eyes on the border, launch a Canada- U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering. I have also signed a new intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl and we will be backing it with $200 million.

Proposed tariffs will be paused for at least 30 days while we work together.

One wag on Twitter remarks: “TRANSLATION: Tariffs work, Canada will finally start living up to its responsibilities, Trump was right again, & America was right to re-elect him.”
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Not Tired of Winning Yet CCIII

Posted February 3, 2025 By John C Wright
  • Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum folds, says she agreed to send 10,000 troops to the U.S. border after a phonecall with President Trump.
  • Mexico just arrested El Ricky, a top leader of Cartel del Noreste, right after Trump pressured them to crack down on cartels.
  • Now that Trump is in office and the charade is over, Zelensky admits he did not receive over $100 billion of our tax dollars. The money was laundered.
  • Panama announced that their nation won’t renew their “Belt and Road Initiative” agreement with China, and will allow free passage for US vessels through the Panama canal.
  • USAID to be shut down. All staff got pink slips.
    This is a $48.3 billion —billion with a B — dollar slush fund  and money-laundering scheme for the Deep State of your hard earned tax dollars, which goes to the Clinton Foundation (which may be involved in pedosex-slavery traffic); to Alexander Vindman (remember him? who tried to overthrow a sitting president, gave false testimony to Congress);  Bill Kristol (the Nevertrumper); and any number of rebellions and coups around the planet organized by the CIA. The corrupt organization is ended.
  • Trump announces the US will be withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council and stop UNRWA funding. UNWRA supports HAMAS with our taxpayer dollars. The UN Human Rights Council demonizes Israel while glorifying barbaric Sharia theocracies. (Or, since Allah is a demon, the form of government should perhaps be called diabolocracy)

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Epistle to Ansgar Letter 10: God and Reason

Posted February 2, 2025 By John C Wright

26 Jan 2025 AD
Feast Day of Sts Timothy and Titus

Dear Godson,

Today we celebrate Saints Timothy and Titus, first bishops of Ephesus and Crete, who followed Saint Paul on his apostolic journeys. One was a Jew, the other Greek, one was circumcised according to the Law of Moses, and the other not, which was a matter of stark controversy in the Church in first years after the Ascension. Despite any differences, both followed Christ faithfully to sainthood, and are among the very earliest number of saints assuming the thrones vacated by the fallen angels in heaven.

The verse from scripture, “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom” distinguishes traditional Jewish and Greek approaches. Jews rely on the revelation of sacred books, whereas Greeks follow philosophy and science — the love of wisdom and knowledge — to discover what human reason can reveal.

And yet both paths, properly followed, lead to Christ hence to God. One might use Timothy and Titus as symbols of this twofold brotherhood of faith and reason. There is no war between them.

Today, we follow the Greek way. Reason brings forth proofs for God, especially these seven:  the argument from design; from the nature of being; from the nature of reason; from free will; from first causes; from beauty; from conscience. My two previous letters addressed these first two. Here we turn to the argument from the nature of reason.

The “Argument from Reason” is not an argument merely saying it is reasonable to believe in God. Belief in God is reasonable, to be sure, for it is backed by historical and physical evidence, intuition and common sense.

But here we are offering a more abstract argument, namely, that without God, reason is unreasonable.

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