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People want to save the west and help win the culture wars, but don’t know how. This survey of the West’s great ideas, drawing from greats like Aquinas and Plato, is also a survival handbook for the 21st century.

The West is in crisis, and ordinary folks feel powerless—but with a little training, regular people can be the most important defenders of all that is good and true in our cultural heritage.

It has been proclaimed many times, but perhaps never more convincingly than now, when every news cycle seems to deliver further confirmation of a world gone mad.

Is this the endgame? Have we come to closing time in the West?

These are the issues:

• The Crisis of Reality: Is there such a thing as objective truth—and even if there is, can “virtual reality” replace it?

• The Crisis of the Body: Not just the “transgender” insanity, but the push for a “transhumanist” future

• The Crisis of Meaning: Evolution—both biological and cultural—is a process of endless replication, of copying. But is there an original model that gives us an aspiration to aim for? Do our lives and actions have meaning?

• The Crisis of Religion: Science has not eliminated man’s religious impulse, but rather misdirected it—and wrongly dismissed the profound philosophical plausibility of Judeo-Christian revelation.

• The Crisis of the Regime: Has America reached a point of inevitable collapse? Republican government was meant to end the destructive cycle of regimes rising and falling—but can it?

Author Spencer Klavan is a classicist, with a Ph.D. from Oxford, and a deep understanding of the West. His analysis: The situation is dire. But every crisis we face today, we have faced before. And we can surmount each one.

In Australia, the cost to the student of university education is about 50% of the actual cost of the course. The rest is paid for by tax payers. Students have the option to pay fees up front at a discount, or to pay over time once their income reaches a set level – in the current financial year this is $48,361 . No interest is charged, but loans are indexed to the annual rate of inflation.

Now leftist media and politicians are saying some students are having difficulty paying those debts, and they should be waived, or at least, no longer indexed.

Here’s a thought:

• Don’t take on more debt than you are confident you can manage.
• If you are taking on debt to undertake study or training, make sure it is for a course that will help you to earn additional income which will be sufficient to cover the debt.
• If it is just for interest or fun, don’t go into debt for it.
• If you take on obligations, don’t whine and expect others who have not had your advantages to to cover them for you.

I am not fond of her music, but I really dislike the hate directed at Lizzo. Obviously it is not right to normalise obesity – there is nothing healthy or attractive about it. But that is different from simply being happy with who you are. She is bright, pretty, can sing, and she has some good things to say about self respect and encouragement in the face of put-downs and adversity. You go girl!

As I have said before, if a guy wants to call himself a woman, that’s up to him. If he insists we have to call him a woman, that’s up to us.

No one wishes ill against Dylan Mulvaney. He will have enough mental and physical pain to deal with when he realises what a terrible mistake he has made. What people object to is being forced to comply with other people’s delusions.

We are not expected to agree if a man says he identifies as a poached egg. We are expected to agree if a man says he identifies as a woman, a claim that is just as contrary to reality. When advertising for commercial products is used to strengthen this expectation, is is unsurprising that people who know that men are not women will choose to take their business elsewhere.

Vice is a trendy left “news” site for trendy left inner city dwellers. They used to love Elon Musk and Tesla. Now, not so much.

Nonetheless, environmental action and climate change, along with sex toys on Amazon and Melbourne’s gay night-life, remain key points of interest for Vice’s writers. So it is interesting that they should feature this long article on the damage to the environment and indigenous peoples caused by mining of materials for electric vehicle batteries.

I have sometimes seen the question: “What would you do if you knew you had only one day to live?

Jesus knew. He prayed, and He washed feet.

If non-disclosure agreements were criminal, then half of all Democrat politicians would be in jail. Being sleazy and pompous and disagreeable are not crimes. See the previous sentence. The question in relation to president Trump is, um, well, what exactly? See here for a thoroughly Trump-despising analysis, which nonetheless finds no substance in Bragg’s indictment.

Not all dementia is Alzheimer’s, and the relationship between gut biome and neurology is still not well understood. However, this is a hopeful step towards a better understanding of one of the contributors to a sad and frightening illness which will inevitably affect us or someone we know.

The level of gun ownership in the USA is not the problem. The USA is a safe place to visit and to live. Take the top ten most violent cities (listed below) out of the equation, and the US murder rate drops to 1-2 per 100,000, amongst the lowest in the world. The top sixteen most violent cities in the US all have long term Democrat administrations. Just stay away from cities run by Democrats.

Stunning and brave.

The WPGA Tour of Australasia tweeted: “Showing nerves of steel, Breanna Gill triumphed in a playoff for her first professional win at the AusWomensClassic! [GolfNSW] | feelNSW | NewSouthWales.”

She “outdrives the field by 42 yds on average.” Wow! I wonder why?

Breanna has previously won the Qantas Golf Challenge, the New Caledonia Women’s Pro-Am in 2018, and the 2019 New Zealand PWG Pro-Am.

They forgot to mention that Breanna is actually male.

The WPGA and GolfNSW shut down social media comments after women asked why this was allowed. This tweet was typical:

“That’s a man cheating to win women’s competitions. You’re a disgrace. Stop pandering to the men who claim special identities, you’re crapping all over actual women in the process. #SaveWomensSports”

US swimmer Riley Gaines wrote:
“Imagine writing off wanting sex-protected spaces and categories as “hate” or some type of “phobia.” We deserve privacy. We deserve fairness. We deserve safety. We deserve respect. When I say “we”, I mean everyone. Everyone is entitled to these things, but one group’s rights shouldn’t be valued more than the others which would, in turn, take away their rights. No one deserves to be collateral damage in making sure one person/group feels happy or included.”

Real women are being deprived of the honour of their wins, of sponsorship deals, and of prize money.

Is that fair?

The poem Herzliebster Jesu by Johann Heermann, translated by Robert Bridges, sung to a beautiful melody in F minor by Johann Crueger, arranged by JS Bach.

Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,

That man to judge thee hath in hate pretended?

By foes derided, by thine own rejected,

O most afflicted.

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?

Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee.

‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee,

I crucified thee.

Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;

The slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered;

For man’s atonement, while he nothing heedeth,

God intercedeth.

For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation,

Thy mortal sorrow, and thy life’s oblation;

Thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion,

For my salvation.

Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee,

I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee,

Think on thy pity and thy love unswerving,

Not my deserving.

If you are unlucky you may see posted on social media a scan of a recent article in The Australian by Adam Creighton. There is virtually nothing in that article which is accurate.

The Dr Conny Turni mentioned is not a medical doctor or researcher. She has a PhD, but no qualifications in medicine or medical research. She works in animal science.

The Journal of Clinical and Experimental Immunology her article was published in is not the prestigious journal of that name published by Oxford University, but a predatory open access journal.

The data available to medical science is absolutely clear. The vanishingly small risk associated with COVID-19 vaccines is vastly outweighed by the slowing of transmission and especially the vaccines’ very effective reduction in serious illness and death.

Antivaxxers like Campbell, Creighton and Turni may and no doubt will continue to push the line that vaccines are harmful. This claim is contradicted by evidence and by every medical research organisation, hospital and university.

Listen to real medical scientists instead!

This song is based on a phone call from a man to his wife from one of the Twin Towers on 9/11. If this doesn’t move you …

Mark Latham is an Australian politician, and New South Wales leader of One Nation, a conservative libertarian political party.

Mark spoke recently at a community gathering to express his concerns about women being excluded from public spaces and from sport, as women’s spaces were gradually being taken over by trans women. He and I share the view that trans people are not to be mocked or belittled. If they want to call themselves women that is up to them. But if they want us to call them women, that is up to us. They disagree.

At this community event, titled “Let Women Speak’ there was a noisy crowd of trans activists who were determined that no one should speak, and that anyone who did not publicly agree with their position should be silenced. This continues a pattern where what is presented as a call for tolerance by minority groups quickly becomes a call for compliance: everyone must agree. Any expression of disagreement is described as exclusionary and hate speech. Even if the disagreement takes the form of women politely expressing their concerns about men in women’s clothing taking over women’s sport, and women’s rest rooms.

Following this, Mark was described by Alex Greenwich, an openly homosexual member of the New South Wales parliament, as disgusting, hateful, and dangerous. Mark responded with a bluntness that offended Alex, and which caused a number of lily livered handwringers to flutter their fans and complain that his remarks were mean and unseemly and offensive and not appropriate for a public figure.

What counts as disgusting? Allowing people to speak about matters that concern them is not disgusting. Attempting to shut them down by screeching, calling them names and threatening violence is disgusting. Mark Latham is not hateful and dangerous simply because he refuses to go along with demands by noisy minorities for complete agreement and silent compliance.

Was Mark’s response to Alex disgusting? Maybe. What it brought home to me is that if you say bluntly what a particular behaviour is in a way that makes it clear that it is not something to be proud of, those who take pride in it will descend in fury like a clamour of harpies…