You have probably already heard or read that Pope Francis died this morning. See, for example, the article in the Epoch Times Pope Francis Dies Aged 88 After Suffering Long Illness.

Check it out at EWTN's Raymond Arroyo interviews Dallas Jenkins about Season 5.

Fr. Jim was my pastor from July, 2005 to June 2006. It turns out we both left St. Albert the Great, in Kettering, Ohio. I went to serve two small country parishes. He went to serve in a different way. See the tribute here....In Memory of Father Jim Manning

PragerU's CEO, Marissa Streit, interviewed historian Niall Ferguson on "Whether the U.S. Can Avoid World War III". Professor Ferguson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Harvard University, starts his discussion with general comments that bleed into questions and comments on the ancient conflict between Athens and Sparta, followed by several major wars in the last few hundred years of world history.

Their homes were destroyed by Hurricane Helene. Check out Rising From the Mud and Ashes!

I have to admit, this PragerU video impressed me: ”The void: finding happiness in a world of escapism.”

The February 10, 2025 issue of the "Epoch Times" reports "DeepSeek Pushes CCP Censorship, Propaganda on a Global Scale". DeepSeek is an AI project of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Artificial Intelligence is a powerful tool that can be, and is, used by folks who hate democracy, freedom of thought and representative government. May God have mercy on their souls!

Fifteen years ago, Vanilla ICE was popular.  Today, ICE ain't so popular to almost half of our citizenry.  That tells me a ton of what has happened to our culture.

I'm pretty sure my father, George Alderson, died of bone cancer.  That's a nasty disease originating from prostate cancer.  It especially targets some men who have high testosterone levels.  George was a Marine who served at the tail end of World War II, most likely in the Pacific theater.  He most probably suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD (see Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and had a lot of difficulty holding down a job.