Franklin Roosevelt | Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History

FDR’s Inaugural Address and St John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, on Fear & Cowardice, Step 21

FDR’s First Inaugural Address and St John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, on Fear & Cowardice, Step 21

08/06/2026 Bruce Strom 0

The chapter on fear is both one of the shortest and one of the most puzzling chapters of St John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent. In part, that is because there are many flavors of fears that spring from our most basal fears: the fear of the dark, the distressing, the dangerous.
More common are those fears that cause us to hesitate. Perhaps we fear what others think of us when we champion the good others do not see. Perhaps we fear rejection and failure. Perhaps we fear that past failures will rob us of future success. Perhaps we fear to do good when we are not encouraged. […]

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Prayer For Allied Soldiers Landing on the Beaches of Normandy

08/05/2026 Bruce Strom 0

We now assume that our victory over the Nazis in this invasion of France was inevitable, but like many military battles, the battle could have gone either way. How were the Allies able to land enough troops and tanks, plus sufficient food, water, gasoline, and ammunition, on the Normandy beaches to overwhelm the German forces and push forward, first to Paris, and then to Germany itself? Why were the Allied forces not thrown back into the sea?
The historian William Manchester tells us that “Hitler’s intuition had told him from the first that the landings would come in Normandy. Then he listened to his advisors and changed his mind.” They advised him that the Allies would land in Calais in Northern France, which was a short distance from Dover in England. “The main force will land near Calais; Normandy was just a feint.” […]

Who Were More Violent: Black Civil Rights Protestors or White Supremacists?

02/14/2025 Bruce Strom 0

We had a recent comment on the somewhat peaceful protests organized by Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders during the tumultuous decade of the Sixties: “They were violent rioters, not peaceful protesters.” How violent were these protesters, and how violent where the white supremacists they were confronting? And […]

Why Did Trump Win? What Should Democrats Do Now?

11/26/2024 Bruce Strom 0

Trump’s only path to victory in 2024 was to continue stirring up the hate and prejudice that won him the election in 2016. Simply put, more Americans approved of Trump’s divisive message than disapproved. Trump’s question to black journalists: When did Kamala Harris turn black? may have been more calculating than it seemed. Since Kamala Harris could pass for white, Trump wanted to hammer home the message to his base that Harris was as black as a burnt black kettle.
In this past election, we learned that many older white voters who will vote for an old boring white guy will never vote for a younger black woman, whether she could pass for white or not. Joe Biden won in 2020 because he was an old boring white guy with significant support from black voters. Unfortunately, in 2024 black and liberal voters did not turn out in sufficient numbers to tip the balance. My gut feeling is that a Tim Waltz-Kamala Harris ticket would have won, but that was a political impossibility given the short time frame needed to swap the candidates. After Biden’s disastrous debate performance, he was not seen as a winner.
Again, do not forget that half the country lives in the news bubble dominated by right-wingnut media, including Fox News, Newsmax, Breitbart, Steve Bannon’s podcast, and Alex Jones, that lie with abandon. […]

Trump-Biden Debate Compared to Kennedy-Nixon 1960 Debates: the First Televised Debates

Trump-Biden Debate, Compared to Kennedy-Nixon 1960 TV Debates, With David Frum Editorial

07/01/2024 Bruce Strom 0

Often when you catch Trump with his hand in the cookie jar, he first denies the existence of the cookie jar, then denies the existence of the cookies, and then says it was perfectly fine to steal the cookies!
When reminded how he said that US servicemen who are captured in war, like John McCain, or who die in war, are suckers and losers, Trump simply denies he said such things!
TRUMP: “First of all, that was a made-up quote, suckers and losers. They made it up. It was in a third-rate magazine that’s failing, like many of these magazines. He made that up.” “We had nineteen people that said I didn’t say it.” Maybe Trump is referring to nineteen right wingnut anchors on Fox News and Newsmax. […]

Book Reviews and Miscellaneous

Book Reviews on Apostolic and Early Church Fathers

04/04/2022 2

These quick book reviews include links to our YouTube videos and blogs on the Apostolic and Early Church Fathers, plus related topics. We will also discuss how to read ancient works, and the problems scholars face when translating ancient works, and the 38-volume set of the writings of the Ante-Nicene, ante meaning before, Nicene, and Post-Nicene Church Fathers, translated into English. […]

AntiSemitism

Book Reviews for Blogs On How Christians Coped Under Fascist Regimes

08/19/2020 1

Many of the books I have consulted for my blogs on how Christians cope under Fascist regimes have interesting histories of their own, some even have these histories on their own Wikipedia pages. […]

Book Reviews and Miscellaneous

Book Reviews, Reform Councils of Trent and Vatican II, and Vatican I

03/21/2022 7

IMHO, you cannot truly understand the modern Catholic Church without reading William O’Malley’s histories of Trent and Vatican II. O’Malley argues that Vatican II restated the theology of Trent, countering the notion that Trent was a reactionary rather than a reforming council. This polemic view of Trent was influenced by the fact that the Vatican had closed the archives of the Trent Council until early in the twentieth century. […]

Book Reviews and Miscellaneous

On Learning Attic and Koine Greek, Classical Latin, and Biblical Hebrew

03/02/2022 0

You would only want to learn these ancient languages if you are truly a serious student, and want to read the Scriptures and classics in their original language, and so you will not miss the word plays and puns that you can only catch in the original language. When reading epic poems of Homer and the Greek playwrights, or the Psalms in Old Testament, or the elegant works of Cicero, you can experience the rhymes and rhythms of the original language, as poetry can be incredibly difficult to translate. When we cut the video for a play by Aeschylus on the Battle of Salamis in the Persian Wars, the various translations we encountered were RADICALLY different. Personally, I am tempted not to read any more Greek plays until I learn how to read Attic Greek. […]

Biblical Interpretation

Book Review: Early Church Fathers Library – 38 Volumes in 3 Series

11/18/2017 7

This 38-volume library of the works of the Early Church Fathers in the first few centuries of the Church is an invaluable resource for the serious student of Theology, and the Scriptures also, since many of the writings of the early Church Fathers are Biblical commentaries. Although this collection was compiled in the late 1800’s by Protestant scholars, it is still a primary English source for many of these works for scholars of all denominations. […]

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