"But That Was Yesterday!"

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
miserere eis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona eis requiem.)

Do you remember what you said and did a thousand years ago?
Where is yesterday?
Do you remember what you said and did a thousand weeks ago?
Where is yesterday?

Yesterday in crannies or in nooks you will not find…
Yesterday in chronicles or books you will not find…
All you see of yesterday is shadows in your mind…
Shadows on the pavement but no bodies do you find.

Do you believe that snows of winters long ago return again?
Where is yesterday?
A voice you knew a thousand years ago you can't remember when?
Where is yesterday?

Here is only waiting for a day that went before…
Here is only waiting for an answer at the door…
Here is only living without knowing why for sure…
Here is something gone you cannot find it anymore.

[“Where Is Yesterday?” Gordon Marron / Dorothy Moskowitz]

     I am old. As with many old persons, I am much given to thinking of earlier times in the history of our Republic. Some of those times were definitely flawed, at least by contemporary standards. Others were brutally bloody. And all are being effaced from the minds of our youngest compatriots.

     As I prepare to give away large portions of my beloved library, in preparation for other dislocations of my existence of which I shall not speak, those thoughts are with me more powerfully than ever. Books are our memories, in particular of people we never knew and events we did not personally witness. To part with a book has always cost me extraordinary pain…but still more, it costs me the memories associated with it. I’ve always awarded my highest disdain to persons who can casually discard a book.

     How much more disdain – nay, condemnation, verging on actual hatred — should be awarded to those who would erase history? Yours, mine, our nation’s, or that of any other segment of Mankind?

     It’s only a few days back that Library Journal actually declared that libraries are too full of books! Yea, verily…but how could any librarian say such a thing? Simple: by hewing to the dictates of the New Fascism, also known as political correctness. You see, the great majority of books written in English were written by male Caucasians of European descent: in other words, white men. That’s discriminatory! It offends the sensibilities of those who hate whites and men, and therefore all evidence of it must be destroyed.

     This is entirely consistent with the Left’s program to deny all knowledge of history, with all its features, to the awareness of the young.

     You’ve heard the old saying “If you don’t know where you’ve been, how will you know where you’re going,” haven’t you? The Left knows it quite well.

     On most mornings I ramble on enough for any three bloggers. Today I can’t manage it. In part that’s because of a gaggle of recent events, including the blaze at Notre Dame de Paris, yesterday’s atrocities in Sri Lanka, and this story from a year ago, which somehow escaped my notice until this morning. But in equal or greater measure it’s because of a growing conviction that what I say here is being rendered incomprehensible to those who will most regret not understanding it. Its obscurity derives almost entirely from the snuffing out of our national, cultural, religious, and racial memory.

     I need to pray. That’s all for this morning. Have a nice day.