Kevin Williamson, a conservative writer in The Despatch written by people who lean right but despair of Trump, has written engagingly from Springfield, Ohio, on eating cats and dogs. Read his intro and enjoy:
“SPRINGFIELD, Ohio—They come to Ohio from one of the most desperately poor places in the Western Hemisphere. They have few to no belongings. In many cases, they are uneducated, and most don’t speak English well. They do not understand the local culture where they have settled—and it shows: in their dress, in their speech, in their manners, in their housing arrangements, in the food they eat, and in the music they dance to.
Most profess to be Christians, but many maintain superstitious folk magic traditions from their homeland, and many quietly hold to a belief in witchcraft. They blithely violate social taboos. Locals complain that they are stealing their jobs, driving up costs, and consuming too much in the way of social services. And then there are the dietary norms: Though the rumors no doubt exceed the reality, some of them eat animals not generally considered food by the good people of Ohio. Ask the locals, and many of them will quietly say that they wish they would all go back to where they came from.
But that was a long time ago. And while J.D. Vance’s hillbilly ancestors may not have been the inbred, possum-eating, superstitious bushwhackers of legend and lore, as they descended on Ohio from the hills of Kentucky they had more than a little in common with the Haitian immigrants Sen. Vance now spends his days vilifying in terms that would have been familiar to Fritz Hippler, the filmmaker whose 1941 propaganda film Der ewige Jude comes to its climax with images of leering kosher butchers covered in the blood of animals slaughtered in the service of “the so-called Jewish religion.”
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Wanted – a Revival: Responding to the very frank “Pattern of Attendance Report” that revealed to Sydney’s Anglicans that from 2013 to 2023, they had fallen in numbers by 6.7 per cent, and taking into account population increase had reduced their share of Sydney people by 14 per cent, Historian Dr Stuart Piggin took a big picture view. “If that report won’t get us praying for revival nothing will… We should be asking God to solve our problems. I have done a study of Australian history and revivals have been common. We should be praying for another one.”
The Other Cheek’s reports of the report and the synod response
Why some parts of my town saw more church decline
‘This is a brutal facts moment for us’: Sydney’s Anglicans have their attendance issues laid bare
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Or you could read an excerpt on The Other Cheek and see if the cat was right https://theothercheek.com.au/what-the-bible-says-god-says/