Sole Video Footage of Anne Frank Posted Online

I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was a freshman in high school and was deeply moved by it. I've never heard of anyone who read it and was not similarly moved. The teenager's two-year account of hiding from the Nazis with her parents and other family members and friends in a secret apartment in Holland for over two years was cut short on August 4, 1944, when she and the other Jews who were in hiding were betrayed, arrested, and deported to Auschwitz. Anne perished soon afterward in the death camp.

Until now, I only knew Anne through the pages of her Diary and in the few pictures of her that I've seen. But today, I ran across a newly released, brief video clip of her which news sources say is "the only footage of Anne Frank ever recorded . . ."

The video, uploaded by the Anne Frank House of Amsterdam on Wednesday, depicts the front of an apartment building where Frank's family lived on July 22, 1941, roughly a year before her family went into hiding in a secret apartment.

Frank is seen on video leaning out of the second-floor window of her Amsterdam home to get a glimpse of her neighbor, who is getting married. . . . (continue)

You Can Run But You Can't Hide From McDonalds

Question: What's the farthest distance you can go in the U.S. to get away from a McDonalds?

Answer: "Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car."

As this map shows, if you happen to be somewhere else like, say, California or anywhere east of the Mississippi, you can run (though not very far) but you can't hide from them Golden Arches.

I spotted this bit of fascinating, if useless, knowledge on the First Things blog. They linked to this post by Stephen Von Worley, who said:

This summer, cruising down the I-5 through California’s Central Valley to the Los Angeles Basin, I unwittingly stumbled upon a most exasperating development: the country strip mall. First, let me state that I don’t hate. I’ve got nothing against Petco, Starbucks, OfficeMax, et al. When overcome by the desire for a cubic yard of kitty litter, a carafe of pre-Columbian frappasmoochino, or fifty gross of pink highlighter pens, I’m there in a jiffy!

But, Mr. Real Estate Tycoon, did you have to plop your shopping center smack dab in the middle of what was previously nowhere? Okay, the land was cheap. And yes, you did traffic studies and proved that the interstate and distant suburbs would drench whatever you built in a raging torrent of eager consumerism. But your retail monstrosity drains the wildness from the countryside for twenty miles in every direction! Sure, you can’t see it from everywhere - but once you know it’s there, you feel it. In the rural drawl of a neighboring rancher, that flat-out sucks!

Which begs the question: just how far away can you get from our world of generic convenience? And how would you figure that out?

As I hurtled down the highway, a pair of golden arches crept over the horizon, and the proverbial lightbulb smacked me in the forehead. To gauge the creep of cookie-cutter commercialism, there’s no better barometer than McDonald’s – ubiquitous fast food chain and inaugural megacorporate colonizer of small towns nationwide.

So, I set out to determine the farthest point from a Micky Dee’s – in the lower 48 states, at least. This endeavor required information, and the nice folks at AggData were kind enough to provide it to me: a complete list of all 13,000-or-so U.S. restaurants, in CSV format, geolocated for maximum convenience. From there, a bit of software engineering gymnastics, and…

Behold, a visualization of the contiguous United States, colored by distance to the nearest domestic McDonald’s! . . . (continue reading)

Elizabeth Smart Recounts the Grim Details of Her 2002 Abduction

Like everyone else (other than the two psychos who kidnapped and brutalized this innocent child), I was elated to hear the news, several years back, that Elizabeth Smart had been rescued from the nightmarish captivity imposed on her. Few people imagined that her situation would have a happy ending — at least as happy as an ending can be in a case like this. I thank God for her deliverance. Now, at 21, she is speaking publicly about what happened.

Elizabeth Smart said Thursday that the man accused of snatching her from her Utah bedroom seven years ago, when she was a 14-year-old girl, raped her repeatedly — three or four times a day — during the nine months he held her captive as one of his wives.

Smart, now 21, was testifying for the first time against suspect Brian David Mitchell, though the two never came face-to-face in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City. Mitchell was removed before Smart arrived and taken to a holding cell where he could listen to the proceedings.

Smart said Mitchell, 55, raped her for the first time right after her June 2002 abduction — which occurred in the dead of night in her Salt Lake City home.

She told the court that the rapes continued three to four times a day for nine months, and that Mitchell told her she would be killed if she yelled or tried to escape.

She described Mitchell as "evil, wicked, manipulative, stinky, slimy, selfish, not spiritual, not religious, not close to God."

It marked the first time Smart has testified against Mitchell, who is accused of abducting Smart and making her his "wife" to fulfill a religious prophecy.

The court is currently conducting a competency hearing for Mitchell, who has twice before been deemed mentally unfit for trial. A judge ruled earlier this week that Smart's testimony is relevant to determining Mitchell's mental competency.

Smart was poised and composed while testifying for just under two hours.

She said Mitchell abducted her in her bedroom at knifepoint in the middle of the night, took her to a mountain camp and performed a ceremony she said was intended to "marry" the two. . . . (continue)

How an earthquake might create a tsunami off California coast

(source)

Video of first Tsunami Waves Hitting Samoa

As a public service announcement, let's review Tidal Wave Rule #1 : When you see a tsunami, or even something that looks like it might be a tsunami, rolling in from the ocean, do not stop to take pictures of it with your tricked-out camera. Bad things will happen.

These waves and the earthquakes that are causing them (Samoa, Indonesia) are killing hundreds of people, maybe more. Let's not forget to pray for these folks who are suffering through these terrible ordeals. There's no reason to imagine that we in the U.S. won't get hit with something similar at some point.

Below is an interview with an eyewitness to the waves:

If you'd like to help honor Archbishop Chaput, please act now

With just a week left to go, I don't want anyone to miss the opportunity to get a seat (or table, if you'd like) at our Envoy Institute event next week in Charlotte (October 8th), to honor Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver for his courageous public leadership on Catholic moral issues (among other issues). If you’d like to reserve a seat or table for yourself (or your group), please click here or click the blue banner above.

Also, if I may ask a favor of you, we have many priests, religious, seminarians and college students on a waiting list to attend this event. They very much want to be present to hear Archbishop Chaput, George Wiegel, Joseph Bottum (First Things Magazine), Fr. John Corapi, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson, and others who will speak that evening.

If you can, please sponsor a table so that we can seat these priests, students, etc. The Hilton charges us for everyone who attends, so we do need to have every seat paid for!

Any donation you can make to help us with these expenses would be a great help. You can do so securely by clicking here.

Please think about what this means today, in the culture we live in. Many Catholics stood up to honor the late Ted Kennedy for his life's work, invoking his “Catholicism,” even though so much of what he did in his public life was directly contrary to what the Catholic Church teaches.

The University of Notre Dame — once widely considered the flagship Catholic university in the U.S. — dished out major accolades and honors to the president, a man who has made it his life’s work to promote and protect the hideous evil of abortion. You can see the problem.

I believe we need to be just as willing to stand up, speak out, and publicly support this man — Archbishop Charles Chaput — for his untiring, courageous public defense of Catholic teaching. He really puts his Catholic beliefs into action in the public square. And I want to stand up and publicly honor and encourage him for that.

Will you help me?

I hope to see you in Charlotte on October 8th!

Thanks, Everybody!

Well, now that Patrick is back in the saddle and posting away, I guess I can turn in early.

Actually this is a picture taken by my son during a recent backyard campout…one of only three campouts I’ve been on in my 49 years (the first was in an aunt’s suburban backyard, the second was on a baseball diamond in my native Jersey City…as an urban cub scout that counted as the great outdoors).

Perhaps, one day, my son and I will set out on a real camping adventure (if the neighbors don’t mind us using their yard).

I want to thank you all for your kind attention these past two weeks as I enjoyed an adventure in blogging courtesy of Patrick’s kind invitation to sub for him while he was away. It’s been a pleasure spending time with you.

For those of you who are Envoy subscribers, I’ll see you next issue in my “Rocking the Cradle Catholic” department. For those of you who aren’t subscribers, I hope you’ll consider signing up. Envoy is a fun way to learn about our Catholic faith.

Did You Hear the One About How the Pope Will Be the Beast of Revelation?

This theory has been making the rounds for a few hundred years now, and it typically centers on the (bogus) claim that one of the popes' alleged official Latin titles — Vicarius Filii Dei (Vicar of the Son of God) — is the fulfillment of the infernal "number of the beast," described by St. John in Revelation 13:17-18:

“[I]t causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six.”

In this audio clip from my EWTN TV series, "Pope Fiction," I give you a basic overview of how to debunk this argument.

NY State Says: "Get Vaccinated or Get Fired"

Hmmmm...

What do you suppose the reaction would have been to these kids playing overtly Christian tunes?

What's wrong with this picture?

I just learned that this Wednesday, New York's Empire State Building will light up red and yellow to commemorate the 60th anniversary of COMMUNIST CHINA.

Am I the only one seeing Red here?

Dear Elliot . . .

Pray for Your Brothers and Sisters in the Philippines

There's more in-depth information (and more pictures) regarding this catastrophic flooding at the Catholic Seeking blog.

Catholic Grocery Store Owner Under Attack for Displaying Crucifix

My friend Richard Lane brought this irksome story to my attention, and so I now bring it to yours:

“It startled me. It seemed so out of place” was the comment of a patron of the new downtown Schnucks Grocery Store in St. Louis, Missouri. While driving to work this morning, my wife and I were listening to commentary KMOX Radio on this issue and then I went online to get the story from St. Louis Today Website.

Basically the person who felt the Crucifix was ‘out of place’, (also was Jewish – I am in no means insinuating that all Jewish brothers and sisters feel this way) went out of their way to write a letter to their local Jewish Newspaper on this issue complaining about what many say is the ‘obvious symbol of not just Christianity, but Roman Catholicism, since the dying Corpus of Christ was placed on a Cross. Obviously people are disapproving of this display of someone’s faith, Culinaria (Store) Manager Tom Collora, Jr., who is a parishioner at the Old Cathedral, located in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.

"It's bad taste and bad business. Who wants to (shop) where someone else's faith is being pushed down your throat?" were the comments from an Atheist who lives next to the store. Personally, if this Atheist was so loyal to his cause, then he should not be using United States Currency, which displays this Country’s Faith… but this is not the point in my opinion.

What Mr. Collora has done, is answer the call of the New Evangelization, specifically the Mandate of Christ to ‘Go an make disciples’ by sharing our Faith; by sharing the Salvific Message of the Corpus of the Messiah on the Cross, which is not a sign of exclusion, but the opposite; this is the Glorious Sign of Inclusion into the Body (all pun intended) of Christ, who was ‘lifted up’, suffered, died and rose three days later in Triumph over death.

According to Pope Paul VI; the Roman Catholic Church exists so that She may Evangelize, taking the Eternal Message of Salvation to every end of the earth, every Home, Hamlet and Hovel; every Town, City, State, Country and Territory; Our (Roman Catholics) mission is to share the GOOD NEWS of Salvation through Jesus Christ to all mankind… and as Christ told us; “Do not be afraid!”

As one who has given up a secular life to continue to proclaim the Gospel, I applaud Mr. Collora and wish the other 1 Billion Catholics around the World would imitate his example. . . . (continue reading)

Discouraged by Your Failures? Watch This