Forrest Michalk

[Ancient History Hub @AncientHistorry]

Rome conquered Greece in 146 BC when they burned Corinth to the ground. And then the strangest thing in ancient history happened. The winners spent the next few centuries desperately trying to become the losers.

It actually started before the final conquest. When the general Marcellus sacked Syracuse in 211 BC, he shipped boatloads of Greek statues and paintings back to Rome, and the city went crazy for it. Suddenly every rich Roman had to have Greek art in his house. Decades later Cicero built an entire court case around prosecuting a governor named Verres for looting Greek masterpieces, and Romans ate it up.

Then came the schools. Wealthy families started buying Greek slaves specifically because they were educated, and handed them the job of raising their children. So the sons of the men who crushed Greece grew up speaking Greek, memorizing Greek poetry, and learning philosophy from Greeks. The elite eventually sent their teenagers abroad to Athens and Rhodes to finish their education, the way people today send kids to study overseas. Cicero did it. Julius Caesar did it.

Their gods were Greek gods wearing name tags. Zeus became Jupiter. Hera became Juno. Aphrodite became Venus. Ares became Mars. Same myths, same family drama, mostly just relabeled.

Their entertainment was borrowed too. The first big Roman playwrights, Plautus and Terence, basically adapted Greek comedies into Latin. Their doctors were Greek. Their architecture leaned on Greek columns, the Doric and Ionic and Corinthian orders you still see on bank buildings today.

And the art obsession left a strange fingerprint on history. Romans loved Greek bronze statues so much that they mass produced marble copies of them. A huge chunk of what people walk past in museums today and call "Greek sculpture" is actually a Roman copy. The Greek originals melted down or vanished long ago. The knockoffs are what survived.

Not everyone was thrilled. Cato the Elder spent his whole life warning that Greek culture would rot the Roman character. He sneered at Greek philosophers, distrusted Greek doctors, and wanted them kept out of the city. And then, as an old man, he quietly sat down and learned Greek anyway. Even the loudest hater caved.

The trend went all the way to the top. Virgil wrote the Aeneid, Rome's national epic, by openly modeling it on Homer. The emperor Nero competed in Greek games and toured Greece like a superfan. Hadrian was so obsessed he grew a Greek philosopher's beard and poured money into rebuilding Athens. And Marcus Aurelius, master of the entire Roman world, wrote his private journal not in Latin but in Greek, because that was the language of serious thinking.

The poet Horace nailed it in a single line: captured Greece took her savage conqueror captive. Rome won every war on the battlefield and then handed its whole soul to the people it had beaten.

[Forrest Michalk @ForrestMichalk]

There’s something on ABC right now they claim is CMA Fest. If this has any semblance of Country Music, my hind end smells like a dozen red roses.

[Traces of Texas @TracesofTexas]

I laughed.

[The Lutheran Missal @LutheranMissal]

Hymn at Monday Vespers — Immense cæli conditor

O boundless wisdom, God most high,
O maker of the earth and sky,
Who bid’st the parted waters flow
In heav’n above, on earth below.

The streams on earth, the clouds in heaven,
By thee their ordered bounds were given,
Lest ’neath th’untempered fires of day
The parchèd soil should waste away.

E’en so on us who seek thy face
Pour forth the waters of thy grace;
Renew the fount of life within,
And quench the wasting fires of sin.

Let faith discern th’eternal light
Beyond the darkness of the night,
And through the mists of falsehood see
The path of truth revealed by thee.

O Father, that we ask be done,
Through Jesus Christ, thine only Son,
Who, with the Holy Ghost and thee,
Doth live and reign eternally. Amen.

[Zach McIntosh @zachkvet]

What does “gnashing of teeth” mean?

In Scripture, it is often the response of people who are angry, defiant, and unwilling to surrender.

But what if hell is not only a place of punishment, but also a place of rebellion?

Read more: https://t.co/i1jqlzZYrD

[Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson]

This powerful 60-second video captures the true meaning of Memorial Day

CHILLS 🇺🇸

[David Limbaugh @DavidLimbaugh]

From an evangelical perspective there is a paradoxical aspect to the issue of one’s awareness or assurance of salvation: one may doubt his salvation because he feels unworthy, but ironically, that’s not humility, because our salvation depends not on our works but Christ’s finished work.

By doubting yourself you’re actually distrusting Him, which, by definition is antithetical to faith. So if that is an obstacle, one must get over himself and authentically trust Him.

The paradox is that doubting your adequacy for salvation should lead you to full surrender and trust in Him because it should clarify to you that you can never save yourself.

So untether your awareness of your inability to save yourself from your stubborn pride in trying to do it anyway. Use your sober awareness of your inadequacy to drive you to Him —not away from Him.

[I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 @ImMeme0]

Rep. Ilhan Omar: “The last time the Alien Enemies Act was invoked… during World War ELEVEN.”

She must have gotten her education in the Quality Learing Center.

[Erica 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 @EricaRN4USA]

Mother Miriam, the foundress of the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel’s Hope and a prominent voice in traditional Catholic circles, has voiced deep concern over the .@Pontifex’ recent statements and gestures toward Islam, viewing them as a dangerous departure from the Church’s historic mission.

In her live broadcasts and public commentaries, she has argued that the Pope’s insistence that Islam poses no threat—coupled with actions such as designating a prayer room for Muslims in the Vatican Library—represents an embrace not merely of individual Muslims as persons to be evangelized, but of the religion itself, which she insists directly violates the First Commandment by implying that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.

Mother Miriam contends that such interfaith overtures prioritize a false “unity” over truth, diluting the Church’s call to conversion and effectively equating Islam with the Catholic faith in a way that confuses the faithful and scandalizes the world.

She has stated unequivocally that “the embracing of Islam is NOT of God,” warning that these papal initiatives grieve the heart of Christ and risk leading souls away from the fullness of revelation found only in the Catholic Church.

In her view, God Himself is troubled by these actions, as they compromise the Church’s singular duty to proclaim Jesus Christ as the sole Savior—-rather than fostering a syncretistic dialogue that she sees as spiritually perilous in an age of rising religious conflict.

[Rep. Keith Self @RepKeithSelf]

The enemy is inside the gates.

[Dr. Abby Johnson @AbbyJohnson]

This is horrifying. We take for granted how blessed we are in America to worship Christ proudly and publicly.

Pray for these brothers and sisters in Christ. Pray for every persecuted Christian around the world.

[Dan Burmawi @DanBurmawy]

There is a species of ant that approaches the edge of another colony, kills a single worker, and then takes on the dead ant’s scent.

For ants, scent is everything. Wearing that scent, the intruder walks in with no resistance. The workers pass by without concern.

The intruder moves inward, toward the queen, then It sprays the queen with a different scent that makes the workers turn on her. Then they surround her and kill her.

The intruder does not need to fight anyone. The colony does the work itself.

Once the queen is gone, the intruder reproduces. The true invader is no longer an intruder. It is the future.

This is how ideological takeover works.

A destructive foreign ideology takes the scent of familiar ideas and walks in as if it belongs.

It speaks the native vocabulary, justice, equality, compassion, rights, progress. It uses these words and quietly changes what they point to.

Then it moves inward.

It alters how foundations are perceived. Responsibility is made to smell like cruelty, law like oppression, borders like hatred, tradition like danger, history like guilt.

At that point, the civilization turns on itself.

Its courts, universities, churches, media, and bureaucracies begin treating their own foundations as threats. They believe they are defending the system.

They are enforcing what now smells legitimate. They do not see the intruder because it sounds exactly like them.

And when the founding principles are finally removed, discredited, dismantled, erased, the foreign ideology does not need to conquer anything. It inherits what is left.

The queen is gone. The colony is no longer itself.

The most effective conquest is the one that convinces a society that its own foundations are the enemy, and that killing them is an act of virtue.

[Lara Logan @laralogan]

What does this say about Whataburger?

[Giga Based Dad @GigaBasedDad]

Today 190 years ago was the battle of the Alamo

REMEMBER THE ALAMO

[Forrest Michalk @ForrestMichalk]

My reading this morning was 2 Corinthians 5. Pure, unadulterated Gospel!
Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

[Forrest Michalk @ForrestMichalk]

Today was Dad’s Birthday before he went to be with our Lord. I only hope I can be half the man, husband, and dad he was. By God’s grace, look forward to seeing you in his presence.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

When Disney was Disney.

[Wade Lentz @wadelentz]

Our refrigerator just died... again. This is our second refrigerator in ten years. It was a Whirlpool, a "plain Jane" model with no bells, no whistles, and no fancy screens. We bought it for its simplicity, thinking it would be the one thing in our house that just worked.

It lasted five years and one month, exactly thirty days past the warranty.

The repairman’s verdict? A dead compressor. But the real diagnosis... it was Built to Break.

Under the guise of "green" regulations and "energy efficiency," we’ve traded tanks that lasted thirty years for plastic-heavy shells that barely last five.

We are forced to pay a premium for "high-efficiency" tech that saves ten cents a month on electricity, only to be told to throw the whole $1,500 + unit into a landfill when a single internal component fails.

It’s a racket. The government mandates the specs, the manufacturers cut the quality, and the consumer is left holding a bag of spoiled milk. We don’t own appliances anymore; we just lease them from the scrap yard.

[Desiree @DesireeAmerica4]

Forget bench press. Forget sprints. If you can push a 1,600-lb bale of hay with your thighs, you’re qualified to handle a Taser, a riot, and anything else.

[Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog]

This ICE situation is really complex. My take is more nuanced. I want our immigration laws to be enforced but I just want them to do it without using any force, and without anyone ever getting hurt, and without anything sad or upsetting happening ever, and if the people we’re trying to deport don’t want to be deported, or if liberal activists don’t want us to deport them, then obviously in that case we shouldn’t do it, but I’m totally a conservative on the issue, unless people get really mad at me then never mind please don’t yell I’m sorry.