In the most recent post here, reference was made to a work-in-progress on how The Blues Brothers just may be among the greatest films ever made. Here is that now completed piece.

Of course, a great film is simply the telling, or perhaps the re-telling of a great story. Whether the film adaptation does justice to the story itself has absolutely no bearing on the saga’s greatness or its inherent value.

Classics such the recently bastardized Homer’s, The Odyssey; Shakespeare’s, Romeo & Juliet; Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities; Dumas’, The Count of Monte Cristo; or more relatively recently, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby; or Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men remain classics because they are timeless tales, independent of their treatment in film.

This begs the question, “What makes for a great story?”

Per a number of sources,1 the core elements of a great story are as follows:

Real Conflict: Competing forces that result in hard choices to be made that effect change in the protagonist (or perhaps even break him), and other characters as well.

Flawed Heroes: Characters with genuine weaknesses, insecurities, and fears rather than perfect champions.

Shared Emotions: Love, grief, fear, elation – those that everyone has felt, and understands.

Lasting Moral: A timeless message that helps people survive, or better understand life.

To my way of thinking, to this list – at the very top – should be added, A Noble Purpose, Task, or Mission: The completion of which is significant either to a nation, a people, or a community.

So, against this backdrop, let the examination of The Blues Brothers begin.

A Noble Purpose, Task, or Mission
IMDB.com’s synopsis of the film is as follows:

Jake Blues rejoins his brother Elwood after being released from prison, but the duo has just days to reunite their old R&B band and save the Catholic home where the two were raised, outrunning the police as they tear through Chicago.

This checks all the boxes: saving the orphanage at St. Helen of the Blessed Shroud (their childhood home) not only spares the children currently in its care from the State of Illinois foster care system (a nightmare in and of itself), but also Sister Mary Stigmata (aka, The Penguin) from being sent to the missions, and at her advanced age for that kind of work in a foreign and possibly hostile territory.

All of this with the institutional forces of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, the Board of Education, and much of the Illinois law enforcement community; with others such as the Illinois Nazi Party, a rival band, a club owner swindled out of $100 worth of beer, and a jilted lover arrayed against them, each seeking to thwart them in their quest at every turn.

Real Conflict
Whatever other plans he may have had, there is no doubt that Jake had no intention of honouring his promise to visit Sister Stigmata, and this is the first conflict between the forces of right and wrong.

As we see, despite his protestations, with some prodding from his brother Elwood, Jake yielding to do that which is right wins out over his preference to abandon his promise, never to revisit that part of his growing up, and it is here that the die is cast.

This isn’t the only instance of the forces of good (right) and evil (wrong) competing to prevail, however. Evil, working passively through the institutions of state, and county government in the levying of property taxes, is a constant presence after the Sister shares the fate that she, and the orphanage face if the tax money is not in the Cook County Assessor’s office within eleven days.

It would be a mistake to suggest that Jake and Elwood didn’t bring much of the adversity they face throughout the story on themselves. From the moment a woman (who, as we learn later, was left at the altar by Jake) unwittingly abets their escaping apprehension by Parole Officer Mercer, along with State Troopers Daniel, and Mount (for a violation that is never explained), these two manage to also draw the wrath of the Illinois Nazis when they disrupted their legal assembly by driving the Bluesmobile through their protest.

Later, having reunited their old band, they then co-opt another act’s gig and drink so much beer that they end up owing more than what they would have been paid. The headliner act showed up late and were hoodwinked by a savvy Jake, while the club owner realizes that not only was the rhythm-and-blues band not the attraction he had originally booked, but he’s also out $100 worth of beer because Jake and Elwood leave without paying (having sent the rest of the band home). They also manage to draw for the second time, the wrath of State Troopers Daniel, and Mount when their cruiser collides with The Good Ol’ Boys’ in their motorhome in hot pursuit of the Bluesmobile.

Flawed Heroes
If there are two heroes more flawed than Jake and Elwood Blues, they are unknown to me. Given where they began, how could they be anything else?

It had always been the blues. Even back in the Rock Island City orphanage (that sweaty kid factory with the black windows) Jake and Elwood were saved by the music. Actually, saved by a gray-haired janitor everybody called Curtis. He wore these sinister midnight shades, a narrow black tie and a porkpie hat the he kept pushed back on his head. Curtis wrapped his waxy brown hands around his guitar neck and played the most dangerous blues this side of Robert Johnson. The nuns scorched their days with holy threats and Curtis rescued them by night. Down in the coolness of his basement he taught the brothers the blues. Silent Elwood never did put more than two sentences together, but all those lost words burned from his Special 20 blues harp. And Joliet tore that voice from some hidden darkness, twisting his chubby body, snarling at the heavens, a born sinner. They used the basement because it was secret and because the echo gave them a nice dirty sound: Howlin’ Wolf and Little Walter, slapping like a bad dream around the chilly room. And then one night, Jake brought in a gleaming E string he said came from Elmore James’ guitar. He held it tight and as it glowed in the bulb light, Jake sliced Elwood’s middle finger and then his own. Now the solo boys with soul in their blood were brothers. Jake and Elwood Blues... the Blues Brothers.

When Jake could keep himself outside jail, Elwood took off from the Taser factory and the brothers rode the state bare. They played everywhere: after-hours clubs, black-light bars. Word spread quietly across the steel belt about the two in the porkpie hats who still played the blues. And soon other musicians crawled out of the night. The Colonel showed up in Decatur with his Telecaster and and Duck. The Shiv, Mr Fabulous, Blue Lou, Bones, Triple Scale, and crazy Getdwa strutted in one Saturday night. Finally, Guitar Murphy, bigger than life, joined up and they were set. One scary soul band as mean and righteous as a fist.2

Jake
Jake’s flaws are evident throughout the film, but the fact that the story opens with his release from the Illinois State Penitentiary (aka the Joliet Correctional Center) is the first clue that he is no saint.

Jake Blues was born Jacob Papageorge, son of Artesia Papageorge, a woman in prison for murdering her husband, who dies giving birth and insisting he be named ‘Jake.’3

For whatever reason, he has an aversion to telling the truth – especially when a lie is more convenient and readily available – and particularly if it serves the immediate purpose at hand. He lies to his bandmates, he lies to the club owner, he lies to his former fianceé – albeit at gunpoint, to save his own life. It’s never made clear what Jake’s plans were after his release from his service to the state, but a passage from the liner notes of their album, “Briefcase Full of Blues” provides a glimpse:

Jake had a vision. It was his, the only real one he’d ever had, and he clung to it. There had been too many messy gas station holdups with only some green stamps and a case of Valvoline to show for the risk. Joliet Jake had always been full of schemes. But this was different; it played across his tiled cell wall 24 hours a day. And the ending was always the same - Jake and his younger brother Elwood cruising out of Calumet City, Ill., with the sun in their shades and a full tank of gas. He absentmindedly rubbed his Buddha belly; even on a diet of jail food and Chesterfields, Jake had gained weight. Someday they’d have a penthouse on Lake Shore Drive...float around with bourbons and blonds. It was out there for the taking and Jake could smell it like ozone in damp air.4

Elwood
He may not be the rounder that Jake is, so his are perhaps not as apparent as are his older brother’s – nonetheless, they share an aversion to telling the truth. When Elwood tells a lie, though, it is to protect Jake, and to preserve his hope while he serves out his sentence.

As a baby, Elwood Blues was abandoned at a newspaper stand. He was initially named after Mike Delaney, the investigating patrolman, so his birth name is Elwood Delaney.5

Their failings are one with their virtues, however, and chief among those is the commitment to seeing through to the end the completion of their shared, “mission from God” – consequences be damned.

This is a characteristic common to heroes in classic literature: Captain Ahab; Santiago; Sirs Lancelot, and Galahad. Successfully completing their respective quests came at great cost. As is made clear, this is no less true for Jake, Elwood, and the band.

It is this commitment to successfully completing their “mission from God” that drives them to do anything and everything legal, and perhaps illegal, bringing unnecessary opposition to themselves, their bandmates, and ultimately, their cause.

Shared Emotions
Like all great stories, all the emotions shared by humanity are here: Love, passion for their craft; grief over their faithful chariot, having endured untold and immeasurable abuse before expiring there on the sidewalk of the N. Clark Street entrance to City Hall; fear for their very lives while Camille Ztdetelik, who had an M-16-style rifle trained on them while she delivered her monologue before giving in to her feelings of compassion for the rogue Jake

…elation at evading the horde of city, county & state police, and Nazis until the very end when the cashier hands over the receipt for the payment of the property tax due.

Lasting Moral
The timeless message conveyed in the story of the Blues Brothers is that redemption, loyalty, and community can be found through purpose, friendship, and the healing power of the blues. Even deeply flawed, chaotic individuals can do good and achieve redemption, of a sort, through a higher calling.6

If this movie does not belong in the group photo of classic films, I’m not sure which ones do belong.

I love this movie for reasons too numerous to count. Suffice it to say that it is a cinematic time capsule of the city I came to love and call home for the better part of thirty-seven years.

Thank you, Dear Reader, for your attention, and your indulgence.

Until nex time…

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Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

Matt Walsh's Epic Take-Down of Jennifer Welch

I am still driving back from Ohio and haven’t been posting as much as I’d like, but I wanted you to see this brilliant takedown of Jennifer Welch by the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh. Watch the whole thing but it’s gets really great at the end…

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9 months ago · 413 likes · 213 comments · Sasha Stone

…jump-started my “creative” process. In it, she made mention of the movie, Supergirl and how its print poster is, as she puts it, “perfect for today’s Hollywood that hates America. ‘Truth, Justice, Whatever.’”

As it happens, this has been in development for months. I had no idea it would be the one to be posted, as there are a number of works in progress – for example, one of the unfinished pieces explores why The Blues Brothers

…just may be one of the greatest films ever made. In any event, the discipline of writing daily has escaped me – my apologies, Jerry.

With no further delay, let’s examine more fully:

First up…

TRUTH

In the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, there is the following exchange between the character representing Pontius Pilate, and the character representing Jesus Christ:

Pilate: Then you are a king?
Jesus: It’s you that say I am. I look for truth, and find that I get damned.
Pilate: And what is ‘truth’? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours?

Who knew that individual, customized truth (an article of faith, and a hallmark of what we now recognize as the Religion of Woke), reared its ugly head as early as 1973?

There is truth as a criminal or civil matter in a dispute in a court of law; truth about any number of secrets that we turn over and over in our hearts and minds that only we, ourselves, know and are likely to never see the light of day or be spoken of to another – secrets that we’ll take to our graves. In software development, Boolean logic (whether a condition is true or not true) determines how a program executes and the values returned by the functions contained therein; in business, solutions to problems are derived from a mutually agreed upon policy or set of rules known as the Source of Truth. In these instances, truth is relative to the event, purpose, or desired end.

A verdict reached by a jury or by a judge in a bench trial may be the last official word on the matter, but is it the truth? OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder by a jury, but does that mean he did not kill, in cold blood, his ex-wife, Nichole, and Ron Goldman? Kimberly Long was convicted by a jury for the murder of her boyfriend – she spent nearly a decade in prison before the conviction was overturned. Was that the truth only while she was behind bars and was no longer the truth upon her release?

Given those two examples, truth seems almost if not impossible to define, although the character of Arthur Kirkland in the Norman Jewison film, And Justice For All, does an admirable job of it:

As it turns out, Pilate was on to something when he wondered if the truth was “unchanging law”. Truth is constant. It is unchanging. It does not adapt, evolve, update, rebrand, or reinvent itself. The same goes for God, the creator of Heaven and Earth; His son, Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit. In reality, the truth simply is – this then, begs the question: Is there an indisputable, absolute, universal truth?

The answer is, yes – The Gospel, also known as the Good News – is that truth.

…which means that you can be assured of spending eternity in Heaven after you shuffle loose the mortal coil. Here is proof:

This was true at the Creation, it is true today, and it is true in eternity.

If the Holy Bible is not an acceptable source and lacks authority, let me recommend reading the accounts of those who have been given a glimpse and have lived to tell of their time in Heaven before being revived from clinical death – their stories are contained in Imagine the God of Heaven, by John Burke.

JUSTICE & INJUSTICE

Man’s Justice

‘Injustice’ suggests the opposite of justice; hence, injustice can only be defined in the negative, or the absence of such. So, let’s first establish what is ‘justice’.

The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary (the free, online edition of the Oxford English Dictionary) defines justice as follows:

1. The fair treatment of people

2. The quality of being fair or reasonable

3. The legal system used to punish people who have committed crimes

For many of us (myself included), when we speak, hear, or consider justice, it is in terms of the law (that which is derived from this nation’s constitution) being applied to either a civil or criminal matter before the court. While we can accommodate the other two definitions depending on the circumstances or context of the debate, it is the third one to which we usually default when discussing or debating the topic.

Like most, in this world I desire a system of justice consistent with that third definition tempered by the second.

Of course, how justice is currently served in this nation doesn’t remotely resemble anything close to the ideal or even one that is equitable because ours has become not two-tiered but multi-tiered in what has seemingly become an anarcho-tyrannical legal system. The powerful, the connected, and the protected are not and will never be held accountable for their crimes in American courts. Entire classes of illegal aliens can commit crimes ranging from the petty to the major and never face the legal consequences that would ordinarily await anyone else, let alone face incarceration and in the case of illegal aliens, deportation.

On the other hand, for the overwhelming majority of us who are not among any of the protected classes by virtue of our Anglo-Saxon or Western European lineage, cultural heritage and/or our inherent Judeo-Christian ethics and values, we will be met with the harshest of penalties and punishments for the smallest of offenses or administrative violations.

The decline and corruption of the institution of equal justice under the law was inevitable, I suppose (see the Roman Empire). The ideal held that justice was to be the result of the impartial application of the law and in order for that to occur, the American institution of law ought to have reflected Aristotle’s claim that the law is reason free from passion.1 What the founders sought to codify in the constitution was nothing new nor was it revolutionary. In ancient civilizations, justice was a virtue. Dating as far back as the 16th century, Lady Justice, blindfolded and holding scales, represented the Roman goddess, Justice; the Egyptian goddess, Isis; and the Greek goddess, Themis, who was “the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom, in her aspect as the personification of the divine rightness of law”.2

My personal take is that justice is the offspring of wisdom, and throughout the Book of Proverbs, wisdom is represented as a woman worthy of lifetime pursuit, and worth forsaking all other worldly gain to possess.

What has happened, almost imperceptibly over the past more than fifty years3 is that what many of us past a certain age (who have since been marginalized both legally and culturally) once regarded as the blind, impartial institution of law has been co-opted by partisan Democrats. Serving their leftist masters, they have reduced the institution to serving as merely a fig leaf for the most partisan of ends and in the process, they have diluted its legitimate authority through misappropriation and misapplication.

It can be argued, though, that the first such serious effort was made by FDR when he attempted to expand the US Supreme Court from nine justices to as many as fifteen, depending on the number of justices older than seventy years of age at any given time. While the attempt was a legislative failure, it was a victory for much of his New Deal in that the court, in an attempt to prevent another such naked power grab, moderated its stance on many of the New Deal’s programs that might otherwise have been ruled as unconstitutional.4

Beginning in 2008, when Democrats assumed control of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, they exerted ideological control over the Supreme Court as well, making the transformation much more clear. Subsequently, Democrats became more brazen in their assault. It didn’t help that far too many feckless UniParty Republicans (otherwise known as undocumented Democrats) benefited from this arrangement. The synchronised legacy mainstream corporate propaganda media apparatus, with help from ideological friendlies in Big Tech provided cover for the Democrats either by omission or outright lies – a state that persists at present, only magnitudes greater.

Today, the disregard for the institution of law in this nation has devolved from dissembling of the language (President Bubba and the definition of the word ‘is’), to statutory convolution through linguistic and semantic gymnastics, to wanton judicial anarchy (the federal judiciary abusing its authority solely to delay and hamstring the president’s constitutional executive authority). Lady Justice has been stripped of her blindfold, her scales seized and discarded as mere scrap metal, and there is a gun to her head.

In my view, this is a direct result of a larger, almost century-long assault on all institutions that are representative of Western culture, many of which are contained in the Magna Carta (the blueprint for this nation’s constitution). The Pledge of Allegiance suggests that justice is equally available to all. Additionally, reason, science and the scientific method, self-determination, free association, due process, private ownership of property, supremacy of the individual over the tribe, freedom over tyranny, and of course, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are also so adjacent.

Any discussion about the rights endowed us by our Creator, and guaranteed us in the Constitution must take context into account. Absolutism is untenable and without credibility because we don’t live in a vacuum. While our rights do indeed come from God, that doesn’t remove the obligation to exercise them responsibly. The video produced by the Seditious 6 definitely falls outside of First Amendment protections per Schenck v United States5 (Brandenburg v Ohio6 notwithstanding), and there must be consequences.

John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail, warned that:

...a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrender their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.7

Sadly, this is where we find ourselves at present. My assertion that this has been an almost century-long campaign is merely confirmation of the observation of one David Hume:

It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.8

As disheartening as is such a state, there is no reason for despair, believe it or not. More on that, later.

Divine Justice

Something I struggle with as a man of faith is reconciling man’s most imperfect justice with divine justice which is perfect, and the stress that comes with such an effort. It is stressful because it cannot be done – at least, not by human means.

With the end of squaring man’s justice with divine justice in mind, limiting the scope of the debate to civil and/or criminal matters likely makes for better arguments based more on empirical evidence than emotion. However, it is hardly a comprehensive treatment of the topic. There is a distinction to be made between justice devised by sinful man, and divine justice which is perfect and pure – and the distinction is that man’s justice is almost always punitive in nature, and divine justice is restorative.

Man’s justice, by any of the definitions cited above, is wholly inadequate in grasping even conceptually that which is God’s justice because the objective of divine justice is that each of us would be reconciled to God – in a word, saved.9 Hence, on its face, it would seem that divine justice is indifferent to the injustice that is done in this world. Such a conclusion, however, would not only be wrong, it would also be an affront to the loving nature of the Almighty.

Make no mistake – the Creator takes a decidedly dim view of those who practice injustice in this world. The Book of Proverbs is filled with warnings against doing evil and against dishonesty of any kind. Those who do can expect their ends to be death, disaster, calamity, sleeplessness, sudden destruction, shame, violence, and all manner of ruin. Some examples:

Further:

Further still:

Lest any of us falsely comfort ourselves with the fact that none of us are public figures, elected officials, or even in a position to defraud a government, a foundation, a public or private enterprise, or an individual, know that our liability extends to what we think, what we believe, and what we say:

So whether you rejoiced publicly or privately at the death of Rob Reiner or Charlie Kirk, know that it has not escaped the notice of the Almighty:

…and

At this point, some may be wondering why it would seem that I have abandoned writing solely about the love, grace, and forgiveness that are the more warm and fuzzy characteristics of our Lord. The fact is that the God who sent His son to be born of Mary in that manger in Bethlehem – ultimately to die on the cross for the sins of all who would come after him – is the very same God we worship today. In fact, it is because of God’s love that His own need not fear being held accountable for their sins. As John Burke writes in the aforementioned Imagine the God of Heaven:

All those who admit their need for God’s forgiveness and accept that Jesus paid for their wrongs stand guilt-free and blameless before God.10

In this world, we will only continue to see criminals get away scot-free, never to face the consequences of their actions – and it will only get worse.

Mention has been made in earlier essays that what we are seeing is the manifestation of a much larger struggle between good and evil. If it is not, how else to explain the justification of the mutilation of children as “gender-affirming care”? How else to explain the actions of those who engage in the wholesale slaughter of the unborn and describe it as doing the Lord’s work?

How else to explain the faux outrage directed at those who accurately describe Islam not as “a religion of peace” (I’m looking at you, Shrub) but as a political ideology masquerading as religion? How else to explain it being considered a smear by our elites and our synchronised legacy mainstream corporate propaganda media apparatus while Islam’s adherents carry out true genocide against Christians in Africa and the Middle East?

How else to explain the antisemitism being openly celebrated by mainstream Democrats and the lunatic fringe of the very online “woke right” (who seek to be associated with MAGA and/or the Republican Party); or political violence that includes the assassination in broad daylight of Charlie Kirk and the rejoicing by the left, but also the mocking of his widow as she grieves?

How else to explain not only the dehumanization of all who are MAGA, or those who are perhaps like-minded, but also the demonization of everyone who may not necessarily be MAGA but are still decent and have a sense of right, wrong, and what passes for civil disagreement? How else to explain the outright rejection of civil discourse as a way for each to seek to understand the other so that we might keep our shared humanity intact?

Scripture is clear that evil will have free rein on the earth until Satan’s final disposition, and it is mine that this is what those of us who have eyes to see are witnessing.

THE AMERICAN WAY

Most of us, if pressed, likely struggle to define with any precision just what is the American Way, though we know it when we see or experience it. Some characteristics common to anyone’s idea of it include equal standing under the law; reasonable, common-sense application of that law; freedom to make an honest living as one sees fit; the right to regard one’s own home as his castle, not subject to any unwarranted intrusion by any government; the right to associate with others regardless of heritage or creed; and the right to speak and/or write without the threat of official retribution, just to name a few. It is disheartening to realize how many have been so compromised as to be almost nonexistent or have vanished almost completely.

However, what follows may be most unsettling to my fellow MAGA-supporting, libertarian-leaning, populist Christian readers, followers, and subscribers: as alien as sinful man’s justice is to divine justice, the American Way is equally as alien to the Kingdom of God. It is God’s perfect kingdom that is the government in Heaven, and as noble as is the American Way in this world, it will pass when the new Heaven and Earth appear, the Judeo-Christian ethics upon which this nation was founded notwithstanding. Hence, the concept of believers’ citizenship first in Heaven takes on a new and different meaning – at least, it does for me.

So, for anyone who may prefer the feel-good/positivity theology11 espoused by the likes of Joel Osteen, there is no apology, just an invitation to engage in a genuine and perhaps hard examination of the convictions you hold and the reasons why.

Does this mean that we who are believers are not to care about our local, county, state, and national governments? Are we not to participate by voting? Are we not to seek to serve on local school boards or serve as town or city aldermen, county commissioners, or state or national representatives? Absolutely not – if such is your calling, then by all means, answer that call – and if you improve your local community by doing so, then more such power to you. Our trust and faith must be in our Lord and His working of His plan, and not our own efforts. Ours must be to serve the purpose for our lives that our Lord has determined, which is to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength – though this is made manifest differently in each of us, as we each are different individuals.

THE ULTIMATE LIBERATION

There is an indescribable freedom in leaving the administration of justice to the Almighty. Acceptance of the fact that the wicked seem to get away with everything from petty theft to outright genocide is not to condone it but to acknowledge a reality that has existed since Cain slew Abel. It does not mean that there is no outrage, indignation, or righteous anger on the part of those who are victims of it – neither does it mean that such cannot and/or should not be expressed by those bearing witness to it.

Rather, it is realizing that those committing heinous acts are oblivious to the fact that they are in the grip of evil and are unwittingly under Satan’s control – but make no mistake – they are, unquestionably, responsible for the damage and hurt they’ve done, and they will have to answer for it. That they are living in their own self-contained world, where all revolves around only themselves and to the extent that other people matter, they are merely objects to be used for their own pleasure and entertainment, is no excuse. They do require extraordinary intervention if they are ever to recognize the opportunity to repent and enter into a saved relationship with Christ,12 and in all likelihood, that will only happen in response to prayer.

The love, grace, and forgiveness available to the lost is the same love, grace, and forgiveness available to the one who is already a believer. Once in Christ, we no longer stand condemned for our sins. While there may be no escaping any consequences to be faced here in this world (which will pass), in Heaven we are forgiven and are without blemish before our Lord – and that is for eternity.

Thank you, Dear Reader, for your attention, and your indulgence.

Until next time…

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This is offered as a caution to my fellow travelers in the wake of what has been the most productive first six months of any US president with perhaps the exception of FDR, whose presidency shaped life in the US for much of the remaining century.

It would be advisable to remember what it felt like to have others – perhaps even those who, up until that point, you might have considered to be friends – reduce all else to politics, and place you in that box; while others, because you were, “not on the right side of history” in 2008, 2012, 2016, or 2020, might have done the same. Even if we wanted no part of the utopia the left was finishing, that kind of exclusion hurts, to one degree or another, though not for long.

However, it’s been over for them since the inauguration – the utopia to which Sasha Stone refers in so many of her pieces lies in a shambles, continuing to crumble. Time, the avenger, will soon reclaim many of the institutions that fell during the left’s long march through them, and common sense will once again prevail. Its propaganda apparatus – otherwise known as the synchronised corporate legacy media – no longer commands the audience it once did:

Many of the “journalists” that remain struggle to be even remotely relevant. In fact, many of them have come here, to Substack.1

In any event, to engage in gloating over the president’s breathtaking success in his first one hundred days is not only a waste of time, but it is to engage in identity politics – the very thing the left has weaponized against anyone or any group other than themselves and which most of us on the outside loathe, having been on the receiving end of it. It indicates a pettiness, and a small-mindedness that is plain ugly from any viewpoint.

This is not to say that we ought not rejoice at the results – but if that is your inclination, it ought to be because right is prevailing – justice is being done – and not because so many on the left who are also terminally afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome are tortured with each triumph. The flip side of that coin is to be captured by the cult of personality.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am quite pleased with the results, thus far, for a number of reasons – chief among them is that with the snail’s-pace collapse of the synchronised corporate legacy media, the seeming liberation of X from the control of the left, the emergence of credible alternative media, and simply more people escaping the matrix of the old order, it is a much more level playing field: politically, and culturally.

All of us would do well, though, to remember the words of one Cosmo Castorini:

Apologies for the quality of the video.

However, what I am rejoicing over most enthusiastically is the SCOTUS decision in UNITED STATES v. SKRMETTI, ATTORNEY GENERAL AND REPORTER FOR TENNESSEE, in which the law enacted by the State of Tennessee’s legislature was upheld.

This article sums it up quite nicely:

‘That law prohibits states from allowing medical providers to deliver puberty blockers and hormones to facilitate a minor's transition to another sex.

It also targets healthcare providers in the state who continue to provide such procedures to gender-dysphoric minors — opening these providers up to fines, lawsuits and other liability.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the law question is not subject to heightened scrutiny ‘because it does not classify on any bases that warrant heightened review.’

This is the template for legislators – regardless of political party affiliation who are so moved to fight and defeat this evil – in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, and Alaska – to use because it has withstood as intense and as concerted a legal challenge as is imaginable at the highest court in the nation, no less – and prevailed. To be sure, Tennessee is not California, and Michigan is not Texas, so there will likely be aspects that are unique to each of the aforementioned states where the protection of children is not paramount.

Why this is a partisan issue is so far beyond my comprehension, there is no unit of measurement that can adequately express the distance. There are so many dark forces on the left that visit their destruction on Western culture writ large, and more specifically on American society and its institutions such as the traditional nuclear family, and traditional gender roles within the paradigm.

The assault also includes due process, private ownership of property, and civil liberties – and almost exclusively through the Democratic Party – but it isn’t only Democrats who are at fault. No, there are plenty of Republicans who lack the courage to stand up to, and fight this evil. Hence, it isn’t a political crisis, but rather a crisis of courage, a crisis of conviction, a crisis of character that recognises and upholds a fixed moral standard against which right and wrong can be definitively determined.

The Judeo-Christian ethics upon which this nation was founded, and which are reflected in most aspects of our social norms (though, that has been decreasing almost as long as the assault has been waged from within) hold children as one of a handful of naturally protected classes. Allow me to offer the words of Jesus himself, as proof:

‘If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.’2

Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’3

Children were particularly precious to our Creator even before Jesus appeared on the scene:

‘Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.4

Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children.’5

Anecdotally speaking, even among this nation’s most violent and hardened criminals, there is a code that holds children to be off-limits of even the most heinous of crimes. Per an acquaintance of mine who spent most of his career in law enforcement with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (and most of that time at FCI Marion in Indiana when it was a maximum-security prison), such offenders were not long for the facility – every inmate knew, and justice (such as it was) came to them swiftly.

Returning to the Tennessee law, and Attorney General Skrmetti, specifically:

‘We don't let kids make decisions about drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, or getting tattoos because they're too young to meaningfully consent to changing the rest of their lives,’ he said. ‘These are serious issues, and the permanent loss of the ability to ever have kids is just one of the many lifelong impacts of these interventions.’

Thanks to Christine Jorgensen (neé George William Jorgensen, Jr.), knowledge of gender reassignment surgery first made its appearance in the US in the early 1950s. For the next half century or so, it was something confined to adults, though no less a clear indicator of an untreated mental illness. It was largely a source of joking and ridicule:

Cpl. Maxwell Q. Klinger; Albert; Rigby Reardon6

In fact, for years, men dressing in drag was a reliable source of comedic material for Monty Python’s Flying Circus:

…but it was only a matter of time before the DSM was updated to no longer classify transsexualism as a mental disorder,7 giving rise to what we’ve witnessed in the last ten to fifteen years.

When it first came to my attention that this surgical and hormone treatment was being made available to minors, the question that occurred and re-occurred to me was, “Who would subject their own child to this?” Later, it was learned that in far too many instances, parents were actually encouraging this butchery for their very own son or daughter. Driven by the desire for validation on social media, they have all but made their kids living sacrifices to this modern-day Moloch. They have condemned their own to chemical dependence in maintenance of the lie that God makes mistakes with His creation.

In other instances, it was school officials abetting this social contagion, allowing the child in question to socially transition – using the pronouns of the opposite gender as identity – the first big step in the process:

The social contagion of gender confusion among American teenagers has been worsened considerably by educators. In many cases, school officials, most notably at public schools, have socially transitioned children, while deliberately concealing this information from parents.

One such case arose in Leon County, Florida (Tallahassee), where the school board established a comprehensive Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Gender Nonconforming and Questioning Support Guide. That guide specifically instructed educators that they should not tell parents when a child announces a transgender identity, and that children have a legally protected right to keep from their parents information regarding their gender identity and any steps the district takes to affirm that identity.8

From there, all that is required is one parent to enable his or her child to advance on this path of self-destruction, and if the other one feels otherwise, that parent runs the risk of the courts likely deciding in favour of the parent who is doing irreparable harm to the child while terminating the other’s parental rights.9

It is crucial that those ultimately responsible are held accountable.

Those who transitioned as children and who now regret it deserve as much compassion from us as anyone because sadly for that child, as he or she becomes an adult, the nightmare does not end. At some point, that trans son or daughter is going to demand answers from his or her parents.

Consider the mother and father who come to realize just what they’ve done. How will they respond? My fear is that the guilt with which they will be possessed will be so intense, so paralyzing, that the shame accompanying it will prohibit them from admitting the truth to themselves.

The greater fear is that it will prohibit them from seeking forgiveness from their child, and from our Lord – and that it will drive them to the same end as Judas Iscariot upon his comprehension of what he had done – and that would simply be compounding tragedy.

The even greater fear is that such realization has already occurred and that in their pride, they’ve doubled down on believing the lie to be true, searing their consciences (thus a lifelong loyalty to the death cult) when they need to know that God’s grace and forgiveness remains available, even to them.

Along with probably most everyone else, my favourite films tell stories of the bad guys getting theirs. Among my particular favourites are the Dollars trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), the Dirty Harry movies, Gran Torino – but it also must be said that my tendency is to enjoy them just a little too much because I begin to hope that such violent justice is similarly applied in real-life to any number of loathsome characters like the corrupt swamp creatures that inhabit this nation’s legislature, judiciary, and the administrative deep state. It also extends to those who traffic children in the global sex trade.

Given my vivid imagination, it is not long before the most heinous acts of vengeance are occupying my conscious mind, and I find myself actually praying that it would be so. This is a problem because of what we read in scripture:

Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.10

By engaging in this vengeance porn, God’s perfect, righteous, and appropriate justice is being displaced by my own perversion of it. Truth be told, anything imaginable by me doesn’t even begin to pale in comparison to what is in store for those who refuse His forgiveness and grace.

To be crystal clear, I condemn no one – nor is there any joy taken in His judgment – but I know what my end would have been had I remained apart from fellowship with my Lord. God does not traffic in favourites – His gift of grace is available to all, and those who refuse or decline His gift are subject to the consequences of eternity separated from Him.11

It might be a source of comfort to me that history will accurately reflect the utter madness of the last decade or so of this most recent Fourth Turning, but given how almost every institution that should have been a backstop or firewall to such madness was captured by those who had themselves gone mad, there are serious doubts. It would seem that those who would write the history are captured by the same madness.

Until Divine justice is administered, there are two hopes we have to protect our children. One is for each state to enact legislation modeled on the Tennessee law but even then – as this is merely one manifestation of the struggle between good and evil – even a de-facto nationwide ban on “gender-affirming care” will not put a stop to it. For those parents among the true believers within the death cult, if they have sufficient financial resources, there will be clinics, physicians, surgeons, and hospitals who will provide such “care” – effectively underground but in plain sight.

The other is for more and more parasitic but enterprising attorneys to champion the plights of those who seek to de-transition, and sue the hell out of the insurance companies, Medicaid, the parents and/or third-parties who first facilitated this insanity along with those states whose laws prevented parents from prevailing in their effort to intervene on their own child’s behalf. These powerful forces have done the dirty work for those in the death cult who have not only prospered from such butchery, but have also been able to silence the voices of those who now wish to tell the truth.

There is nothing like the very real prospect of financial ruin to get the attention of the movers and shakers in any given industry – just ask the executives who ran Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands, and the Altria Group in the late 1990s. Though not as easy a target as was the tobacco industry, the “gender-affirming care” malpractice in the medical profession along with its financiers, insurance companies, and Medicare, may become equally unpopular – especially if knowledge of the horrors of this brutality (which are chronicled so much better by Sasha Stone)

Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

A Christian Conservative SCOTUS Was Once My Greatest Fear

I once believed that the worst thing that could happen to this country was to have a Conservative Supreme Court. That was supposed to be the end of everything. I would scream those words into the abyss all through 2016 to anyone who didn’t want to vote for Hillary Clinton, “THE SUPREME COURT…

Listen now

a year ago · 317 likes · 440 comments · Sasha Stone

…becomes more widespread. Such lawsuits might gain a comparable level of public support.

Are these the only two instances of hope against this evil?

As it turns out, they are not. As Matt Osborne points out:

The Distance

The Cult Of The 'Trans Child' Is Doomed

It was a casual conversation with a security guard during the first break, in the middle of the morning session, that convinced me we have reached the beginning of the end…

Read more

a year ago · 322 likes · Matt Osborne

It was a casual conversation with a security guard during the first break, in the middle of the morning session, that convinced me we have reached the beginning of the end.

He was an average federal employee, a man with a teenage daughter who had experienced gender dysphoria. His estranged wife had encouraged the identification. His daughter is now an adult, no longer caught in the grip of the trend.

The story was relatively mild. His daughter never medicalized. Still, his experience was all too familiar. It would not stand out from the stories that PITT Parents tell. Yet this man had been busy, unaware of the larger story, and now he had just spent the morning discovering that he is not alone, and his story is not unique.

…and this is just one man’s story! How many more such men and women, mothers and fathers are there with one similar if not the same? Per Matt’s telling, in just this one instance, there are hundreds – perhaps there are hundreds more that remain unknown. May God bless FTC Chairman Scott Ferguson and the Trump administration for this workshop, and the body blow that hopefully it delivers to this butchery, its practitioners, and the network of medical mercenaries, hospitals, insurance companies, and financiers. My hope is that this workshop is repeated in major cities around the nation.

With our own federal government, and the power it wields set firmly for the exercise of common sense, it is refreshing to know that those of us who recognize this evil for what it is need not fear being punished for standing up for what is right.

This is an opportunity that is not going to be available to us for very long. We ought not make the mistake of assuming the dark forces behind this evil won’t find a way to prevail once again, if only temporarily. So, while we can, let us support those brave souls who seek to tell the truth in any way that we can, and do all within our power to provide the public forums and platforms that allow them to do so.

Thank you, dear reader, for your time and your indulgence.

Until next time…

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‘You just don’t get it, do you?’

I hate that phrase for any number of reasons, one of which is that it has become and continues to be a favourite of writers of screenplays too lazy to put in the effort to write superb dialogue.

After viewing the video montage, I’m hoping that you, Dear Reader, now hate it every bit as much as I do.

Chief among the reasons for my hatred of that stale, hackneyed cliché (aside from the fact that it betrays a laziness in writing dialogue for a screenplay) is that those who use it do so to project an image of someone in on a profound, enlightening fact only they and others similarly clued in can grasp – something like, “Trump is literally Hitler!”, or “Trans women are women!” Never mind that these patently false and disproven claims, and others, have become articles of faith to the left, and to Democrats, in particular.

That these falsehoods not only will crumble under even casual scrutiny, but have also been utterly rejected by the rest of those for whom common sense is a trusted companion, is of no consequence for them because everyone else in the echo chamber accepts it as incontrovertible truth. Further, they view all others unlike themselves as simpletons with an aversion to the complexities of today’s modern world.1 Such is “life” in the Democrat Party death cult.

As loathsome as I find hearing it (especially by any number of vacuous pinhead entertainers), having to use it myself is almost as nauseating. Yet, I find I have no choice because far too many simply refuse to now acknowledge Trump’s election in 2016 was the first blow to the midsection that set up what could yet prove to be the knock-out punch to a system so painstakingly constructed by the left to gaslight us into accepting, if not believing, one false narrative like, “Trump is Putin’s stooge!”, or “Trump is a fascist!” after another.

In 2020, we saw that system’s minions in the deep state prevail and deny a second consecutive Trump electoral victory – but on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, the “red-pilled” voters delivered a critical shock to that system:

…the world in which we had been living since the end of the second Reagan administration – a kind of “matrix”

Granted, this is not yet reality, though perhaps prescient as it pertains to AI, but disturbingly accurate as it pertains to those whose understanding of the world around them is courtesy of only the synchronized corporate legacy media.

Where and When It Began, or, The Decline of Empire
Trump’s second election, and what has transpired since the inauguration are simply the most visible and obvious indicators that this now new world had been in the making since November 9, 1989, when the wall in Berlin (which not only represented but made manifest the physical separation of the East from the West), fell. Just a little more than two years later, so did the USSR. Then, few truly comprehended what those events would mean for the rest of the world. What has become clear in that time is there is now only one superpower, the USA; America is not beloved by most of the rest of the world as we were once led to believe; and there is no more Cold War – only several hot wars in various regions around the globe.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, so also fell Communism as a sustainable form of government, and while not apparent until 2025, so began the decline of American empire as it had been known since the end of the second world war which is also when the slow, almost imperceptible erosion of American cultural and economic power and influence began. Granted, the benefit of hindsight cannot be overstated, but it was the implementation of the Marshall Plan that laid the groundwork.

The Marshall Plan was intended to fund the economic recovery of western Europe. With the formation of NATO, each charter-member nation had the opportunity to do just that without having to concurrently maintain a national defense. For all its good intentions, it really just enabled those nations to serve as incubators for socialist-style government, albeit each reflecting that nation’s cultural ethic. Absent having to allocate a percentage of its GDP to its own defense, each nation instead allocated those resources to social welfare initiatives, propping up what might have remained of empire (see Belgium and the Congo, or The Netherlands, then England and South Africa), or to enacting industrial policy to gain artificial and inequitable advantage over its competitors in the US (even while having free access to US markets).

In contrast, it wasn’t so much funding from the US that fueled Japan’s recovery from being damn near wiped off the face of the planet as it was its own cultural ethos channeled into non-military initiatives.

Between 1945 and 1952, the U.S. occupying forces, led by General Douglas A. MacArthur, enacted widespread military, political, economic, and social reforms.2

In regard to Japan’s economy, those reforms allowed it to rebuild its industrial base from the ground, up. With a foundation of then state-of-the-art technology, applying the aforementioned cultural ethos while incorporating the recommendations (particularly as it pertained to quality control in manufacturing) of one W. Edwards Deming3 in its approach to corporate management and economic governance, Japan’s domestic policy transformed it into an industrial powerhouse.

Note that Western assistance to Japan did not include economic reconstruction, nor did assistance extend beyond 1952, while under the Marshall Plan such became all but open-ended – small wonder then, that as first pointed out by President Trump (however unartfully) in 2017, NATO is disproportionately funded by the US.

The West “Wins” the Cold War
The West (read as, the US) “won” the Cold War less by subduing its enemy into submission, forcing it to sue for peace, and negotiating an unconditional surrender as in past hot wars, but more victory by attrition – being the last nation standing in the global theatre – winning through default – the “free” market-oriented economy of the US bankrupted the USSR.

By now, it is well documented that were many reasons for the fall of the USSR – political, economic, cultural, social and societal, et al., but to my way of thinking, the leading one is economic:

The study, led by academics at the University of Cambridge, is the first to trace a direct link between the mass privatisation programmes adopted by several former Soviet states, and the economic failure and corruption that followed…4

Privatization was expected to emulate tax revenue as an additional source of funding for the state, but the USSR’s military and defense spending just couldn’t keep up with the US. In the wake of the collapse, these now non-aligned nations had to fund themselves, or at least, their oligarchs had to – and so, Soviet-manufactured weapons such as firearms, tanks and other heavy artillery began to become available on the black market to any number of rogue nations in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.

With Russia no longer the geopolitical and military threat it had been since the end of the second world war, the West no longer had just one enemy – instead, it now had any number of enemies. To make matters worse, there was no distinguishing which represented a legitimate threat, which did not, and which current allies would remain so. This made the rest of the world a most unpredictable (read as, dangerous) place for the US.

The end of the Cold War also ushered in an era marked by rise of a JFK-era concept called American Soft Power: establishing or extending American hegemony abroad by non-diplomatic or non-military means – in fact, this is ostensibly why USAID was created,5 but now the agency could be leveraged to achieve all manner of ends forbidden the CIA in the wake of the reforms that came from the Church Committee.6

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that with no readily identifiable threats to its national interests, America was much like Alexander, seemingly left with nothing to conquer, gross misrepresentation aside.7 In reality, there were plenty of enemies to conquer (if only temporarily), but the folks in decision-making positions of authority, power, and influence were either incapable or (more likely), unwilling to adapt their thinking and strategic approach to modern military conflict.

Hence, the individual and collective mentality of this nation’s military leaders remained frozen as at the nadir of the Cold War: military superiority as defined by quantity and size of armed forces, weaponry, nuclear warheads & MAD. See the effectiveness of one George HW “Poppy” Bush (weasel, and carpetbagger extraordinaire),8 in organizing allies and friendly nations in the Middle East to keep in check Saddam Hussein’s Iraq via Desert Shield, then Desert Storm.

George W Bush (aka Shrub), the erstwhile AWOL idiot of the village of Crawford, Texas, was not to be outdone and certainly was not about to fall short of his dad’s “standard”. Enabled by Dick Cheney and a coterie of neocon “intelligence” analysts, not only did he completely disregard the history lessons of more than one and one-half centuries of failed invasions and attempted occupations of Afghanistan, it was under his command that the US invaded Iraq under any number of false pretenses,9 chief of which was that the US Marines would be hailed as conquering heroes by the Iraqi people, rescuing the nation from oppression at the hands of Saddam Hussein – a huge miscalculation.

The Forever Wars
Thus began two forever wars that cost the US taxpayers a combined total of $3.4 trillion,10 not to mention the more than 7,00011 lives of active military personnel, and an untold number of lives of parents, spouses, and children lost indirectly to suicide, substance abuse & addiction, alcoholism, et al. but a result, nonetheless.

To add insult to injury, the world’s most vaunted military was routinely routed by much smaller, more agile guerilla militias in small skirmishes in urban areas using decidedly low-tech weaponry12 that rendered the armed forces of the Western coalition all but impotent. Never mind that the coalition forces were equipped with allegedly superior and technologically more advanced & sophisticated firearms. Eventually, sheer numbers and firepower prevailed, but given the cost, it was a Pyrrhic victory and a temporary “triumph”, at best.

I don’t know how victory was defined by the military establishment that spanned the administrations of Shrub, The Kenyan Light Bringer, and Trump’s first, but as long as the US remains an occupying force in Iraq, there is no victory to be claimed.

Conversely, fleeing Afghanistan as we did screams “Failure!” “Defeat!” “Surrender” to the rest of the world. The president would do well to withdraw from Iraq in the manner he would have ordered the US out of Afghanistan – carefully identify and vet the Iraqis that wish to immigrate to the US and airlift them out; then draw down all personnel leaving behind all unnecessary weaponry, hardware and collateral, then bombing the bases and destroying all materiel so that it cannot eventually be used against us – but I digress.

To be even-handed, this nation’s military was not the only institution to remain stuck in the post-WWII mentality – the Political Class, and the Fourth Estate also held fast to it as well for any number of reasons, subconscious or not – such is the power of the familiar but with the benefit of almost perfect hindsight, it is clear that a very large part of the reason is that the now self-revealed delusion was woven into the very fabric of the matrix of the woketopia13 so carefully constructed by the left, as described earlier.

Returning to the present, if it is not clear to anyone alive (who is even paying casual attention) that it is an entirely different world from the one in which the Baby Boomers grew up, and from the one in which Generation X came of age is, it is likely that nothing will bring about such a revelation. In the interest of full disclosure, I am technically of the Baby Boom generation, but identify much more strongly with the Gen Xers.

Since the mid 1960s, the Baby Boom generation has owned the institutions of American society: academia, industry, government & politics, pop culture, art, entertainment, and even church – it is not going to cede control willingly. It is members of that generation which built that matrix, and while time is the ultimate arbiter of the forces of history, that doesn’t mean it won’t do everything it possibly can to keep it.

Yet, one of that generation’s own is largely perceived as an existential threat. There is plenty of evidence to support such a premise. Executive Orders to:

• Reverse much of the cultural madness of the past nearly twenty years: the pillars of the woke religion that are transgenderism (which includes the erasure of women from their own athletic endeavours by allowing biological men who identify as women to directly compete against biological females), racism, political violence, critical race theory, DEI, and ESG in the corporate sector

• Conduct mass deportations of illegal aliens, the vast majority of which poured across what should have been this nation’s southern border during the last administration but which also occurred on The Kenyan Light Bringer’s watch

• Put America’s welfare and national self-interest first:

  • Where the US has unfairly and disproportionately borne the financial burden of a common cause, demanding that the other participants pay their fair and negotiated share

  • Re-affirming America’s commitment to liberty and democratic principles of self-determination, among them free and fair elections, and putting on notice those “allies” who would abandon them in favour of the soft tyranny of socialism

  • Seeking to level the playing field vis-á-vis trade with our partners around the globe by imposing tariffs where appropriate, prompting negotiations that will bring about a greater degree of fair, or equitable trade between the US and its partners

  • Incentivizing on-shoring of manufacturing to bring back as many of the jobs that were sent overseas by globalists in every administration since that of Ronald Reagan; global financiers, labor leaders, and the CEOs of publicly held corporations in critical industries like steel, mining, milling; manufacture of durable goods like major household appliances such as Maytag whose exit left Newton, Iowa (my family’s home for three years) a virtual ghost town; pharmaceuticals made by the likes of Pfizer, and AbbVie; electronics manufacturers like Apple, Lenovo, HP, Intel, et al.
    The actions of these parties both individually and combined & in-concert over more than thirty years has left the nation’s local economies cratered, and the middle class in communities from Maine to California all but nearly destroyed.

In some instances, it is what is not occurring that serves as proof:

• No one on any social media platform is being censored for expressing an opinion, or shadow-banned by an algorithm that identifies them as “dangerous”

• No one is being de-banked or otherwise isolated from participating in this nation’s consumer commerce or losing their employment and/or livelihood because of their political orientation

• No one who has identified themselves as a political enemy of Trump has been subjected to lawfare, swatted, incarcerated, suicided or forced underground

• No US troops, sailors, airmen, or marines are being deployed in far-off nations to fight some internecine conflict under the guise of “national [in]security”

…all of which serve to violently disrupt the status quo of America in Decline (roughly since 1980) following the age of American Empire (roughly from 1945 until 1980). The first election of Trump was a wake-up call to this nation’s monied elite and Political Class, and the 2020 election was little more than a postponement of the inevitable, because in 2024 the majority of American voters put this nation’s unofficial ruling class on notice that they’ve had it with the current status quo.

One unmistakable indicator that the world is truly different is unprecedented transparency in the Executive Branch. At every rally, he publicly announced what he intended to do as president. He owns everything he’s done, and there’s no question that the buck stops with him. Contrast that with the preceding administration where the empty husk of a man was simply a figurehead while any number of other unknown and unelected high-ranking bureaucrats were acting on behalf of the installed president. We didn’t even see this kind of transparency during Reagan’s presidency.

Then again, maybe not…
In a recent post here on Substack, Sasha Stone asserted that the synchronized legacy corporate media’s elitism cost the Fourth Estate its credibility (assuming it had retained any). While perhaps true, it would appear that such credibility is unnecessary for the propaganda apparatus to survive, even thrive, much like Bob has absolutely no need for a brain.14

So, if the aforementioned is true, why is the synchronized corporate legacy media still around? Why do those of us who are neither on nor of the left equate irrelevance, untrustworthiness, and shrinking viewership with eventual extinction? Why are we expecting the same market forces that allowed for the growth and popularity of podcasts and alternative sources online seemingly to not pose an existential threat to every one of the alphabet outlets and their affiliates? Perhaps these aren’t even the right questions to be asking, but no others come to mind.

To my way of thinking, when the propaganda apparatus becomes completely unrecognizable because it is no longer under the control of its masters who have been captured by the woke mind virus, there will be no doubt that it is truly a new and different world.

Yet, as I write this, in my heart of hearts, I know that it will never be thus.

So, in the final analysis, it must be recognized that two things can be true at the same time. For example:

…is a cliché because it’s true. For all of the empirical evidence that it is a different (if not new) world than the one my in which my generation came of age, the Book of Ecclesiastes tells us that there is nothing new under the sun.15

What has changed is the zeitgeist, the sensibilities of our time. With every Fourth Turning, there has been technological advancement that, to previous generations, didn’t even begin to approach the unthinkable and until the current Turning, that advancement has largely been at an arithmetic rate – but what we’ve seen in merely the last twenty years has been exponential – and I submit that this technology has done more to splinter our society, rend our social fabric, and to isolate us from one another to such a degree that the world we knew even ten years ago is alien, and unfamiliar.

Even before then, going back to the late 1990s, I knew that the world had completely passed me by the day I recognized absolutely no one on the front page of the tabloids available for sale while I waited in the checkout line at the A&P. It was an odd realization, but also very comforting – it was one less thing of which to be aware, even remotely.

So What?
For all that has changed over the last three generations, there is one constant. It is the source, and the foundation of my faith.16 That foundation is the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and He is the same today as He was yesterday, and will be tomorrow.

Another constant is change – we can be certain that the world we will come to know ten years from now will, on the one hand, be no less filled with the evils that are running amok through our society today. In fact, the insufferable John Mellencamp observed as much:

Everybody's got their problems – ain't no new news here
I'm the same old trouble you've been having for years

The evils will be no worse than they have ever been…it’s the manifestation of those evils that will be worse – and in case you’re wondering, it won’t get worse before it gets better, it’s only going to get worse, and that begs a couple questions: “What are we to do, then?” and/or “So, are we to simply give up – surrender – forfeit entirely our own agency?”

I’ll answer the second question first: No – but regardless of spiritual disposition, we can manage the coming changes by developing some intellectual agility. By that I mean, recognizing the changes that are occurring without discarding that which you hold to be true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — anything that is excellent or praiseworthy.17 We can accept the fact that everything around us is changing, perhaps too fast for us to keep up, but without losing ourselves – or our sense of ourselves.

Regarding the first question, it largely depends on what I previously referred to as a spiritual disposition – in other words, the state or condition of your relationship to God. The good news is that only you can determine that, the bad news is that it’s rather binary in nature: every one of us is working out – not working for – working out his/her own salvation with fear and trembling,18 or we are not.

The tail end of the Boomers, and Gen X have had front-row seats to the decline of all that America once represented: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Morning in America will be a long time coming once again, if it does, at all.

My view is that the American experiment which ended with The Wrestler’s unconstitutional declaration of war on half of the nation but which has been dying a slow and painful death in the one-hundred-sixty years since, will eventually breathe its last, and be replaced by a tyrannical dictatorship. All of Europe, having devolved to individual principalities with no real national identity and having been overrun by adherents to Islam, accedes to a reconstituted cultural Ottoman Empire.

America, no longer the last, best hope of mankind and no longer available to serve as the backstop against existential evil, will be unable to keep authoritarianism and tyranny in check – and that is a different world by any measure.

I so very much hope that I’m wrong.

Thank you, Dear Reader, for your time and indulgence.

Until next time…

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In the early 90s, I began a career in commercial B2B (business-to-business) sales in the telecom industry.

Over the next decade, I would hold various roles in a number of different companies – one of which was that of a national account executive for voice services with AT&T–Global.

Each role with each company meant sitting through interminable meetings where the latest personification of The Peter Principle would deliver his motivational pep talk using any number of corporate-speak platitudes, latest buzz words, and outdated hip-hop cultural references that were every bit as sensible and meaningful as a Kamala Harris word salad. In other words, not this:

On one occasion, the suit-of-the-quarter pointed out that his focus – hence, what mattered – was not today’s customers, but rather tomorrow’s customers.

His challenge to us was to focus on the future – customers, our careers, our roles in what the industry will be five, ten years from today. It was quite a departure, as most of those meetings were about the here and now. This particular suit was on to something quite unorthodox, and I’m sure as soon as word of the content of his address to us reached the executive suite, he was summarily dismissed – he was right, though.

My entry into the industry was due in large part to the federal government’s court-ordered break-up of AT&T1, and I was joining at a time when the far downstream effects of that action had turned a highly regulated, very mature industry on its head. 

This new landscape, combined with the dot-com boom, revealed The Death Star (my

affectionate reference to my then-employer) to be a staid, conservative, management-heavy dinosaur in a world where its competitors were cheetahs – agile, fluid, financially liquid, and able to quickly adapt to changes in the market – something that breaking itself up into smaller, management-heavy dinosaurs could not mitigate.

In a very short period of time, there were new competitors, many of which were start-ups funded by a seemingly endless supply of venture capital. These new entities were offering technologically innovative, and in some instances, highly specialized products and services (including the staples of long-distance and local exchange service first to commercial and institutional enterprises, and eventually to mass market consumers) – and laying claim to the revenue streams that once were the behemoth’s former customers. 

It wasn’t clear to me then, but I was bearing witness to the death of an American institution at the hands of federal government lawyers prosecuting a decades-old civil action begun by other federal government lawyers. This fact only made it a longer and more painful death than would have otherwise been the case had its fate been determined by market forces. 

AT&T, a flagship of American industry since 1885, had come into the height of its power during the nation’s post-war industrial golden age. Aided from federal government regulation that all but codified its status as a legal monopoly, it had become the corporate equivalent of the woolly mammoth, and it was being picked apart by the vultures of Sprint, MCI, and WorldCom.

The final insult was the forced divestiture of almost all of its other holdings2 in the wake of the CEO’s decision to grossly overpay for TCI in a spectacularly failed attempt to return the company to its former glory as an end-to-end carrier.

Now, the once-mighty tech giant whose stock had long been considered as blue-chip was facing a future – driven by technological innovation – that would be realized one way or another, with or without it. Fiber-optic cable replaced copper wire, cellular telephone service replaced landlines, and wireless technology’s data applications like VoIP (Voice-over-Internet Protocol) made voice a liability. The Death Star could not rid itself of its voice business fast enough, shifting its investment to data, instead. As an account executive on the voice side, I was shown the door with approximately a dozen others.

My career limped along with gigs at a couple tech firms where my knowledge of and experience in the telecom industry was useful to an extent, but the dot-com bust sealed its fate – and it came to an abrupt and ignominious end in the airport in Fort Lauderdale when my boss informed me I was being let go. 

It was probably one of the best things to ever happen, though, as it forced me to face the facts about my present, and make some decisions regarding my future. My technical knowledge and skills were obsolete, and the plum jobs remaining in the industry that was now a ghost of its former self were going to others who were better connected.

So I went back to school, crammed four years into one, and earned a second bachelor’s degree. The environment in the Chicagoland area for tech jobs was tight as a drum, so I did what was necessary to survive until I finally landed a contract-to-hire role as an assistant web manager, and began my new career in the tech field.

The lesson here is that it is the future that matters. If you don’t believe me, take it from Noah Cross3: 

What does this have to do with the current culture war? In what way is it applicable to the current state of affairs?

The answer to the first question is, everything. The answer to the second question is as follows:

In my last post, I wrote that the need of the hour, of the year, and of the next several generations is for creators of content that is more culturally and politically conservative (even if of a more secular orientation), as well as that which is faith-based. That remains the absolute truth, because the importance of the storyteller is a constant across millennia.

Every bit as crucial as are the tellers of our stories, however, is ownership of the medium through which they are told. In explaining how politics is downstream from the culture, Breitbart’s focus is on TV and film. A much more insidious and no less existential threat lies in terrestial radio, the one medium clearly owned by conservatives courtesy of Rush Limbaugh.

George Soros, otherwise known as The Devil, recently acquired a forty percent ownership stake in Audacy, the nation’s second-largest radio communications holding company. Audacy controls the broadcast licenses of more than 200 radio stations in 40 markets nationwide4. If you don’t think that the content of what those stations broadcast won’t gradually reflect the radical leftist agenda, think again. We would do well to recognize this for the threat it is, lest this battle in the culture war is lost5.

TV and film are not going anywhere any time soon, so the need to establish a presence in these media, demonstrate value, and provide economic justification for the secular entities to buy in is critical if we are to get our stories told to those who otherwise might never hear them.

The Myth of the Digital Age: The Death of the Hardbound Tome
The same holds true for the publishing of tangible books. We’ve been in the digital age for more than two generations now, and I recall it being considered an existential threat to the physical, hardbound book. That threat has yet to be realized, despite the proclamation6 of one Egon Spengler, Ph.D., and the boom and bust of brick-and-mortar bookstores (See Border’s, B. Dalton, Waldenbooks, et al.).

For all intents and purposes, the left also owns the publishing industry – though, when an online search of ‘conservative publishers’ was performed, it was a most pleasant and encouraging surprise. Here are ten publishers of decidedly conservative content in existence, today:

Regnery Publishing

Defiance Press & Publishing

Republic Book Publishers

Salem Books

Henry Holt & Company

Center Street Books

Hoover Institution Press

Princeton University Press

Broadside Books

Simon & Schuster7

The left’s dominance of the legacy media that are TV and film (the inroads made by conservatives and Christians notwithstanding) ensures that the sitcoms, dramas, news and public affairs programming will never again reflect the social mores of white, Anglo-Saxon protestants.

While that may be less true for film, it is all the more reason to persist in current initiatives and to steadily increase the amount of positive, hopeful, and faith-affirming content that many people want to consume. We would do well to emulate the same in the print media, and the good news is that it seems we already have a bit of a head start, but far too many of us don’t realize it.

Opportunity We Will Not See Again
The digital frontier is the real battleground in the next phase of the culture war. From the beginning, the left has sought to position itself as the guardian of the evolution of the modern digital age, and it has been largely successful in making that seem to be the case. 

There was a time – roughly, from 1994 until 2006 – when the internet was the digital wild west. Widely accessible to anyone who owned a domain (a web address, like www.mydomain.com), and unregulated (for the most part), it gave rise to some remarkable innovations, one of which was You Tube – another was Amazon – then came social media.

The digital wild west began to become less so in 1998 with the arrival of the Google web browser, which today handles more than seventy percent of online search requests worldwide.

By 2016, the digital wild west was no more – not because the authority of law and order based on truth, justice, and the American way had been established, but because Google’s parent company (Alphabet, Inc.), began to acquire properties like YouTube, and its formation of subsidiaries like Google Analytics (GA), and Google Ad Manager (GAM) facilitated unprecedented reach and dominance. This is significant because in so doing, it was becoming one of the most powerful oligarchs of the digital landscape.

Perhaps most significantly, the formation of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) made it only one of a handful of entities (the others included Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Akamai) that constitute the backbone of the worldwide web. The vast majority of commerce transacted over the internet is facilitated by either GCP or AWS (Amazon Web Services), and a smaller portion of that by Apple (which really only cares about its own).

Not limited to e-commerce, GCP and AWS control almost all other platforms and their content, and any such entity unwilling to abide by their “terms of service” (arbitrarily enforced) will be removed, and its existence is no more – see, Parler8.

It isn’t that there is little to no conservative-oriented content on the internet – there’s plenty, in fact. For social media, there is Gab, QAnon, BitChute, 4Chan, and a number of others. For messaging, there is Telegram, and Discord9, but most are buried deep in the results returned on any search performed by the web browser’s algorithm. This isn’t necessarily bad because as we’ve seen, when Facebook and Instagram shadow-ban conservative voices, when Google de-monetizes conservative content, those platforms become echo chambers, influential only among themselves.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of examples of the king of the hill being knocked off by the next up-and-comer. This is brilliantly demonstrated by the hardware through which access to the worldwide web was gained. First, there were desktop computers which were quickly replaced by laptops which were replaced by mobile, hand-held devices like smart phones that could do everything that laptops could. Smart phones now have to co-exist with smart watches worn on the wrist. I shudder to think what might be the next step.

In terms of software and applications, Facebook rendered MySpace irrelevant almost overnight. Google’s web browser nearly did the same with all but a few that have managed to hang on – Mozilla Firefox, Yahoo!, Bing, or Edge (both Microsoft properties)10, for example. Brave, and DuckDuckGo market themselves as browsers whose search engines put their users’ data privacy first, but I remain skeptical11.

Parler once threatened (however briefly) to replace Twitter as the king of the messaging platform hill. Parler had done its homework, and content that was all but guaranteed to warrant a terms-of-service violation on the AWS platform never saw the light of day. Nonetheless, when it first came on the scene, it was beset with all manner of real resistance from all corners of the internet in the form of DDoS12 attacks, yet it was perceived as posing a credible threat.

Twitter had managed to create its own presence without being acquired by Google, Facebook, or Apple. In its early years, it was largely apolitical which in my view, aided a great deal in its success. Unfortunately, like every other contemporary staff sergeant of industry, Jack Dorsey capitulated to the leftist, woke mob.

In 2020, Twitter joined Facebook, Instagram, Google, and Apple in censoring voices that were not toeing the line on any given approved narrative – be it Hunter Biden’s laptop, the source of the Chinese virus, or the “mostly peaceful protests” (read as, violent) of that summer. Then, in the wake of the lies (ironically, actual disinformation) about January 6, Twitter denied an American president access to the public square. In doing so, it unwittingly became an acquisition target, was purchased by Elon Musk, and made over to comprise all points of view, much to the chagrin and irritation of the very online13.

TruthSocial is a valid alternative to Facebook, and Rumble will eventually eclipse YouTube as soon as it begins to lose money for Google.

So, why the brief recap of the history of the digital age? To illustrate that now, more than perhaps has ever been the case, the digital media landscape is increasingly fluid despite the left’s success (thus far) in projecting the image of its status as the vanguard of the culture vis-á-vis digital media outlets.

In this way, the left is very much like the former Soviet Union’s national hockey teams. Far too many of us continue to view the left’s control of the culture with fear and trepidation – and here, the 1980 Winter Olympiad has something to teach us.

A Lesson From the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team
In the film, Miracle, there is a scene in which the team is viewing film – not video – of the Soviet national team in action. Coach Herb Brooks describes to his players the Soviets’ style and method of play, and points out that the Soviets’ main weapon is intimidation – they know they are going to win – and their opponents know it, too. Hence, the game is over even before the teams are on the ice.

Brooks continues that no other hockey team has been willing to adapt its style of play to that of the Soviets, but that the team that is willing to do just that can, in fact, beat them at their own game. He then makes it clear that they are that team.

In his remarks before what would be a world-changing contest, he acknowledges the truth – that nine times out of ten, the Soviets would probably win – but not this time14.

Everyone knows what happened next – the Russians could not be defeated, until they were. 

So, the question now is, “What will be the next Tik-Tok?” or, “What will be the next Twitter?” and the next question might be, “Who will be in control of it?”, and that presents a dilemma for us because we’re not disposed toward controlling anything. So, the better question might be, “How do we make sure whatever is next doesn’t fall under the control of the left?”

For those of us who simply wish to be left alone, that will always be our ideal – but paradoxically, we have no choice now but to engage in the culture war, in whatever way that may be. The current environment and circumstances demand that each of us choose one of two sides15 – and not to decide, is to decide16.

This is where it becomes every bit as much a matter of perception, and a matter of faith as much as anything else. If we believe that the left can never be displaced as the owners of legacy & digital media in any or all of their outlets, as well as the media of the future, then it never will be.

If instead we believe that it can be done, that we not only can hold our own against more formidible forces but prevail by creating our own digital spaces independent of the current oligarchs, we can deny them unmitigated hegemony over the digital media realm.

The left then becomes little more than an obstacle to be overcome – an annoyance, not a Goliath – and with that, the landscape begins to resemble and reflect the values of faith, freedom, individual responsibility & accountability, diversity of ideas and viewpoints rooted in reason and tolerance, and equality under the law.

The forces of darkness currently at work may ultimately prevent the restoration that many of us long to see, but that doesn’t mean we surrender to those dark forces – no, we fight back by first standing firm against them, then we counter with stories of faith, hope, and love.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

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Some time in 2018, I became largely indifferent to the GOP as a whole, and to congressional Republicans in particular – that will be explained in slightly more detail, shortly. In the time since, I’ve become politically agnostic whereas in years previous, my worldview had been heavily influenced by my conservatism which had been heavily influenced by what I perceived and understood to be the Republican Party.

I came of age (politically speaking) in 1979 – having spent the summer touring Europe with a symphony orchestra, it struck me as personally offensive how most of the media in the countries visited covered the U.S. with a decidedly jaundiced eye.1 My conclusion was that my country’s president’s foreign policy had a lot to do with that, so as I began to pay more attention to domestic politics and would be eligible to vote in the next election, I would not be casting a ballot for President Carter.

The assignment for each of us in my social studies class2 was to attend the local precinct caucus for the party with which we each most identified. At the suggestion of my parents, I attended the Republican one. My very first taste of partisan politics, and it was sweet – a neighbour helped me prepare so that the process was understood, and most everyone else in attendance was welcoming and supportive of my participation, such as it was. As far as I was concerned and based on that experience alone, my political home was the same as Reagan’s.

Throughout the rest of my college years, and after graduation as I assumed more responsibilities of adulthood, more and more of my identity came from my political party affiliation rather than cultural orientation. Much too often, instead of pursuing associations with others with whom there might have been common interest that was not political – like enduring another season in which the Vikings can’t even go .500 in the division; or mutual disdain for Norm Green’s relocation of the North Stars to Dallas (of all places); or film; or even pop-culture and entertainment; the crucial criteria was whether I was among political friendlies – my disappointment in my all too frequent lack of depth is beyond words.

Thankfully, such is no longer the case. In fact, partisan politics now only matters to the extent I perceive one party posing an existential threat to all that I hold dear, and one not. Today, that existential threat is the Democrat Party, albeit by only the most slim of margins.

What got me started on this piece was determining whether there was anything I felt needed to be said. Commenting almost exclusively on our current politics is not only unproductive, but it is also pointlessly derivative. As one Daniel Helkenn so eloquently and succinctly put it, “Too many people saying the same things. It’s eating away at my IQ and I’ve really got none to spare.” – I’m with him.

When I began writing this substack, I envisioned it would be thoughtful, intelligent, ocassionally witty commentary on our culture, both popular and classic. My writing hasn’t always upheld my own ideal, and aspiring to produce something that at least came close to meeting that standard is why it has been such a long time since I last posted – that, and so many others3 are expressing many of the same sentiments so much better than I.

This quote:

…attributed to the late Andrew Breitbart, has persisted in my waking thoughts, lately.

The first time I heard the phrase, ‘Politics is downstream from culture’, I had no idea what it meant. After figuring it out, and explaining it to a few Conservatives, they dismissed the concept. The truth, however, is that it may be one of the most important phrases of the New Media Age, and it’s vital that people understand it.

Why, do you suppose that the film Sound of Freedom performed at the box office as well as it did, when the entire cultural and political landscape was aligned against it – even after having been in theaters for a couple of weeks? Jim Caviezel explains:

‘Steve Jobs once said the most powerful person in the world is the storyteller,’ Caviezel said. ‘Abraham Lincoln credited Harriet Stowe when she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin – this powerful story inspired millions to rise up and fight against slavery.’

Breitbart continues:

Stories instill moral and ethical values. They place joy and tragedy in context. They preserve cultures. At their best, they deliver the secrets and meanings of life.

As Dr. Neal Baer, the longtime showrunner of Law & Order: SVU tells in my book Inside the TV Writer’s Room, humans live story on a daily basis. What happens when you run into a friend? He asks what you’ve been up to. You tell a story.

Most importantly, it isn’t only the text that is important. It is also a story’s context and it’s subtext that deliver messages. It’s those messages that are significant…

Popular culture is delivered to us in the form of story via books, TV, film, music, video games, and new media. Obviously, most of us are there to simply be entertained. However, along with that entertainment comes messaging. It may not be intentional. Often times, it isn’t.

Because whether you like it or not, or believe it or not, the messaging of popular culture is resonating inside everyone’s conscious and subconscious mind. And if those messages are not consonant with the things you hold dear, then it is incumbent upon you to challenge yourself. First ask why it threatens you, and then, if appropriate, accept or reject the message. Never reject it out of hand. Do yourself the favor of letting yourself be challenged, in the event you make a discovery about something that never occurred to you.

Assuming that Breitbart is correct (he is) and our current political environment is the downstream representation of our culture, then it’s no wonder that our society – our culture, as a whole – is in serious trouble because this nation’s politics is a cesspool. All manner of toxins are flowing downstream but have nowhere to go, collecting in what I would describe as a cultural tide pool.

Unlike the tide pools that Noah Cross told Jake Gittes were so beloved by Hollis Mulwray because that’s where life begins, this one is where life ends.4

Breitbart’s now timeless observation notwithstanding – politics (cesspool that it is) takes an interest in, and affects every one of us regardless of whether we are interested in it – and whether we wish to effect its ends. Hence, in the tale of my awakening, politics has had an outsized influence, sad as that is.

Time was that one could proudly identify as a Republican or a Democrat without later realizing one had been played for a fool. Despite FDR’s attempt to make America socialist, in the years immediately post-WWII the two parties held the welfare and best interests of the nation at heart, but had legitimate differences of opinion on how best to see to that welfare, and to defend those interests.

Paraphrasing the Democrat and long-time Speaker of the House, Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neil, “[that]...all politics is local…”, if he’s right (he is), then except for the 83rd congress (1953-55), from 1951 until 1994, Democrats were just better at it (for whatever reason) than were Republicans.

Excepting the 104th through the 109th congresses, the Republicans had largely settled into their role as the beta party in the unholy alliance of Democrats and Republicans known as the UniParty. The UniParty was born in 1981 as a result of the surrender to House Democrats by Bob Michel (R IL 18) then the House Minority Leader, whose “...go along to get along…” approach to governance and legislation resulted in an emasculated Republican Party, reduced to little more than controlled opposition. His ghost haunts the GOP establishment to this day. 

In the years since Newt Gingrich left congress, the party has been a circular firing squad, the epitome of ineptitude – from the inability to close the deal on repealing ObamaCare, to outright refusal (disguised as failure) to building the wall to secure the southern border, to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the most crucial of elections.5

When faced with the prospect of a federal government shutdown,6 congressional Republicans will acquiesce to Democrats’ demands every time. The Republicans talk tough, but the Democrats know their weaknesses (at the 00:02:13 mark):

They continue to demonstrate that they are not up to the task, unable to rise to the occasion and stand up for their own voters (for whom they have nothing but contempt), let alone all Americans. It’s the same when it comes to holding the line on raising the debt limit:

Dr. William Bennett’s book, The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals, may have been borne of the scandal following the revelation of Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, but it bears mention, today. More than twenty-five years after the fact, it not only was a watershed in the national culture, but also the death of public shame. With no stigma, and no more embarrassment by abhorrent behaviour, Democrats sensed that acquisition, consolidation, centralization, and possession of all cultural and political power was within their reach. 

Beginning in 2008 (having bode their time through the two Shrub administrations), almost everything fell into place for Democrats over the next eight years. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with her Democrats united and marching in lockstep behind her, legislated as many of the Democrats’ agenda items as she could between the 2008 and 2010 elections.

By 2016, what the Democrats had dreamed of in 1998 had become reality: they had effective majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives, and in the U.S. Senate. Democrats all but owned SCOTUS. They owned the administrative/regulatory (aka deep) state. They had politicized every single law-enforcement agency of the federal behemoth, and had weaponized the FISA court (star chamber), the FBI, the CIA, and the DoJ against president-elect Donald Trump, who they saw as America’s own Sidney Reilly.7

Trump may have been President nominally, but he was surrounded by deep-state operatives and UniParty members in key cabinet positions, almost all passively working against his directives and initiatives at every turn.

Given the manner in which the GOP establishment sought to destroy the Trump administration through death by a thousand cuts, it became obvious that the Republican Party had abandoned me, and millions of others – and it was liberating.

Today, it makes absolutely no difference which political party is in control of congress, or the White House – unless it’s Trump. The contrarian in me is such that if the regime, almost all of the most powerful institutional forces, and domestic and global oligarchs perceive him to be an existential threat, he must be doing something right (at the 00:01:59 mark) –

and for that reason alone, he has my vote.

Democrats have been in power for so long that possessing it, and acquiring more of it is woven into the fabric of their DNA – hence, they can’t help themselves. To them, power is a birthright, and Hillary being denied hers liberated them to show everyone just how ruthless they could be and how effectively they could use what power they possessed against their enemies – not adversaries – enemies.

Between the moles in the administration, Obama loyalists in the federal judiciary, and surrogates Big Tech, these jacobins and their global allies would see to it that Trump’s time in the White House was a mere speed bump. 

They seized on the opportunity to leverage the deadly virus that wasn’t to openly work hand-in-glove with social media, the Corporate Class, the propaganda apparatus, the deep state, and the shadow government of the Kenyan Light Bringer to so disrupt American life that the voters would deny Trump re-election.

Leaving nothing to chance, they brazenly coordinated with governors and legislatures (even in red states like Texas) to completely re-write voting laws and facilitate election fraud on such a scale that it would be all but impossible to challenge in court. Not that it was much of a concern – no federal judge appointed by The Kenyan Light Bringer was going to allow any such challenge in his courtroom. Months later, they boasted about it.

The Democrats flexed their political muscle and through their allies in the American Federation of Teachers and its locals across the nation, schools were shut down and classes went online. However, when parents began to learn what their children were being taught – and what the teachers, administrators, and local school boards were not just allowing, but promoting – they were horrified.

In shutting down the schools, and then seeking to keep them closed, the Democrats overplayed their hand, and it backfired. Parents were the ones who stood up and acted in the face of the truly harmful ideologies in which their children were being indoctrinated, and they pushed back – hard.

Parents, not as part of some non-existent vast right-wing conspiracy, but as individual mothers and fathers, did what their representatives both nationally and locally would not. They took action and opened up a front in the culture war for which the Democrats, and the left (but I repeat myself) were not prepared.

They started attending local hearings and school board meetings, and they began to speak up. In response, led by the authorities, they were often shouted down, their microphones turned off, kicked out and banned from attending future meetings, physically removed and in some cases, arrested for speaking the truth, calling out the evil, and exposing the identities of those visiting that evil on their children.

What they learned was that for longer than anyone would believe, organizations like the American Library Association8 have been indoctrinating children of virtually every age in liberal sexual progressivism. In public school libraries, they are making homosexual pornographic literature accessible and available to children as young as age ten, along with organizing, sponsoring, and hosting drag-queen story hours as part of that effort.

In the classroom, Critical Race Theory remains a staple of the curriculum in more school districts and private schools than you could even begin to imagine. A curriculum, incidentally, that considers every subject in the sciences and humanities through the lens of racism and has abandoned fundamentals entirely.

According to some friends and relatives, a few of which are former teachers, this video is not so far off the mark:

Perhaps the most heinous development is how schools are willingly allowing themselves to be weaponized against the parents of the children they are teaching (read as, indoctrinating) and doing all within their grasp and without it to separate children from their parents in the name of LGBTQRSTUVWXYZ tolerance. What’s happening in California, just the latest example:

Make no mistake – the Democrat Party, in championing every manifestation of evil to which the rest of the nation has borne witness – chief among these is the celebration of all manner of sexual depravity and deviance, most notably homosexuality and all its attendant ills – is Frankism9 made manifest.

The celebration of homosexuality in both the political and pop-culture realms gave rise to same-sex marriage which in turn ushered in the embrace of pedophilia in an attempt to normalize it.

Similarly, embracing fluid gender identity has all but encouraged mentally ill males who claim to be females to prey on little girls in women’s restrooms.

Weak men in high school and college who can’t compete against their own kind instead identify as women to “compete” against them and invade their locker rooms.

As she said in an episode of her podcast, Gaines for Girls:

‘This is the most anti-woman, anti-reality pursuit we have seen from this administration thus far…

Across the country and in various sports, males are entering women's athletic competitions, being given spots on women's teams, and being granted entry into our locker rooms. To date, males have stolen over 943 trophies, medals and titles from women and girls across 458 different competitions and in over 31 different sports. But the harm they cause is exponential, as every time a man even competes in an event or makes a team, a female athlete loses an opportunity to race, a spot on that team or playing time on the field.

Allowing males to compete in women's sports is risky, it is unfair, it is discriminatory, and it is regressive. And it must stop. Which is exactly why we have been so tenacious in this pursuit for sex-based protections. I know that the six attorney generals, including General Skrmetti and General Morrisey, will not quit until women and girls sports, spaces and opportunities are for women and girls only.’

Transgenderism has legalized surgical mutilation of teenage children, transforming much of the medical profession10 from a trusted institution to human butchery, practicing their evil on the most vulnerable in our society.11 Some of these kids (a very small minority) are legitimately suffering from body dysphoria, a treatable disorder, while most are simply experiencing common phases of childhood development. In either instance, what they have in common are parents who are not loving, and who selfishly care more about being in good standing with their ultra-left Democratic tribe than in seeking the best for their own children’s welfare.

Normalizing homosexual behaviour has not only been an all-out assault on the divine natural order, the traditional nuclear family, and established cultural mores rooted in Judeo-Christsian ethics, but with its obsession with satisfying its unquenchable lust for selfish sexual pleasure, male homosexual couples are pimping their own adopted children for financial gain.

With their commitment to open borders and policies that promote and facilitate illegal immigration to the United States, Democrats (the current administration in particular), have made the U.S. a major contributor to the worldwide child sex trafficking industry. Whatever else one may or may not believe, know that this was no accident – it was by design.

Pedophile rings both domestic and abroad are where the vast majority, if not every last one of these children, have gone.

There are very powerful forces that remain hidden, though some are known quantities, like NAMBLA (National Man-Boy Love Association – I’m not providing a link as I don’t want that in my search history), and these “loose affiliation[s] of millionaires and billionaires” (to quote Paul Simon) directly contribute very large sums of dark money to the Democrat Party or to Democrat candidates, almost exclusively. Not only can the money not be traced, but it also circumvents campaign finance laws. In return, these nefarious entities receive the protection from US law enforcement for which they pay. There’s a reason Democrat law makers fight tooth and nail to keep Jeffrey Epstein’s guest list from ever seeing the light of day, and it’s why the truth of these children’s whereabouts will never be known, either.

To add insult to the injury of the scourge of violence at the hands of elementary and high-school age children who use a firearm (a parent’s or one acquired illegally) to fatally take revenge on their peers and teachers – the latest one being at Apalachee High School12 – is that these kids never developed healthy coping mechanisms to deal with the common bitter pills of childhood like exclusion from the popular clique, teasing at the hands of classmates, and schoolyard bullies. For most of us, learning to successfully handle such adversity was a rite of passage, and it built character.

Lately, a common thread through these horrific incidents is that the perpetrator – be it Colt Gray, or Audrey Hale – was undergoing treatment to transition from one gender to the other, and an undisclosed side effect of the medication prescribed to facilitate it is uncontrollable, irrational rage and anger. The propaganda apparatus won’t include that fact in its coverage.

Again, all of this wickedness (and more), are part and parcel of the Democrat Party’s legislative agenda, and these items persist from one congress to the next. You may doubt that, but consider that those who are most visible in their activism or who most loudly protest on behalf of these depravities are registered, proud, card-carrying Democrats. That doesn’t make Republicans any better, but it does make Democrats worse.

Yet, for all the evil that are Democrats, establishment Republicans are magnitudes worse because they outright refuse to stand up to that evil the Democrats visit on the nation, despite being in a position to do so. Both individually and collectively, they illustrate the quote widely attributed to John Stuart Mill:

Democrats have my admiration for their ability to play a long political game and their commitment to it – for them, though, the political battle is but part of the larger culture war. The Democrats are much better positioned to fight, and win the political conflict, and they know it.

The dirty little secret is that the Democrats are relying on the fact that they have owned the culture for so long, it isn’t likely to change any time soon. They also know that the culture war could be lost for generations if conservatives engaged with any resolve for a sustained period of time – and this is where I begin to more fully understand what Breitbart was trying to convey to his conservative friends.

More from Breitbart:

Regardless of one’s ideological, moral, ethical, or religious leanings, every person should be aware of the messaging of every piece of popular culture. The thesis here…is that the vast majority of those with the power of content creation are Liberals. If you accept that thesis, then realize that Liberals control story.

This is truly horrifying, and I would be bereft of hope were it not for the likes of Angel Studios, PureFlix Entertainment, and Great American Family.

The need of the hour, of the year, and of the next several generations is for creators of content that are of a more conservative orientation (even if also more secular, in comparison), as well as those that are faith-based. 

The good news is that they exist, and are releasing commercial-grade, high production-value content. Big Idea Entertainment was a pioneer in this effort. It was the creative and productive force behind VeggieTales.

Others range from small studios like Sherwood Pictures (a ministry of a local church, Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia), to subsidiaries of established Hollywood studios like Lionsgate. Sherwood Pictures may be small, but the Kendrick brothers have produced some first-rate films – Flywheel, Facing the Giants, War Room, Fireproof, Courageous – telling stories that Hollywood will not. The legacy media ridicules and mocks them for their messages, but the stories are no less compelling than anything Hollywood celebrates. 

In addition to The Chosen (brought to market through its dedicated YouTube channel – a modern-day miracle in and of itself) – Angel Studios was instrumental in releasing Sound of Freedom first to theaters, then Elon Musk gave it a boost by making it available for viewing for free (for a limited time) on X. Angel Studios has since produced and released the film, Cabrini. 

Lionsgate brought Jesus Revolution, starring Kelsey Grammer, and Kimberly Williams (genuine Hollywood-caliber talent), to theaters nationwide in 2023. PureFlix Entertainment has the third in the God’s Not Dead franchise scheduled for release in theaters nationwide on September 12, 2024.

The film, I Can Only Imagine, was produced by LD Entertainment, along with Mission Pictures, and distributed by Lionsgate’s Roadside Attractions. 

As encouraging as is all of this, what is even more so is that there are powerful people with means, resources, and influence who are willing to leverage those assets to fund such productions. Some of these folks are Hollywood heavy hitters. Tony Robbins was an executive producer of Sound of Freedom, as was Mel Gibson.

For Tony Robbins, it wasn’t just a one-off – he seems to be putting his money where his mouth is, serving, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, as the executive producer of the soon-to-be-released film, City of Dreams. 

The fact that the involvement of secular companies like Lionsgate, and LD Entertainment – whether bankrolling the production, or taking on the distribution, or both – speaks volumes to the fact that there are sizable audiences for this content, and that translates into revenue.

Conservative stories that aren’t even necessarily faith-based are stories that people want to hear. The death grip that liberals have had on story in Hollywood for so long is difficult to break, but these enterprises are demonstrating it can be done. See Showbiz Entertainment – the company behind the film, Reagan. 

Its mission:

...to fill the void left by traditional studios’ selective distribution processes, offering a platform for diverse stories that resonate with and appeal to a broad audience. With a commitment to bridging the gap between innovative filmmakers and a global audience in a more cost-effective and transparent way. Showbiz Direct stands as a catalyst for bringing deserving content into the limelight, ensuring that these voices have the chance to be heard and their visions have the opportunity to be seen on the big screen.

In other words, what Hollywood used to be.

The even better news is that the stories being told by those creators have outlets where their content can be consumed – PureFlix, and Great American Family, are the most well-known examples. However, a search yielded some notable alternatives: UP Faith and Family, Minno, Crackle,13 Kidoodle,14 RedeemTV, and Sight & Sound TV.

It doesn’t stop with entertainment, either – for online learning, there is The Great Courses Plus from Wondrium, and Skillshare, a top-notch alternative to LinkedIn Learning, (which if you are like me, anything that competes directly with that leftist human stain Reid Hoffman’s social media platform is worth every penny). 

For documentaries, Magellan TV offers a deep collection of high quality documentaries from a wide variety of producers – over 1,500 from which to choose, with new content being added every week, and Curiosity Stream, which differentiates itself by variety of types of content – per Patrick Antinozzi, it “...has a ton of content that falls into the 15-30 min range…” for when you “...really don’t feel like diving into a 90-minute documentary or a 6-episode series.”

Exclusively for libraries and universities, Kanopy.15 Founded by an Australian entrepreneur, Olivia Humphrey, in 2008, one needs to be a member of a university or a local public library in order to access this streaming service.

Admittedly, when I began this piece, it was unclear how it would conclude, but I am a great deal more optimistic than when I began. While what I’ve learned is encouraging, there is an obligation on the part of each and every one of us who cares about the stories being told and the content shaping our views and opinions – especially that of our children – and that obligation is to seek out these alternatives to the pap and pablum that Hollywood is feeding us, and support them in any way you are able.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

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Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

A rumination on the collapse of culture on the left. Is it really that bad? Yes, it is really that bad.

And So It Goes . . .

Random thoughts from a random person trying to stay sane in a random world

By Lillia Gajewski

David’s Thinking about the World Substack

My personal Substack Hello, my name is David Poe, and I am a retired cyclotron physicist. I am interested in the course of our country and the world, especially regarding the potential of a slide into tyranny. To that end, I am starting a Substack.

By David Poe

The Freedom Corner with PeterSweden

Peter Sweden is a freedom loving journalist reporting on the important news that is being ignored by the mainstream.

By Peter Imanuelsen

Bill Rice Jr.'s Newsletter

Topics ignored by the mainstream media or that challenge conventional wisdom.

By Bill Rice, Jr.

Aaron Renn

Compelling insights on society, Christianity, family, cities, politics and economics.

By Aaron M. Renn

Dear Sir;

This is an open letter to you to express my utter disappointment in remarks recently made by you in conversation with Mr. Glenn Loury.1

True, you don’t know me from Adam, and it is likely you could not care less what some rank amateur writer in west Texas thinks. Nonetheless, while it is your right to speak your mind, abhorrent as your sentiments may be, it is my right to condemn their content as expressed, and to call you out on the hypocrisy betrayed by them.  

It is absolutely crucial that the content of my remarks in this letter are focused on your words, attitude, and thoughts expressed both verbally and by implication on your part, and inference on mine.

Extraordinary effort is being made to keep this focused on what was said and not who said it, lest the criticism lose its validity.

Allow me to first express disappointment in myself for considering you to be an honest liberal. Meaning that while one’s political and ideological orientation may be decidedly leftward, one is able to appreciate that of another whose might be relatively conservative, and perhaps even do so with respect toward such, if not for the right to be so. More specifically, yours seems to be that of the modern-day partisan Democrat, and mine is less the modern-day conservative and more libertarian, or in the tradition of the classic liberal. 

Clearly, I made a mistake in that I severely misjudged your character. The mistake lies in my assumption that you were possessed of any.

It is lamentable that someone as well-educated, as well-spoken as yourself, and who has so benefited from the opportunity to make his living in the world of academia, and the media with the freedom to speak and write freely without risk to his livelihood would be so intolerant of the same toward others as is demonstrated by your clear disdain and hostility toward President Donald J, Trump, the only one to take up the plight and the cause of those of us in fly-over country, and by extension that same hostility and disdain toward each of us, personally.

Per your remarks in the following transcript2 excerpted in block quotes below, you have revealed yourself to be little more than a puerile (your own word, by the way), petty, small partisan Democrat hack at best – and it is tragic that an education by the Quakers turned out to be wasted on someone like yourself. 

Glenn Loury stated:

...it exemplifies a turn in American political and legal culture that I think is ominous…It's injurious to the culture of political competition in the country…a precedent has been established…I have a bad feeling about what that, a foreboding about what that entails.

You replied:

...I know what you mean about the precedent. We can't just think about this now. What's the new pattern going to be…But to be honest…Trump is such a unique phenomenon that a little bit of vigilante justice or bending the proprieties, [is understandable]...because he's truly a hideous person. A monstrous prospect as somebody who [would] be running this country for a second time.

...it's clear that Bragg wanted to get him. And when Bragg gives an interview about it in 30 years with White Air, some interviewer is going to say, most people say it was politically motivated. Was it? How do you feel? And he's going to say, of course it was. And I think I did the right thing. And I'm going to agree with him.

I think Bragg did the right thing, even if it sets a precedent that would be used against somebody who I approve of, because social history is messy.

So, your comments indicate that it is acceptable – even earning your enthusiastic approval – to not just deny a citizen of the United States (in this instance a duly and fairly elected former president, no less) of his constitutional rights to due process, and a fair and speedy trial but also to name him as the defendant in unlimited civil and even criminal litigation, subject him to “legal” courtroom trials (that almost make the show trials that took place in the former Soviet Union seem legitimate) in a naked attempt to bring him to personal financial ruin, rob him of his good name, and possibly imprison him unlawfully if it is someone of whom you disapprove, or just don’t like, for any reason. If that is not true, feel free to correct me – otherwise, your inner Andrey Vyshinsky is showing.

Recognizing and seemingly accepting the fact that such a dangerous precedent could cut both ways is little more than a fig leaf that allows you to justify the irreparable harm that this instance of lawfare against a US citizen has wrought.

Freedom of speech is a most wonderful thing, and it is refreshing that you take full advantage of it, otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to reveal yourself to be but a highly educated, well-compensated useful idiot, toeing the leftist Party line, ‘Orange Man – Bad’ narrative.

He's an immoral person with no respect for or interest in other people and often an outright scorn for other people explicitly expressed. which he tries to reflect in actual policies. He was reined in somewhat, but the fact that all these things were even floated, his behavior with overseas leaders, his cult-like devotion, not only to Putin, but the idea that he and Jong-un fell in love, et cetera, where it's all about his narcissism, even when it's about international geopolitics, is pathetic, it's embarrassing, and it's dangerous, and just in general, To have a president who's incapable of paying attention to detail or policy, where everything is really just all about him and to an extent beyond that of any president I can think of in history. You know, all of them, of course, have to be about themselves. But Trump is a gorilla. I think to have the country run by somebody who can't pay attention and surrounds himself with sycophants.

One can only conclude that either you consider the current occupant of the office of President of the United States, or President Trump’s predecessor, to be a paragon of morality or if not, then Trump must be exceptionally immoral in comparison to others who have also held the office.

Presumably, that would include one Bill Clinton, who was not only unfaithful to his wife on several occasions, but was so with a young girl nearly three decades his junior in the Oval Office and then lied about it until he could do so no longer. Let’s not forget JFK, and his multiple extramarital affairs of which Marilyn Monroe was merely the latest in a long line of paramours.

Is Trump any more flawed than any of his predecessors? If not, then why are his flaws, peccadilloes, or proclivities so much worse? Assuming that you are able to provide a reasoned response, I would love to hear it.

But his idea is that the Mexicans who were sent here are these rapists and bad people and vermin and we need to get rid of them. And I honestly don't know what he's talking about. I listen to this and I think, what facts, what tendencies is he basing this particular character on? characterization of immigrants on. You can be anti-immigrant, but this vision that he comes up with is just this ridiculous cartoon. And here he is with all of his charisma and influence and money, teaching other Americans to think that way about something that, as far as I can see, is a video game fantasy. I don't even know what he's exaggerating. Do you? What are these rapists? What is he talking about?

A “ridiculous cartoon”? A “video game fantasy”? Really? You don’t have to like the characterization, but instances of violent crime such as assault, rape, and murder that are committed by illegal aliens, are like roaches – for every incident that you see or know of, there are likely hundreds or thousands that are unseen. Need some examples? Here:

Kate Steinle in 2015, and Mollie Tibbetts in 2018 are two of the most notable, that were actually reported by the propaganda apparatus, but if you need some more recent, how about this account of an illegal alien raping a thirteen-year-old girl in broad daylight; or two of these subhuman creatures repeatedly assaulting and then murdering twelve-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, in Houston, Texas? Would you like one a little closer to home? See this account of the most violent rape and murder of one Rachel Morin.

To answer your question, these are the rapists. These are the animals about which Trump speaks. 

John, I’ll pay you $1,000.00 cash to visit the parents of that thirteen-year-old girl, or the parents of Jocelyn Nungaray, or the surviving family members of Ms. Morin, and tell them that the threat these illegal aliens pose to other Americans, their families, and their children is exaggerated.

Perhaps your view of the rest of the country doesn’t extend beyond the Hudson River, in which case perhaps you could direct your attention to that of Jhoan Boada, who flipped both middle fingers after being released upon the dropping of charges of assaulting a police officer in Times Square as part of a gang3 – or is this the kind of upstanding illegal alien you would like to see welcomed into this country? If so, perhaps you’d like to personally welcome him to your community. Perhaps you could open up your home to him, let him stay with you and your family.

Let’s not forget the number of members of MS-13 now in the US terrorizing the communities they’ve invaded.

But there are a lot of bad hombres right here who were born in the United States, too. And I don't see that the bad hombres are disproportionately represented among the people who trudge across the border trying to open a little store, make a decent living. And I think it's a baby boy with a violent fantasy…

Please spare me the shameless attempt to create a moral equivalency. To call attention to those being committed by these animals is not to excuse the same committed by US citizens. At one time, such impudent whataboutism would have been thought to be beneath you, but there it is, on full insolent display.

The difference, as if it needed to be spelled out, is that any crimes committed by illegal aliens are that much more egregious because they are not supposed to be in this country in the first place. Hence, it is not such a stretch, nor is it at all fallacious to conclude that had they not been here, the crime would not have occurred, and an American would not be the victim of such an assault, rape or murder. You don’t see disproportional representation because you choose not to.

This vision of, “people who trudge across the border trying to open a little store, make a decent living.” is every bit the stuff of “video game fantasy” (to use your description) of which you accuse Trump vis-à-vis his description of illegal aliens crossing over the southern border from Mexico.

This, along with the rate of violent crime, not to mention the resurgence in cases of smallpox, tuberculosis, polio, rubella and a host of other diseases that had been all but eradicated until Biden opened the floodgates letting in carriers of such pestilence, thereby re-introducing third-world health problems to a society which had been largely free of them. 

Oh, there are times I almost wish I could. Or somebody else would.

Just what is it that you almost wish you could do, John? Just what is it that you wish somebody else would?

You clearly can’t bring yourself to say it, which says more about your instinct for survival and self-preservation as it seems that you feel it would be professional suicide for you to verbally express what you are thinking, and that it would be beneficial were someone to assassinate Trump.

It would seem you perceive that there are those on your side of the proverbial aisle who would consider verbalizing such a thought as being beyond the pale, which is so quaint because the left, of which you are a proud, card-carrying member, has abandoned all decency, and decorum.

Your attempt to distance yourself from such vile, vitriolic commentary (courtesy of your bi-weekly conversations with Glenn Loury) with a non-apology is pathetic.4

As Glenn points out:

...in this clip from our most recent conversation, you’ll see him apologize for making the statement without quite taking it back.

No, you shouldn’t say it anywhere. You ought to be enough of a grown-up to perish such a thought before it even occurs to you. No, it is not the smaller side of you – it is the larger side of you, now – in fact, it is you.

Glenn Loury deserves a much better, a much more intelligent, and might I add, a much more ethical intellectual sparring partner with more than a quantum of personal integrity, than yourself. 

You ought to be ashamed – and you ought to be extraordinarily grateful that Glenn counts you among his friends.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

…until next time.

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Glenn Loury

John McWhorter – Inside the Ibram X. Kendi Collapse

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2 years ago · 70 likes · 171 comments · Glenn Loury

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Glenn Loury

Did John Really Say What I Think He Said?

My friend John McWhorter is a calm, rational, reasonable guy. So I was truly shocked when he implied some weeks ago that he wished someone would assassinate Donald Trump. I thought maybe John just got carried away in the moment. But in this clip from our most recent conversation, you’ll see him apologize for making the statement without quite taking it …

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2 years ago · 63 likes · 147 comments · Glenn Loury

One of the most difficult tasks any of us ever will have, or have had to undertake is making the decision to put down a beloved elderly family pet, and then follow through. We do it, though, because it’s the humane thing to do – especially when we know that our dog or cat is in pain, has lost control of its bodily functions, and just doesn’t really have any quality of life, anymore.

It begs the question: How is it that we can be so humane to an animal, yet cannot – do not – will not extend the same courtesy to our own loved ones, especially when their quality of life is no less bleak?

One obvious answer is that our pets are not people, but animals – despite how we may interact with them. 

From our perspective, there is no benefit to us or the beloved pet continuing to suffer.

For we humans, however, suffering is a much different prospect. Despite the fact that we ultimately come to accept that it may indeed be our fate, many of us see no point to our own misery, let alone that of another – be it a parent, a sibling, and certainly not one of our own children. 

Beyond that, though, is the truth that there is not one among us who wouldn’t escape such hardship, if we could. For the one standing by as a beloved is enduring such an ordeal, to express the sentiment that you would trade places with him or her if only it were possible is noble, but likely not entirely true, even if sincere. 

The only account of a single individual suffering on behalf of others (everyone, to be specific), is found in each of the four gospels written by the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John: Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and physical death on the cross; His being temporarily forsaken,1 and His resurrection and restoration as the Son of God that spares all mankind the interminable suffering and torment we each deserve because of our sin.

Yet, even Jesus would have preferred not to have had to endure the humiliation, anguish, and torture. In what is undoubtedly his most relatable and human moment, he begs as much of God – three times!2

In discussing the agony and torment that often accompany it, let’s acknowledge a most uncomfortable truth about the matter:

Suffering is a lonely ordeal, and we endure it alone.

Yes, there may be others in physical proximity, perhaps even in contact (holding one’s hand, embracing and holding one close), but the questioning, the feeling of spiritual abandonment, the inability to comprehend what possible purpose is being served, is private.

Sharing it with others is likely to bring a tidal wave of simple, trite, platitudes that have all the depth of a wading pool along with any number of scriptures (many from the Book of Job, in particular), and exhortations to focus on the positive – so much so that one might just as well have preferred to have remained silent.

Undoubtedly, among those hackneyed, stale, and saccharine sentiments will be that suffering is part of God’s plan, that it is His will. If someone truly believes this, then I have no sympathy for them should they end up being brained by the intended recipient – but what’s more, they are missing the point – of faith, and of the tribulations that may accompany it.

To suffer a long, slow, and painful death is not God’s will. It was not God’s will that someone’s child was taken from them by a violent psychopath. It was not God’s will that young wife and her children were robbed of a husband and father by a drug addict robbing that convenience store. Not only are incidents like these not God’s will, He does not allow them to occur for his own glory.

The glibly offered justification of suffering of any kind being for God’s glory is so grossly misunderstood as to be almost criminal. On its face, it reduces the Creator of Heaven and Earth to a seemingly petty deity. A closer examination, however, reveals that it simply bears out the promise that:

…in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
–Romans 8:28

No, bad things happen in this world because evil exists.3 God is not a malevolent deity – rather, He provides comfort to the suffering, and uses tragic events that befall the undeserving for the benefit of those enduring the pain and agony of the evil that has been visited upon them.

Yet, we offer our clichéd aphorisms in an effort to be of comfort to someone so distressed because bearing witness to the pain and agony (physical, or mental) of another makes us feel most ill at ease – hence, it is as much for our own benefit as we want it to be for them.

This is not all bad, though – what might it indicate if we become so inured to the affliction of others that it becomes just another mundane task to which we must attend? It’s that detachment that enables a surgeon to do his job without emotion to cloud his judgement, after all; but not useful if we seek to empathetically share another’s hardship.

Would it be better to be so sensitive, so perceptive, as to know just how we could meet the need of the one enduring the ordeal? Without question, but most of us will never be thus – nor should we hope to be. Why? Because like anything else, that takes practice. Who wants to lose so many loved ones?

Coward that I am, I would prefer to not experience any pain and agony. Were I ever to be diagnosed with cancer, my inclination is to deny all treatment, period. The chemo, the radiation – it’s all so costly, and it means spending more time in hospitals, treatment centers, and feeling lousy more frequently than feeling well that before I know it, there’s no quality of life – but that’s my preference, not taking into account any other considerations (this is only occasionally a topic of discussion with my wife).

Just in case I haven’t adequately illustrated my point, the following might succeed where I may have failed:

This film was prescient twenty-seven years ago – how much more so, now?

Regarding what may or may not be in store for me, as an extension of my faith and perhaps as evidence of it – mine is that if I am to endure the torment of physical pain, it is for a much greater, a much higher purpose: that through my suffering, someone may come to know Christ as Lord and Saviour, as I have. In that way, it will have been an integral part of the culmination of someone else’s faith journey, per the apostle Paul’s admonition:

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
–Romans 8:18

My hope is that when it is my time, I go in the same fashion as my dad: one moment, he’s alive – preparing (with my mom), to host friends for dinner – the next, someone has turned out the lights, and he’s dead before he hits the ground – making for a much more subdued rest of the evening.

Let’s be clear, though, about what is being discussed, here: suffering, not sacrifice – though one may beget the other, it is the enduring of pain, misery, and agony of suffering either due to recovering from serious injury, that which is associated with terminal illness toward the end of one’s life, or a mental disorder that cruelly affords the afflicted the self awareness to know its physiology, and the impact of same on the psyche of the one so afflicted, that is the topic of this essay.

Regardless of the circumstances, the truth is that what we say to comfort those who are suffering matters so little in comparison to what we do.

The same holds true for a loved one in the grasp of incomprehensible sorrow, frequently in the wake of having been witness to both the suffering, and then the passing of a loved one. If you have ever been in that position, you already know the struggle of those who remain as survivors.

Despite the relief that comes with knowing that the pain of the loved one’s ordeal is over, and the burden of ministering to him or her is lifted from your shoulders, you will grieve the loss. Part of the non-linear grieving process is that you’ll wonder what you might have done or said differently – perhaps going back decades. Know that doing so serves no purpose other than to force resolution of the issue in your own mind.

Toward that end, ask the questions, answer them honestly, accept the truth (perhaps unpleasant), and then leave them in the past because there is nothing to be changed, now – which brings me to Ms. Ter Beek’s survivors. 

Not to pass judgement on any of them personally, but I cannot help but wonder if her parents are at peace with the fact that they allowed state-sponsored medical and mental-health professionals to facilitate the suicide of their own daughter. Are they at peace with the fact that they were not so alarmed that they were content to cede their daughter’s welfare to the management of others? Will it occur to them that nothing about how they responded to her desire to die – as a child, no less – was okay, or even remotely normal?

Similarly, is her boyfriend at peace with so willingly allowing the woman who was allegedly the love of his life take her own? Will he not curse himself for not wanting to do more to share her burdens, not helping to mitigate (even a little) the adversity brought on by the autism, the depression, and the borderline personality disorder?

None of those three are to be envied because when there are no more distractions, nothing left that demands attention, when it is only themselves with their own thoughts, their consciences will mercilessly accuse them of so much worse than that suggested above. The accusations will be so much more heinous than anyone can imagine.

If they are not honest with themselves, such self-accusation can quickly become self-condemnation, which will only result in guilt. If not dealt with, the guilt is compounded and becomes unbearable to the point that each may conclude the only way for their pain to end is for them to each take their own lives. Such an end would be truly tragic, and would only leave others in pain and anguish, thus continuing a most destructive cycle.

For that reason, my hope is that there are those in their lives who are able to show them that forgiveness is not only possible, it is necessary for their own well-being.

The forgiveness of our lord Jesus Christ is the only antidote for the crippling, potentially life-threatening guilt of self-condemnation. Without it, each runs the risk of losing hope, just like Zoraya did. With no hope, there is no opportunity to receive the gift of our lord’s forgiveness.

They need to know that they – that none of us – are ever beyond redemption, no matter what we’ve done. 

Consider Simon Peter (aka Peter), who had been with Jesus since the beginning of His ministry. Despite what he had seen, heard, and experienced as one of the twelve, when push came to shove he denied that he ever knew Jesus, his best friend. He denies that he was ever one of the twelve – he completely disowns Him. At this moment, he’s no better than Judas, whose guilt drove him to suicide – but Peter flees, instead.

Truth be told, Peter was only typical of each one of Jesus’ disciples during His ministry, and in the days immediately following His death on the cross. To a man, they were cowards – at best.

Despite what they had been told, the eleven of them, seemingly at loose ends and having no clue what they are to do, or what comes next, have gone back to being fishermen. Ridden with guilt (none of them dare ask out loud, “So, what do we do now?”), Peter announces he’s going fishing. He has to do something - he needs a distraction.

Back on shore, having received the blessing of a catch of fish they can’t even haul into the boat (the distraction didn’t work), Jesus specifically asks Peter three questions (three denials) and in so doing, he demonstrates that Peter has been forgiven.

[I really wish that there was a decent cinematic portrayal of Jesus restoring Peter to fellowship with him – but there isn’t, and I refuse to include any in which every character in the middle east anno domini speaks with an English accent.] This is the best I can do:

The same forgiveness made available to Peter, is available to to Mr. and Mrs. Ter Beek. It is available to Zoraya’s boyfriend, and it is available to us.

It is my hope (there it is, again) Zoraya Ter Beek’s survivors can find the forgiveness they so desperately need when they come to that realization. 

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

Addendum
Per Dear Reader John, whose most thoughtful, eloquent, and dare I say, insightful feedback in the Comments section points out, my not taking into account the passing of her father only a year ago, and the estrangement from her mother indicated a failure on my part to be sufficiently thorough in my reading and research. Hence, my treatment of them might have reflected a sensitivity and understanding that is clearly absent.

From the article:

When she turned 18, she moved out of her childhood home to live with her boyfriend, Stein. He was ten years older than her, and her parents didn’t approve of the age difference. When I first contacted her, Zoraya had been estranged from her mother and three older sisters for six years. Her father died last year from cancer. 

Dear Reader John’s opinion of me notwithstanding, the record deserves to be set straight.

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Several weeks ago now, one of my favourite writers on Substack published the following essay:

A cry for help
The piece centers on a woman who, for reasons that seem perfectly rational to her, plans on voluntarily ending her life.1 

Ter Beek, who lives in a little Dutch town near the German border, once had ambitions to become a psychiatrist, but she was never able to muster the will to finish school or start a career. She said she was hobbled by her depression and autism and borderline personality disorder. Now she was tired of living—despite, she said, being in love with her boyfriend, a 40-year-old IT programmer, and living in a nice house with their two cats. 

She recalled her psychiatrist telling her that they had tried everything, that ‘there’s nothing more we can do for you. It’s never gonna get any better.’

One of the first questions that occurred to me was: “What right does the psychiatrist have making such a judgement?” Followed immediately by: “Why would it be communicated to the patient in that manner?” and, “Isn’t that more than a little above his/her pay grade?” In any event, “‘...It’s never gonna get any better.’” strikes me as the height of arrogance. 

It sounds like she has had more than her share of adversity thus far, and who among us can say that were we in similar circumstances, wouldn’t feel the same way? Nonetheless, every one of us, unless we are of the one percent and born into a life of privilege like one of the Rothschilds, Gettys, or of the House of Saud, has had to contend with adversity, ourselves. 

For some of us, the enormity of it seems insurmountable, and whatever form the adversity takes, to that individual it is perceived to be an existential threat. There’s a difference, however, in feeling that way because of how one perceives the current condition, and the knowledge that the current condition is just that, no matter how persistent. Acknowledgement of that fact gives rise to faith, and faith to hope that it, and its effects, are temporary.

Yet, her own words would indicate that her claim of being tired of living is not entirely true: “...despite, she said, being in love with her boyfriend, a 40-year-old IT programmer, and living in a nice house with their two cats.”

There’s no point in unboxing the incongruity of the two sentiments, as their self-contradiction is apparent. Mental illness aside, who wants to end her own life if one is in love with her mate? 

Does she mean to express that given her depression, autism, and borderline personality disorder; life, for her, is extremely difficult? Okay, granted – but again, for whom is it not? The fact that life is difficult is no excuse to give up and end it. 

Get off my lawn…
Every generation until the Millennials has had to cope with the fact that life that was difficult in one way or another. Everyone learned (usually, early on – one of the first lessons common to all) that life was not fair – it rarely, if ever, went according to plan. It required hard work, perseverance, persistence; and for the sake of their children, a resolve to leave their current place in society better than what they assumed from their forbears. 

Time was when knowing one’s place in the much larger whole – not in terms of caste, or class immobility – was an ethos common to almost everyone. It was an unconscious acceptance of the reality that one’s sphere of influence was likely limited to one’s own relationships like family, friends, and neighbours.

This ethos facilitated the establishment of the traditional family as the foundation and building block of western society – hence the husband (as the head of the household) made his wife the top priority, then his kids. In this way, husbands fulfilled their spiritual and moral obligation to love their wives as Christ loved the church, lead their families, and model for their son(s) how to be a man, a husband, a father; and for their daughter(s), the kind of man they ought to marry.

All of this at the expense of his own personal aspirations and dreams that might have sought to replace the call to put his family, first. For this reason, folks got up and went to work every morning, regardless of how they felt, because there were others depending on them, and it made for a kind of built-in humility. Because there just wasn’t opportunity for inwardly focused navel gazing, no one was so conceited, or so arrogant as to believe that they not only could, but had an obligation to “change the world” at large on a macro scale. Yet, they did just that by each making their own worlds better.

It can be argued that then, as now, we were no less self-centered, and it is a valid argument. It should be pointed out, however, the difference is that then, for much of one’s life, one’s self was devoted to others – mainly, one’s family. Now, one’s self is devoted to selfish interest (not self-interest), seeking ease and comfort for one’s self first, above all else. 

Am I painting with an extremely broad brush, here? Yes, I am – to make a point – and while human nature has not changed, it does respond to, and is temporarily modified, by external forces acting upon it.

Returning to Ms. Ter Beek’s plight, those like her who suffer from depression in varying degrees and who are also all too aware of it, along with those who are also sympathetic to them will immediately claim that it isn’t that easy – that it isn’t just a matter of changing one’s mind. They are correct – it isn’t easy – the more complications, the more difficult it is to overcome.

It is that simple, though. Medication may help, but more than likely, it will not.

Lest anyone hold my view as unrealistic, or even that of a Polly Anna, the aforementioned facts are not offered without acknowledging that overcoming such adversity is extraordinarily difficult. In fact, the enormity of it can only appear to be all but impossible. How could it not be? Yet, it is not.

Shouting at clouds…
Part of the larger problem, as I see it, is that for some reason, instead of being encouraged to cope with situations and circumstances that are unpleasant or difficult, accommodations have been made for such shrinking violets.

Making accommodations for one who is clearly physically disabled is only reasonable. Making accommodations for someone who merely manic, excessively emotional, vegetarian or vegan, willfully triggered by microaggressions (whatever the hell those are), is madness. 

There is a difference between those who are unable to adapt, and those who simply refuse to. From politically correct speech to meaningless language to mental illness to sexual deviance – what once was utter nonsense has become the norm in its own right.

In the case of sexual deviance, what was once shameful and something to be kept to one’s self is now out in the open and to be celebrated – even if one’s personal ethics don’t support the abomination of the moment: homosexuality, pedophilia, polyamory and any other “substitute” for the institution of marriage between one woman and one man. Our society, in its depraved state, has forced everyone else to adapt to the freaks.

Had we not begun to allow for these deviations, we would have had no choice but to learn to tolerate views and opinions we don’t like; legal immigrants would have had no choice but to learn to speak, read, and write English – and when it became clear that one was simply refusing to do so, it would have been a dead give-away that they were here illegally, and one phone call to INS would have meant immediate deportation. If one’s libido was stimulated by anything other than the opposite sex, that was something they would have had to manage on their own.

Regarding the matter of suicide, what occurs to me is this:

There is nothing to prevent anyone so inclined to end his/her own life.

In responses to this topic and others similar in other publications on Substack, once one has crossed that Rubicon and made the decision, there is almost no reversing it. I know that of which I speak, having come this close.2 At the end of the day, it is a most permanent solution to what is a temporary problem, by any standard.

The real issue here is the immorality of the argument in favour of state-sanctioned, physician-assisted suicide. It is an immoral argument not because one who is so suffering wishes to end his/her life, and not because said sufferer desires the state’s blessing to do so – rather, it is an immoral argument because in codifying the option into law, said sufferer is involving another. I am judging the argument to be immoral based on the sixth commandment:3

Not much, if any, nuance there.

Given that most of the laws in the US, if not the western world are modeled on Judeo-Christian ethics, a judgement that such a law is, in fact, immoral is done so on pretty good authority. I can only conclude that the only reason one would involve another is that the one suffering wishes to escape most of the accountability for the act, if not absolve themselves entirely. 

To further complicate matters, when that second party is a medical authority, not only is that physician an accessory to the crime of homicide, he/or she is directly and intentionally violating what I understand to be a foundational principle of the Hippocratic oath:4 

This is a slippery slope – we were warned of this forty-five years ago now, by the late Francis Shaeffer, Ph.D., and C. Everett Koop, M.D., in the book and accompanying film series, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?

One of the questions that occurred to me which I did not mention above is, “Why would the psychiatrist completely take away her hope, like that?”

Sadly, Zoraya Ter Beek died at 1:25pm, local time, on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. Per The Free Press account:5

Even as a child, Zoraya ter Beek had a persistent wish to die. Growing up in the quaint Dutch town of Oldenzaal, she never felt as if she fit in.

It is tragic that she never received the kind of help she desperately needed.

I happen to agree with the late Hal Lindsey:

Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air...but only for one second without hope.

Hope
For the rest of us, and any who may be suffering similar to Ms. Ter Beek, there is help.

There is hope.

Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

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1

The Free Press

‘I’m 28. And I’m Scheduled to Die in May.’

Zoraya ter Beek, 28, expects to be euthanized in early May. Her plan, she said, is to be cremated. “I did not want to burden my partner with having to keep the grave tidy,” ter Beek texted me. “We have not picked an urn yet, but that will be my new house…

Read more

2 years ago · 654 likes · 1232 comments · Rupa Subramanya

5

The Free Press

She Was 29. And Doctors Helped Her Die.

Even as a child, Zoraya ter Beek had a persistent wish to die. Growing up in the quaint Dutch town of Oldenzaal, she never felt as if she fit in. At the age of 21, she was diagnosed with autism; a ye…

Read more

2 years ago · 120 likes · 331 comments · Rupa Subramanya

bad cattitude

come for the cat. stay for the toxoplasmosis.

By el gato malo

One is:

bad cattitude

sunday memepool

sometimes you need to fake it till you make it and can grow into the sort of hero that the times demand…

Read more

2 years ago · 242 likes · 18 comments · el gato malo

…and the other is usually titled by whatever theme has been revealed by the memes used to put it together.

On Sunday, May 19, it was the very first image in the post, and the internal ruminations it precipitated along with the examination of the reasons behind said ruminations that led me to begin writing this essay. 

My view of the retailer Abercrombie & Fitch has almost always been one with a bit of a jaundiced eye. 

When I began my research, I had largely forgotten why, but quickly remembered. It was this all too candid admission from A&F’s CEO in an interview from 2006 that resurfaced in 2013:1

That's why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that. ... In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.

This rubbed me all the wrong ways – not because he wasn’t being honest or that A&F wasn’t completely within its rights to effect such a marketing strategy. No, it did so because I was not one of the cool kids in school – I was immediately transported back to when I was in junior high, and learned the hard way.

The cool kids were often bullies, and were frequently given a pass for truly abhorrent behaviour because either their athletic or political prowess reflected well on the school as a whole; or their family’s influence, (exercised through financial resources, reputation, or power) made them untouchable in this regard. The world was already theirs – and here was a retailer successfully catering not just to their immutable physical attributes, but their arrogance and narcissism, as well.

With those remarks, all Mike Jeffries did was show everyone who he was. Revisiting this gaffe lo these many years hence, and given the controversy that followed, I’m finding it necessary to ask a number of questions that beg to be answered:

• Why should he be expected to be any more enlightened, or considerate, than anyone in his company’s target market?

  He simply was the grown-up (not adult) version of the demographic to whom A&F appeals.

• Why the outrage – why should he be expected to go out of his way to not offend? 

• Are his character flaws somehow worse than anyone else’s, or even our own?

• Why should he be forced to apologize? 

• Why should he be forced to say he didn’t mean it, and to express sentiments to appease the offended?

  Never mind the insincerity of it all.

• Why should I enjoy any schadenfreude at the expense of A&F?

• Why delight at the blowback in response to the candor of then-CEO Mike Jeffries?
  If nothing else, at the very least, he was only being honest.

• Should such candor and honesty be condemned by those of us who might choose to be so offended?

If one is to be every bit as candid in reflection, I submit that such condemnation is borne of fear. Not fear of not being one of the cool kids in the clique, but rather what that might mean should the cool kids ever become capable of bullying and punishing those who are not like them. Fear that the story told in the novel, Lord of the Flies, might come to life. Given what has been occurring not just in the past eight years, but since social media platforms became almost the sole province of the left, it cannot be dismissed – it is not a phobia. 

Exclusivity as a selling point…better than sex?
Clearly, being exclusionary is a key component of A&F’s marketing efforts, and like it or not, A&F is an excellent example of marketing not just clothing, but a lifestyle – one which we are led to believe is available only to an elite.

How then, is A&F’s marketing strategy any different from that of, say, Rolex timepieces, Cartier or Tiffany jewelry; Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dooney & Bourke, or some of the higher-end Coach-brand leather goods; BMW, Audi, Bentley/Rolls-Royce; or any other brand that seeks to position itself as an exclusive brand catering only to the one percent (or more likely, the one percent wannabes)?

It is my understanding that among the ultra-wealthy, the trend is toward clothing, accessories, and other material goods with no outwardly visible logo indicating a particular brand. No little alligator, map of the Canadian arctic, or sheep suspended by a ribbon around its midsection.2 

Until the backlash against the retailer in 2013 became public, I had regarded A&F in much the same way as I did any other retailer or designer label whose target demographic was a decidedly younger crowd who also happened to be thin – if it was profitable, more power to them. 

Let’s explore a little further and compare A&F with a very similar retailer of men’s and women’s clothing with classic lines and silhouettes – J. Crew (think what Brooks Brothers once was to men’s clothing, and/or what Talbot’s is to women’s) only for a younger crowd. While much of its clothing appeals to a wide spectrum of potential customers, most pieces only fit those who are tall and thin. I know this because eons ago, when I was in corporate retail and needed to dress in a manner befitting my role (custom-tailored suits, sport coats, trousers, shirts), I paged through the catalog, and purchased one or two garments. When trying on the jacket, it was clear that it was not a standard 42R. 

Brief lesson in men’s tailored clothing: There is a difference in the fit of two garments which are the same size, from two different designers – a 42R suit coat from Hugo Boss or Tommy Hilfiger is going to fit much differently than a 42R suit coat from Burberry or Dior Homme. Don’t Levi’s fit differently than Lee’s? Any garment from J. Crew, it seemed, despite the drawings, was cut for one who was very slender, and of a much more delicate build.

At the time, I was still barely young enough to find some of the more classic items appealing, but not being tall and thin, not one for whom J. Crew’s clothing is intended. As low as was my self-esteem at the time, it wasn’t such that I was even remotely willing to entertain trying to become something I was not, just to be able to wear a beautifully constructed, three-button, 100% wool, gray herringbone sport coat. In that way, J. Crew is every bit as exclusive, or exclusionary as A&F – it just isn’t as honest about it. It was only after Jeffries’ remarks had resurfaced that its corporate ethos got under my skin. 

Context – or lack thereof – strikes again!
It was disappointing to learn that he had been bullied by hypersensitive scolds into issuing a clarification, and just like the one Matt Maloney, CEO of Grubhub offered after he had slandered then-president-elect Donald Trump and smeared his supporters, Jeffries’ was every bit as insincere and contradictory:

‘I want to address some of my comments that have been circulating from a 2006 interview. While I believe this seven-year-old, resurrected quote has been taken out of context, I sincerely regret that my choice of words was interpreted in a manner that has offended.’ He also stated, ‘We are completely opposed to any discrimination, bullying, derogatory characterizations or other anti-social behavior based on race, gender, body type or other individual characteristics.’

Is he kidding? Discrimination, bullying, derogatory characterizations and other anti-social behavior based on race, gender, body type or other individual characteristics has been money in the bank for A&F!

Again – which is it? It’s as if the moment he’s called out on it, he’s possessed of the ghost of Eddie Haskell from, Leave It to Beaver, trying to hide his character’s true colours upon noticing June Cleaver’s presence. 

Wally, if your dumb brother tags along, I'm gonna — oh, good afternoon, Mrs. Cleaver. I was just telling Wallace how pleasant it would be for Theodore to accompany us to the movies.

Up until that moment, A&F had been making money hand-over-fist, enjoyed dominance in its niche in the marketplace, and was as successful as any retailer could ever hope to be by being the corporate equivalent of the guy whose face you just want to punch.

Suddenly, the company was opposed to everything for which it stood and was the reason for its success? If true, then what the hell is its mission? I don’t recall if shortly thereafter there was, suddenly, a token fatty, a token nerd, or any other kind of kid who was not cool in each store – it’s not likely.

In my mind, the critical distinction between A&F and J. Crew, along with every other brand marketing an exclusive lifestyle, was the message that:

was not an integral part of its company and brand ethos.3 I’m not being told that I’m worthless because I can’t afford a Rolex, or because I don’t drive an Audi.

It does require intellectual effort, to be sure, but a distinction ought to be made between the flawed individual who is the CEO of an enterprise, and the enterprise, itself – its mission, its reputation as a corporate citizen in its community, et al., and not conflating the human foibles of one with the other. As appealing as it could be for the right one, a company is not the people it employs, the managers who run it, or the owners who took the risk in founding it.

Grudging respect for a marketing genius
Again, regardless of whatever one’s personal feelings may be toward Mr. Jeffries or A&F, there is no way it could ever have purchased the publicity that came with the backlash – Roger Dooley of Forbes was absolutely correct.4 

One's first reaction is probably that Jeffries is a world-class jerk.

It’s nice to know I wasn’t the only one…

...competitors, American Eagle and H&M, welcome their less svelte customers by offering a full range of sizes. And his mean-spirited comments certainly seem like bad business. According to the CDC, more than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese - A&F would be crazy to not just ignore, but alienate, such a huge part of the market, right?

Wrong.

Before we write off Jeffries as an out-of-touch elitist, let's think about the apparel market. It's enormous, and many, if not most, brands focus on a particular demographic group.

…A&F [and] its competitors - …target the teen (and just beyond) market, and generate massive sales. In fact, an apparel brand that tries to appeal to everyone will likely appeal to nobody.

As much as one might want to deny it, that’s a fact.

What Jeffries has done with years of obnoxious, exclusionary comments is sharpen the brand identity of A&F, and portray its customers as a select group - young, attractive, and popular. When he says he doesn't want customers who don't fit that image, he's making his current customers more loyal and making the prospect of becoming a customer more attractive.

Attracting new customers is difficult, and very costly. Gaining new customers organically (customers who had no previous relationship with the brand – who came to purchase as a result of an online search, for example) is a crap-shoot, at best.

What most retailers value almost more than anything else, are customers who are loyal to the brand, who make purchases repeatedly, and who spend more with each transaction. New customers are most likely to be referrals from peers who are already customers. 

Retailers who compete for the same customer profile and/or demographic, are not seeking to lure away the customers of competitors – rather, they want to identify those who will be its own future customers, and the best way to do that is to make sure that those who are currently loyal to the brand are its evangelists to their peers, their friends, and their younger brothers and sisters – and it works.

In this way, Jeffries is a true marketing and brand-management genius.5

You may cringe at the comparison, but Jeffries' strategy isn't dissimilar to that of another abrasive CEO, the late Steve Jobs. As I described in Build Loyalty Like Apple: Define Your Enemy, for decades Apple turned its customers into fanatical advocates in part by portraying them as cool and creative while mocking PC users as uncool bumblers or corporate drones.

In my last post, I had explored the human tendency to form cliques, in-crowds, and how the cool kids come into their own, dominate the others in the very small world of high school, and that dynamic re-emerging among so-called adults courtesy of the left’s control of almost every social media platform. The Forbes article goes on to make an excellent observation re: group identity, one that I wish I’d known of as I was composing it:

Psychologist Henri Tajfel demonstrated that the tiniest and most irrelevant distinctions could cause people to form a group and identify with that group. If something as trivial as a coin flip can build group identity, imagine the power of defining your customer group as ‘hot and popular’ and non-customers as ‘unattractive and unliked.’

The more talk there is of boycotts, the more clothes A&F will sell. Those customers who can find their sizes at A&F (and don't get thrown out of the store for being insufficiently hot), now become part of the ‘in’ group.

Every time a critic trumpets, ‘Mike Jeffries is terrible for not wanting overweight or unattractive people in his stores,’ they are propagating the exact branding message he's trying to promote. Will A&F lose a few customers because of their obnoxious CEO and corporate ethos? Probably.

I wouldn’t have bet on that.

But it will be no surprise if they end up adding new customers and increasing sales even as the controversy rages.

Nonetheless, despite a twenty-one percent drop in its stock price in 2017,6 the enterprise has since recovered and is thriving. My conclusion is that the market may respond to efforts borne of moral outrage, but to paraphrase a popular aphorism, the market doesn’t care about your feelings.

Uncool
As was mentioned earlier, at school I was never one of the cool kids, and I didn’t move in circles even tangentially adjacent to that crowd (truth be told, I was better for it). Decades later, though, there came this bit of validation from the film, Almost Famous:

As Lester Bangs so eloquently said to young Mr. Miller:

The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.

God help me, I love that line.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

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Michael Jordan’s quip, “Republicans buy sneakers, too” may have been, as he later described it, in jest and off the cuff – nonetheless, it reflects a maturity that now seems to have been beyond his years, at the time.1

‘But I never thought of myself as an activist. I thought of myself as a basketball player.

I wasn't a politician when I was playing my sport. I was focused on my craft.’

Jordan…doubled down on his position.

‘It's never going to be enough for everybody, and I know that,’ he said. ‘I realize that. Because everybody has a preconceived idea for what I should do and what I shouldn't do.’

‘The way I go about my life is I set examples. If it inspires you? Great, I will continue to do that. If it doesn't? Then maybe I'm not the person you should be following.’

This reflects a worldview that is all but extinct, except for an ever-decreasing demographic who came of age in a time when the makers and retailers of all manner of consumer goods only really cared about selling their products to more people. This focus drove innovation, improvements in quality, and a quest to be able to command a premium price because of a reputation for a high-quality, reliable product. Where that product wasn’t tangible, it was about the service (or the experience, even though no one referred to it that way, then).

For example, it used to be that within seconds of entering a McDonald’s restaurant, you were greeted with, “Welcome to McDonald’s! May I take your order?” by a live person (usually a teenage girl) behind the counter, smiling, and seemingly sincerely grateful that you had selected that McDonald’s location for your meal. The restaurant was clean, the trash receptacles were emptied frequently so as not to be overflowing with refuse, and there was nothing to indicate that anyone had been at your table before you sat down.2

This is recounted to illustrate that there was a time when business – regardless of its size, its scale, its products, its services, what its owners and/or employees believed, or anything else – was about business, and only business. It was the only thing that mattered within the confines of that shop, store, garage, factory, or office.

A changing of the guard, so to speak…
To anyone who has been paying any attention to what has been happening certainly for the last decade, but more likely the last twenty years, the private sector is no longer the province of apolitical commercial enterprises that once existed for one purpose and one purpose only: to make a profit. Now, that private sector has fissured into two distinct entities – the Corporate Class, and what I will refer to as the Small Business, Trades & Entrepreneurship Class.

The Corporate Class is an affiliation of large-scale bureaucratic enterprises that seem to succeed in spite of their size, given that they rival only the federal government in their reach, impact and influence in the lives of Americans, especially those who are employed by these behemoths. More often than not, each of these multinational corporations’ C-level executives’ personal political ideology and worldview is one of a seemingly benign fascism, and they are better able to more closely align their enterprises’ missions with authoritarian and tyrannical governments of foreign nations (read as China) – frequently with the impramatur of their institutional shareholders (often the majority), who are also similarly ideologically oriented.

Domestically, the Corporate Class almost as a whole is in bed with the Marxist Democrat establishment. In contrast, the SBT&E Class is in bed with no one as each enterprise continues to exist solely to make a profit. Its champion, indirectly, is President Donald Trump not only because he understands what it is to run a business as a business, but also because he’s the only one standing between a tyrannical government that would nationalize every going concern that managed to survive the regulatory and tax purge. 

Incidentally, this has happened, before.

In the 1960s, America’s private sector worked hand-in-hand with Democrat presidents Kennedy, then Johnson. Courtesy of Kennedy’s visionary challenge to the nation, America’s technology sector, and industries that enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the emerging aerospace, aerospace design, engineering & manufacturing, and computer industries benefited greatly from the endeavour of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. Many larger enterprises in other industries benefited from President Johnson’s Great Society initiatives, while the military-industrial complex thrived under his continued escalation of the war in Southeast Asia.

Anecdotally speaking, the difference between the two eras of public-private cooperation is largely one of perception. The CEOs of those enterprises in the 1960s that were on board with these federal government-driven initiatives were so only as long as that partnership didn’t adversely effect the company’s bottom line – there was the sense that as soon as the arrangement was a liability, it would end almost instantly. Said enterprises were not dependent on federal subsidies or protection via onerous regulations that froze out competition for their survival as a going concern.  

In the post war era, this nation’s Captains of Industry – products of the Silent Generation, and those of the Greatest Generation that followed – are the ones who built the world’s strongest, most robust, and most prosperous economy. Due almost entirely to attrition, they have in large part been replaced by Millennial Corporals and Staff Sergeants of Organizational Bureaucracy, who lack both a moral imperative, and genuine principle.

An only seemingly overnight transformation
As one might expect, this decades-in-the-making watershed dovetails nicely with the evolution of social media from MySpace to Facebook and beyond. More specifically, the left’s hijacking of social media outlets like Facebook, then Twitter (now X), and Google’s willingness to promote content that supports the left’s narrative via its search engine’s algorithm while the same suppresses and shadow-bans content that does not – merely confirms the suspicion it is leveraging its control to put at a distinct disadvantage anyone who dares to dissent. Additionally, YouTube’s blocking and de-monetizing content that challenges the left’s narrative (and perhaps denying completely creators’ only means to generate revenue from their own content) speaks to this disturbing and unholy new alliance.

Suddenly, any enterprise with a presence on any social media platform needed to make certain it was signaling the right virtue, especially when it came to Pride Day/Week/Month lest it run afoul of the rainbow authoritarians3 – never mind that in some instances, certain endeavours and pursuits faced being shut down or driven out of existence if compliance (read as celebration) was not sufficient.4

All doubt about corporate America being apolitical was removed following the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016. The most notable example that occurs to me is the email that the CEO of GrubHub sent to employees5 which read:

‘I absolutely reject the nationalist, anti-immigrant and hateful politics of Donald Trump and will work to shield our community from this movement as best as I can,’ Matt Maloney wrote.

‘I want to reaffirm to anyone on our team that is scared or feels personally exposed, that I and everyone else here at Grubhub will fight for your dignity and your right to make a better life for yourself and your family here in the United States.’

‘If you do not agree with this statement then please reply to this email with your resignation because you have no place here,’ Maloney wrote. ‘We do not tolerate hateful attitudes on our team.’

The immediate pushback was successful, however, even if all it did was expose the utter hypocrisy and stupidity of allowing one’s allegiance to the group and groupthink drive policy and decision-making.

Shortly thereafter, came a clarification6 (as if his sentiment wasn’t abundantly clear):

‘Some of the statements in my email (please see full text below) have been misconstrued. I want to clarify that I did not ask for anyone to resign if they voted for Trump,’ clarified Maloney in a statement. ‘I would never make such a demand. To the contrary, the message of the email is that we do not tolerate discriminatory activity or hateful commentary in the workplace, and that we will stand up for our employees. Grubhub welcomes and accepts employees with all political beliefs, no matter who they voted for in this or any election. We do not discriminate on the basis of someone’s principles, or political or other beliefs.’

Well, which is it? To me, it sounds like he wants it both ways – to burnish one’s DEI (Didn’t Earn It), anti-Trump credentials, or actually BE diverse and inclusive by focusing on the business, and its mission.

“‘I would never make such a demand.’” – except he did!

Not so long ago, the CEO’s emotionally driven outburst as a statement of policy would have been an act of commercial – maybe even professional – suicide. Make no mistake, though – GrubHub took a little bit of a hit in the immediate aftermath, but has long since recovered, proving that alienating potentially half of a potential market was not harmful to an enterprise.

Indeed, it wasn’t – why is that?

There are probably a number of reasons, but mine is that it boils down to two:

First is a preference for association with a larger group and along with that a natural aversion to being different or oustide the mainstream.
Second is the increasing sophistication of marketing technology that enables large-scale enterprises to obtain an extraordinary amount of information about their customers, and the market(s) served.

The Group
Let’s examine the first one – preference for association with a larger group.

For all but a handful of individuals, the power of the group and groupthink is like the ‘borg in that Star Trek movie

…and all but irresistible. 

It begins in grade school. No one likes to be the outsider, the one who is different.7 It often means being the object of teasing and mocking on the playground at recess. In junior high, then high school, cliques begin to form, and most find where they fit in – the rebels without causes (or clues), jocks and cheerleaders, nerds and geeks, and of course, the drama club.8

Not everyone assimilates into a group, however. There are some who for whatever reason, opt to not be part of any larger whole. Regardless of the reason, such a characteristic bodes well for those who possess it, as will be demonstrated later in this discussion.

After high school, those cliques and associations vanish only to be replaced by new ones – at college, these typically are fraternities,9 clubs, or secret societies; a much larger one if the military is the destination, post graduation. Nonetheless, in the days before the left assumed ownership of social media in constructing its utopia, most everyone shed the trappings of the grade-school playground and high-school cafeteria to become mature adults and move beyond such juvenile and sophomoric behaviour – or so it seemed – the power of social media to quickly create virtual cliques, in-crowds, and “otherize” those who didn’t toe the party line merely awakened the inner high schoolers that apparently had only laid dormant since graduation. 

If you’ve been a member in good standing with the crowd, you become accustomed to exemption from ridicule, and just as unconsciously become confident of your status in the group. Eventually, your sense of self-worth is a function of that status, and you become more and more invested in it. 

Now, just imagine when your cohort comes to own not only popular culture, “news” and entertainment media, but consumer and commercial finance, the machinery of government at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels as well. Imagine also that it has also managed to marginalize and disenfranchise all who are not members, labeling them as hostile or a threat.

An unintended consequence of blind allegiance to the group – any group, over time – is the loss of critical-thinking skills. Eventually, one almost unknowingly forfeits the ability to think for one’s self, because the group’s hivemind does it, instead – and the hivemind takes its marching orders from those that stand to gain the most from the status quo, even if it means suffering for everyone else, even those in the larger group but not among the elite. This is a constant across all collectives where the power of those in leadership (either expressly or tacitly) is unchecked. If this is not clear from observing events since early 2016, might I recommend re-reading George Orwell’s, Animal Farm, or William Golding’s, Lord of the Flies?

The difference is that no one is coming to our rescue – that’s up to us.

Marketing technology and big data
Let’s now examine the second – the ever-evolving sophistication of marketing technology, or MarTech. Marketing technology has provided both commercial and non-for-profit enterprises with a constantly improving capability to apply the latest innovations to their research efforts, and it has yielded extraordinary results. These organizations have at their fingertips a wealth of information about their best customers; their best and most loyal donors, subscribers, and most zealous evangelists.

The data collected can be mined to develop highly detailed profiles that identify potential and likely donors; prospective users that can most likely be converted into repeat customers for those enterprises conducting commerce online. With big data, they can be contacted via ads and other messaging on web pages they’re viewing at any given time. In other words, these enterprises and organizations know almost exactly who is receptive to any given message, and since these entities also know that these users are also likely become revenue and/or donor streams, alienating those who do not fit the profile is not much of a concern, if it is one at all.  

Mr. Maloney’s misreading of his company’s employees notwithstanding, he had a pretty good idea even before he shot off his mouth that there would be very little if any appreciable damage to GrubHub’s bottom line beyond the next call with the analysts.

Think different – literally…
The power of social media to virtually re-create high school isn’t helpful, but it is not the reason that propaganda apparatus-driven groupthink has taken hold of the sensibilities of those now in charge of so much of our society, and so many of our institutions. That reason, to my way of thinking, is a mindset and worldview – a common ethos, if you will – among those of the Silent, and Greatest Generations that is as different as that of the Baby Boom Generation as night and day.

That common ethos is a more than firm grasp of American government, its organization (three distinct branches, each with one other serving as a check and balance of power on the one remaining to which too much power may be accruing) and its place in the American social and societal order, but also an appreciation of this nation’s founding as a constitutional republic. It is more than a casual knowledge of the constitution and the reasons the founders intended government to be small, and its power severely limited.

All of this knowledge was imparted to every student in elementary and high school through the better part of the most recent century via civics courses. Armed with such knowledge, many were emboldened as adults to stand up for their rights at some point. In the process of doing so, they helped to preserve as well as defend their constitutionally protected civil liberties against violation by both private and public entities – for a little while, at least. 

Classic Civics
A classic civics education engenders a sense of patriotism to varying degrees as well as one of American exceptionalism, and a healthy nationalism. This is unavoidable because a classic civics education requires a critical examination of American history, with special emphasis on the years preceding the declaration of independence, and the years after ratification of the constitution.

The more one learns about these eras and the people who played significant roles in the founding of this nation, the more one realizes just what an extraordinary country is the United States of America. 

Along with the aforementioned is a heightened awareness of the forces at work seeking to destroy America and all it represents – and that awareness among so many is likely what most vexes the left.

While there is no clear indication of just when classic civics disappeared from the landscape of public school districts’ curricula nationwide, consensus points to the middle to late 1960s. I submit that it was such course content and the lessons applied that in retrospect, was a most effective backstop against the official government-approved madness we see today.

It has been my view that the quiet deep-sixing of civics courses was by design – part of the left’s long game to slowly, strategically, and systematically decimate America from within. It was no accident there was also a reduced emphasis on other subjects that help to develop critical-thinking skills10 – courses like rhetoric and forensics, and assignments like writing term papers which helped to develop research skills, as well.

In many high schools, first-year composition is still a required course, but there is growing support for its elimination11 due to the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence and its ever increasing presence in virtually all aspects of academic life – but we’re veering off topic, here.

With the benefit of hindsight, its elegantly simple design is easy to see: by removing institutional reinforcement of patriotism, nationalism, and American exceptionalism; replacing civics courses with ‘social studies’ that focus on seemingly insoluble problems, sowing divisiveness based on immutable characteristics to breed animosity between the genders and ethnicities; then substituting appeals to emotion for critical thinking and reason, the most immediate and formidable threat to the emergence of an authoritarian state – a populace whose people are by and large, able to think for themselves – is all but removed.

If you don’t believe me, take George Carlin’s word for it.12

Civics is dead. Long live Civics!
The civics courses making a resurgence today are undoubtedly taught with a decidedly Marxist orientation. An online search via Google will return an untold number or articles on the importance of teaching civics to prevent a repeat of the election of Donald Trump, and how censorship and the abridgment of certain rights by a Democrat administration is actually consistent with the constitution – something for which I do not possess the intellectual agility to even begin to understand.

Personally, I found it peculiar how many on the left suddenly embraced the legitimacy of the tenth amendment when President Trump was in office. If one invoked the same in opposition to any legislative endeavour of the Obama administration, one was immediately condemned as a racist.

It’s that aforementioned blind allegiance to the collective – identifying as a member of the group first, and in the process forfeiting one’s own agency that so starkly contrasts with one who stands apart from the herd by virtue of a clear idea of one’s identity, regardless of all else.

Though a minority, to be sure, but not as small in number as one might be led to believe – iconoclasts, regardless of their time, are the ones among us who, possessed of uncommon resolve persevere in the face of opposition, are able to blaze new trails that challenge and in some cases, even alter convention.

Examples might be Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Steve Jobs, H. Ross Perot, and perhaps even Elon Musk – men whose achievements were driven by ideas – not necessarily only to amass wealth (for if that were the purpose, they could have chosen any number of other well-traveled roads). No, each had a vision.

It is more than a little ironic that the massive enterprise that emerged from the personal computer built in Jobs’ parents’ garage would cynically co-opt some of the more notable, relatively contemporary non-conformists for a purpose as pedestrian as a corporate advertising campaign.

Those mavericks didn’t start out seeking to challenge the conventional wisdom of their day – they weren’t looking to cause trouble. Yet, some were even considered to be dangerous (at least, to the keepers of the status quo), and there is none more dangerous than one who has awakened to the complete moral and ethical decay of the group with which they once identified or the cause it championed – and not only awake to it, but cannot help but call out the apostasy of the vanguard – publicly, if necessary. See Martin Luther, Malcolm X, or David Horowitz.

It isn’t necessarily anything as significant as calling out the Roman Catholic Church for its practice of selling indulgences, or demonstrating peacefully for civil rights against the backdrop of the Jim Crow-era south – rather, it’s usually something as benign as simply expressing principled dissent from that held by most of the rest of the larger group, particularly those who are either officially or tacitly its leadership. See Bret Weinstein, Ph.D, Robert Malone, M.D., and Ilya Shapiro.13 14

The bravery of those who question, who stand up for what is right – is not to be underestimated or even dismissed. It carries a cost: perhaps loss of career & livelihood, a sterling reputation, or friends and colleagues; and many have paid that price. See Alex Jones, Rudy Giuliani, the Freedom Convoy truckers in Canada, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Sasha Stone.15

Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

A rumination on the collapse of culture on the left. Is it really that bad? Yes, it is really that bad.

Each would likely deny that he or she is a hero, or that his or her taking a stand is heroic, but each is proof that:

The good news is that all of us can take heart and encouragement from these free and independent thinkers, these visionaries. We can emulate them in our own lives, in our own communities. Here’s how:

• Attend the next caucus in your precinct, and if one is there who is that lone voice of reason challenging the leftist status quo, stand with him or her.

• Attend the next town hall-style meeting of one of your representatives, and if one is there who is challenging said representative as to why he or she is not serving your interests, stand with him or her – maybe this time you are the one with the courage to speak.

The tyranny of the current regime is giving rise to those who have had it up to here with the invasion facilitated by an open southern border, a fentanyl epidemic that makes the Chinese flu look like a localized outbreak of nothing more lethal than the common cold, the hoax of a global pandemic, and inflation that makes those of us who work for a living yearn for the late 1970s – and there are more and more of us, every day.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

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The Free Press

How Ideologues Infiltrated the Arts

Last month, we brought you John Sailer’s investigation into how diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are supplanting the core mission of our nation’s universities—putting social justice ahead of the search for the truth. Today, The Free Press brings you our second story in this series, showing how these …

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4 years ago · 909 likes · 660 comments · Rikki Schlott

In my last piece, I committed to a second installment on the business of addiction rehab and recovery – it is still coming, but there’s too much work to be done, first. This is much more timely, and there is more to say in this one, than in the other. So, with that…

Look closely at the face of this woman.

If you feel you have the stomach, read more about her, here.

On Tuesday, January 9, courtesy of a phone call from Joey Cataloupe’s mother, we learned that a court in California had awarded her one hundred percent custody, and that he was to be returned to her within ten days. We were devastated, and in a state of shock for most of the remainder of the afternoon until we had to pass the news along to him.

As is typical of a child who has been robbed of his childhood by an alcoholic parent (and all too frequently has had to be the parent), he was stoic as we explained as best we could what had happened despite our promise to him that we would not allow this very thing to occur.

The next day, an official copy of the court’s decree (with several restraining orders against his father) arrived, confirming that of which she had informed us. The decree stipulated that The Kid be returned to the custody of his mother in California no later than Sunday, January 21.

On Thursday, January 18, our time as the guardians of The Kid came to an end. We saw him on to a Southwest Airlines flight to California, where he would be met by his mother, and her aunt.

For the record, given our respective ages, it was unlikely that we would have been Joey Cantaloupe’s unofficial guardians indefinitely. In fact, he was living with us only because his father was at risk of losing custody not to The Kid’s mother but to the Child Services division of the California Department of Social Services’ foster care system.

As long as The Kid was in his father’s custody, however, he was free to see to his son’s welfare to the best of his ability. At The Kid’s grandmother’s urging, he was able to see that sending him to live with us was best for all involved, but especially for Joey Cantaloupe. We were fully expecting that once the school year was finished, and as summer vacation was coming to an end, he would want to return to California to live with his dad.

How It Happened
To the best of our knowledge, shortly after The Kid’s mother learned that he was living with us here in Texas, she (at the direction of her aunt), began the legal proceedings that would result in a hearing to determine who would retain custody of him. The fact that he had been enrolled in school for the remainder of the academic year seemed to only serve as further impetus for her.

On the date of the hearing, The Kid’s father was not in attendance, effectively forfeiting the opportunity to retain and preserve his rights. The reason – not an excuse – he failed to appear is because except for the time he was here visiting (between the day after Christmas and when he returned home after the new year), for most of the latter half of last year, he was drunk. As a result, among the other responsibilities that went neglected was the regular collection of personal mail, and one of the pieces of mail he failed to open in time was the summons to appear in court. His contention that said summons being invalid if not delivered to him via a process server not only notwithstanding, but rendered itself, invalid.

The Kid’s mother – by her own admission – is unfit to be a parent. Her past behaviour (largely driven by a bipolar condition which is untreated as frequently as it is under control) supports this claim. While her actions have never physically harmed The Kid, they have endangered his physical well-being on several occasions.

Shortly after The Kid’s birth, she and his father came to live with his grandmother in Texas. During that time, The Kid’s mother frequently physically assaulted his father, and she often abandoned them both for several days at a time. Finally, she went back to Los Angeles. 

Upon returning to California, his father was able to obtain testimony from her, under oath in court that she was not only not prepared to be a mother but that she had no desire to retain her rights as a parent, and that she wanted nothing more to do with The Kid, his father, and/or the grandmother. 

In the time since, whenever she has attempted to regain her parental rights, The Kid’s father has been in attendance at the hearing to cite precedent already set, thus denying her the custody sought and preserving his. While the court previously did grant her limited visitation rights and subsequently has upheld them absent any reason to deny such, this time, the court determined differently.

For whatever reason, The Kid’s mother’s aunt does not care for his father in the least. Ordinarily, I make it a point not to attribute to malice that which can be attributed to ignorance, but in this instance, that capability escapes me because we have since come to learn:

• It was she orchestrating her niece’s actions that resulted in the hearing.
  There is more than ample evidence (albeit anecdotal) to conclude she did so to spite the father for sending him to live with his grandmother without his mother’s permission – something for which he was under no obligation – legal or otherwise.

• The Kid’s mother is now seeking a modification of the court’s decree because she is unable to meet most of the expenses, which are being defrayed by her aunt – for the moment.

• The Kid was told by his mother that he would be able to return to his former school, that he would be able to see his best friend again, and that he would have most everything that he had left behind, only to find out none of it was true because weeks later, when he was allowed to call and chat with his grandmother and me, he told us he was in a new school, he had not been to his former Boys Club to see his best friend, and he was sleeping on a bed in his mother’s bedroom.

Those two have demonstrated that they view Joey Cantaloupe’s life as little more than a weapon to be used against his father, and that they couldn’t care less about the damage to The Kid, his psyche, and his sense of self-worth.

With the assistance of the California court, the mother’s aunt’s shortsighted and spiteful actions resulted in him being ripped from a loving and compassionate home, a stable environment which included time spent with his cousins on a regular basis, clear boundaries and gentle but firm discipline when warranted, school, new friends in exchange for lies, and a quality of life that is significantly less in every respect.

Learning of this was more sad, disappointing, and demoralizing than it was infuriating.

Compounding the sadness is that his father, despite having been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, has given up even trying to get sober, passively forfeiting not only his rights as The Kid’s father, but that role and place in his life. As a result, the risk that ultimately, Joey Cantaloupe is placed in foster care grows increasingly likely. 

With there being nothing we can do, we are resigned to doing what we can to remain in regular contact, and hope for the best. Our prayer lives have never been more active.

Calvinball
It has been a conscious decision and effort to write about concerns more cultural, on topics that are relevant to many of us despite political orientation or ideology not because the current state of politics it isn’t important, it is – however, my voice, and my views are just one of a cacophony of similar voices, and it is likely that what I have to say about it isn’t so different from what many others already are.

What follows is less about the ninety-one bogus indictments facing the former president, and more regarding what has been revealed as nothing more than a witch, the Attorney General for the State of New York, Letitia James hunting him, his businesses and real estate empire, and seeking to all but personally destroy him and his family.

First, she got her judgement penalty…

Engoron ordered the defendants to pay a total of $464.6 million in fines and interest. Trump’s total was more than $454 million, which includes more than $98 million in prejudgment interest. This interest continues to accrue at a 9% annual rate, adding nearly $112,000 a day to Trump’s bill alone.1

Never mind that the entire case was a sham, tried in a kangaroo court by a judge drunk on his own power, and that the $454 million penalty was arbitrary, and designed to be an insurmountable obstacle. 

Thankfully, an appellate court reduced the penalty to a more reasonable amount, allowing the former president to arrange the bond pending the entire case being overturned on appeal, if not dismissed entirely.

So, NY AG James still has her judgement in place, just not at the ridiculous dollar amount, and per my understanding of fair play (even if the playing field is not even close to being level), Trump has met every legal requirement thus far, jumped through every one of the court’s hoops, and by any standard, has played by the rules and won this round…oh, wait.

Now, the goal posts are being moved – it’s not enough that he’s posted the bond, and that the guarantor is a publicly traded corporation (which likely couldn’t act in such a capacity without the approval of the board of directors, if not a majority of the shareholders) – no, AG James wants confirmation that the corporation can pay.2

Democrats do this all the time, by the way.

It is, by far, their favourite tactic, especially when it comes to the Supreme Court. Allow me to jog your memory: Brett Kavanaugh – once Mitch “Buffering” McConnell finally got enough of his windsock charges (Jeff Flake – if there was ever a more fitting surname, I’ve yet to encounter it, and Susan Collins) on board to vote to confirm, here comes the now late Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) with decades-old allegations by someone who was not even an acquaintance of the nominee at the time they allegedly occurred, but are so serious that they must be investigated and of course, instead of telling her and the rest of those vipers to pound sand, Sen. Grassley obliges and accommodates their every request, never mind that the allegations were found to be entirely without merit.

Or, let’s revisit Justice Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings. Having endured such insulting and racist questioning from bigots like Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), suddenly here comes Howard Metzenbaum with outrageous allegations from a woman scorned, one Anita Hill, but because they are serious allegations, they must be fully investigated before the vote in the full senate.

You see, to Democrats, rules are not really rules to be followed, by them. For Democrats, legislative business in the House of Representatives, or the Senate, or the Executive and/or Judicial Branches of government is just a never-ending game of Calvinball 

‘Calvinball is a game invented by Calvin [of the Calvin and Hobbes comic] in which one makes the rules up as one goes along. Rules cannot be used twice. No Calvinball game is like another. The game may involve wickets, mallets, volleyballs, and additional equipment as well as masks.’3 

…except that there is more integrity when played by Calvin, and his plush-toy tiger, Hobbes.

I wonder what the court will next require that has not, nor likely ever will be required of any other defendant whose surname is not Trump.

So, What Comes After?
“After what?” you ask – it’s a good question.

One might assume it implies loss. In regard to The Kid’s forced return to California, it is, in fact. What comes after the actual loss? What comes after that experience? I suppose the answer is grieving, of a sort – coping.

We grieved the loss of Joey Cantaloupe’s daily presence in our lives each in our own way, being certain to reassure each other that we were available to listen at any time if one of us needed to talk. After all, The Kid had only gone away – he hadn’t died. We kept open the lines of communication – we didn’t shut out each other, making the grieving private.

For my part, I was able to immerse myself in work. This is much easier to do when you work to live, instead of the other way around. Far too many of us are unknowingly caught in that trap, and it is dangerous. Over time, it robs us of almost everything that ought to make life worth living.

The question, “What Comes After” can be asked in regard to any number of other topics, though. For example, I find myself wondering what comes after Trump leaves the stage, after he exits the arena.

The day will come when he is no longer a force in politics, the Republican Party, or popular culture, and when that day comes, my view is that it will usher in a display of the Law of Unintended Consequences the likes of which no one has ever seen or could even imagine.

To wit:
The Democrats will be without their #1 bogeyman – not that they won’t select a new one, but he or she will not generate the same kind of personal hatred they have for Trump. The same is true for all the RINOs and other assorted sundry NeverTrumpers.

I, myself, would not rule out an upheaval similar to that which gave birth to the Republican Party of Lincoln, which has largely been subsumed into the Democrat Party.

Trump as a political and cultural force of nature will likely have been long gone, but those that voted for him beginning in 2016, then in 2020, and 2024, will not be returning to the GOP, and a fair number will not be returning to the Democrat Party, either. The vast majority of Trump voters (if I am at all representative) vote for him because his policies are perceived (at least) to be America-first, in nature – in a word, MAGA. 

Whatever it meant when first coined as a campaign slogan, what it means is now is unmistakable, even if the priority of the ideals differs from person to person:

Secure borders.
An America truly with liberty, and justice, for all.
An America with only one protected class: Americans.
An America whose government is free of the administrative regulatory deep state, and whose legislative, and judicial branches have reclaimed their respective responsibilities from the same.
American workers, and American industry, first.
An America that is energy-independent of foreign oil because its own resources make it a net exporter of oil, and natural gas.
An America once again respected by allies both old and new.
An America whose military is once again both respected and feared because its purpose is to defend the nation, not fight other nations’ endless proxy wars, overseas.

MAGA has the potential to be a movement aligned more closely with populist Republicans, traditional Democrats, and genuinely independent voters – not the ones who merely claim to be. Conservatives, as they are known today, are characterized more by what they oppose than by what they support – they are a minority in every sense of the word, politically homeless, and it’s likely they would become the new independent voters. Hence, it would not surprise me to see the modern Republican Party go the way of its predecessor, replaced by the MAGA movement – perhaps even the MAGA Party. 

Meanwhile, the Democrat Party will continue to be home to Marxists and other factions of the ultra-radical left.

Just because he’s gone doesn’t mean what he represented is gone, too. The influence of the Trump Doctrine (MAGA) will have impact on American politics and culture for generations.

…and now
Kids are remarkably resilient.

Despite the circumstances, Joey Cantaloupe seems to be doing well, though we have borne witness to one or two isolated instances of him acting out. Images we’ve received show him to be healthy, genuinely happy, and thriving.

On the few occasions when we’ve been able to talk with him on the phone, there’s nothing in what he tells us, or in the sound of his voice, for us to conclude otherwise.

Yes, he should have been allowed to stay with his grandmother and me until the end of the school year, but it didn’t work out that way. Perhaps he’ll be allowed to visit us sometime this summer.

Thank you, dear reader, for your time and indulgence.

Until next time…

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Toward that end, allow me to offer my recommendation for surviving Amateur Night – otherwise known as New Year’s Eve.

First, eschew the temptation to celebrate like the beautiful people in the movies or TV shows, and opt for something more akin to how we welcome in the new year: 

Typically, by no later than the middle of the afternoon, we are home and inside for the rest of the day and evening. Frequently there is too much weirdness afoot even before daylight begins to fade, giving way to nighttime – and on Amateur Night, nothing good happens outside the home after dark. 

For this, our second New Year’s Eve together, we’ll be celebrating as we did last year – sitting on our sofa in front of the television, dining on Lou Malnati’s Chicago-style deep dish pepperoni pizza, enjoying an adult beverage (Karen likes Maker’s Mark bourbon, and I like a Shiner Bock beer), and viewing some silly, pointless but entertaining movie. Last year, it was:

We understood none of it – but then, we weren’t really trying. We didn’t care for the female-on-female story arc, but it was a fun way to spend some time while we ushered 2022 out the door.

My personal tradition is a viewing of the Laurel & Hardy short film, The Music Box. I’ll watch it early enough in the evening so that The California Kid can view it along with me – hoping he enjoys it. 

Thank you, Mr. John Gallos of WCCO-TV Channel 4, for your love of and dedication to the films of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy, and for showing this one on that New Year’s Eve more than fifty years ago. You couldn’t have known it then but you started this tradition, and I can’t help but be grateful to you, for it. The connection to a much more simple, innocent time that I miss more and more grows increasingly precious with each passing year.

Second, to paraphrase Det. Harry Callahan, know your limitations. Staying up until midnight just isn’t in the cards for us – ten o’clock is possible, but only if we’re wired. Instead, we celebrate the arrival of the new year with the good people of Nuuk (pronounced as ‘nook’), Greenland. 

We toast the new year, nurse our crystal flutes of champagne, and then retire for a nice, long slumber. On New Year’s Day, we have breakfast and mimosas. I pour what is likely the last of my Bailey’s into my coffee, and we both enjoy the last day of my vacation before returning to work.

Rethinking Addiction

Eons ago, when terrestrial radio stations took seriously the pledge in their charters from the FCC, there was an excellent public affairs program called, “Extension 720” hosted by Milt Rosenberg.

Originating from and airing exclusively on WGN-AM Radio 720 (hence its title), its host was without question an intellectual giant, and yet he was able to cover very complex topics in a manner that simplified (but not overly so) much of the nuance of any given subject.

It isn’t available in the archives, but one show prominently featured a conversation with one Dr. Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Michael Daniels, his real name), in which he made the shocking claim (to me, anyway) that addiction is a choice that people make.

Not a new revelation to many, but it is worth remembering: Your life is the result of the choices you made. My life is the result of the choices I made. Disagree, be offended, get as angry as you like, as much as you like – that fact is not going to change.

The following, while hilarious, inspirational and spot-on,1 is also true – please don’t let the humour detract from the seriousness of the message.

The truth of this vis-à-vis addiction is more fully detailed in Dalrymple’s book, Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy2. 

The events of Christmas Day and the days that followed have prompted me to re-examine my view of addiction, and having observed the behaviour of one such addict in particular, I concur with Dalrymple’s view, one hundred percent.

People become addicted to opioids in all their formulations, but it is important to remember that addiction is not a fatality but a choice. Withdrawal from opioids is much less serious, medically, than withdrawal from alcohol or barbiturates, and even, on occasion, from benzodiazepines such as Valium.

If you think of what it takes to become an injecting heroin addict, it is obvious that it is not something that happens to you, like Parkinson’s disease; it is something that you do. You have to learn how to prepare the drug, and how to inject it – and self-injection is not something that most people would take to easily, without determination.

To attribute normal human agency to addicts is not to withdraw sympathy from them, as is commonly supposed: many or most have indeed had prolonged unhappy experiences. [But] that is no reason to lie to them about the nature of their addiction: to imply that they are the helpless victim thereof is to give them an excuse to continue as if they were.

Over the years, tens of millions of people worldwide have overcome their addiction to nicotine and few people become addicted to opioids without having made a choice to do so.3

I can speak to this from first-hand experience in regard to nicotine, the chemical compound present in tobacco.4

Circumstances were such that I was temporarily moving back home to live with my folks. Being reasonably certain that my mom was unaware that I was now smoking, the prospect of breaking her heart in this way was not even worth considering. So in a split-second, I decided to quit – cold-turkey.

Whatever had been my rationale to pick up the nasty habit was no longer valid, and it needed to be replaced with a different one that would break the grasp I believed my addiction to nicotine had on me. 

Some time around the 100-day mark, I was no longer shaking or perspiring profusely, my fingertips were of a color consistent with that of the rest of my hands, and the senses of smell and taste had returned. Honestly, it is surprising no one died at my hands over those ninety-plus days.

Now, my single anecdote should not be considered as typical of the experience of all who quit smoking, or who overcome any other addiction be it alcohol, crystal meth, cocaine, heroin, narcotics, and/or other controlled substances (by prescription or otherwise).

Truth be told, someone who is abusing any of these is likely doing so to dull the pain of prolonged unhappy or perhaps even horrific experiences like physical or sexual abuse, rape, or other violence that was visited on them repeatedly, as well as the pain of loss – loss of a loved one, loss of a marriage, loss of a job or maybe even a career. That person is simply seeking to feel better, even if only momentarily.

Consider now the condition of one who knows that in his line there is a propensity for addiction, and because of that awareness he avoids drugs and alcohol completely. He is resolved to not even be around them, let alone ingest either one or both.

In each of the two scenarios, it is a conscious choice – one to stop using, and one to completely prevent addiction being made manifest – that is the common thread. In both instances, it is the individual exercising basic human agency (as Dalrymple put it) to one’s own benefit – as is choosing a life of addiction in the first place.

As a friend who possesses exceedingly shrewd judgement observes, “...dismantling what is at the root of that decision is key”. If one seeks to do just that, one is going to be confronted with a most unpleasant fact – that for whatever reason, one has forfeited the right of self-determination.

Choosing a life of addiction does provide a paradigm of sorts in which one can attribute any failure of character and any number of self-destructive behaviours to one’s addiction, and blaming that very addiction for one’s own inability to manage it (to varying degrees) at its very essence, is self-delusion. 

Allowing addiction to be considered a “sickness” is wrong because that implies it can be treated with medication, and that is not true – it can only be managed – perhaps through behaviour modification such as attending meetings of any one of the <insert substance here> Anonymous chapters where one is surrounded by others with the same addiction. In fact, that has been standard operating procedure for Alcoholics Anonymous for all of its more than eighty-five years.

Per A.A.’s own website:

A.A.'s program of recovery is built on the simple foundation of one alcoholic sharing with another.

Sharing what, exactly? What is someone who is struggling with the same addiction as another going to share with that individual? Does that make sense?

To my way of thinking, the implication is that each helps the others both individually and collectively, but unless one has overcome his addiction, the only “help” being offered is that in which both continue in their respective self-delusions, and are allowed to feel good about it.

Whatever comfort and encouragement may derived from attendance at such meetings, until the addict resolves to overcome his addiction, everything else is just enabling. 

For one under the control of addiction, it is widely accepted that the first step in recovery is admitting that one has a problem – this is in fact, true, but if recovery does not include overcoming with no risk of a relapse, it is incomplete and it too, is no less a self-delusion. It is merely allowing one to take responsibility for the current condition, but not for the decision that enabled the addiction to take hold, in the first place.

The second step in recovery (so-called), is progress through a 12-step program which reinforces and encourages the addict to continue to take responsibility for his condition and its impact on others. While admirable on its face, it is further condition management, not overcoming the addiction.

Nonetheless, the most well-known (and for some reason, regarded to be the most successful5,6) is A.A.’s:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.7, 8  

It is my contention that A.A.’s mission is assisting alcoholics with managing the self-delusion of recovery. If its mission were to help those so suffering to overcome, recovery would not be open-ended.

Instead, what is it we are we told? “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.” and that recovery is now a life-long condition, requiring constant vigilance. A relapse is not a matter of if, but of when.

As Craig Ferguson points out, his is not a drinking problem – rather, it’s a thinking problem. He is one who cannot drink – if he thinks he can, then he’s in trouble (the 00:10:10 mark). The same can be applied to everyone else – man or woman – who is in the same boat.

This is not to say that what A.A. offers is not beneficial, nor without value, it is, albeit negligible – but because it is merely a method of managing one’s own self-delusion, it is no different than methadone for heroin abusers.

If one truly desires to overcome one’s addiction, and can face the fact that it was a conscious choice, there is hope. It is almost impossible to do that alone, though – but this is where a former addict can help another.

Even though an addict is not suffering from a disease like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, that person is suffering and as Dalrymple mentioned, should not be denied empathy and compassion. Since anyone any of us may know of who is suffering an addiction is likely to be a loved one, that individual is also in need of encouragement, support, and as much understanding with no strings attached as can be found.

While there is a time and a place for tough love, it ought to be the very last resort. Until then, exhaust every possible alternative and be ready to extend that helping hand so that when they realize they are capable of overcoming their addiction, you are there to help, or engage those who can.

There is an argument to be made that the same applies to those who are constantly seeking the adrenaline rush from participation in activities such as extreme skydiving, or the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain,9  

are every bit as much addicted to the adrenaline as is one who cannot start the day without the caffeine buzz from coffee. This is a false equivalency, and speaking only for myself, I do not have a coffee problem – I can quit any time I want.

The same is no less true for those who “suffer” from non-substance “addictions” like gambling, sex, pornography, video games, virtual role-playing games, et al.

In regard to gambling, the character portrayed by Al Pacino nails it when he points out that what is needed by these folks at the Gamblers Anonymous meeting is a better way to feel alive. Despite the fact that it’s a movie, the self-sabotage he describes is all too real.

Addictions to either sex and/or pornography are not addictions at all but rather lust unchecked, and if either or both are occurring outside the bonds of marriage, then there is a host of other problems to be addressed in addition to the refusal to exercise self-control – the one characteristic that sets us apart from the animals.

As for addiction to digital entertainment such as video games, and virtual role-playing games, it is simply a failure to employ sufficient self-discipline.

I thought it seemed appropriate. 

We are gradually weaning The Kid off his laptop and video games – thus far it seems to be working – no temper tantrums, no defiance, no rebellion. In place of that time, we provide some other activities that are equally engaging but that require mutual interaction.

We also do a little bit of home-grown instruction to supplement that which he’s being taught at school. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he attends karate class at a local dojo – early next year, he’ll be testing for his next belt.

To be clear, we are not forbidding him playing his Roblox games on his laptop (sometimes his cousin plays against him, online), or any of the games in his library for the Nintendo Switch (a Christmas gift), we are just reducing the amount of time he spends in these activities by engaging him in other ways.

Whether the addiction is legitimate (substance-based) and the addict is in recovery and on the road to overcoming; the physical, psychological, professional, and personal complications as a result of addiction are the same, albeit to varying degrees even if effected differently.10 

In my next essay, I’ll cover the business of addiction and “recovery”.

The Great Eggnog Supply Crisis of 2023

Cultural Orphan

Is Eggnog the new Pumpkin Spice? Other Random Thoughts at the Height of the Season, and Fruitcake

Well, all the busyness of the season is in full swing – in some instances, perhaps the madness of the season. Everywhere, husbands (except me) are feeling inadequate because they are not reading their wives’ minds, nor do they have access to the script…

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3 years ago · 4 likes · 10 comments · NotFromTexas

Well, they did it.

Mission: Accomplished.

No, not this:

They – you know – THEY – BigBeverage.

They succeeded in creating so much demand for eggnog that by the time Christmas Eve came, there was none to be found. Kroger, Market Street, H▪E▪B, Central Market, Walmart, and even Target were completely sold out.

It was my intention to pick up a quart so that I could try one of those 500+ eggnog cocktail recipes that damn near took over one of my “news” feeds. I was anticipating enjoying it while listening to Carols From King’s College on the BBC on Christmas Eve.

It wasn’t until the day after Christmas that it occurred to me to check with Total Wine, Goody Goody, or Spec’s. Ah, well…live and learn.

Thank you, dear reader, for your time and your indulgence!

Happy New Year!

Until next time…

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1

Don Surber

Highlights of the week

ITEM 1: AP reported, “AP Breakthrough Entertainer: Reneé Rapp has always known what she wants — and isn't afraid to say no.” Big deal. So did Veruca Salt. ITEM 2: The New York Post reported, “Inside Disney’s disastrous year of box office flops.” Well, the public has grown bored of movies made for children and families…

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3 years ago · 79 likes · 115 comments

Those are words of the Wise Man of West Virginia, Don Surber.

The world was in darkness.1

Light came into the world.2

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.3

That, without qualification, is the true meaning of the holiday we call, Christmas.

It is true whether one identifies as Roman Catholic, Russian or Greek Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Church of Christ, Evangelical Covenant, Sanctified Brethren, AME, Unitarian, non-denominational, agnostic, or even atheist.

It is true whether one is Jewish, or is an adherent of Islam.

A fellow believer4 once made the following observation:

The world – our world – has always been dark. It continues to be dark. It hasn’t become any more or less so because of any human event. Governments come and go. Nations rise and fall. Political, religious, and other leaders have always been, and will continue to be exposed as deeply flawed individuals. We are fallen creatures – and have always been sinful – but because of the birth of Jesus, there is hope for every one of us. That hope – genuine, real hope – transcends all, and along with faith and love,5 endures until the end of time.

Our world is in darkness, still.

Jesus, the light of life, has come into the world.6

The light continues to shine in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

It is this that frees me to enjoy any number of traditions with which we mark the season, and with this firmly in mind, all of them are kept in proper perspective.

Thank you for reading, for your time, and your indulgence.

Merry Christmas, dear reader, to you and yours.

The carol, “Once In Royal David’s City” is my favourite song of the season, period.
It is almost impossible for me to hear it without being moved to tears, and while I love listening to the BBC’s, “Carols from King’s College” on Christmas Eve where it is performed every year, David Willcocks’ arrangement for The Choir of Trinity College, puts that of The Choir of King's College (both at Cambridge) to shame.

Mannheim Steamroller’s rendition of “Still, Still, Still” is good – very good, in fact – but sounds best when sung a cappella.

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Everywhere, husbands (except me) are feeling inadequate because they are not reading their wives’ minds, nor do they have access to the script.

Fathers are feeling themselves failures for not being able to afford that coveted toy as a present for their son to open on that special morning.

In homes from one end of the nation to the other, wives are cursing their husbands because the expected bonus cheque is significantly less than expected – clearly because said husband is selfish and inconsiderate of his wife and children, or he is incompetent in his job which otherwise pays the bills the other fifty weeks of the year (I’m drawing on past experience here, it bears absolutely no resemblance to my life, today). 

Women of all walks of life are condemning themselves for failing to deliver that perfect holiday dinner, party, brunch, front yard – and it’s even worse for those who are control freaks because every aspect of the celebration of the season must be just so.

Never mind that they simply refuse to trust their husbands or boyfriends to do something as simple as going to the supermarket and purchasing items on a shopping list. Apparently, at this time of year, grocery shopping becomes a branch of advanced theoretical mathematics that only women instinctively comprehend (again, past experience, not even close to life at present).

For whatever reason, far too many of us allow the passions of the season to carry us away. Frequently, expectations grow to galactic proportions. Given the pressure so many of us put on ourselves, it’s no wonder that the suicide rate spikes upwards.

Of course, this what happens every year on Beethoven’s Birthday (December 16) – there is no escaping it.

Just kidding – however, all of the above does apply to the days and weeks leading up to Christmas Eve, December 24.

So, in case you need it, you have my permission to take a break. Let your spouse know that for the well-being of all involved, you need to get away for an hour, or so – and if you are that spouse, please understand.

Remember that whatever are your plans, hopes, dreams or desires for the season this year, it’s perfectly all right if they don’t come to fruition as you might have imagined.

Eggnog

What an awful name for a beverage – especially one that is associated with The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Nonetheless, it is a staple of the Christmas holiday season for many.

For this essay, innumerable queries were made to find out which states consumed the most eggnog each year, but the data does not indicate that it is consumed more widely in any one state than another, hence there’s no conclusion to be made. 

To be candid, the hope was to confirm my suspicion that it was largely an eastern US if not an east-coast phenomenon that made its way west in much the same way as did the game of soccer.

Despite the fact it has been around seemingly forever, it would appear that eggnog has only recently gained popularity in a manner that may not be as organic as some people would have us believe – again, much like soccer – or, it’s possible that I am only now noticing.

It isn’t mentioned in, “The Christmas Song”. Then again, roasting chestnuts over an open fire is, but I don’t know of anyone who does it.

What is known today as eggnog began as something called, Posset1

…a curdled beverage of milk and either wine or ale was a popular beverage in Britain that may have been a precursor to eggnog. Some monks would add eggs and figs to posset.2 However, the British drink was also called an egg flip,3 from the practice of ‘flipping’ (rapidly pouring) the mixture between two pitchers to mix it.4

“A curdled beverage”...$100 says that it was a single guy that invented it. My suspicion is that yogurt was invented the same way – some bachelor farmer was too lazy to pay attention to the task at hand and let some milk go bad, but couldn’t bring himself to throw it out.

The apparent popularity of this ancient concoction begs the question:

Is eggnog the new pumpkin spice?

Or is it just the next thing that BigBeverage wants to force down our throats (quite literally) like, New Coke? Wine Coolers? Zima? White Claw?

Don’t believe me? Think I’m crazy – a conspiracy theorist, perhaps?

Well, it’s not a conspiracy theory if it turns out to be true – but I digress…

Recall, if you will, every year around mid-August, pumpkin spice begins to dominate damn near everything – coffee, tea, creamers, breakfast foods, desserts, and even candles, air fresheners, et al.

As soon as Thanksgiving is over, it’s eggnog, everywhere.

In addition to the heavily sugar-laden concoctions available in grocery and convenience stores that likely are eggnog-flavoured milk,5 eggnog-flavoured spirits like bourbon, and whiskey are plentiful; as well as something called oat nog6, and so-related products like dessert coffee cocktail mixes. 

In the event that what you purchase from the supermarket is real, genuine eggnog, bear in mind that you’ll be consuming something that registers as many as 400 calories per cup.7

Let’s be honest, though – do any of us care? No, we don’t – not really.

The very last thing on my mind on weekend mornings when I’m topping up my half-filled schooner-sized cup of French press-brewed coffee with Bailey’s is the calorie content.

However, this: Sugarlands Kellogg's Eggo Nog Appalachain Sippin' Cream

Introducing a mouthwatering partnership between the iconic Kellogg's Eggo Waffle brand and Appalachian Sippin' Cream produced by Sugarlands Distilling Company to create ‘EggoNog’ Eggnog Liqueur.

I found it to be particularly awful-sounding, almost nauseating. Just reading the description of the product, not only can I feel the diabetic coma coming on, but I can also imagine my liver shutting down in protest.  

There is eggnog-flavoured candy, jelly beans, protein powder, fudge, almonds, chocolate bars, coffee (including coffee pods for Keurig coffee makers), cheesecake, non-alcoholic cocktail starter kits, cookie dough, gelato, ice cream and novelties, keto meal milkshake powder, oat milk, not to mention eggnog flavour extract, and syrups.  

Believe it or not (believe it), there are eggnog-scented personal care products like body wash8, lip balm, et al., and eggnog-scented products for the home like vanilla eggnog candle and soap fragrance oil – no lie.

My recollection is that it was – and judging from the sheer number of items in one of my “news” feeds that are exclusively recipes for eggnog itself if not the latest eggnog-based cocktail, still is – the only beverage option at Christmas parties and other such holiday-themed gatherings.

Hence, it’s usually laced with alcohol: rum, brandy, or bourbon to varying degrees – and more is always better because there is no amount of nutmeg that can help it go down any easier. It’s kind of like cough syrup, that way.

However, if you are a fan of eggnog, more power to you!

Fruitcake

To the best of my knowledge fruitcake, despite being a well-established Christmas tradition (with more than two million9 fruitcakes sold annually in the US alone, it’s an institution) does not receive even a fraction of the love afforded eggnog.

This is strange considering that the history of fruitcake goes all the way back to ancient Rome – it was given to soldiers for sustenance in battle10 – the very first MRE. I wonder why the soldiers in the opening scenes of the film, “Gladiator” weren’t portrayed snacking on it.

While I am not a fan of fruitcake, it deserves a fair shake in this piece.

Not surprisingly, there are differences between American and European versions, though both are dense making them relatively very heavy relative to other types of cake, and both are made with brandy or rum which as, “The Untold Truth of Fruitcake” points out,

…not only preserves them and makes them more palatable but can also help you forget you've eaten one…

One dubious characteristic of fruitcake is its ability to remain preserved for weeks, months, even years or decades, courtesy of the preservative properties of the alcohol and the heavily candied fruit and nuts.

There is one account of a single fruitcake being exchanged between two friends for approximately sixty years, and while impressive, it pales in comparison to another that has been kept in the same family for more than one hundred-forty years.

Yet, for all of that rich history which includes being outlawed in Europe for most of the 1700s – the ingredients used made it a rather decadent treat causing it to be regarded as sinful by the authorites at the time – fruitcake has not enjoyed a very positive reputation.

It has in fact, been the butt of jokes – perhaps the most famous one made by Johnny Carson on, “The Tonight Show”:

‘There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other’11

This clip from the film, “The Apartment”, doesn’t really help to improve fruitcake’s plight – but it does underscore its status as a Christmastime institution.

Before I began writing this piece, it seemed to me that my quest for delicious, edible fruitcake may be akin to that for the Holy Grail or the Northwest Passage, because it was my conviction fruitcake that met that criteria was the stuff of myth. Therefore, the quest continues.

Christmas Movie Update

Last Saturday evening, we viewed, “The Family Man”, and I must report that it is being removed from the list that appeared in the third of this five-part series because a more attentive viewing revealed something that had not previously registered with me. For that reason, it cannot remain on the roster.

What I came to realize after viewing it again this year, is that it does not contain the uplifting message I previously believed it did. Instead, a key plot element from, “It’s A Wonderful Life”, is turned inside out.

Spoiler Alert: The protagonist is given a glimpse of a life that might have been, and when he realizes that it is incomparably more fulfilling than the one he chose, he’s not allowed to stay.

Back in his real life, if he was a changed man because of the peek at the life he might have been living, he applied the lessons learned, poorly. He selfishly chooses not to do that which he promised, and in the process he lets down his team, and in fact, the entire company. He put his own interests before others, demonstrating that he really hadn’t learned anything at all.

Roger Ebert’s review captures it best:

The heart of the movie is his gradual realization that his other life has somehow disappeared, that he's now a family man, that he has been granted the opportunity to experience all that he missed by putting his career ahead of personal goals. I always wonder, in movies like this, why the hero has been transferred into the alternate life but has retained the original memories – but of course if he had the alternate memories, he wouldn't know anything had happened.

I liked the movie, liked [Nicholas] Cage, liked [Téa] Leoni, smiled a lot, and yet somehow remained at arm's length…

One problem with the underlying plot is, how do you dispose of the family in the alternative world after the supernatural visitor learns his lesson? [The film] doesn't find a satisfactory resolution: Not that it's crucial, but it would have been nice. The movie is sweet, light entertainment, but could have been more.

It could have benefited from some better casting. Don Cheadle’s personal racism and seemingly genuine hatred of white people comes through all too clearly in his portrayal of his character – anyone would have been a better choice for the role of Cash, the supernatural being that ushers him into and out of the parallel universe.

On Friday, Joey Cantaloupe wanted to surprise us with what we later learned was his favourite Christmas movie: “Home Alone” – as it turns out, it’s one of my favourites, too. I have a sneaking suspicion that “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” is soon to follow.

I hope that this essay of random thoughts, limited stream-of-consciousness, and perhaps just plain nonsense has been an enjoyable read. There just wasn’t anything that I felt particularly compelled to say that I hadn’t already expressed, or will, in the fifth and final installment late next week.

The fifth and final installment in this series will be pubished on Christmas Eve day. Please enjoy this preview:

In any event, thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

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The Christmas Spirit.

The Spirit of Christmas.

Per the Collins Dictionary1

...the positive feeling people experience…during holiday periods such as…Christmas…

Something that everyone can say they know what it is, and they know it when they see or feel it. Undoubtedly, millions are seized by it at one time or another between Thanksgiving Day and December 26.

Let’s review, though – shall we? 

This...

…is not The Christmas Spirit.

This, on the other hand…

is what most recognize as The Christmas Spirit. I hate to admit it, but the character of Frank Cross, as portrayed by Bill Murray, nailed it. 

It's Christmas Eve! It's...it's the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we...we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be.2

What’s wrong with that, really? Are any of the alternatives – indifference, malevolence, selfishness, or self-centeredness (even if consistent) – at all preferable? 

No, they most certainly are not. 

If a couple of hours on Christmas Eve is the best you can do, then let those couple of hours be enough – perhaps they turn into a half-day, then maybe a whole one; maybe that day becomes a week; a week, a month; and a month, a year. 

You have to do something. You have to take a chance. You do have to get involved. There are people that are having...having trouble making their miracle happen. There are people that don't have enough to eat, or people that are cold. You can go out and say ‘hello’ to these people. You can take an old blanket out of the closet and say ‘Here!’, you can make them a sandwich and say ‘Oh, by the way, here!’3

Think about the ask: To be nice. To be considerate. To put yourself in the shoes of someone less fortunate, and then give of yourself freely – genuinely – not in a way that is condescending – and ideally, without drawing any attention to yourself. 

In fact, that is the test: No one else knows – no one else needs to know the good that you’ve done. If that’s enough, for you, then kudos! If it’s not, then there’s some work to be done on your character, but know doing that which is right is still right, even if the motivation isn’t completely pure. We’re all flawed creatures, at the end of the day.

Let’s remember that for all the commercialization, secularization, bastardization, perversion, and co-opting by less-than-benevolent interests of the holiday we call Christmas, it is the Saviour’s birth that is being celebrated, albeit imperfectly.4

Thirty-plus years later, before He bore our sins and carried our sorrows,5 He taught us how to keep what truly is The Spirit of Christmas6 – even though we only recognize it as such at this time of the year. At its essence, that’s what it is to keep The Christmas Spirit – every day, year ‘round.

It isn’t so daunting. See one Ebenezer Scrooge:7

And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, ‘God bless Us, Every One!’
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

…or, one Francis Xavier Cross:

I...I get it now! And if you...if you give, then it can happen, then the miracle can happen to you! It's not just the poor and the hungry, it's everybody who's gotta have this miracle! And it can happen tonight for all of you! If you believe in this spirit…the miracle will happen, and then you'll want it to happen again tomorrow. You won't be one of these bastards who says ‘Christmas is once a year, and it's a fraud’, it's not! It can happen every day, you've just got to want that feeling. And if you like it, and you want it, you'll get greedy for it! You'll want it every day of your life, and it can happen to you! I believe in it now!8

Perhaps the reason we seem to only respond properly to the ask during the holidays is that all too often, our response is an emotional one. Let’s admit it – we feel good when we know that we’ve genuinely given of ourselves and helped someone else. Because it’s an emotional high, it doesn’t last, no matter how greedy (in a good way) we are for it. 

At some point, faith9 must replace emotion, and this is true regardless of whether you are a spiritual person. When it becomes a matter of faith, you demonstrate love for your neighbour10 year ‘round because you are confident in the hope that it will benefit another (who you may or may not know – but that doesn’t matter); and you are assured of it, even though you don’t witness it, first-hand. You believe because you know – and you know because you have been the recipient of an outward expression of it. Therefore, you continue to keep The Spirit of Christmas for its own sake, if nothing else.

One of the best parts of Joey Cantaloupe – aka The Kid – staying here, is the opportunity to make this Christmas one that will be among his own collection of priceless works of art in the form of a pleasant memory, as he won’t be with us forever.

As I write this, it occurs to me that a grand spectacle like some holiday-themed extravaganza, a live performance of The Nutcracker, attending a theatrical production of Charles Dickens’, A Christmas Carol, or other such event – while perhaps memorable, doesn’t require much engagement on my part. Since it is time spent that matters, and what we do is less important because regardless, it won’t be wasted11 – my hunch is that even a trip to the mall for a picture with Santa is more likely to be recalled with fondness decades from now because of the interaction, alone.

While his grandmother and I would certainly enjoy The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol, it isn’t about us – nor is it that either one wouldn’t be memorable, but I’m not sure a nine-year-old would be able to appreciate either of them. 

In recalling memorable Christmases from my own childhood – except for when I received from my sister a Minnesota North Stars sweater – there aren’t any that were particularly special because of a certain gift I received.

Rather, certain memories common to Christmas seasons over ten-plus years are more special, now: decorating cookies, the appearance of the Advent calendar, the big bowl of unshelled English walnuts (dad’s favourite), Brazil nuts, filberts, pecans, hazelnuts, peanuts – sometimes a trip to spend the holiday with relatives from my dad’s side, or with grandparents from my mom’s side – on one or two occasions, both.

There was the annual local Kiwanis Club Christmas Party, exclusively for the kids of members. This meant that my dad had to take more than a little extra time out of his day to leave his office, pick me up at school, drive to the event, and return me to school on his way back to his office. For a guy like my dad (Type A, highly driven) at the time, that was no small inconvenience. It was a sacrifice (so to speak) he was happy to make, but it was still more time out of his day.

Yet, what I appreciate is the time he took to make it happen. It probably amounts to not even an extra hour (either side of the party, itself), but that’s what is impressive to me now, almost fifty-three years later.

On what always seemed to be the coldest night of the month thus far, we’d all pile into the car and go to the Y’s Men’s12 Christmas Tree lot (wherever it happened to be, that year) to purchase the tree and bring it home where it would be kept in the garage for a day or two to let the branches return to their natural positions. When it was time, we’d trim it as a family, and when we finished (despite the same decorations, and the same lights), it was always more beautiful than the one from the year before.

Once, Navy Bean soup was served for Christmas Eve dinner.

To this day, mine is that it was to temper my excitement just a little, and I was not allowed to leave the table until most of my serving had been finished – by me. On another Christmas Eve, there was a chicken pox epidemic and I got ‘em. The entire break was spent with calamine lotion applied to my skin – of course, it cleared right up just a day before it was time to go back to school.  

In short, it is the events of the season, and the people (mom, dad, sister, and brother) with whom they were experienced that I remember, not the material goods associated with the event of Christmas Day. So, to reiterate: it’s the time spent actively engaged that matters – it was true for me, it holds true for The California Kid, as well.

Now in our house, we make a distinction between The Christmas Spirit as discussed above, and a spirit of festive yuletide, and both are well kept. Admittedly, this is a challenge for me because here in Texas, we get cold temperatures without snow, and except for the years I lived in south Florida, I’m accustomed to Christmas looking like Christmas. No matter – like many others, one way we get festive is to watch Christmas movies.

My wife loves the ones on the Hallmark Channel, and the Hallmark Channel-like ones on Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video – therefore, I love them, too. In between those, however, are some that are recognized by me as classics to be viewed over the days and weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Ergo, the following is the definitive list of Christmas movies so-designated. While it is not open to debate, nor will it be altered, titles with which I’m not familiar may be appended to it, provided they pass muster. The films are listed roughly in the order in which they are viewed:

Thanksgiving Day

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Friday following Thanksgiving through December 23 

Die Hard

The Godfather*

American Gangster**

The Apartment

Sleepless in Seattle†

L.A. Confidential†

Trading Places†

Home Alone

Elf

The Ref

The Family Man

While You Were Sleeping

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Christmas Story (2007)

Surviving Christmas

Office Christmas Party

How The Grinch Stole Christmas!

Joyeux Noël

A Christmas Carol (1984)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Violent Night

Scrooged

Christmas Eve

It's a Wonderful Life

Christmas Day – all day – on a loop

A Christmas Story

It's Christmas Eve! It's...it's the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we...we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be. It's a...miracle. It's really a sort of a miracle. Because it happens every Christmas Eve. And if you waste that miracle, you're gonna burn for it, I know what I am talking about. You have to do something. You have to take a chance. You do have to get involved. There are people that are having...having trouble making their miracle happen. There are people that don't have enough to eat, or people that are cold. You can go out and say hello to these people. You can take an old blanket out of the closet and say ‘Here!’, you can make them a sandwich and say ‘Oh, by the way, here!’ I...I get it now! And if you...if you give, then it can happen, then the miracle can happen to you! It's not just the poor and the hungry, it's everybody who's gotta have this miracle! And it can happen tonight for all of you! If you believe in this spirit thing, the miracle will happen and then you'll want it to happen again tomorrow. You won't be one of these bastards who says ‘Christmas is once a year and it's a fraud’, it's not! It can happen every day, you've just got to want that feeling. And if you like it and you want it, you'll get greedy for it! You'll want it every day of your life and it can happen to you! I believe in it now! I believe it's going to happen to me now! I'm ready for it! And it's great. It's a good feeling, it's really better than I've felt in a long time. I, I, I'm ready. Have a Merry Christmas, everybody.13

There will be one more in this series, at least. I do know that the last one will be very short, and it will likely drop the day before Christmas Eve.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

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The power of association is strong, for me.

*A crucial part of the plot takes place during the Christmas season, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s a Christmas movie.
I wasn’t of age when it was in theaters in 1972, so my first opportunity to view it was when it aired in early December 1980 on one of the TV stations in the twin cities, heavily edited for television.

**The scene after the open takes place on Thanksgiving Day. Again, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a Christmas movie. 
The very first time I viewed it was late on a Christmas Eve at the home of my sister and brother-in-law, hence, it has been associated with Christmas, ever since.

^†Like, The Godfather, and, American Gangster, a crucial part of the plot takes place over the Christmas season if not Christmas itself, and that makes it a Christmas movie, in my book.

11

Cultural Orphan

An Embarrassment of Riches in Priceless Works of Art, and A Prairie Home Companion (when it was good)

Recently, my birthday arrived, and quickly passed. My wife observed it in her inimitable fashion, otherwise, it was without any fanfare – just the way I like it. My sister’s birthday is just one day later (as was our late father’s), and as it happens, my wife’s is within a few days of mine, so when we could all gather on a Sunday to observe and “celebrat…

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3 years ago · 7 likes · 21 comments · NotFromTexas

Not so long ago, I wrote of my affection for the Chicago, Illinois that I knew (but came to love less and less) for the better part of thirty years. 

One of the best things of that once-great city in the time I lived there was a particular terrestrial FM radio station – WXRT – by far, the best radio station in the city.1

This is partly because ‘XRT (as it was affectionately known), played predominantly music of the Adult Album Alternative genre, and also featured local & regional acts that otherwise might not have received airplay anywhere else.

My favourite example of this is the band, Material Issue.2 The band’s all-too-brief life and its end is nothing short of tragic, and a sampling of its catalogue leaves one wondering just what might have been.

It was also the best radio station because the on-air talent – morning man, the now late Lin Brehmer (“Your best friend in the whole world”), Marty Lennartz, Frank E. Lee, Johnny Mars – were exceptionally knowledgeable about the music being played, the history of the bands, and the backgrounds and influences of the members – in a way that didn’t insult the intelligence of the listeners. 

‘XRT’s programming was uniquely reflective of the sensibilities of its listening audience. Twice each week, listeners were treated to Lin’s Bin, several minutes of a most unique stream-of-consciousness take on various topics like my favourite, “Where Does the Time Go?”. Sadly, it won’t be found in the archives – I’ve been searching for it for years. 

Also twice each week, listeners could hear the latest about a new film on Goin’ to the Show with A Regular Guy, movie reviews from a real Chicagoan’s perspective. 

Once every week there was Local Anesthetic, a showcase for performers that were carving out a following and a niche in Chicago’s live-performance venues like The Metro, or The Double Door; and Saturday Morning Flashback was a highly enjoyable four hours of the most memorable music from any given year previous. 

The best weekly show and my personal favourite was Sound Opinions, hosted by Greg Kot,3 former music critic at the Chicago Tribune,4 and Jim DeRogatis,5 who was the music critic for the SomeTimes (the Sun-Times) from 1992 until 2010. Eventually, the show’s success locally attracted the attention of NPR, and its production moved to the local public-radio affiliate, WBEZ, where it thrives.

Sound Opinions was, and continues to be an hour-long deep dive into the latest from a singer/songwriter like Neko Case, or Adele (the first two years of her career, anyway – before she hit the big-time), as well as an exploration of the songwriters’ other works, their influences, and occasionally commentary on the rapidly changing industry – it was a fascinating peek behind the curtain, with some perspective from a couple of guys who had been there.

However, the best recurring special episode was and apparently still is the annual “Holiday Spectacular with Andy Cirzan” (the link is to last year’s spectacular). Mr. Cirzan’s life’s single preoccupation and consuming avocation is to find the most obscure, eccentric, and just plain bizarre Christmas music on the planet. Words cannot even begin to do these shows justice, so please give this one a listen, and then search the archive for shows of years past.

My older sister, my older brother, and I grew up in a time when music – Christmas, or otherwise – wasn’t as pervasive in the lives of our parents as it is for many of their own children and grandchildren, today. If there was a soundtrack to the lives of our folks, they likely weren’t aware of it because they were busy raising a family. 

That isn’t to say that music wasn’t important, or that it didn’t have a place, just not one as prominent as for the generation that followed theirs, and the one after that. My dad (he, of impeccable taste) was fond of many of the songs of Roger Miller .

My mom had to have been the biggest fan of the Tenor, Mario Lanza, and they both very much enjoyed the music of Sandler & Young. 

The importance they did place on music, however, was enough to warrant a hi-fi system.

Contained in that very stylish and fashionable cabinet was a vertically-recessed LP-sized turntable that could accommodate several LP vinyl discs stacked on a spindle, an AM/FM receiver, and two speakers on either end.

If you are of a certain age, then you grew up with what I refer to as the Golden Age of Christmas music. Christmas-themed songs that gained popularity from movies and other pop-culture institutions from circa 1942 (just after America was drawn into WWII), until the end of the Korean War.6

Time was that unless you were Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, or maybe Barbra Streisand, Ella Fitzgerald, or Louie Armstrong, putting out an album covering overplayed (even then) Christmastime favourites was a dead give-away that your career was as good as over – that is, if making the move to covering standards from the Great American Songbook wasn’t (see Linda Ronstadt).

That is no longer true, though. The now late Jimmy Buffett put out two albums of Christmas music – popular holiday “classics” covered in his imitable style, and some new ones. My preference is for his first, Christmas Island, and this track in particular:

Of course, Christmas music is now a classification so large and encompassing of virtually every genre imaginable (even hip-hop, I suppose) as to almost be its own industry. 

If memory serves, the extent of Christmas music in our house was comprised of two, or maybe three LP vinyl discs of songs performed by Andy Williams, Nat “King” Cole, Bing Crosby, Percy Faith and his orchestra, the Ray Conniff singers, et al. and it was played as background while hosting a party, decorating the tree, baking cookies, or opening presents on Christmas morning.

These records were all acquired with the qualifying number of fill-ups at a Standard Oil, a Texaco, or a Phillips 66 gas station. Also included in that meager collection of Christmas music was an album of holiday favourites sung by a number of players for the Minnesota Vikings.

For my own purposes, a distinction is made between what I consider to be Sacred music – that which is focused on the birth of the Saviour, the Hope and Peace it represents; and Music of the Yuletide – and within it, two categories. 

The first is that which celebrates the more secular aspects of the holiday, including the misplaced emphasis on romance during the season.

Hey! Thanks, Hallmark Channel!

The songs in this category best lend themselves to being covered by jazz musicians and combos, and judging by what is available on Spotify, there is seemingly an infinite number of these collections and albums that can be downloaded to create any quantity of playlists. Incidentally, I recommend all of them. 

While my preference is for that which I distinguish as Sacred, it is Music of the Yuletide that I listen to almost all the time between Thanksgiving and December 26. It’s what dominates my playlists on Spotify. It helps to keep the mood light, especially while working – since I work from home, it’s nice to have it playing in the background. Truth be told, it also reminds me of the Christmases of a much more simple time – a time I miss more and more.

Over the years, I’ve run across one or two new (to me, anyway) songs that fit into this category that quite pleasantly took me by surprise. This one by Tom Petty, for example:

…and: 

I only learned later that Ms. Musgrave’s is an updated cover of a much older song. Nonetheless, I chuckle every time I hear it!

The second category is that which celebrates national and/or cultural traditions, like The Nutcracker, which you may think is Russian in origin because the music for the ballet was composed by Tchaikovsky, but really, it is not.7 Regarding the music of The Nutcracker – the entire ballet8 – I absolutely love this decidedly updated interpretation of the suite:

Then, there’s the English Traditional Christmas pudding,9 as mentioned in the carol, “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”, though it makes reference to Figgy Pudding, which I have since learned is the same thing.10

This is also the treat the Cratchits enjoy in Charles Dickens’, A Christmas Carol.

As an exception that “proves the rule” (as it were), is that to the best of my knowledge there is no song or carol celebrating the Norwegian “delicacy” of Lutefisk (Lyoo-te-fisk).11 If any of my readers are aware of even one such song, please let me know in the comments!

If you grew up in Minnesota12 at the same time as I did, there was a very large Scandinavian population, mainly those of Norwegian and Swedish descent (and only one Finn of which I knew), and among the Norwegians, there was a holiday tradition of eating Lutefisk. Björn13 was the only one of my friends of Norwegian descent for whom this was an annual ritual – not even Günnar’s parents subjected him to it. 

Perhaps this will help illustrate what I cannot adequately describe:

This might have been an indication that its place as a tradition to be kept was becoming less secure – but I digress.

There is a collection that is the definitive example of this second category, and it is The Chieftains: The Bells of Dublin. There is not a bad track on the entire album, but my favourite is this:

Personally, this version is about a million times better than Browne’s original.

I’ve been a big fan of George Winston’s talent for decades now – and his album, December, was a source of comfort to me in the first year I was completely on my own – working in retail management, not as an associate on the sales floor.

As collection albums go, Windham Hill does it as well any other label – The Carols of Christmas has been part of every Music of the Yuletide playlist I’ve ever created – whether on Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, or even way back when you had to burn your own CDs if you wanted a customized playlist.

So, if you haven’t figured it out by now, music is of tremendous importance to me, especially during the Christmas holiday season, regardless of the occasion – a party, exchanging gifts, or just to get yourself in what is commonly referred to as, “The Christmas Spirit” (so-called) – we’ll cover that and movies in Part III. The right music – the right kind of music – can make all the difference between something joyous, and something else that is not.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence!

Until next time…

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Work on this installment started on the Monday after the first one published. I’ve been at this for eleven days! It is nothing like the original piece with which I began.
I hope you’re enjoying these, anyway! The final one is expected to be quite abbreviated, and I’m thinking I may try my hand at creating an audio version like Sasha Stone does with hers.

For some, it’s Movember, and if you were born with one X and one Y chromosome, and a penis – and you are prone to virtue signaling on social media, it’s time to publicly become paranoid about your mental health, male suicide, and prostate & testicular cancer. If you really want to be irritating, put that paranoia on full display at work. 

Then again, you could just be a man.

Mind your own business while leaving everyone else to mind theirs.

For others, it means Veterans Day – an opportunity to show your gratitude for those among us who have served our nation in its military but are no longer on active duty. 

For the more craven among us, it undoubtedly means Black Friday sales, some of which have been ongoing since Labor Day (or so it seems), but which will extend well into December.

No matter what November may or may not mean to you, for everyone else it means the first of the three major holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas (Eve, and Day), and the New Year (Eve, and Day) that make up the American holiday season – is upon us.

It also means that Christmas music is not far behind, if it hasn’t begun being played in public places, already. SiriusXM usually launches one or two holiday music channels even before Thanksgiving.

Personally, I find much of the popular secular Christmas music to be hackneyed and tedious. Ergo, I don’t willingly listen to much of it, but I know others who do, so in the interest of consistency with my libertarian sensibilities, more power to them!

For my part, I will seek to honour what I hold to be the true meaning of the holiday, and will listen to the music that celebrates it. I’ll cover that in Part II, or III. 

Until last year, I was quite unaware of my disdain for so much of the popular “traditional” secular Christmas music. Perhaps it was the result of an awakening I had while trying (without success) to find a parking spot at Southlake Town Square while throughout the shopping center, strategically placed loudspeakers blared out Brenda Lee singing, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree".

This, on the same day there was a pep rally for the local high school football team that was headed for the semi-finals and the opportunity to play for the state championship – an institution much, much bigger here in Texas – even more so than the traditional Longhorns-Aggies1 game on Thanksgiving. 

These open-air shopping centers serve the same purpose as the despised enclosed malls but are even more soulless (as if that is possible) because they are miniaturized versions of Seahaven Island, the artificial and very antiseptic hometown of Truman Burbank in the film, The Truman Show – designed down to the most minute detail, except for the homeless people.

Walking through Southlake Town Square, it seemed the majority of the storefronts were outlets for national retailers (Warby Parker, Ann Taylor, Talbott’s), and for locally owned and operated national franchises like Super Cuts – but there are precious few truly local, sole proprietorships occupying much of the available space – and of those that do, many are so highly specialized one has to wonder how they turn a profit. This may be true of most of the enclosed malls as well, but it seemed less economically vibrant, to me.

These types of shopping centers in many of the exurbs and smaller communities outside of Dallas, and Fort Worth but still within the Metroplex, are designed to emulate the thriving business districts of countless small towns, only without putting in the time to become institutions.

Typically, those close-knit business districts bordered the town square on all sides, had grown up with the community, and many of the merchants’ enterprises – hardware stores, diners & cafés, pharmacies, clothing stores, banks – all locally owned and operated – had been going concerns for generations.

Those burghs, however, were part of an America that is no more. They have all but vanished from the landscape – both figuratively and literally. At best, Parker Square and similar are a pale imitation of, and an affront to, the memory of that they are intended to replicate. What they represent instead is Instant Small-Town Downtown – just add tax-increment financing.

The advent of the aforementioned enclosed shopping malls – Southdale Center Mall, the nation’s first2 – began to doom the small towns as early as the late 1950s. Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, Urban Renewal (an oxymoron if ever there was one) only accelerated the decline.3 In fact, like every other government project, it achieved exactly the opposite of its stated purpose:

…to restore economic viability to a given area by attracting external private and public investment and by encouraging business start-ups and survival.4

In the 1980s, Walmart would do its part to finish the destruction of small-town America by doing what the malls could not. Walmart’s business model was to build in a rural area, and using its economies of scale, crush any competition in the nearby townships. Soon, those surrounding municipalities would cease to exist as little more than countryside bedroom communities – but, I digress.

Regardless of what precipitated my realization, we must begin with this question:

When did, “My Favourite Things” from, The Sound of Music, become a Christmas song?

This question has been discussed at length with trusted confidantes, and the conclusion drawn by me is that it is a conspiracy by the same organizations that have been behind initiatives to give the bogus holiday of Kwanzaa more exposure and normalize its existence – in this instance, the objective being the even further secularization of the music of the holiday. 

It’s a fine song in the musical, but it seems to me that the public is being coerced to accept its being forced into Christmas music canon.

As a result of said awakening, I compiled the list below. For each song, assume that all versions, regardless of the performer, are ones I would not miss were they to be nuked from low Earth orbit – and now, on with the countdown (so to speak).

Christmas Songs That If I Never Hear Again, It Will Be Far Too Soon

“The Twelve Days Of Christmas”
With this being the only acceptable version.

“Feliz Navidad”
– especially when performed by José Feliciano

“Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”
– particularly when performed by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

“The Chipmunk Song”

“Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”

“All I Want For Christmas Is You” 
– especially when performed by Mariah Carey

Any Christmas-themed song by, The Carpenters
Because hearing Karen Carpenter's voice makes me ravenously hungry.

“Blue Christmas”

“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”

“Jingle Bell Rock”

“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”

“Last Christmas”
– especially when performed by WHAM!

“Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)”

“Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”

“This Christmas”

“Do They Know It's Christmas?”

“Mary, Did You Know?”
– especially when performed by Pentatonix
Not because it isn't a good song, or that they aren't capable performers, but every year it seems everyone raves about their cover of it, and I refuse to be part of that crowd.

“Frosty, The Snow Man”

“Please Come Home For Christmas”

“Here Comes Santa Claus”

“Merry Christmas, Baby”

“Up On The Housetop”

“When My Heart Finds Christmas”

Exceptions
As always, there are exceptions to the “rule” (the word is used quite loosely) and I reserve the right to be a hypocrite. 

The first is when any song of the season is performed by Frank Sinatra. If it’s Sinatra, even this, while no less banal than anything listed above, is listenable:

The other exception is when any one of the songs on the list above are performed by a jazz combo such as, The Ramsey Lewis Trio, or, The Vince Guaraldi Trio, or, The Charlie Byrd Trio, or any marquee jazz musician accompanied by solid session players. One of my favourite such albums is The Christmas Collection (various performers).

Now, lest anyone conclude that when it comes to Christmas music, I am some rigid pre-nightmare Scrooge, bound by my inescapable White Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage and upbringing, there are a few irreverent songs of the season that I’m happy to share. This one is my among my favourites:

…as is this one:

…and this one is included strictly for shock value:

However, this – while not at all irreverent – is my favourite, hands down!

The best line in the entire song:

If this seems to be a little early, just remember that Thanksgiving is now fewer than two weeks away. Not sure about you, but come this time of year, I feel more than a little like Phil Connors.

Thank you, dear reader, for your patience, and your indulgence!

Until next time…

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The list is by no means exhaustive, so feel free to suggest any additions in the comments.

Note: It is not my preference that any of these and/or other Christmas songs be banned, only that if I never heard them again, my life would not be diminished in the least.

Many moons ago, way back in June as a matter of fact, when we here in Texas were just beginning to experience the Summer of the Great Oppression (three-plus months of consecutive days of high temperatures in the triple-digits), my wife and I hosted her three grandchildren for a weekend. This is what I wrote, then:

Since Monday of last week, my wife’s grandson from California has been staying with us – he’s here until the end of the month. This past weekend, the other two grandchildren were here, too – so it was a full house, and I loved every minute of it.

Today (Sunday), the other two went back home and that was when the ice cream truck arrived. Once again, I’m eight years old, tightly grasping my money in my hand waiting for this magical vehicle to come to a stop. I purchased a couple drumsticks for my wife and me, and a multi-flavoured push-up for the grandson. As my ex-wife and I selfishly chose to not have children (words cannot describe the bitterness of such regret – may God damn it all to Hell), that’s something I’ve never experienced before now, so I was more than thrilled to do it for my wife’s grandson. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to doing it for my own.1

I’ll amend my sentiment to read:

God damn my selfishness
May God forgive my selfishness

God damn my cowardice
May God forgive my cowardice

What I couldn’t have known then was that approximately three and one-half months later, the youngest grandson would be coming back to stay for a while.

The God I worship is the God of many things, but one of the best is that He is the God of second chances.

Let me establish the following:

1. The grandson belongs with his father, and one day, he will be able to return. For now, his grandmother and I will be seeing to it that his current living environment is safe and stable; structured, with boundaries; that he is in school*; that he is involved in activities outside the home; making friends, and having the opportunity to just be a regular a nine-year-old as much as is possible.

2. This nonsense about changing names to protect the identity of those involved is just that – nonsense. Anyone reading this has no idea what the grandson’s given name is – it could be Aloysius, Neville, Ian, Colin, Sanjay, or Manuel – and no one would know the difference. In fact, using a name at all is unnecessary. Nonetheless, for the purposes of this piece, he will be referred to as either The Kid, The California Kid, Cali, Joe Cantaloupe (I’ve never seen anyone – let alone a nine-year-old – put away as much melon as he does), or, The Abyss – as God is my witness, he never gets full!

Neither of us seeks to replace his dad – certainly not I. However, since my wife has already raised two kids of her own on her own, she knows what to do, and how to do it. My role is largely that of support and being a dad-like presence.

Toward that end, I take advantage of every opportunity for us to spend time together. Recently, we visited an AT&T retail outlet to restore to operability a tablet I no longer used – I then gave it to him as a gift. Afterward, we bonded over a Kid’s Meal at Wendy’s. In short, creating memories he may recall long after his grandmother and I have each shuffled loose this mortal coil, is the goal.

Among the more pleasant recollections I have of spending time with my dad is the weekly trip to the post office to collect his business mail on Saturday mornings – hence, The California Kid accompanies me on my Saturday errands. I want him to be exposed to things that men do like purchase new tires for the car, or attend an event at the local Harley-Davidson dealership, even if it’s only for an hour, or so!

Stranger in a Strange Land
On Halloween, I accompanied The Kid on his quest for processed sugar in its various incarnations.

None of the apparently new "traditions" - bowls of candy on the stoop instead of mothers answering the front door; "trunk"-or-treat; this along with the sheer number of people just flat-out refusing to participate - were even remotely recognizable, to me. Despite all that, he made a pretty good haul.

While his grandmother and I agreed that it was a golden opportunity to teach him about government & taxation ala Ron Swanson:

…hers was that discretion is the better part of valour, so I exercised restraint. The energy just wasn’t there, anyway.

We were out for not quite the better part of two hours – but forty-five minutes in, I could not keep up. Had we been on the run for our lives, he would have had to kill me because I was only slowing him down!

Truth be told, I might be able to remember maybe ten percent of what my dad ever told me – it’s what he did, what he demonstrated, how I felt in his presence that I recall. It’s what he exemplified in being a loving and faithful husband, the best dad he could be under some of the most difficult of circumstances, and just illustrating what it was – and is – to be a man that had lasting impact.

First and foremost – to be a man is to have integrity:

• A man’s word is his bond – he says what he means and means what he says.

• A man makes good on his commitments and his obligations.

• A man owns up to his mistakes when he makes them.

• A man pays his bills on time.

• A man makes sure his problems don’t become anyone else’s.

• A man is courteous to, and considerate of, his elders.

• A man is chivalrous toward women, even if it isn’t appreciated.

• A man minds his own business, and doesn’t become involved in anyone else’s unless he’s forced to be.

• A man does his job to the very best of his ability, regardless of any other concerns because the quality of his work is a reflection on him, and no one else.

Second – to be a man is to put those who depend on you, first.

Being responsible for The Kid’s welfare, even temporarily, has brought about a change in my behaviour (I haven’t ridden my motorcycle since he arrived because my wife depends on me to help care for him as long as he is in our charge), and in my priorities (only that which is in his best interest matters).

Having seen the film, Sound of Freedom, earlier in the summer, with its use of live footage of kids being snatched off the street in broad daylight, almost everything is perceived to be a potential risk, even in the most ordinary situations. Everyone is regarded with suspicion because I assume the worst of my fellow man.

For example, during our expedition on Halloween, when The Kid went to the front door of any given house, I remained on the sidewalk within full view of whoever it was answering the doorbell (on the handful of occasions it actually happened). It later occurred to me that had someone been so diabolically inclined, they could have opened the door, snatched him and taken him inside, and I would have been powerless to do anything about it.

By the time our community’s finest would have been able to respond, the kidnappers would have had time to flee, and The Kid might never be seen again. I’m not sure what conceiving of such a scenario says about me, but it chills me to the core every time I think of it. 

This controlled paranoia is why errands with him take twice as long. When finally we get back home I am absolutely exhausted, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Running errands isn’t the only time I spend with him, though – it can’t be, because it won’t be enough. Quantity is quality. As it is getting cold here in Texas, there won’t be much opportunity for outdoor activities, so time spent with him will have to be something done indoors. Given that for him, a significant part of recreation is playing video games**, if I wish to spend any additional time with The Kid, I need to meet him where he is.

Mea maxima culpa vis-à-vis Video Games
For me, this means a one hundred-eighty degree turn in re: my attitude toward video games, and their value. Until now, my perception of video games as a whole, those who played them, and the parents who allowed it was rather jaundiced with no shortage of myopic, self-righteous judgment and condemnation. While my pride and arrogance blinded me to it then, know that the irony is not lost on me now.

Part of what is driving my new perspective is coming to understand what The Kid has been through, and what he had to leave behind. For that reason I’m inclined to cut him more than a little slack. I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have come out of it any less traumatized. If playing video games helped him cope with the insanity and mayhem at home, more power to him.

Perhaps my skewed outlook is borne of envy because some of these games and the hand-held devices on which The Kid plays them would have come in handy on the round-trip from Newton, Iowa (at the time, home of Maytag appliances) to Tustin, California, home of our cousins. That cross-country odyssey was, for all intents and purposes, our family’s summer vacation that year. 

Even now, the sheer boredom – compounded by having to sit between my older sister and my older brother over the hump in the back seat of our 1968 Chevrolet Caprice (396-ci. V-8 engine, 275 horses – plenty of power, even if it was a station wagon) – is vivid in memory because once you’re west of Omaha, Nebraska on I-80, “I Spy With My Little Eye” becomes difficult. 

Also, since AM reigned supreme and control of the car’s radio resided with the folks up front, it might just as well not even be on – and, it wasn’t!

Besides, the deeper one got into the western reaches of the Midwest as we were, there wasn’t much of a signal to be received in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. As a result, everyone else in the car was treated to the sound of my brother drumming his hands on the tops of his legs, and my incessantly asking, “Are we there yet?” or, “How many more miles?” not having the slightest clue what the answer, “...one million…” meant. 

So, I am embracing the digital world of video games, and am committed to learning how to play one. The Kid, at my request, does his level best to explain to me just what the objective is in any given game he plays – Minecraft, for example – but my eyes glaze over after thirty seconds – he might just as well be speaking Portuguese.

The only one that seems to be within my grasp is, Mario Kart. It looks fun, but will likely prove to be beyond my capabilities once I begin playing. The Kid has made it clear, however, he’s not going to make any special allowances for me just because I’m old. If I want to defeat him in that game, I’m going to have to be better, end of story. 

Meritocracy may survive, after all.

Not Entirely Smooth Sailing
We are now more than three weeks in to our new normal, and I would like to report that all is going swimmingly, but I can’t because it isn’t. 

The Kid is here because my wife was able to persuade his father to send him to us while he was experiencing an instant of clarity in the midst of his struggle with alcohol. This meant his father not only would not go to jail, but he would also have an opportunity to get treatment and begin to get well.

He managed to bring The Kid to the airport via Über, then persuade security personnel (who typically take a very dim view of someone who is clearly under the influence) to make an exception so that he could take him to the gate,2 and while following through on the promise made to my wife speaks well of his character, it is sad that such was his condition in the first place. 

At the moment, The Kid’s father’s struggles are beyond what anyone can even begin to imagine, unless one has lived through the same. The situation is all the more maddening because it is clear that he dearly loves his son, and he strives to be the best dad he can be. There is nothing he wouldn’t do for him including once again getting well, and taking seriously the responsibility for being vigilant in managing his condition.

It is his being responsibile for his condition on a daily basis that is crucial, because this is not his first relapse. Apparently, each one tends to be worse than the one previous – the time between them, shorter – the downward spiral, longer – and each time the odds of recovery diminish until it is all but unlikely.

Therein lies the truly existential threat – because it isn’t just the vital organs like the kidneys, and the liver, that are affected. Matthew Perry’s struggle with drug and alcohol abuse resulted in a rupture of his colon requiring surgery that carried with it only a two-percent chance of survival even if successful, and having to wear a colostomy bag, perhaps permanently.3

What I’ve learned to be a common mentality among those who are in the grips of dependency – whether it is alcohol, prescription medication, or illicit narcotics – the next drink, or the next fix, is all that matters. Clearly, when one is in such a state, one is completely possessed by the addiction, and is not one’s self.

While that may be true, there are consequences for which the The Kid’s father will need to take responsibility. Any relationships with loved ones and others that may have been severely damaged – perhaps irreparably – may or may not be restored or even re-established. In the case of The Kid’s father’s former sponsor, he will have nothing to do with him.

We have since learned that he is once again attending AA meetings, that he is once again attending church, and that he is once again on the road to recovery, with a new job. As glad as we are about this development, for his mother to even entertain discussing when The Kid returns to live with his dad, said recovery will need to be sustained. There cannot be another relapse.

Wrapping Up on a Happier Note
On Sunday, we celebrated The Kid’s ninth birthday with the other two grandkids. We had a party at a nearby pizzeria, then came home for cake, and so that he could open his presents. With everything else that he’s had to cope with – a new living arrangement, a new school, new routines – we made sure that he was honoured on his special day.

There were plenty of presents from his dad, his mom, his aunt and uncle, and his Godparents. For our part, in addition to our gifts, we made sure there was a personalized birthday cake, and we picked up the tab for the food and beverage.

If nothing we ever do for children is wasted4, then we can be sure that we did more than just arrange for and provide a birthday celebration.

Grandma can be sure that she is doing more than just spending time reading to him.

I can be sure that I am doing more than just including him on my Saturday errands.

Hopefully, these will be part of an embarrassment of riches in priceless works of art in his memory the same way that mine are, to me.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

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*Would you believe that kids are no longer assigned homework, at least in the school district of which includes the elementary school he is attending? I don’t recall having any homework assigned me when I was in the third grade, but apparently no students are assigned any homework, whatsoever. I just cannot get my head around that.

**To his dad’s credit, there is a limit to the number of hours in a week he’s allowed to be on his laptop or tablet playing video games. A benefit of being at Grandma’s house is that those limits are expanded, just a little bit, but only on weekends, now.

1

Cultural Orphan

Meeting Wokeism's Ever-Present Existential Threat, the Neighbourhood Ice Cream Truck, and Getting Back in the Saddle

There are a number of pieces that are in their nascent stages, but it seems I just can’t get started on any of them unless I truly feel that I have something to say. That tells me I need to adopt some discipline if I’m serious about this effort. Seinfeld set aside a definite length of time every single day to write, but not this…

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3 years ago · 4 likes · 6 comments · NotFromTexas

4

Cultural Orphan

An Embarrassment of Riches in Priceless Works of Art, and A Prairie Home Companion (when it was good)

Recently, my birthday arrived, and quickly passed. My wife observed it in her inimitable fashion, otherwise, it was without any fanfare – just the way I like it. My sister’s birthday is just one day later (as was our late father’s), and as it happens, my wife’s is within a few days of mine, so when we could all gather on a Sunday to observe and “celebrat…

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3 years ago · 7 likes · 21 comments · NotFromTexas

Recently, in a rare display of spine, a handful of Republicans in the House of Representatives struck a blow for populism and forced now former Speaker of the House, Kevin “Beach Boy” McCarthy from office. On various outlets of the propaganda apparatus, many of these Republican representatives, along with “journalists”, pundits, Democrats, and even a handful of senators, have made frequent mention of the “Republican Brand” (whatever the hell that is) – and with a straight face.

Since the time I first heard it mentioned in 2016 by none other than Bill(y) Kristol, erstwhile NeverTrumper, adult toddler, and former publisher of the now-defunct, Weekly Standard, it has remained largely undefined, and seemingly invoked as a secret code among the establishment elites, and those of The Lincoln Project. Truth be told however, its definition is much more akin to that of pornography – no one can describe it, really, but one knows it when one encounters it. I might add that today’s Republican Brand enjoys about the same level of respect, but I digress.

Still, the question remains: Just what is the Republican Brand?

Like stereotypes, the reputations of brands are earned. For example, Sears & Roebuck had a sterling reputation nationally as a top-flight retailer borne largely of its catalog business, and then its big-box style stores that anchored almost every mall built in the US in the 60s and 70s.1 However, as far as my dad was concerned, Sears was the biggest fraud perpetrated on the American public since the New Deal. He would have loved Ron White for this, alone.

Brands are also recognized by trademarks like logos, or other graphic representations, which are not necessarily earned. Nonetheless, for nearly 150 years, the Republican Party’s trademark has been the elephant (or, if you are a reader of

the pachyderm, as part of the Pachyderm and Ass Show).

This is sad for any number of reasons, chief among them is that elephants are among the most intelligent of animals, and are popularly thought of as having an excellent memory.2

It’s time for the GOP to be assigned a new trademark, because it exhibits none of the intelligence, or the memory that characterizes elephants. I have some ideas but am more interested in what others might suggest. However, what is most sad about the GOP being represented by the elephant is that one of Disney’s most beloved animated masterpieces is, Dumbo.

Dumbo, an elephant, is a credit to his species – the GOP is decidedly not a credit to anything.

In the most general of terms, the Republican Brand is characterized by those in Washington, D.C. (whether as Representatives or Senators), who are seemingly resigned to being in the minority, grateful for whatever scraps fall from the Democrats’ table, and accustomed to having the terms of participation in the legislative process dictated to them by their Democrat superiors in the majority.

On those rare occasions when voters, out of desperation entrust Republicans with power, its caucus leadership has no idea how to wield it on behalf of the constituents it purports to serve. When this happens, Republicans in congress are seized by raw, naked fear, like a deer in headlights and they cowardly assume a mantle of magnanimity, sharing their power with their Democrat foes. Democrats then use it to get what they want. The Republican Brand is one in which Democrats get their way as the majority party, and Democrats get their way as the minority party, too.

Think of the Republicans in Washington, D.C. as the Washington Generals and the Democrats as the Harlem Globetrotters. The Harlem Globetrotters are not a particularly good basketball team. Their players are entertaining, they display some interesting “skills” on the court, and they have some signature trick shots. If they ever had to match up against even the NBA’s worst, they’d be routed.

Hence, the Globetrotters need a foil – a team that will lose every game because it isn’t legitimate competitive basketball – it’s exhibition, only. Generals players are paid to lose. Because it’s entertainment, no one really cares. However, when that same dynamic is made manifest in the real world with legislative bodies that bring their influence to bear on the lives of others, it ceases to be entertainment – it becomes an existential concern.

The left has always represented itself as the Cool Kids: rebellious teenagers (albeit without a clue), standing up to “authority” as long as said authority was represented as the “right” (read as, not the left, or normal): those who believe in God; place a high value on the constitution as being the law of the land; being accountable and responsible for one’s own actions, behaviour, decisions, and the consequences of each; that money borrowed be repaid on time; that content of character is more important than the colour of one’s skin and that neither entitles the individual to special rights on that basis; and that one’s own agency is what determines one’s station – in other words, grown-ups.  

Sadly, the stewardship of virtually every institution in this nation compromised principle to remain in the good graces of the Cool-Kids clique as defined and constantly re-defined by what social media allowed, and what it didn’t. Subsequently, wokeness gained visibility and credibility because the leftists in control of social media facilitated it.

Everyone whose better judgement compelled them to reject what they sensed was happening between 2008 and 2016 could breathe a sigh of relief with the election of Trump. This, despite their worst fears being confirmed regarding the most unholy alliance of the Political and Corporate Classes, the propaganda apparatus formerly known as the media, and darker international forces because they knew, at last, what was happening even if they had no clue as to its scale and reach.

In one of my last essays, my observation was that the election of Trump in 2016 tore the mask off of that most unholy alliance. This new axis of evil had no reservations about leveraging its apparently inexhaustible wealth to protect its hegemony and to mitigate the existential threat represented by Donald Trump.

In the wake of the election in 2016, everyone could see for themselves that the entire federal government – the three branches, the alphabet agencies, the “intelligence” community, and even small apolitical agencies like the National Archives were exposed in their mission to drive him from office by any means necessary – and as we’ve seen since last year, keep him out.

So, what does all of this have to do with the nonsense of the Republican Brand?

Today, this so-called Republican Brand is representative of all of the aforementioned while exhibiting several defining characteristics, none of which are at all attractive.

One of those is the Bush Doctrine – the apparent need to accommodate one’s political foes in an effort to win their favour, respect, and admiration. Never mind that these are not foes, but enemies, who have made no secret of their desire to see their enemy dead, and everything for which he stands, and values, utterly destroyed. See HW agreeing to break a campaign promise to not raise taxes (ostensibly to have then Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell say nice things about him, which never happened).

See also W seeking to set “a new tone in D.C.” hoping that the Democrats who viewed him as nothing more than an idiot having wandered away from his village might be nicer to him; having Ted “The Swimmer” Kennedy write the administration’s, No Child Left Behind Act. No Democrat supported it despite the fact that it came from Kennedy’s office – an indicator that the name Kennedy no longer commanded the respect it once did. The fact that it was associated with W made it toxic to every other Democrat.

Republicans extending olive branches by being overly courteous and respectful of Democrats does nothing except make them seem weak and obsequious. If you can stand watching the following, you’ll see:

This is particularly true because Democrats in any position of power seek to delegitimize their Republican counterparts at every opportunity. Allow me to demonstrate: this is who she really is – and what the Democrats really are:

Another is that the Republican Party loves to talk a big game, but that’s all it is – talk it can rarely deliver on its own. Whether it’s a cut in the individual tax rates across the board (which only became a reality at the end of Trump’s first year in office after being little more than a fundraising tool since HW’s administration), addressing the porous southern border, or holding the line on the debt ceiling.

The midterm elections of 2014 gave the Republicans control of the Senate that they should have won in 2010. But even before the new members took their oaths of office, then-Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell promised never to trigger a government shutdown. That effectively took the sharpest arrow out of the GOP’s congressional quiver, and again relieved the greatest pressure the Republicans could have exercised against Obama.3

or repealing the Affordable Care Act,

…congressional Republicans…made a major error that has…come back to bite them…the failure to pass the repeal of Obamacare in 2017 and the lack of any sweeping plan to replace the ACA even if it were fully repealed.

That failure was made memorable by the late Sen. John McCain’s decision to vote to uphold Obamacare despite his fierce and longtime opposition to the law. But its most powerful effect came in the 2018 midterm elections, when Republicans lost control of the House in an election where health care polled as the number one issue for voters.4

The Republican Party is a circular firing squad.

However, the most damning characteristic of the Republican Brand is its contempt for its own voters. Congressional Republicans were most conspicuous by their absence in coming to the aid of President Trump on virtually every issue for which he was under attack – which was every item on his legislative agenda – even the ones on which he prevailed.

Most of us who are libertarian-leaning conservatives who are also entrepreneurs, small-business owners, in blue-collar and white-collar jobs in fly-over country already suspected that despite the ‘R’ behind their names, they really served only themselves as the red wing of the uniparty bird. Any cognitive dissonance was almost immediately resolved once it became clear that congressional “leaders” like Buffering Mitch “The Turtle” McConnell all but sold him out:

All that’s missing are the daggers.

Recently, it’s the drama of the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the office of the Speaker of the House being vacant that is giving the establishment fits, and the Republican Brand its most sharply defined characteristics by its denizens in the chamber.

Establishment RINOs, especially those in the Senate, are clutching their pearls in fear, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich took to that other menstrual-period-blood-soaked panty shield, The Washington Post, expressing despair over House Republicans’ ability to govern.5

Inability to govern is nothing of which to be ashamed – in fact, that’s when Republicans are most effective. Inability to properly wield power on behalf of the constituents they ought to be serving is, though.

Nonetheless, Congressional Republicans are defining the Republican Brand as the brand of the losers who:

• Wasted two years of power by not lifting a finger to Build The Wall, thereby making Biden’s border “policy” possible.

• Wasted two months defending Liz Cheney when she gave Nancy Pelosi cover for that January 6 witch hunt. Let’s include Adam “Crocodile Tears” Kinzinger in that shameful group photo.

• Sit on the sidelines while Democrats railroad President Trump with frivolous lawsuits and indictments meant to bankrupt him in legal fees.6

It’s the brand of self-serving uniparty mandarins who can demonstrate furious outrage over the Speaker’s removal on a procedure to which he agreed in order to win the office in January, but are unable to do so when the US debt rises to over $33T; or respond with the same when the FBI rounded up Trump supporters and threw them in prison; or the “justice” system tries to take out Biden’s top opponent for 2024.7

What I find particularly tiresome is this lament over the damage that a vacant Speaker’s chair is doing to the institution. The House of Representatives has been all but useless as an “institution” for decades. The representatives in the House ought to change every two years and should reflect the populist sensibilities of the constituents of the districts represented. Unlike the Senate, it wasn’t intended nor is it supposed to be this august deliberative body, a debating society with hallmarks of mutual respect, civility, statesmanship, and a genteel air.

In fact, the Senate has become the House, only with terms three times as long. The Senate officially became a joke when the people of Minnesota elected Al Franken to it. Franken, a former sketch writer for SNL was reportedly hypersensitive to criticism of his work from his peers, thus earning a reputation for having skin the thickness of Gossamer wings. It’s difficult to imagine someone with such a temperament engaging in thoughtful, reasonable debate on the floor of the Senate. Then again, if one is a Democrat, such is not a prerequisite.

When John “Weepy” Boehner saw the writing on the wall, he got out before he was removed:

Boehner, 65, planned to leave Congress at the end of 2014, but returned because of the unexpected electoral defeat of his second-in-command, Eric Cantor. The feeling was that another agonizing round of internal GOP turmoil over his future ‘would do irreparable damage to the institution,’ a Boehner aide said.8

I shouldn’t be surprised – establishment RINOs don’t change.

Here’s this from Rep. David Rouzer, a Republican from Wilmington, North Carolina, droning on about the “institution”:

‘I think the motion to vacate was very unfortunate,’ Rouzer told McClatchy on Wednesday. ‘And the vote to vacate the chair, I think really does harm to the institution, the House itself and the House’s ability to govern. I also think it was a disservice to the country.’9

It’s the House of Representatives, not the Presidency. He’s dead wrong on it being a disservice to the country – on the contrary – forcing the Beach Boy from the office of Speaker was a tremendous service to the country – if nothing else, it broke a destructive and vicious cycle, and now House Republicans have deprived themselves of power without the Democrats coming to the rescue.

As a result, it would appear that a shutdown of the federal government is now all but a certainty. What’s been clear with every previous government shutdown (and is proving to be true without there being a Speaker) is that eighty percent of Washington, D.C. could be consumed by fire and no one would notice. No one’s life is being adversely affected by operationally impaired or even gridlocked government.

My hope, with every fiber of my being, is that the Republican Party as constituted and as it is currently known suffers the same fate as did its predecessor. For the sake of what remains of our nation, I really don’t see any other way forward – the America-first Democrats with which I grew up are all gone, now. The last one was former Vice President Walter Mondale. Whatever were his flaws (and they were legion), he and Hubert Humphrey were credits to the sensibilities of the people of my former home state of Minnesota.

If this nation is going to continue with its outdated two-party system, then the modern-day Republican Party, and its brand, needs to go. The question is: How do we, the people, make that happen?

The party that replaces that of the Republican Brand needs to be so inhospitable to current congressional Republicans that they have nowhere to go, and simply fade from public view, and that those who would seek the new party’s endorsement be in the mold of Rep. Matt Gaetz.

If instead, a third party that is truly a champion of the voters can emerge as the new alternative to the Democrats and demonstrate uncompromising commitment to all that the party of Lincoln once was (before The Wrestler declared war on half the country and ran roughshod over the constitution) and in so doing hold to the fire the feet of both Democrats and Republicans, it will be a new day for representative government in America.

Should the modern-day Republican Party prove to be incapable of rediscovering those principles for which it once stood, it will be relegated to enduring as the self-serving, ethically bankrupt, and servile mediocrity it has become, only serving a purpose if its numbers are needed to form a new coalition government.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

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6

Don Surber

McCarthy gets Liz Cheneyed

By a vote of 216-210, the House ended Kevin McCarthy’s two-faced, double-dealing speakership, as he became the first and only person booted out as Speaker of the House. A bipartisan majority decided enough was enough with McCarthy who had promised to allow congressmen to read an appropriations bill and wait 72 hours before holding a vote. He broke that promise this weekend. Matt Gaetz moved to remove him. Gaetz and 7 other Republicans joined 208 Democrats to vote McCarthy out…

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3 years ago · 162 likes · 205 comments