Nov 20 2024

A Morning For Epiphany

     “Discovery of my task is my task. It is like that with us higher life forms.” – Robert Sheckley, “Tripout”

     Epiphanies can’t be scheduled. They choose their own moments. (And I think that will go into the LIS Codex once I’ve finished this piece.)

     Say, did you know that blogs – “weblogs,” as they were originally known – were at first used as a kind of diary? I have no idea how many people used them that way, or whether anyone still does, but that was their origin. Sites such as LiveJournal catered to such users.

     Blogging is past its heyday, on account of the rise of the “social media” sites. Constructing and maintaining a blog takes thought, expense, and effort, whereas dribbling the occasional emission onto Facebook or X is easy and free. Those of us who elect to undertake the work and expense of blogging have times when we ask ourselves why we bother. Who reads our inanities? Who cares what we have to say?

     That may have been part of what caused blogging to decline. At its peak there were many millions of blogs. I have no idea how many are maintained today, but it’s surely a much smaller number. And whether you like it or not, Gentle Reader, the majority of them blather mainly about politics.

***

     I did say a few days back that I’m planning a shift in my personal emphasis here. I’ll still comment on the political / current affairs stuff, but I expect that I’ll be posting more material that’s outside that orbit – possibly way, way outside. For starters, consider this recent report and its implications:

     The legacy media often portrays the rise of irreligion as harmless—merely a matter of Americans owning up to their declining belief in God—but a groundbreaking new study reveals a terrifying correlation between the increase of Americans who identify with no religion and upticks in rape and suicide rates.
     […]
     “If the parents want to choose religious schools and want to preserve the religious faith of their children, well, my research indicates that’s going to be very good for everyone,” Philip Truscott told The Daily Signal in a Zoom interview Tuesday. A sociologist who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Surrey in England, Truscott taught as a professor of sociology at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri, for 10 years, ending in July.
     If religion makes a comeback, “everybody’s less likely to be a rape victim, everybody will have less need for public expenditure on mental health, because for every completed suicide, you get like 10 that are attempted suicides,” he said.

     Well, well! Religion as a counteractant to suicide and rape! Who could have predicted that?

     Note that Truscott avoids specifying a religion. He blesses our choice among them. Yet there is one “religion” that’s openly friendly toward rape, so let’s exclude that one. (As a Briton, he may have feared a backlash, even prosecution, had he chosen to say that openly.) The principal religions of the First World are all Christian. The percentages of Jews, Buddhists, Taoists, Shintoists, and so forth in the First World may be neglected for the purposes of this tirade. At least, I intend to neglect them.

     Christian faith defends one against many temptations to unacceptable behavior. It was also a powerful defense against social isolation. Note the past tense of the previous verb: was. It could be that again, if persons who claim to be Christians would make some effort to reach out to their fellows and cultivate relationships. But one must ask why, or noticing the correlation will do us no good.

     I think the key is meaning.

***

     Some time ago, I wrote:

     For a life to have meaning, it must have a purpose. (Granted that one possible purpose is to be a bad example, but the principle holds nevertheless.) But for a life to have meaning also requires an interpreter – and that Interpreter, for reasons that approach tautology, must stand above that which He interprets.
     […]
     He who has confidence that his life has a meaning is already there, even if he’s not sure what purpose his life is intended to serve. He who becomes certain that he has a purpose to serve – Christians have traditionally called this a commission — must have a notion about Who assigned it to him. While that begs the question of which must come first, it also reinforces the linkages among faith, hope, and confidence.

     People have made fun of the phrase “the meaning of life.” They’ve twisted and distorted it in many ways. But I’m convinced that the ever more common lack of a sense of meaning to one’s life is a great part of our current maladies: personal, social, and political. And meaning is something that Christian faith provides to every life. It’s inseparable from Christian theology and Christian ethics, both.

     At the very least, this is consistent with the Truscott study cited above.

***

     One of the great failings of our time is the great decrease in willingness to speak plainly, especially if we fear that some clown might be “offended.” Even Catholic priests have muted themselves somewhat – a terrible thing for persons under Holy Orders to conserve and promulgate the teachings of Christ. But right and wrong, good and bad, constructive and destructive have not changed. Even the preachers of moral and cultural relativism know that. The proof is in the way they conduct their own lives.

     The great playwright David Mamet said that a few years back. He observed in print that he’d lived in a manner entirely opposed to the sociopolitical values he’d claimed to hold. He refused to do so any longer, thus crossing from Left to Right. His candor scandalized his colleagues.

     This makes clear – and proof against any imaginable argument to the contrary – that for the great majority of our serious ills, politics is not the answer. Yet the Left strives to marginalize Christianity and politicize everything. What should that tell an intelligent reader of Liberty’s Torch?

     Gentle Reader, have a morning epiphany on me. No backsies. What you choose to do with it is your affair. And may God bless and keep you all.

Nov 19 2024

Some of the music that helped form me.

I don’t know why I can’t embed it. I blame my lake of skill, as well as the fact that I tend to loathe modern technology, which probably explains my lack of skill. But… Go have a listen.

I grew up with classical music, big band, and jazz from my father. When we moved to Idaho, country music on the radio became part of the mix. And then when my brother got old enough to develop his own tastes, I was introduced to bands like Metallica, Judas Priest, ZZ Top and Megadeath. And then the 90’s hit. And some of the best music in the world was coming out of the Pacific Northwest, which I just so happened to live in.

But back to Linus and Lucy. I can still remember dancing around the living room as a kid, trying to catch the groove and being amazed at how music could make me feel. Vince Gauraldi was a musical genius, and anyone who says otherwise should be prepared to meet me with their Seconds close by.

That’s all. Nothing political on this post.

Nov 19 2024

Sequels

     The news is blah – all the usual suspects doing all the usual things – so I’ll abstain from political and current events commentary for the morning. Instead, while we’re waiting for the coin toss that will mark the actual beginning of World War III – I’d elect to kick off – let’s talk about the monster that has consumed the entertainment world: sequels.

     It’s no secret that Hollywood is suffering from a severe case of sequelitis. Neither is it a brand-new condition. The early stage of the infection was already visible back in the Seventies. But today, sequelitis has made the movie theater, already eroded by the popularity of home viewing from DVDs and streaming services, into a museum that shows productions that pay homage to forebears from earlier eras.

     It isn’t confined to the movies. Sequels constitute ever more of the “content” offered by broadcast, cablecast, and streaming outlets. And as is the usual case with sequels, most of them are lesser achievements than their predecessors… when they’re not utterly horrid, feeble attempts to cash in on the original work.

     For example: Once upon a time, there was a movie titled Bloodrayne. At the time, it was generally deemed to be the worst movie ever made. It was so bad that anyone who thought to rent the Bloodrayne DVD at Blockbuster – say, remember Blockbuster Video? – would be warned by the clerk about how bad it is. That’s right: the clerks had orders from management to try to forestall the renting of that movie.

     But Bloodrayne has sequels. Two of them. So a movie’s awfulness isn’t an unbreachable barrier to sequels of it. It’s unclear whether anything is.

     Sequels of movies, sequels of TV shows, sequels of (shudder) classic novels – I haven’t read Scarlett and never will, but I’m told it’s about as bad as fiction gets – what else gets sequelized? And where is the bottom of the barrel?

     Let’s have some commentary, Gentle Reader. Give us your candidates for the worst sequels of all time, the ones that should have warned the “creators” of the world away from sequel-generating once and for all. What could be worse, say, than the endless sequels to the original Star Wars trilogy? Or the interminable, unwatchable sequels to the excellent Terminator and Terminator II: Judgment Day movies? And what about The Godfather Part III? Should the producers of that abortion be flayed, keelhauled, or staked out on an anthill?

     And while you’re at it: Give us your sacred cows, the productions you’d pay your life savings to prevent ever being sequelized. What movies, shows, or great novels would you be willing to have Congress protect against sequels by the force of law? I nominate The Lord of the Rings first and foremost… and I’d like to see the befoulers who produced Amazon’s Rings of Power atrocity hauled before the International Criminal Court to face charges of Capital Hubris and Bad Taste in the first degree.

     Your turn!

Nov 19 2024

The Morning’s Prayer

In Thanksgiving

     Dear God, I most humbly thank thee for all the favors thou hast bestowed upon me to this present moment: from for my creation; for my redemption in the blood of thy Son; and for bringing me safe to the beginning of another day. Let this day and all my deeds therein be an offering unto thee. May thy love animate and shine through them, to the greater glory of thy name. Amen.

Nov 18 2024

Is Serenity Even Possible Just Now?

     “I feel that if any songs are gonna come out of World War III, we’d better start writing them now.” – Tom Lehrer

     The tag end of the Usurper Regime appears determined to trigger World War III:

     President Biden has authorized Ukraine’s military to use U.S.-provided long-range missiles on targets inside Russian territory, senior U.S. officials confirmed to Fox News on Sunday.
     The senior U.S. official said the weapons will mostly focus on the Kursk region of Western Russia. The decision was first reported by The New York Times.
     According to the official, Biden’s decision was spurred by the Russian decision to invite 10,000 North Korean soldiers into the fight against Ukraine in Kursk. A second official told Fox that it is unclear if Biden plans to approve the use of the missiles outside the Kursk region.
     Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously said the U.S.’s approval of such missile strikes would constitute an act of war. He has yet to react to Biden’s announcement Sunday.

     The Usurpers would rather leave a pile of ashes than a functioning country to the incoming Trump Administration. That measures the depth of their hatred for Trump, for those who elected him – and for the nation as a whole. Not that we were in much doubt before this.

     Sadly, this is entirely consistent with Joe Biden’s character. He’s a dark, bitter man who resents anyone and everyone who’s more accomplished, more intelligent, or more applauded than is he. Having been forced out of the presidential contest galled him, so he did what he could to sabotage his replacement. Now that he’s doomed to die a one-term, thoroughly repudiated president, he’ll do whatever he can to pre-defeat the incoming administration’s efforts to restore what he corrupted. No matter what it costs anyone else, he will have his vengeance.

     The Democrats imposed this man on us, by force and by fraud. Remember that, Gentle Reader, should you ever again in your life be tempted to trust a Democrat.

Nov 18 2024

Everything Old Is New Again Dept.

     To get a truly broad sense of the insanity rampant throughout our species – a copious supply of evidence to that effect, at any rate – there’s no substitute for a single book: Charls Mackay’s immortal 1852 study Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Today, mindful of this evil, I reproduce a bit of it here, from Mackay’s chapter on “The Slow Poisoners:”

     The vendors [of the poisons] were chiefly women, of whom the most celebrated was a hag named [Giulia] Tophania, who was in this way accessory to the death of upwards of six hundred persons. This woman appears to have been a dealer in poisons from her girlhood, and resided first at Palermo and then at Naples.
     […]
     [Of the Aqua Tophania,] Haltemann the physician, and father of the homeopathic doctrine, writing upon this subject, says it was compounded of arsenical neutral salts, occasioning in the victim a gradual loss of appetite, faintness, gnawing pains in the stomach, loss of strength, and wasting in the lungs. The Abbe Gagliardi says that a few drops of it were generally poured into tea, chocolate, or soup, and that its effects were slow, and almost imperceptible…. Neapolitans called it Aqua toffnia; and it became notorious all over Europe under the name of Aqua Tophania.

     The Viceroy of Naples took note of the multiplication of beautiful young widows – an extraordinary number for a period of general peace – and resolved to act. Ironically, Giulia Tophania had taken refuge in a monastery under a false name, from where she continued to sell her poison! She was eventually discovered, tried, convicted, and put to death.

     Gentlemen, I hardly need to tell you that you cannot read the mind of your Significant Other. You cannot be certain of what she tells you, except for those rare instances in which you can verify her assertions with your own senses. While it’s difficult to procure arsenic these days, there are other substances sold in pharmacies – all of them marked For External Use Only! — that can be compounded into an effective and difficult-to-detect poison. I could tell you how to make one such poison off the top of my head, and there are several others I don’t know how to concoct.

     It’s a terrible thing to have to tell a man not to trust his beloved, but this is the age we live in. Watch her — and yourself.

Nov 18 2024

“Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion:” The Nadir

     I’ve ranted before about how this plague has infested entertainment, especially video productions. I thought at the time that I wouldn’t be moved to say any more about it – that I’d expunged the irritation, that the case was made, and what would follow, would follow. That was before yesterday evening’s “entertainment.”

     The C.S.O. and I enjoyed Timothy Hutton’s Leverage series from first to last. The shows were clever, well paced, and well acted for television fare. But all things must pass, and Hutton, the soul of the series, has gone on to other projects.

     Well, apparently the remainder of the cast got addicted to the action (to say nothing of those sweet, sweet paychecks), and persuaded Noah Wyle, perhaps best known for the Librarians series, to resurrect their glory days under the title Leverage: Redemption. The C.S.O. spotted the offering under Amazon’s “Freevee” subsidiary and insisted that we give it a try.

     After last night’s helping, I think she’s thrown the monkey off her back. In forty-five minutes of mediocre and unconvincing action, the show fed us:

  • Two interracial couples;
  • Both of which were also homosexual;
  • One of which was targeted by a white-supremacist hate group;
  • Which was acting as security muscle for a con man / plutocrat;
  • Which con man was straining to sell investors a fictitious electric super-battery;
  • Under the usual “make airplanes electric and save the planet, dude” pretext;
  • All while committing a massive pollution-invasion of the interracial-homosexual couple’s farm.

     Glory be to God! Could you pack any more PC bullshit into forty-five minutes?

     Well, at least the recently crowned Miss Universe 2025 is an actual woman. A blue-eyed European blonde, at that. Though I’m sure the DEI fanatics will be along any minute to protest that “black lesbians with penises were underrepresented” in the competition.

Nov 18 2024

The Morning’s Prayer 2024-11-18

An Offering

     Lord Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer thee my prayers, works, and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of thy Sacred Heart, in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for my sins, and for the intentions of the Holy Father. Amen.

Nov 17 2024

Willed Ignorance

     We’re very near to the end of Ordinary Time in the Church liturgical year. Next Sunday will be the feast of Christ the King. After that begins the Advent season, when Christians prepare themselves to commemorate the birth of the Son of God in mortal flesh.

     In a way, the birth of Christ as a mortal is the “beginning of things.” It was the event that initiated the Christian Era, which could not begin until He had come among us. So it’s balanced by the Gospel’s teachings of the end of things, such as in this passage from Mark:

     But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
     And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
     And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
     Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near: So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.
     Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
     But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

     [Mark 13:24-32]

     The end will come… but we are not to know the day nor the hour until that day and that hour are upon us. And so a cry rises, as in this passage from Fran: “Great God in heaven, if I won’t know when it’s coming until it’s here, how am I supposed to prepare for it?”

     It’s one of the key questions of the Christian life.

***

     God the Father, who knows all things from a perspective impossible for mortals to fathom, also knows when He’s going to pull the plug on us. If it were His will, He could give us the date. So it must be His will that we don’t know – that we can’t know. But given that it will be the end for all of us and everything else as well, why would He want us to be ignorant about it?

     It’s a great question. My conjecture is that in this case, ignorance is good for us. At least, it’s better than foreknowledge would be. The same is true for our inability to know when we’ll die.

     Life is a gift. But life can end without warning. Therefore, every instant of life is a gift: an opportunity to grow, to become more and better than we are. God has forbidden us to force an end to that gift. We are required to ride it out, regardless of loss, pain, or sorrow, to its natural end.

     And we’re expected to make the best possible use of it.

     Too much foreknowledge would impede the proper appreciation and exploitation of the gift. We’re allowed to learn some things, such as the laws of physics, the immutable aspects of human nature, and the folly of drawing to an inside straight. That sort of knowledge allows us a degree of mastery over our world and our individual situations. But it’s strictly preparatory. It renders us able to do what we’re made for.

     One who believes in an afterlife whose quality will depend upon how we conduct ourselves in this life is expected to “live right” all the time. That’s the premise of Christian faith: if we truly believe what Christ taught us, we’re expected to be good throughout our lives. Foreknowledge of the end would encourage a quite different mindset: “I still have time. I’ll repent and reform before I die.”

     Even Saint Augustine felt that temptation: “Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.” He was certain he would have time, and he wanted to get just a little more sinning done before the end. (Saint Monica’s reaction to that attitude of her son’s has gone unrecorded.) Far better that we not know – and that we prepare continuously for that which we know must come, even if we don’t know when:

     “The unknown,” said Faxe’s soft voice in the forest, “the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground of action. If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. No Handdara, no Yomesh, no hearthgods, nothing. But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion…. Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, predictable, inevitable—the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?”
     “That we shall die.”
     “Yes. There’s really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer. . . . The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.”

     [Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness]

     Not knowing is our spur to living a good life, from end to end.

***

     The same sort of logic applies to the end of time. If we could be sure of the day and the hour, human life would be incredibly different from the way it is now. Of course, if it were comfortably distant, we’d never think about it. But apparently God wants us to think about it, and about what will happen on that day, or He wouldn’t have had His Son tell us what to expect.

     The Sun could go nova at any instant. We’d find out it had done so roughly eight minutes later, as the explosion burned us to dust. We couldn’t do a thing about it if we knew beforehand, so why worry? Live your best life, and live it now.

     Of course, there will always be those who can’t help but worry:

     “And so,” the astrophysics professor intoned portentously, “we know that the Sun will explode in seven billion years.”
     A student in the third row leaped to his feet, screamed “Oh no!” and fainted dead away. Those around him strove to resuscitate him. The professor looked on, puzzled.
     When the young man had revived, the professor asked him, “Why did is upset you so to hear that the Sun will explode in seven billion years?”
     They young man’s eyes widened as he signed in relief: “Seven billion years? Thank God! I thought you said seven million years.”

     And may God bless and keep you all!

Nov 17 2024

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up Dept.

     If you occasionally find yourself thinking, of some government official, “He’s nuttier than a fruitcake,” have a bite of this:

     is actually seeking treatment for her phobia of bananas, and government staff has to sweep rooms before official visits on ‘health grounds.’
     The Telegraph reported:

     “Paulina Brandberg, the Swedish minister for gender equality, said that she was getting professional help after emails detailing her staff’s “banana-proofing” precautions were leaked to a tabloid newspaper.”
     The minister has ´posted about suffering from the ‘world’s weirdest phobia of bananas’ in the past, but has since deleted the posts.
     “Emails reportedly sent before official visits asked for “no bananas” to be allowed claiming that Ms. Brandberg had a ‘strong allergy.’”

     In correspondence with then Speaker of Parliament, an aide insisted there should be ‘no traces of bananas’ in any place where Brandberg would visit.
     She told the Expressen newspaper that she had ‘a banana phobia’, described its impact as ‘sort of an allergy’, and said she is getting professional help for it.

     How could anyone fear an innocent banana? Did she watch too many movies about murderous jungle savages as a child? Or perhaps that Monty Python skit about defending yourself against fresh fruit got her in a sensitive place. (Note that the instructor in that skit never mentioned durians.)

     Well, they say it takes all kinds, though “they” have never explained why. Clearly, governments in Scandinavia differ from those in the more temperate climes. Consider Finland’s Sanna Marin, and reflect.

Nov 17 2024

The State Of Fear

     “The State is based on threat.” [Illuminatus!]

     A great many people believe that government is there to “protect and serve.” After all, doesn’t it say that on the sides of the police cars? But the messaging on a package need not conform to its contents. In this case, the message is diametrically opposed to the State’s true intention.

     The State wants you to fear.

     The more fearful you are, the more power the State will have over you. Yes, some of that fear will be of the State itself: its power to enforce its will upon you and punish those who deviate. Yet most of it will be directed toward other things, particularly your fellow citizens.

     Reason presents us with an example this morning:

     It was dinnertime on October 30, 2024, when police handcuffed Brittany Patterson in front of three of her four children and drove her to the station in Fannin County, Georgia. She was then fingerprinted, photographed, and dressed in an orange jumpsuit.
     Hours earlier, around noon, Patterson had driven her eldest son to a medical appointment. Her youngest son, 11-year-old Soren, intended to come along but wasn’t around when it was time to leave.
     “I figured he was in the woods, or at grandma’s house,” says Patterson, who lives on 16 acres with her kids and her father. (Her husband works out of state). There is no shortage of family in the vicinity. Patterson’s mother and sisters live just two minutes away.
     Soren, however, was not playing in the woods. He had decided to walk to downtown Mineral Bluff, a town of just 370 people. It’s not quite a mile from his house. A woman who saw him walking alongside the road—speed limit: 25 in some places, 35 in others—asked him if he was OK. He said yes.
     Nevertheless, she called the police.

     Patterson was charged with “child neglect.” Her true crime, in the State’s eyes, was not being fearful enough.

     “But he could have been kidnapped, or run over, or anything!” Yes, and you could have a heart attack when you next try to stand up. Your home could be hit by a falling jet engine. You could suffocate because all the air in the room has spontaneously collected in one corner. All those things are possible. So are the terrible things that sometimes happen to children. After all, they do happen.

     But there’s a price for straining to avert all those negative possibilities. For generations, parents decided the risks were too small to worry about, and let their children roam their neighborhoods in confidence. Their kids grew up far more self-assured than our most recent generations of young.

     Instead, today’s parents are “encouraged” to hover over their kids until well into puberty. The consequences have ranged from deplorable to truly terrible. Worse yet, the most fearful among us have acquired power over parents who’ve managed to remain somewhat sane about the hazards to their young. The unnamed woman who called the police on Brittany and Soren Peterson is an example.

     Did you need an explanation for why “our” police seem indifferent to actual crime? You have one now.

     I believe the point has been made. Have a nice day.

Nov 17 2024

The Morning’s Prayer

An Act of Hope:

     O my God, relying on thine almighty power and infinite mercy, I hope to obtain pardon of my sins, the gift of thy grace, and life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer. Amen.

Nov 16 2024

The Republican Circular Firing Squad Has Assembled

     Some of its members have distinguished histories:

     Once highly respected, former South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy has proven to be an abject disappointment, particularly when it comes to spewing asinine rhetoric as a Fox News contributor against President Trump and his allies.
     […]
     Gowdy said he liked most of Trump’s picks but unloaded on Gaetz’s selection. He called the pick “dumbfounding” and smeared Gaetz as “corrupt,” alleging he only resigned to avoid being sanctioned by the House Ethics Committee.
     “You don’t root out corruption at the Department of Justice by picking a corrupt person to lead it,” Gowdy whined. “They’re (the media) talking about this wild card pick of someone who had to get out of the House to avoid being sanctioned by the House Ethics Committee. That dumbfounding pick is just sucking the oxygen out of all the good ones he made.”

     I one admired Gowdy as a forthright and effective conservative Congressman. His devolution since leaving office is distressing. Yet the worst of it is in the unsubstantiated accusation he makes above, in declaring Matt Gaetz “corrupt.”

     This must cease. Of course, it won’t do so of its own accord. Accusations of corruption, deceit, nepotism, double-dealing, racism, sexism, homophobia, and whatever other sins and pseudo-sins you can name are some of the most popular weapons in politics. The practice must be brought to a halt by the swift and unbending use of the only possible counter-weapon: the slander or libel lawsuit.

     Were Gowdy required to produce actual evidence of Gaetz’s corruption in a court of law, where witnesses could be cross-examined and physical items could be examined by experts, do you think that he would be able to convince a jury? I don’t, for a simple reason: he hasn’t done so in any forum to which he’s had access. Were Gaetz to compel him to put up or pay up, we could discover whether his accusation was substantive, or pure spite over Trump not selecting him for some appointive post.

     Remember that in the campaign that just ended, the Left did its most effective “work” by defaming President Trump as a racist, a fascist, an abuser of women, et cetera ad nauseam infinitam. Such defamations probably improved their totals by millions of votes – and success breeds imitators. Successful tactics will be reused and emulated. To prevent it, they must be punished, however little we like the idea of more lawsuits. Nothing else will work.

Nov 16 2024

I Can’t Stop Laughing…

     …and you won’t either, if you watch to the end:

     Shamelessly stolen from my hero David De Gerolamo.

Nov 16 2024

What’s Done Cannot Be Undone

     An action once taken is embedded indelibly in history. Regardless of its magnitude and direction, it cannot be undone. It happened, full stop. Even if it’s redressed somehow afterward, it will always have happened, and people will remember it.

     Words cannot be unsaid. A minor actress who’s too full of herself has learned that:

     The new “Snow White” has turned into a woke millstone around Mickey’s neck.
     The movie’s star Rachel Zegler generated ugly headlines for Disney when she unleashed an unhinged anti-Trump rant on Instagram.
     Her rhetorical capstone?
     “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.”
     A masterclass in hammery, make no mistake.
     But Zegler’s apparently gotten the message how disastrous a move it was and has already issued a groveling apology.

     The apology is of no moment. Zegler’s hatred took flight in words and revealed the foulness of her character. Those words cannot be unsaid. What they revealed cannot be unlearned. We now know her better than we’d like.

     Yes, her movie will suffer, but it was already fated to be a bomb. Zegler herself will suffer far more. Disney, which employs her, will suffer as well: Why do you have this immoderate, unrestrained, hatred-filled bitch on the payroll? The late Walt is surely clucking his disapproval from the afterlife.

     “You have heard that it was said to an older generation, ‘Do not murder,’ and ‘whoever murders will be subjected to judgment.’ But I say to you that anyone who is angry with a brother will be subjected to judgment. And whoever insults a brother will be brought before the council, and whoever says ‘Fool’ will be sent to fiery hell. [Matthew 5:21-22]

     Something for all of us to remember.

Nov 16 2024

You Can Feel The Hatred From Here

     So! Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who recently changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, has been selected to be Director of National Intelligence, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t like it:

     New York Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Tulsi Gabbard for the position of director of national intelligence, calling his choice “devastating.”
     […]
     “I actually think, almost more than Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard’s appointment is devastating,” Ocasio-Cortez stated. “Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination, as much as she says that she’s an anti-war person, she’s not. She supports very pro-war individuals abroad.”
     “And let’s be clear,” she continued, “A Tulsi Gabbard nomination is a pro-war nomination globally. Point blank, period.”

     Awww, don’t be sad, Sandy. Just because she’s smarter than you, prettier than you, more accomplished than you, and all-around nicer than you is no reason to react like that. Just go off in a corner and sulk for the next four years. We’ll get back to you then.

     The Left is completely consumed by envy. The worst cases are found among leftist women. Ocasio-Cortez may be its most garish instantiation. And with that bit of giggling and capering behind us, your Curmudgeon returns you to your usual morning pursuits.

Nov 16 2024

The Morning’s Prayer

     [I plan to make this a regular feature. We have enough gloom and doom; we could use some uplift. Besides, this is how I start my day at 4:30 AM. What better way is there? – FWP]

An Act Of Faith:

     O my God, I firmly believe that thou art one God in three divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; that thy divine son became man, and died for our sins; and that he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these truths because thou hast revealed them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.

Nov 15 2024

Quote Of The Day

     Today, the palm goes to Stephen Kruiser:

     The Democrats struggle with things like reality and the truth.

     Say it loud, Steve. It provides the explanation for why they can’t understand that their policies are unpopular and destructive. In conjunction with their assumption of moral and intellectual superiority, it also explains why they can’t admit to their mistakes. But I’ve said that many times before.

     Do we in the Right want the Left to wise up? Well, I do: it would pull them away from those unpopular and destructive policies. As they’ll eventually return to power, it’s in the interests of the whole country that they learn better. Only a partisan’s partisan would want the opposition to remain permanently clueless. Don’t let that be you, Gentle Reader.

Nov 15 2024

The “Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion” Pox

     The Fortress “cut the cord” a few years ago. As of today, neither the C.S.O. nor I misses what we forsook. We’ve mostly watched Amazon Prime, Acorn, and BritBox when we’ve wanted visual entertainment. But lately the DEI plague has made inroads there as well.

     Among my disappointments with the fare the above streamers have offered us is their ignorance of fundamental facts of history, the better to serve the DEI evangelists and activists. Consider: medieval-level, low-tech societies, historically have been racially uniform. That’s because concentrations of population in such societies almost always originate from a single tribe. When persons from other tribes first appeared in such places, it was usually as slaves.

     But the gatekeepers at Amazon either didn’t know this or were determined to ignore it for the sake of DEI. If you tried to watch Amazon’s Wheel of Time production, or its Rings of Power pseudo-Tolkien abortions, you’ll know what I mean.

     Tolkien knew better. (So did Peter Jackson.) But the DEI hawks never let the mere ruination of a classic fantasy discourage them from their crusade. In doing so, they rendered those fantasies so discordant as to be unwatchable, for me at least.

     The practice is quite deliberate. I’m not just imagining things and neither are you:

     Last fall, ABC unveiled a set of inclusion standards as a path toward more diverse representation both onscreen and behind the scenes on network shows. For onscreen representation, the guidelines called for 50 percent or more of regular and recurring characters to come from underrepresented groups and the same percentage for the actors who play those parts.
     Walt Disney Television chairman of entertainment Dana Walden referenced the standards April 9 during a panel discussion put on by Chapman University and Glamour, and she revealed that the latest crop of pilots received by the network failed to make the grade. “I will tell you for the first time we received some incredibly well-written scripts that did not satisfy our standards in terms of inclusion, and we passed on them,” Walden explained to moderator Janice Min, now a contributing editor at Time and formerly co-president of The Hollywood Reporter.

     But it’s not just the insistence on “inclusion” that has my fingers crackling.

     Yesterday evening, the C.S.O., a fan of James Patterson’s mysteries, insisted that we try Amazon’s new Cross series. Alex Cross is a Washington D.C. detective. All Patterson’s Alex Cross mysteries are set in D.C. And as we know, D.C. isn’t just majority-black; Negroes are close to 90% of the district’s residents. So it follows that the characters in a Cross investigation will be preponderantly Negroes.

     But what’s this? Here’s another pattern that deserves comment. While there is a sprinkling of Caucasian characters in the pilot episode, damn near all of them are villains, toadies, or maliciously racist. That’s definitely not the case for the black characters. Almost all of them are paragons of wisdom and virtue.

     This pattern has become perceptible, even conspicuous, in video productions of every kind. It falls in line with the “whites are evil” litany the Left has promulgated for more than a decade. It sanctifies racialist grifters such as the “Black Lives Matter’ movement. It also manifests in offhand citations of thoroughly debunked “racial” incidents: Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, George Floyd, and the rest.

     I’ve said it before: This is how you manufacture racial hostility on a national scale. Nothing good has come of it nor ever will. And we whites who still enjoy a little video entertainment now and then are getting mighty BLEEP!ing sick of it.

Nov 15 2024

The Small Of Soul Are Many And Vicious

     According to Christian theology, humans are a race unto ourselves. We can’t become angels or demons; those creatures are of a prior order of Creation. Yet when I look upon the behavior of some of our kindred, I can’t help thinking “she would make a ‘good’ demon.”

     In his novel of black magic Black Easter, the late James Blish described one supporting character, a succubus whom another character is thinking of bedding, as a member of very low order of demons:

     “Suppose you should find, for example, that no human woman could please you any more, and you’d become dependent on succubi? I don’t know how much you know of the theory of such a relationship. In general, the revolt in heaven involved angels from every order in the hierarchy. And of the Fallen, only those who fell from the lowest ranks are assigned to this sort of duty. By comparison, MARCHOSIAS is a paragon of nobility. These creatures have even lost their names, and there’s nothing in the least grand about their malignancy – they are pure essences of narrow meanness and petty spite, the kind of spirit a Sicilian milkmaid calls on to make her rival’s toenails split, or give an unfaithful lover a pimple on the end of his nose.”
     “That doesn’t make them sound much different from ordinary women,’ Jack said, shrugging.

     Jack’s assessment to the side, “ordinary women” are morally much superior to succubi… well, most “ordinary women.” For today we have a category of women before us that would surely be suited for that very low order of demons:

     The Buffalo Bills aren’t the only beneficiaries of the knee injury to Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker.
     News of Butker’s injury came out Thursday evening ahead of the Chiefs-Bills showdown Sunday, and, for many liberals disgruntled with the outcome of the recent election, the news was a reprieve and cause for celebration on social media.
     […]
     Several social media users posted in celebration of Butker’s injury, referencing the kicker’s previous comments on the benefit of women accepting domestic roles as mothers and wives and his endorsement of Trump.
     One widely circulated post had a caption that said, “Women seeing Harrison Butker get injured,” attached to a video of a television audience standing up and cheering passionately.

     Much as I’d like to copy the whole article – it’s a perfect depiction of “narrow meanness and petty spite” in human flesh – I’ll just suggest that you click through for the rest.

     What can one say about such low-grade schadenfreude? Delighting in another’s pain is a dead giveaway of a shriveled soul. What kind of man would willingly associate with such a woman? If she has a man, he’s likely to be a low-grade creature himself.

     Yet this is, if not uniform on the Left, in abundant supply.

     No, we in the Right aren’t a gaggle of saints. There are some among us who would take pleasure from an injury to a political or cultural opponent. There are probably some who would wish such harm to befall a disliked figure. But please, God: keep whoever suffers such a malady far from decent persons. It’s probably not infectious – people with an adequate stock of charity and humility recoil from spitefulness – but it’s repulsive, even nauseating.

     And as for you, Gentle Reader: should you ever be tempted to gloat over the misfortune of another, thrust it away at once! It’s powered by the residuum of malice we cannot completely expunge, that beckons us to partake of the dark pleasures of hatred. It’s a more seductive and more potent poison than belladonna. If you allow it an inroad to your soul, it will ruin you. Leave it to the demons.

     Take it from one who knows.

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