WTF Department

     As one of my favorite lapel buttons says, some days there’s no point in chewing through the restraints.

     I was musing over a subject that’s been on my mind from time to time –specifically, the downside of setting aside a particular day to be thankful, or patriotic, or worshipful, or what-have-you – when this news item appeared in my in-box:

     They say “no good deed goes unpunished,” which appears to include feeding your neighbors after one woman’s act of hospitality turned into several days of angry discussion online.
     One charitable woman posted a thread on Twitter about how she was going to make and deliver a pot of chili to her neighbors, a group of young men, according to the Washington Post.
     The woman said that she had accidentally received a few of their Doordash orders and noticed they were frequently ordering pizza, and decided to be neighborly and make them a home-cooked meal of chili.
     However, the woman’s comments drew a surprising amount of criticism, with Twitter users accusing her of “degrading and embarrassing” herself, “setting women back,” and more.
     Others accused her of being a “white savior,” or of being presumptuous for not checking with the men first about possible food allergies.

     It stunned me. Literally; after reading it, I sat still and silent for several minutes, unable to accept that what I’d just read could be true. Now, I’m not a Twitter user. I had a Twitter account very briefly some years ago and deleted it in disgust at the behavior I witnessed there. The story cited above is typical of what revulsed me.

     However, the driving wheel of such spitefulness isn’t Twitter itself. Twitter’s just a medium. Twitter makes it possible for people with nasty things to say to vent themselves. But like Facebook and other “social media” that are free to their users, Twitter has long illustrated a Gresham’s Law of Human Behavior: In a forum that values them equally, over time the shitheads will drive out the decent folks.

     Behind the venom of the nasty Tweeters, as with so many other things that deserve to be condemned, lies Leftist politics and its “assumption of differential rectitude.” (Thomas Sowell) For persons of that sort, “the personal is political.” They measure every word and deed against the Left’s standard of acceptability – and the Left only approves of that which will advance the Left.

     The relevance to Thanksgiving Day “should” be “obvious.”

***

     Some six decades ago, Tom Lehrer wrote a song:

     America’s fourth Thursday in November is a bit like that. It’s so drilled into us that this is the day to be thankful for your blessings that I can’t name a corporation that doesn’t give its workers the day off with pay. Everyone sits down to a gargantuan meal with persons they’d cross the street to avoid the other 364 days of the year. In the majority of such celebrations, the feasting waits briefly for a formal expression of gratitude – “To whom?” I hear you cry — after which it’s all food, drink, and football.

     As the gatherings dissolve, many a host has muttered to himself “Thank God that’s over with.” Count me among them, and not just because of an unpleasant incident long ago.

     Today matters are worse than ever before. We have an Administration that presses sheets of talking points on the citizenry for Thanksgiving Day table talk. Any number of families will be incomplete around the table because Uncle Fremmis or Aunt Hermione talks politics far too stridently. And of course “our” media must ring in with politically prescribed sentiments about the origin of the holiday and why it deserves to be condemned along with capitalism, patriarchy, the nuclear family, heteronormativity, and the white race.

     I no longer ask myself “How do these people manage to live with themselves?” I know the answer too well. Their “progressively” prescribed hatreds are what keep them going. If there’s particular day set aside for thankfulness, that’s just a special occasion on which to vent their spleen.

     Just thinking about it makes me freshly weary.

***

     One more citation and I’ll drop this infuriating subject. It’s about a movie: The Life of David Gale, which stars Kevin Spacey, Laura Linney, and Kate Winslet. It’s skillfully written, acted, and directed…and the most horrifying bit of cinema I’ve ever seen. If you haven’t seen it…no, I don’t think I’m going to recommend it to you. Instead I’ll give you the best precis I can manage.

     The title character, played by Spacey, is a college professor and anti-death-penalty activist who gets an opportunity to confront the governor of his state on the subject. The governor challenges Gale to cite even one instance of a death row inmate who was provably condemned unjustly…and Gale can’t do it. Unrealistic? Of course, but that’s in the nature of moviedom.

     Gale’s career, marriage, and life fall apart due to an unwise sexual encounter with one of his students – a student who aggressively pursued him and then filed a claim against him for yielding to her. One of the early giveaways to the movie’s agenda comes when Gale asks fellow professor and activist Constance Harroway, played by Linney, how the faculty tribunal on his “offense” voted…and how she, in particular, voted. In a tone that writhes with disgust, Linney says “I voted for you…and against my politics.”

     In the aftermath, Gale decides to contrive his own execution for murder:

  1. By persuading the cancer-doomed Harroway to collaborate with him;
  2. By videotaping her death by suffocation as if he had murdered her;
  3. By allowing the videotape – a strategically incomplete recording of the event – to reach the justice authorities;
  4. And by arranging for the release of a complete recording, which makes it clear that Harroway’s death was self-chosen and self-inflicted, to reach the press only after Gale has been executed.

     Is it not superb! By carefully assembling these bits and concealing the right ones just long enough to bring about his death at the state’s hands, Gale contrives exactly what he lacked in his exchange with his governor: an “unjust” execution! The viewer cannot doubt Gale’s dedication to his chosen cause…well, except for the fact that by his lights he’d already lost everything worth living for, the woman he “murdered” was days away from death by cancer, and had the circumstances been even a trifle less bleak neither of them would have done any such thing. Yet the critical community hailed the movie as brilliant and uniquely relevant to our times.

     Politics in our time: the politicization of all things, and to Hell with what it does to our ability to trust one another.

***

     That’s all. I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving Day, and that I haven’t depressed you unduly. I shall now lock and barricade the Fortress’s doors and take up my traditional Black Friday stance: i.e., seated comfortably on the sofa, shotgun at the ready, with a wife, three dogs, three cats, and a good book for company. Have a nice day.

My First Time Hosting Thanksgiving

I’ve been a PART of the host family before, of course. But, generally, my husband did most of the buying, cooking, and setting up.

The kids and I split up the load. With the assistance of my grandson, I cleaned and got the place ready for guests. They all (kids, grandkids, and siblings) pitched in to make it happen. Even the kitchen sink getting clogged didn’t stop the process. They made it all happen.

There was a few minutes of excitement, when the lights went out. It turned out to be a neighborhood issue, and after about 1/2 hour, they came back on.

But it was a GREAT day!

The Secret To Happiness: A Thanksgiving Tale

     [I’ve told this one before on a less conspicuous occasion, at Liberty’s Torch V1.0. Nevertheless, it is especially appropriate for Thanksgiving Day: a commemoration that was once much differently centered than it is today. If you are truly grateful for your life and station, turn aside from the food, the family, and the football for a moment during this day and ask yourself this: “To whom should my thanks be given?” Do you have the answer?
     Also, please, please read this extraordinary explication of gratitude by Father Romano Guardini. It’s a dazzlingly clear unfolding of the wherefores of gratitude that few of us ever ponder. And have a Happy Thanksgiving Day.– FWP]

***

     They were a race of great power, numerous and capable. They built high, delved deeply, and ranged far. Their history encompassed many centuries of proliferation and advancement. Their future appeared as unbounded as the universe. Yet they were not happy.

     They quarreled ceaselessly, both among themselves and with those of other lands. Every household knew stress and strife; every polity teetered forever on the brink of collapse. Nothing they achieved, singly or in groups, brought the smallest balm to their souls.

     Which is why the discovery of the scroll captured the attention of all their world.

     It was aged and brittle. Their archeologists unrolled it with great delicacy, lest the message it bore across the centuries be fragmented and destroyed. When it was open at last, they found that it was written in a tongue that had not been used since the earliest era of their existence. When their paleolinguists succeeded in translating it, they were astonished, for its very first line it promised them that the secret to happiness lay within it. Yet the translation revealed nothing such.

     The last line appeared to be meaningless, merely a string of scribbles. A myriad of scholars argued fiercely over the translation, each one certain that his interpretation was correct and that all his colleagues were wrong. But none of them could say that he had divined the secret to happiness that the scroll promised on its very first line.

     No one could make out the significance of the scribbles on the last line.

     One of the paleolinguists had a young daughter, a girl of surpassing sweetness and grace. All who knew her spoke glowingly of her. All who met her, no matter how brief the encounter, thought frequently of her afterward, always with pleasure. Though her family was not materially wealthy, she asked for nothing and begrudged nothing to others. In all their world she seemed the only truly happy person.

     A day came when the girl’s father was puzzling over his copy of the scroll, on which he’d included the mysterious scribbles at the end. He’d left the door to his study open, and his daughter ventured hesitantly through it.

     “What are you working on, Father?” she said.

     He smiled and stroked her hair. “A copy of an ancient text. It claims to hold the secret to happiness, but neither I nor any of my colleagues can discern what that might be.” He sighed. “We could surely benefit from such a great wisdom.”

     The girl peered at the copy, squinted briefly, and said. “But it’s right there, on the last line.”

     “What?” her father exclaimed. He was immediately consumed with fury and suspicion, made all the more piercing by his fear that she might indeed have penetrated the mystery. “How is it,” he said angrily, “that you believe you can find what I and so many others of great erudition have missed over years of study?”

     The girl was unaffected by his tone or the storminess of his countenance. She took a pencil and a sheet of paper from his desk, smiled up at him, and said only “Watch.”

     First she copied the scribbled last line exactly as it appeared on the text in her father’s hands. When she was certain she had made an exact copy, she did something both old and new…something no scholar had thought to do before her: She assembled the individual fragments of the last line, superimposing them with care, until they resolved into a single picture.

     It was an ideogram.

     When she had completed her task, she set down the pencil, handed the sheet of paper to her father, and smiled. With a single glance he knew at once that she had glimpsed what he and innumerable others had failed to see. The ideogram expressed a single word in that ancient tongue, a word almost never used among them.

Gratitude

     “You see?” she said. “It was right there all along.”

     As her father surrendered to tears of inexpressible joy, she curtsied and went from the room.


     Learn the secret.
     Clasp it ever to your breast.
     Clutch it the more fiercely in times of sorrow.
     Share it with others, for it is not diminished by being shared.

     May God bless and keep you all.

Two BIG Promotions!

     Yes, Gentle Reader: the time of marketing and promotions is upon us once again. And as I’m fairly sure that you, like me, have had your fill of excessively clever electronic gadgets and ridiculous use-it-once kitchen appliances, you might find these promotions to be more to your taste.

1. Cheap Ammo!

     My friend Jack Neal at CheapAmmo.Com has…cheap ammo in stock! Mirabile Dictu! Here are his current offerings:

  • 9mm Ammo – 500 rounds 115 Grain FMJ – $100 (.20/rd delivered)
  • 5.56 Ammo – 500 rounds 55 Grain FMJ – $160 ( .32/rd delivered)
  • 40 S&W Ammo – 1000 rounds 180 Grain TMJ – $270 (.27/rd delivered)
  • 45 ACP Ammo – 1000 rounds 230 Grain TMJ – $380 (.38/rd delivered)
  • 380 ACP Ammo – 1000 rounds 95 Grain FMJ – $270 (.27/rd delivered)
  • 22 LR Ammo – 3330 rounds 36 Grain CPHP – $200 (.06/rd delivered)

     The ammo is all brass-cased, and the prices become effective at 9 AM on Friday, November 25. Jack’s site will also help you find an FFL for your transfer. As has been said: Guns won’t fill the emptiness in your soul. You need ammo too!

2. Cheap Books!

     My friend Hans G. Schantz is running a $0.99 or free sale for a huge collection of “based” books:

     My novels are in there once again, if you’ve been putting off making their acquaintance, but there are many other worthy writers represented therein. Quite a number of them are brand spankin’ new, so replenish your stacks while the opportunity is here!

Teaser Time

     Remember what I said about too many projects? It’s one of the reasons 2022 is likely to be the year I don’t release a new novel. Anyway, here’s the opening of a new Onteora County Romance. Working title: Doors. (This makes five separate novel-sized projects on the anvil. Is there a twelve-step group for this problem?)

***

How It Began

     From the moment he first demonstrated the ability to fold a towel, Paul Larsen’s parents put him to work in Larsen Hospitality, their modest but profitable bed-and-breakfast in Ogunquit, a town on the southern Maine seacoast. It had been the Larsens’ family business for several decades. The industry he displayed was one of the reasons the B&B did well.
     Paul’s de facto indenture meant free time for his parents, albeit at the price of free time of his own. They appreciated his labors greatly. They said so often. They never bothered to take notice of his complete lack of friends, a social life, or any prospects for romance.
     By the time he’d finished high school, Paul was habituated to those conditions. Ceaseless labor had been his lot since early puberty. He never complained. He saw no point to it. He didn’t even consider a college education; he went from graduation to full-time work at the B&B. It had become the whole of his existence.
     On Paul’s thirtieth birthday, after an exceptionally busy vacation season, his parents made a stunning announcement: they had decided to retire. They’d purchased an oceangoing sailboat and were planning to spend their golden years sailing around the world, seeing the sights that forty-three years of unending toil had denied them. Larsen Hospitality would henceforward be his, to do with as he pleased. And so a few days later, they bade their son farewell, unmoored their vessel from its Kennebunkport dock, and jaunted off across the Atlantic, leaving Paul to do alone the work that had absorbed three people’s efforts.
     The job taxed him severely. It left him perpetually exhausted, with little time for anything but work. He endured that status stoically until, in early May of what would be his third year alone, exhaustion compelled him to adopt an expedient his parents had never contemplated: he advertised for an assistant.

Assistant Wanted: Profitable Ogunquit bed-and-breakfast needs an assistant manager. Make no mistake, it’s hard work. Salary negotiable; hours definitely not! Interested persons should reply to this ad at larsenhosp@coastserv.net

     Paul had no idea how many applicants his ad would attract, or of what sort. He was surprised on both counts.

#

     The flood of replies to the ad proved a trying experience. Merely to read them proved taxing. The great majority of his respondents made demands he could not meet, whether for money, perquisites, or time off. These he answered with a brief demurrer. Others claimed experience that would qualify them for the management of a great hotel. At any rate, it would price them beyond his means. Those he thanked for their interest but expressed regret that the post he needed to fill was far beneath their attainments. Then there were the solicitations for get-rich-quick schemes and the invitations to invest in a “sure thing.” Those he ignored completely.
     But early in the morning of the seventh and last day the ad was scheduled to run, he received a note that piqued him with its peculiarity:

Greetings! I have absolutely no credentials in hospitality, and no special knowledge of the bed-and-breakfast trade. However, I love the Maine seacoast, I’m energetic, and I’m willing to throw myself wholly into something I’ve never done before. I cook well and clean meticulously, I make a nice bed, and I fold sheets and towels into things of beauty. Are you willing to take a chance on a novice? Let me know at once at cholm@onteora.ny.gov, as I’ll only be here for another day or two unless you decide to hire me on the spot. Excitedly awaiting your reply!

     The energy and candor of the note charmed him. He decided to reply with an invitation:

Dear cholm,

So you love the Maine seacoast and make a nice bed, do you? As no other applicant has even hinted at such exalted qualifications, I find that I must meet you. Larsen Hospitality is at 15 Blue Water Way in lower Ogunquit. If you can find your way here during business hours today or tomorrow, we’ll talk further. Regards!

     Only an hour had passed when what seemed the answer to his prayers presented herself at his front door.

#

     Paul was in the middle of making up one of his two luxury suites when his doorbell clanged the arrival of a visitor. He dropped a pile of fresh linens on the unmade king-size bed and hurried down the stairs to the front desk. The entrant upon whom his gaze landed immediately moved him to smile.
     She was young and petitely pretty, not quite five and a half feet tall despite formidably high heels. She was platinum blonde, with a complexion to match, and had blue eyes gently crinkled at the corners. Her figure was trim but noticeably feminine. Her sleeveless yellow sundress and heels struck him as an odd choice for a young woman applying for a position in a demanding trade. Her smile hovered at the edge of intimacy, as though she were visiting a dear friend rather than reporting for a job interview.
     I don’t think I’ll hold that against her.
     “Good morning, Miss.” He circled the reception desk and offered her a hand. “Are you my correspondent cholm at onteora dot ny dot gov?”
     Her smile brightened even further as she clasped his hand. “That I am. Carol Holm, at your service. Potentially, anyway.”
     A Swede.
     “Well, I am Paul Larsen, the owner-operator of this modest establishment, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” He indicated the stairs with a nod. “Would you care to accompany me on my rounds?”
     “You’re making up rooms? You, the owner?”
     He nodded. “I’m alone here. The job is running me off my feet. I am desperate for help.” He gave her a cocked eyebrow over a critical eye. “Would you be willing to demonstrate some of the skills you mentioned in your note?”
     She chuckled. “Of course. Lead the way, sir.”
     “Please call me Paul.”
     “Thank you. I’m Carol.”
     “Then let’s be off.”

#

     Paul had never seen a fitted sheet folded with such precision, to say nothing of the gusto with which Carol did so. It looked straight out of a retail package, as did the other elements in the set. And yes, she did make a nice bed.
     Very nice.
     Though he’d expected only a demonstration, she proceeded to fold, stack, and store the whole of the pile of freshly laundered sheets and towels, humming softly throughout. At the completion of her labors, she closed the doors of the linen closet, turned with a flourish, folded her hands at her waist, and aimed a Well? glance at him. He shook his head.
     “I didn’t expect such a display of skill,” he said. “Especially in a sundress and heels.”
     Not that I’m about to complain.
     “I didn’t have a business suit with me,” she said. “Until I saw your ad, I was just a vacationer from New York, wandering the shops and mourning my imminent departure.” Her expression sobered. “But I am interested in the position, if we can come to terms.”
     “How have you been making your living up to now?”
     “Civil engineering. I’m a town building code inspector.”
     “Oh? Which town?”
     “Oakleigh, in Onteora County. It’s a small town in a small county in a boring part of New York. Not quite in the Finger Lakes tourist zone, not quite on the wine trail, not quite in the Southern Tier—”
     “Not quite anywhere at all?”
     She grinned ruefully. “That’s about right. Nothing of importance. Just people, really.”
     He grimaced. “I’m not an engineer and know nothing about it,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure you already make more than I can afford to pay you.”
     Her pleasant expression didn’t even flicker. “Don’t worry about that. If you like me—”
     “I do.”
     “—I’ll be happy to talk terms. At least if I can live as well as work here.”
     “You’re that eager to work in hospitality?”
     “Paul,” she said, “I regard your opening as a wish come true. Not only am I in love with this area, I’m desperate to get out of my current job.” A shadow passed over her face. “There aren’t a lot of things I wouldn’t do to relocate here, and the sooner the better.”
     Desperation’s a poor reason to do most things.
     Do I care? To have her around…

     He steadied himself as best he could. Her beauty, vivacity, and energy were compelling. Her appeal threatened to overwhelm his good sense. After only half an hour’s acquaintance, he was already imagining a relationship that would involve activities far distant from making beds and folding laundry.
     Stay cool. You’re looking for an assistant, not a mistress.
     “And you’re willing to work with a Dane?”
     “Hm? Oh, Larsen, right.” She shrugged. “The Fredericks and the Charleses have been dead long enough, wouldn’t you say?”
     He took a deep breath.
     She’ll cut deeply into your own share. If you pay her decently, at least. And you know you will.
     “All right,” he said. “Let’s have a little lunch and talk terms.” He glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes to noon. “Do you like Greek food?”
     “I do!”
     “Then let’s hit the takeout place on Route 1.”

#

     They chatted amiably all the way to the restaurant, where he bought them each a gyro. They returned to the B&B and settled themselves at the kitchen table, where they ate and talked terms.
     He was candid about his revenues and his expenses. He even offered to open his books to her before she need commit. She replied that she understood what paying her a decent salary, even by Maine standards, would do to his proceeds, but insisted that she would listen to whatever offer he felt he could make without taking or pretending offense. He nodded as if in acceptance, but kept his interior assessment to himself.
     As they talked, his curiosity about why she was so desperate to leave her civil-engineering position rose ever higher. He told himself that it was her business and not his. Besides, if it were genuinely important, no doubt she’d tell him in her own time.
     He emphasized the burdens of the trade: the need to be forever cheerful; the peremptory manner many guests have about their “needs;” the cooking and housekeeping chores and the constant scurrying after resources for them; and so on. None of it seemed to daunt her. She smiled and professed herself ready for the challenge.
     He pondered whether he should mention the recent influx of persons with unpleasant ways and unfriendly agendas, but decided against it. At least they’d been relatively quiet during Maine’s “Vacationland” season.
     So far.
     He could have discouraged her, but he didn’t really want to.
     Hesitantly, he made her an offer. It struck him as shamefully low, especially to a young woman employed as an engineer. Yet it was forty percent of his annual revenue net of maintenance and taxes, all he felt he could afford. To keep it from sounding like a prospect of penury, he threw in room, board, and the right to use either of the house vehicles. She accepted it without an instant’s hesitation, then added a question.
     “Do you have WiFi?”
     It set him back momentarily. “Uh, not a proprietary account, no. I use the coastal service, which is provided free of charge to local businesses. The signal is pretty reliable. Why?”
     She shrugged. “To keep in touch with the world. I know I’ll be busy, but I’d like to be able to surf the Web now and then, keep up on what’s happening and, ah…stuff.”
     Most people who settle up here are happy to keep ‘stuff’ away from them. It’s becoming a second job for a lot of us.
     “News junkie?” he said.
     “Yeah, sort of. It’s just…I don’t know,” she said. She looked away briefly. “It’s getting kinda dangerous out there. I’d rather know about what’s going on than not. Especially if there’s any chance it might come here.”
     It’s already here. If I weren’t so desperate to have you here, I might mention it.
     “I get it,” he said. “I should probably put some time into that myself.”
     Her eyes twinkled. “We could do it together.”
     “All right.” He extended a hand, and she took it. “Welcome to Larsen Hospitality, Carol. I hope you won’t regret this.”
     “Thank you, Paul. I’ll do my best.” She rose and performed an elaborate upper-body stretch. The sight raised his heart rate by twenty beats per second. “When would you like me to start? I have to give two weeks’ notice back in New York, but otherwise, I’m free.”
     “Could you be ready to start two weeks from tomorrow?”
     “That’s fine. Would you show me my rooms, please?”
     Damn, I forgot. “Sorry, I should have told you about that up front. I have a two-bedroom suite on the first floor. It’s the only space set aside for long-term occupancy. I’ll equip your bedroom door with a deadbolt lock so you can have privacy and security, and we’ll share the rest of the suite. If you’re still willing, that is?”
     She pondered it briefly.
     I hope that’s not a dealbreaker.
     “That’s acceptable,” she said, “if you don’t mind sharing the rest of your living space.”
     “I did it for most of my life.”
     “Oh. Your parents?”
     He nodded.
     “Well,” she said, “I promise not to hector you about the hours you keep, or why it’s taking you so long to find a nice girl, get married, and produce some grandchildren.”
     He laughed. “That will definitely be an improvement.”
     His smile remained long after she’d left.

Sunday, May 17, 2037

     Carol parked her Acura RDX in the rear lot between a sturdy-looking shed and Larsen Hospitality’s Ford Transit van and Volkswagen Jetta, hauled her suitcases out of the trunk, and trudged around the building to the front entrance. It lacked a few minutes of noon. She rang the bell once and composed herself to wait.
     He’s probably pretty busy. He already had boarders two weeks ago. Peak vacation season is only a week away.
     I’d better be ready for this.

     The door swung open. Paul smiled down at her.
     “All your worldly goods?”
     She chuckled. “Not quite. I’ll have to go back to New York at least once to close some accounts and dispose of a few things. But here I am. May I get installed?”
     “Of course.” He glanced down at her footwear and his eyes compressed in puzzlement.
     “Do you intend to go through the work day in heels?” he said.
     “It’s what I’m used to,” she said. “When you’re as petite as I am, heels are virtually a necessity.”
     He frowned. “Necessity for what?”
     “For being taken seriously.”
     “Oh. Well, I hope you have some flats or sneakers, for walking around in the woods.”
     “I do.”
     He relieved her of her bags, ushered her inside, and led her to the owners’ apartment.
     The suite was comfortable and reasonably spacious. The living-room furniture all looked well used but clean and well cared for. There was a bookshelf stereo and a flat-screen television of modest size. The floors were oak plank that had recently been refinished. The kitchen wasn’t overly large, but it appeared clean and decently equipped. She peered into the bathroom and saw nothing to disturb her. He noticed her inspection and nodded.
     “We’ll be sharing that, I’m afraid,” he said.
     “That’s all right, as long as there’s somewhere I can put a few toiletries.” She gazed around. “Which room is mine?”
     He gestured down a short passage. “The door on the left.”
     He opened the door, slid her bags inside, and stepped aside, gesturing that she should enter first. She noted the deadbolt lock set above the doorknob, stepped into the room, and smiled.
     The weight of the door struck her immediately. It was far more massive than a conventional bedroom door, more of the sort found at the entrance to a home. The jamb was plainly made of steel. She turned and found Paul waiting impassively.
     “This is an outdoor sort of door,” she said.
     He nodded. “Steel frame and core. I, ah, had it installed last week. I’ll tell you about it later.”
     The room was about twelve feet by eighteen. It contained a queen-size bed, a medium-size desk and a chair on casters, a long, low dresser, an armoire, a vanity, a half-empty bookcase, and a large closet with mirrored sliding doors. The walls were beige, as was the Berber carpet. Everything was spotlessly clean, including the windows. There was a faint odor of antibacterial cleaners and fresh paint.
     “This is very nice,” she said. “I’d expected something more like a college dorm room.”
     He waved a hand. “It was my parents’ bedroom.”
     Oh? You didn’t take it for yourself?
     “I see you’ve already provided a lock.”
     He nodded and handed her a keyring bearing four keys. One was labeled FD. A second bore the legend Shd. The other two were unmarked.
     “‘Front door’ and ‘shed,’ right?” she said.
     He nodded. “The front door key also unlocks the door to our apartment.”
     ‘Our’ apartment. I like that.
     “What’s in the shed?”
     “A lot of stuff there’s no room for in here. I’ll show you later.”
     “And these?” She indicated the unlabeled keys.
     “Your deadbolt.”
     Two of them. “Are these the only copies?”
     “No,” he said. “There’s one on my keyring, and there’s another in a safe-deposit box in town with all the spare keys.”
     She peered at him dubiously. “Why do you have one?”
     He met her gaze without flinching. “I’m unwilling to have a door in this building that I can’t open if I need to,” he said. “I solemnly promise you that I won’t use it unless there’s an emergency.”
     “Well then,” she said, “since I’ll be sharing your duties, will I have a key to the lock on your bedroom door?”
     “There is none,” he said.
     “Hm? None of what?”
     “There’s no lock on my bedroom door,” he said. “Have a look.”
     “Why not?”
     He shrugged. “I’ve never felt I needed one.”
     She thought about it.
     “Okay. I guess I can live with that.” She hesitated. “May I have a look at your room?”
     He shrugged. “Sure, if you like.” He waved her toward the facing door, a conventional interior door unlike the one on her room. She turned the knob and stepped inside.
     It was only a little smaller than the room he’d assigned her, but its furnishings were markedly different. There was a full-size bed, a dresser, a small desk with a straight-backed chair, a quadricycle, and a pair of large bookcases filled to capacity. Once again there was a large closet with mirrored sliding doors. The walls were a pale green. A multicolored rug covered all but the margins of the floor.
     She smiled. “You’re a reader.”
     He returned the smile. “That I am.”
     “What genres?”
     “Anything. Words in a row.”
     She approached the bookcases. There were some novels in paperback whose titles she recognized, but most of the books were hardbound. The leather on them was visibly aged, though well preserved. She ran her fingers lightly over the spines. “These are old.”
     “Well, yeah.”
     “Do you collect old books?”
     “Only to read.”
     She stepped back, turned to face him again, and gave him a more thorough looking-over than previously.
     He was of middle height and slender, with the build of a climber or a long-distance runner. His button-front flannel shirt was open at the collar. A hint of a gold chain glinted from the opening.
     She could sense a wiry strength in him. Yet his carriage was without tension. There was nothing extraordinary in it, only a relaxed readiness for whatever might be required of him.
     Appropriate to a hard worker. And a lot of other things.
     I wonder if I’ll get to see what’s under those clothes.

     She suppressed the flash of desire.
     “Anything else I should know before I get busy?” she said.
     “Are you trained in the use of firearms?”
     What? “Why do you ask?”
     He chuckled. “This is Maine, Carol. We have bears, moose, wolves, a few varieties of snakes, and other fauna. A lot of them aren’t friendly to human beings. They don’t always stay outside the city limits. There are some unfriendly two-legged creatures, too. And I won’t always be around. I wouldn’t want you to be defenseless if someone not so nice were to come calling at such a time.”
     “So you have a gun,” she muttered.
     “Several, actually. Four handguns, three shotguns, two semiauto rifles, and a bolt-action hunting rifle. I’ll see to it that you’re introduced to them properly.” He seemed to note the tension in her face. “Never fear. It’s not as hard or as dangerous as the TV shows make it look.”
     I should have controlled my reaction. Now he knows I’m a tenderfoot from the city.
     It’ll either be all right or it won’t. I’m here and I’m staying, come hell or high water.

     “I guess I’ll be learning a few things,” she said.
     “If you ever head into the forest,” he said, “you’ll be glad you did. Now, would you like to have a little lunch, or would you rather unpack first?”

#

     She insisted on making lunch for them. “You haven’t yet seen my kitchen skills.” She waved at the dinette table. “Eat in here or the dining room?”
     “I usually eat in here.”
     She nodded. “Then go do whatever there is to do, and come back in half an hour.” He held up his hands in mock surrender, she went to the refrigerator to survey the contents, and he returned to dusting and tidying the guest rooms.
     Almost exactly thirty minutes later a melodic cry of “Come and get it!” sang through the building. He turned off the vacuum, hurried to the kitchen, found that she’d set places for them, and took a seat.
     She came to the table with a platter of enchiladas and refried beans. She set it between their places, seated herself, and smiled brightly at him.
     “Let him serve himself who can?” he said.
     “Exactly!”
     He reached for the serving pieces and filled his plate. She did likewise.
     The food was as good as it was unexpected. She’d filled the enchiladas with chicken and rice, and topped them with a tangy red sauce.
     “This is really good. How did you whip it up so fast?” he said between bites.
     “It’s not hard if the ingredients are to hand,” she said. “You had the tortillas. Everything else was straightforward. I pan-fried the chicken breast so I wouldn’t have to preheat the oven, but apart from that it was routine. I don’t cook fancy, but I do get it done.”
     “Hey, simple and good are exactly right for a B&B. If the tourists want fancy, they can keep going up Route 1. There must be fifty restaurants within two miles of here. Anyway, I’m impressed.”
     She winked and went back to her lunch.

#

     After they’d finished and cleaned up, he took her to the reception desk and showed her what she would need to know to service their guests.
     “Is that straightforward?” he said.
     “Oh yeah. Except for learning how to tell an already-signed-in guest from a new arrival who needs a room and a key…and for this.”
     He pointed at his hip. Her breath caught. There was a holster threaded onto his belt. The flap was closed over something heavy.
     I didn’t notice that before. Was he wearing it while he showed me around? While we ate?
     She straightened. “What should I know about this?”
     “Just that’s its my policy to be armed whenever the doors are unlocked. You won’t be until I’ve fitted you for a gun and holster of your own and taken you out for a lesson or two. Until then if anyone or anything gives you trouble, just sing out. I’ll come running.”
     Yes, Carol. He’s serious.
     She met his eyes and nodded.
     “Well, none of the current guests should be back before about three PM,” he said. “Until then anyone who comes through that door should be new. I’ll take the next shift here if you’ll finish the cleaning. Don’t bother with the bathrooms, I did them already.”
     She grinned. “Sold!”
     He fetched his current reading matter from beneath the counter and settled in to pass the time. She trotted up the stairs to the guest area.

#

     She spent two pleasant, unhurried hours dusting and polishing the furniture in the guest rooms, appreciating their pine-paneled elegance, and accumulating a mental list of minor improvements to suggest to Paul when they sat down to dinner. When the guest rooms were as tidy and appealing as she could make them, she headed down to the residential suite and let herself into Paul’s bedroom, intending to vacuum, dust, and tidy it as well. In only seconds she concluded that no such effort would be required.
     There isn’t a speck of dust on anything. The carpet practically glows. He must have cleaned up before I arrived.
     Even the windows are perfect. What man his age does his own windows?
     Is this natural for him, or was he trying to impress me?

     It occurred to her that a habit of meticulous cleanliness might have come naturally to one who has worked in the hospitality industry all his life. She weighed that against the seemingly natural tendency of young American men to give little priority to such things in spaces that were theirs alone. It left her uncertain, though impressed.
     Well, then I’ll do my room.
     But upon a close inspection, she found that he’d left her nothing to do there, either.
     Jane Austen was wrong. He doesn’t need a wife. Not for this, anyway.
     What does he need? Anything?

     She thrust the thought aside and glanced at her watch.
     Three-fifteen and we’re done already.
     She returned the cleaner’s caddy to its resting place and ambled out to the reception area. Paul was still immersed in his book. He looked up and smiled as she approached.
     “All done?” he said.
     “You didn’t leave me much,” she said, mock-accusingly.
     “I didn’t want to scare you into running back to New York on your first day.”
     “Well, you didn’t. But what should I do now?”
     He shrugged. “Sit. Read. Think about what you’d like for dinner. Why not get more familiar with the place? Have a look in the shed, see if there’s anything in there that would make your life easier.”
     “Okay.” She headed through the kitchen and out the back door.
     Not that I can imagine it being any easier. But maybe he’s thinking of having me do more of the cleaning in the future. Possibly all of it.
     The shed was moderately large and sturdily built. The padlock on the doors opened easily. She threw the doors open, peered inside, and gaped.
     An overhead light had come on, seemingly in response to the opening of the doors. It revealed a cornucopia of neatly arranged, easily identified items of many kinds.
     The upper back wall of the shed was covered with a pegboard. From it hung a broad assortment of carpenter’s and woodworker’s tools and accessories. On the waist-high cantilevered shelf beneath it was a pigeonhole cabinet filled with wood fasteners of every sort. Underneath the shelf stood a rack that contained an assortment of small pieces of wood, suitable for a variety of small repair tasks. A tin of turpentine and another of acetone sat near it.
     Against the right wall stood a squat metal toolchest which proved to contain an impressive collection of mechanics’ tools. The top drawer of the chest was divided into small compartments bearing an assortment of metal fasteners and washers for them. The device next to it baffled her for a moment. When she spotted the small fuel tank at its base, she recognized it as a compact welder’s torch.
     The pegboard on the left wall was festooned with unions, T-junctions, an assortment of valves, and several gauges of copper and PVC pipe. The workbench below it contained several drawers that offered up adhesives, solvents, plumber’s cleaning tools, a self-retracting snake, a roll of plumber’s tape, a roll of welder’s solder, and a pile of work gloves. The surface of the bench was laminated with a thick layer of some hard but transparent substance. Though the protective layer showed some scratches, scrapes, and pitting, the grain of the wood beneath was clearly visible. It had a simple beauty she wouldn’t have expected to find in a utility shed.
     Leaning against the inner surface of the front wall was a painter’s ladder, a three-segment roofer’s ladder, and a folded vise-workbench of the popular variety. In the corners hung a corn-bristle broom, a plastic dustpan, a plastic bucket filled with assorted rags, and a second, well-laden cleaner’s caddy.
     Everything was pristine, including the shed floor.
     I’d bet my bottom dollar that he knows how to use it all.
     She backed out of the shed, closed and locked the doors with a touch of reverence, and returned to the main building.
     In the reception area she found Paul checking in a pair of guests, a middle-aged couple. He smiled and beckoned her forward.
     “Mr. and Mrs. Morris,” he said, “this is Carol, my co-manager. If you need something and I’m not around, Carol will see to it.”
     Carol smiled. “Pleased to meet you both. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay at Larsen Hospitality.” She extended a hand. The guests took and shook it in turn. “May I help you with your bags?”
     Mrs. Morris smiled. “No need, we can manage.” They hefted their valises and headed up the stairs.
     “Which room?” she murmured.
     “Lux A,” he said. “That’s our icebreaker for the season.”
     “Have they stayed here before?”
     “Yeah. Twice.”
     “What do they like for breakfast?”
     He chuckled. “Whatever you care to make. They’re easy to please. That’s not going be the case very often, so be ready.”
     “I will.” She laid a hand on his shoulder, causing him to start slightly. “From the shed I can see that you’re pretty ready yourself.”
     He shrugged slightly. “I have to be. If I had to pay to have all that stuff done, we wouldn’t make a profit.”
     “Do you hire anything out?” she asked delicately.
     “Electrical work.”
     “Why that?”
     He grimaced. “High voltages and alternating current scare me.”
     She smiled broadly. “Well, you won’t have to hire it out any more.”
     His eyes widened. After a moment, he awarded her a slow clap.
     She bowed. “Thank you, thank you. Now how about running me through the check-in and check-out procedures?”
     “As you command!”

==<O>==

Copyright © 2022 Francis W. Porretto. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Day Off

     Today is being used for fiction. Back tomorrow.

Enemies: A Love Story

     (Yes, there was a movie by that name. Pretty good movie too, though a trifle bleak. No, this piece won’t be about it.)

     The polarization of America has reached a level that endangers every man, woman, and child in this country. We no longer “do politics;” we make war, and others make war on us. And let there be no misunderstanding about it: it’s not just Democrats versus Republicans or conservatives versus progressives.

     It’s men versus women.
     It’s whites versus non-whites.
     It’s urbanites versus non-urbanites.
     It’s Christians versus non-Christians.
     It’s Europeans versus non-Europeans.
     It the white-collar class versus the other classes.
     And the beat goes on, through as many demographic cohorts as you care to name.

     That’s from my perspective, as a white male Catholic European-descended engineer from the suburbs. If you’re a black female Muslim field hand of Nigerian descent, you could compose your own list of just as many entries.

     Why do we have so many enemies?

***

     The late George Alec Effinger penned a stunning short story that’s far too relevant to the animosities of our time. The title, “All the Last Wars at Once,” should give you an idea what it’s about…but only the faintest idea. Please read it and reflect.

     An old movie, Malcolm McDowell’s star vehicle If… treats with the same thesis as Effinger’s story, though with a smaller scope: a British boys’ boarding school. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth your time.

     Remember the “Manson Family” and the beliefs that animated them? It’s the same subject as the aforementioned story and movie, though one must look beneath the surface for the common thread.

     Science-fiction writer Joe Haldeman once had a minor character say that Man has an angel half and an animal half. We’re close to letting the animal half have free rein. Hobbes’s “war of each against all” is a fair encapsulation of what awaits us if we fail to leash the beast.

***

     I’m not about to sing Kumbaya. Conflict is part of human existence. Our decisions and actions bring us into conflict with one another in many ways. Whether our actions are personal or social, commercial or non-commercial, self-chosen or by direction, with every one we assert our individual personalities: that which distinguishes us from any other member of Mankind.

     To be individual is to be in conflict with others: not necessarily destructive conflict, but still assertive. Individual existence proclaims an individual creed: a statement that “this is a valid way for a man to live.” Even those who suffer the starkest misery throughout their lives express such a creed by continuing to live.

     Intolerance of differences has come to characterize a great part of our nation. The disinclination to restrain the aggressive expression of that intolerance colors a significant fraction of the mass. The consequences are visible all around us.

     Time was, if an American couldn’t stand the crowding, or the stench of his neighbors’ cuisine, or the local Tammany Hall, he could cross the land frontier, stake out a claim, and build himself a refuge. Thus he could have everything his own way…for a while. But as ever more Americans moved westward, the irritations that accompany the proximity of others came with them. Those determined to be left alone to follow their own course continued further westward until they couldn’t any more, “which is why all the nuts ended up in California.” (See that movie! As well as being wildly funny, it contains insights enough for a whole library.)

     Is proximity to one another driving us murderously insane? It hasn’t gotten that bad yet. But the portents are not reassuring.

***

     Perhaps you’ve been wondering where the “love” will appear in this “love story.” In a departure from my usual practice, I chose the title of this piece before I set to composing it. What was on my mind at the time was Christ’s Second Great Commandment: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” The Redeemer didn’t add any qualification clauses to that statement. He didn’t say “Unless your neighbor is the wrong race, or the wrong religion, or the wrong politics, or some such.” There’s every reason to believe that He meant exactly what He said.

     There are persons who hate Him and His Gospel. They want you to hate your neighbor. They seek to exacerbate the conflicts among us to the point of bloodshed. Pressed to the limit, it would fulfill their highest ambition: your self-destruction. For the hatred of the neighbor leads directly to the hatred of God…and of oneself.

     Can you see it yet? Hatred is destructive. It empties the soul! Why else would warlords strive to get their troops to hate their enemies? Why else would the forces of social division at work among us foment suspicion and distrust?

     But wait: there’s more! He who hates loses his ability to control himself. He becomes ripe for control by others. What others? Generally speaking, persons who want to deflect you from your priorities to theirs. Persons who want what you have and are unwilling to pay your price. Persons who hate you as a free and self-sufficient individual…and who want you to hate yourself as they hate you.

     Many of those folks are in “education.” Others dominate our communications and entertainment media. Still others are in politics.

     Sun Tzu has told us that he who knows his enemy and himself “will not be defeated in a hundred battles.” But you cannot know your enemy in Sun Tzu’s sense until you can identify him. It’s time for all of us to contemplate a dangerous proposition: Your enemy isn’t who you’ve been told he is. This somewhat plaintive piece is intended as a step down that path.

     More anon.

When Another Writer Hits the Bull’s-Eye

     …he deserves to be acknowledged and applauded:

     The RNC is not focused on winning elections. The RNC corporation is focused on retaining control.

     The RNC want to give the illusion of support for MAGA conservatism because they need the base voter, and they need to maintain the illusion of choice. However, every move they make on an operational level is exactly in line with their previous outlook toward cocktail class republicanism.

     Just in case there are a few Gentle Readers who aren’t familiar with the acronym, RNC stands for Republican National Committee.

     Sundance’s essay brilliantly explains how the Make America Great Again agenda promoted by President Trump is deflected and undermined by the strategists and kingmakers in the GOP. It’s Required Reading for anyone who yearns to know why and how We the People are being disserved by the politicians to whom we turn to defend our interests and our country from the Democrats. Above and beyond that, it’s a stark reminder that we must not look to politicians for solutions to problems politicians created.

     “It’s a big club…and you ain’t in it.” – George Carlin

Temptations And Kings

     The liturgical year concludes today, with the Feast of Christ the King. This is one of my favorite liturgical commemorations. Its spirit deeply infused the five Realm of Essences novels and continues to provide inspiration and ideas to everything I write.

     Kings aren’t born in rude stables far from home; their entry to the world is usually surrounded by luxury and announced to the world by trumpets. But Jesus of Nazareth was. There aren’t any similar cases known to me.

     Kings don’t subject themselves to protracted fasts or physical hardship. Yet Jesus did. Again, I can’t name any others whom history records as having done so.

     Kings aren’t condemned to death by torture. There have been kings whose subjects rose against them and put them to death – Charles I of England; Louis XVI of France, Nicholas II of Russia — but those were recognized as kings beforehand. But note that all those kings stayed dead. Jesus didn’t.

     Kings normally take what they wish. It’s an enduring fiction of monarchy that the king is the lord and master of all he surveys. He can lay hands on any part of it he pleases. The subject from whom it is snatched dare not protest, for the king can do no wrong. Jesus had no possessions, lived by the charity of those He visited, and died all but naked bound to a rough wooden cross.

     Quite the king, wasn’t He?

***

     How do you tempt a king? How do you seduce him away from the proper governance of his realm? What kingly lusts are fodder for the tempter who would suborn a king away from his duties?

     As noted above, a king can usually take what he pleases without adverse consequences, as long as it isn’t claimed by another king. Of course, many times in history, kings have tried to seize the “property” of other kings. But that’s a consequence of the multiplicity of temporal kings. A king will contest another king’s assertion that he sees as clashing with his region of sovereignty, usually with warfare. There has never been a temporal monarch who claimed all the world as subject to him and went uncontested in that claim.

     In the ages when monarchy was the dominant form of rulership, many kings warred with one another over bits of land or claims to the succession. The larger the claim, the larger the war. Those episodes are among the reasons monarchy became a dispreferred form of sovereignty.

     Historically, the most effective temptation one could dangle before a king has been more power. Anyone familiar with contemporary struggles over power would find that easy to understand.

***

     Jesus, who had nothing, “should” have been easy to tempt, especially in the years before He revealed Himself to the world. Yet Satan couldn’t do it. The details are in the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 4, if you need a refresher.

     The lure of power did nothing for Jesus:

     And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
     And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

     [Luke 4:5-8]

     What sort of king cares nothing for power, dominion, and rule? It must be the kind in whom those things are innate properties, intrinsic to his very being. He cannot be tempted by those things because no power in all of existence could take them from him. No other king could wrest them from him. Death itself would not end his dominion.

     That’s the sort of king I’d want to rule over me. He wouldn’t demand constant obeisance and praise from his subjects, though he’d be likely to receive it. He wouldn’t tax us under threat of punishment, though all that is ours we would freely give him should he ask. He wouldn’t need an army to enforce his will against the ambitions of rival kings, for no rival could stand comparison with him. He would be recognized for what he is, because it would be impossible to deny him.

     Yet many do deny Him. Nevertheless, He is King. Not all the powers of the world, even in alliance with those of Hell, can deprive Him of the sovereignty that belongs to the Son of God. And when all things temporal are brought to an end, He will still be King…and those who acknowledged Him in life will sing with joy at His return.

     For further thoughts pertinent to the Feast of Christ the King, see this piece and this one at Liberty’s Torch V1.0. And may God bless and keep you all.

Take A Chance. Columbus Did.

I’ve tried over and again to come up with a warning that would have real effect. But time and again few others have been willing to speak of the mounting dangers and decrease the numbers who walk around wearing blinders. I no longer care that I am dismissed as a crank. The decency that I feel compelled to exhibit for my fellow man demands that I not fall silent. It would be wonderful to hear that there many more who feel the same way; that the past is truly no indicator of future reactions.

A late warning from 2009.

A pilot program, also called a feasibility study or experimental trial, is a small-scale, short-term experiment that helps an organization learn how a large-scale project might work in practice.

The ever quick on spotting the upshot, (retired) blogger Joan of Argghh! was the first to comment. “I’ll take ‘Rules For Radicals’ for $500, Alex.”

We’ve permitted the radicals to gain the upper hand as the video below firmly demonstrates.

I do not know what more needs be said. Evidently the sheep wander about oblivious to their “shepherds” openly planning out how to cull the herd. They are lost causes.

But what of the men? They don’t seem to be actively counter-planning how to overturn such plans. I can understand their fear of the secret police, but those forces, both official and unofficial, have attacked many of us with impunity already, so what’s the diff?

And what of those who claim to have faith in Divine Providence? Do they really believe that realm will look favorably on them for waiting for Heaven to bail them out? It sure seems so. More is the pity. For when we scorn those misled sheep for their naïvety, refusing the role of faithful shepherd, or even that of sheepdog, what mercy ought we expect for ourselves? Mercy can be obtained, but usually it must be earned by passing one test or another. Even the Divine faiths place requirements.

You see, such scorn mirrors that of those who aim for the destruction of all of us. Refusing to even try to save the herd is tantamount to refusing to save ourselves. One man, alone, can’t do it. Maybe one or two, with Heaven’s blessing can. But for sure, the large numbers that we less privileged comprise far outstrips the cowards depicted in the video above. We merely lack courageous leaders who have no connection to the WEF.

Take a chance. Columbus did.

A Seed Of Rebellion

     Too many are talking about rebellion as if it were exclusively a political act. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rebellion may end in arms, but it begins in the mind:

     When the liberal arts seemed destined for shipwreck, three men stood up and decided to do something radical at a state university. They decided to engage in an Experiment in Tradition.

     These three men were John Senior, Dennis Quinn, and Frank Nelick, and their experiment was the Integrated Humanities Program (IHP) at the University of Kansas. This writer was a student in this program in the seventies in Kansas. It started small. But I have seen it grow into an international educational movement, with many colleges, primary schools, and curricula based on the educational philosophy of John Senior and the practice of the IHP.

     Their revolution was to expose students to real things, to delight in memorizing poetry, song, stargazing, observation of nature, and the great books. This brought out a dormant sense of awe and wonder in students. This was the necessary ingredient to philosophy and all true education, according to Plato and Aristotle, and to Newman.

     A movement that began in Kansas perhaps fifty years ago might have become visible to the rest of the nation by now. Would you like to know why you’re only just learning about it now?

     False accusations of brainwashing and proselytism arose.

     Other professors and administrators were threatened by this highly successful program. It had to be suppressed. You just couldn’t allow students to run around talking about truth as if it could be known. It was the beginning of what we now know as political correctness, the liberal orthodoxy that admitted of only one direction – “progress” away from the West and the jettisoning of our Judeo-Christian patrimony.

     The university held hearings, parading students to testify about Jewish conversions, attitudes about women that were too traditional, education that was too retrograde, not open to new ideas. In short, after nearly ten years of success, this program had to be done in, because it was too “controversial.” The radicalism of the sixties was not too controversial, nor was sexual experimentation, nor the embrace of every odd philosophy and cult. But a return to our roots, or at least an exploration of what was good or potentially worth knowing in Western Culture – that was revolutionary. The experiment in tradition had to be killed, as it were, death by administration.

     The cited column ends on a hopeful note, but be warned: hope looks not to the present but the future, and the future is not fixed in shape. The mental rebellion kindled by those three daring educators – real educators this time, in contrast to the sort that usually parade the title – might have left seeds, if not at the University of Kansas, then perhaps elsewhere, that will germinate yet.

***

     Not long ago I made a passing mention of a motif from Ursula Le Guin’s novel The Left Hand of Darkness: the Handdara cult, which strives to eschew abstractions in preference for real things and real experiences. It was a discourse on reality as an antidote to the kind of self-indulgent / choose-your-own-premises theorizing that’s led many millions astray this century past. Please refresh your memory of it before proceeding onward with this tirade.

     A number of Gentle Readers reacted to that piece by asking “What’s the point of this?” That told me a great deal. In particular, it illuminated the dire necessity of refuting the “Reality is what we say it is” proposition generally known as social constructionism. Samuel Johnson could refute it with a single well-placed kick because the people around him were still in touch with real things. That’s no longer the case today.

     These past few decades, the thrust of social, economic, and cultural development – and how I resent that the word development retains positive connotations I can’t flense away! – has been to move many persons ever further from unmoderated contact with reality. To some degree, this was inevitable, as many advances in technology could not have occurred otherwise. Consider how the hyper-abstract mathematical subfield of topology has become critical to the electronics industry and all that it has brought us.

     Some of those persons became professional thinkers. That is, they made their livings by producing real things, valued by others, that nevertheless required working with abstractions. But many others produced little or nothing. Some became “paper pushers:” office workers whose livelihoods were divorced from contact with the things they wrote about. Others became “social clients:” persons protected by the rest of us from the consequences of their incapacity. The universities, being especially favorable environments for those who have nothing of value to offer others, filled up with such clients and dominate them today.

     Direct experience with real things can be jarring, even deadly. Ask anyone who’s set out to split wood and has misused his axe. The extreme social client – i.e., one whose separation from reality blankets all his experiences – would be in peril of his life if shorn of the protections and supports others provide him. The multiplication of such clients, and the opulence of the support we provide them, has made the universities an active menace to American society. They have an insane degree of influence on what happens outside them.

     You get what you pay for. Americans have been paying king’s ransoms for rampaging madness.

***

     Scott Bloch, the author of the cited column, suggests that the universities can be salvaged by the incitement of the sort of rebellion he advocates:

     It is a time to re-engage, to start a new revolution of the liberal arts, the kind Newman had in mind, one program at a time, one school at a time, one repurposed curriculum at a time, at the primary level, and in colleges or universities that seem moribund and incapable of a return to education in real things.

     Here is where we part company. The existing universities have become so toxic that they cannot be salvaged. Good men who attempt it are routinely destroyed in the act, just as were the authors of the Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas. Their programs are counter-infiltrated by their enemies and brought to ruin. The only thing to do with the universities is to abjure them, withdraw all support from them, and watch from a safe distance as they crumble.

     The mental rebellion must begin outside the existing universities, perhaps at institutions that have no traditional connection to education whatsoever. Their “students” must rub up against real things, and have real experiences. They must feed their bodies, minds, and souls with their own hands.

     The “ivory tower” is designed to prevent such experiences. That’s why the phrase has such derisive connotations. Their rulers have raised them too far from the ground for seeds scattered among them to sprout.

     The great works of our past are legible only when read in the light provided by real experiences. One cannot love them as they deserve to be loved without adequately broad and deep experience of “the rough rub of the real.” The universities are anathematic to such a course. They must be destroyed, or shunned and allowed to destroy themselves through their irrelevance.

     (There’s an interesting word for you: irrelevant. Etymologically, it means “of nothing real.” How much more relevant could a word be to the subject of this tirade?)

     Thoughts?

Depressing Truths Dept.

     Shamelessly stolen from Mike Miles:

     Seldom have so few words expressed so much truth. (Yes, it’s happened; “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” for one. I said “seldom,” not “never.”) For maximum impact, answer this question: Who is having babies today, and where?

     Yes, I’m in one of those moods.

***

     Most of what I write here is about politics and the trends current in it. Yet I often feel severe conscience pangs about that, for politics is the central subject of far too much writing and thought. It has displaced wholesome, live-giving and life-affirming subjects from our attention to an ominous degree. I should shift my focus: i.e., write much more about those life-affirming subjects and much less about politics. It doesn’t deserve to have so great a fraction of anyone’s attention.

     For politics to become supreme in our thoughts, the alternative authority structures – faith, community, and above all others family — must diminish. That’s exactly what’s happened in the First World this century past. Present trends continuing, historians will someday see the Baby Boom of the Fifties and early Sixties as Christian-Enlightenment Civilization’s “battle of the bulge:” our last attempt to reassert ourselves over the forces contriving our destruction.

     The Death Cults have advanced on several fronts:

  • Abortion;
  • Euthanasia;
  • Moral relativism;
  • The worship of wealth;
  • Aversion to large families;
  • Hostilities between the sexes;
  • Weakened intergenerational bonds;
  • The medicalization of American culture.

     Those sectors are where the degeneration of our culture has been most visible. The vacuum thus produced invited anti-Christian, anti-Enlightenment, and anti-Western currents to enter and wax among us. They’ve accepted the invitation en masse. What’s followed could hardly have been averted.

     We’re on our way out.

***

     “Senescence begins when growth ends.” — “Lansing’s Law”

     James Blish may have invented “Lansing,” but the truth of his “Law” stands independently. The whole of the living world obeys that dictum: Grow or die. While death isn’t necessarily immediate, the processes of deterioration are checked only by the processes of growth. It’s as true of cultures as of any protozoon. Time itself enforces it.

     One of my favorite short stories, P. J. Plauger’s “Child of All Ages,” employs that idea most memorably. Read it to see what I mean.

***

     At one time, I called the trend away from reproduction “The Last of the Harbingers of Doom.” I was wrong: it’s the first of them. All the same, I think that piece belongs among the Baseline Essays. Its thesis has become the central sociocultural fact of our time. Its Last Graf is very much with me this morning:

     It approaches tautology to note that you cannot induce a people to breed for the sake of future generations. A people that has ceased to breed has lost interest in future generations, and in the future as such. If the young men of the First World have fallen into that abyss, only they can right themselves…but current conditions and present trends continuing, the likelihood is small.

     The consciousness of irreversible decline is a hard thing to endure.

***

     What brought all this on, you ask? I can’t be specific, because I’m not sure myself. But the mood is definite, and the sense equally so. This morning I’m exceptionally aware of the forces of decay, beginning with the ones that afflict my own septuagenarian corpus. I look out my kitchen window at the deer gamboling in my neighbor’s back yard – he lets them eat from his bird feeders – and not for the first time, I envy them their unconsciousness of their mortality.

     Americans, and First Worlders in general, are growing broadly aware that our culture and the ethic that has powered it are on the wane. We ask one another “What can we do to reverse it?” The answers are all ready to hand…but we turn away from them and what they ask of us as too hard. A quite different attitude is taking hold among us. Scant wonder.

     I’m reasonably sure you didn’t come here to read a load of depressing drivel, so I’ll close on that note. Forget what I said here. Try to have a nice day. And pray.

I Completely Agree with This

DeSantis is being groomed by the Establishment GOP to be used to take Trump out.

Los Peones Y Las Haciendas

     In his book The Bell Curve, co-authored with the late Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray reminded his readers that there’s more than one kind of “conservatism.” The American version, which emphasizes individual liberty and responsibility, contrasts sharply with the Latin American version, in which a heavily privileged, propertied class holds itself above and aloof from the rest. The political, social, and economic separations between the elite and the rest are huge and well guarded, usually by armed guards. Those outside that privileged elite seldom even see one of their “betters,” except from a distance. Murray used the image of “the hacienda on the hill” as its signifier.

     John Ringo illustrates the attitude of the privileged elite in his novel The Hot Gate. A sample passage:

     “So you intend to be a career NCO?” Palencia asked, frowning in turn.
     “Career?” Dana said, shrugging. “Current enlistment is for the duration and the duration looks to be a long time. Do I want to be an officer? Not really. So I guess, yes.”
     “Ah,” Palencia said, nodding.
     “I just missed something cultural, didn’t I?” Dana asked.
     “I am trying to think how to phrase it,” Palencia said. “And yes, it is cultural. Americans simply do not understand what the word ‘class’ means. It translates as one word but it has a thousand meanings. Americans do not have class. They have different economic levels but they do not have class. Class is something you are born to. No, I take that back. Some of them have class but they try very hard to hide it. You would not even know the names of Americans with class.
     “Every member of this squadron, even Velasquez, is of the officer class. None of us should be turning a wrench or even flying a shuttle, given that that is the job of enlisted men. Women, in your case. We are here because our countries are spending a simply ruinous amount of their treasury on these boats and thus they send their best. We are all of the better class.
“Career NCOs…” Palencia said, and then shrugged. “They are not of the better class. Not of the worst but certainly not of the better. It was assumed that you, too, intend to be an officer and for some reason simply are biding your time as a…”
     “Wrench turner,” Dana said. So…what you are saying is that I’m now too low class.”
     “When you told me you intended not to be an officer I had to quell my immediate reaction to, therefore, treat you as your class,” Palencia said. “You…”
     “Should be holding your horse?” Dana asked.
     “I wouldn’t put it that way,” Palencia said.
     “Not upset by it,” Dana said. “Just trying to assimilate it.”
     “I would suggest that it remain between us,” Palencia said.”
     “So…” Dana said. “You guys probably have some problems, at a certain level, with people like Megdanoff.”
     “We understand that there are cultural differences. But that is at an intellectual level. So, yes, we have problems with taking direction from someone who is not our better.”

     The maintenance of a class order demands the separations we see in Latin cultures. Proximity would endanger the order. The elite sometimes embrace measures that strengthen those separations, both for themselves and to “rub the peasants’ noses in it.” For one of the reasons a class order arises is the determination of the “betters” to feel superior – and that requires that the “lowers” be made to feel inferior.

     Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because it is. But hearken ye to this bit of unpleasantness: Class orders are more natural than classless ones. Humans tend to erect class structures as soon as differences in social or economic status arise among them. The maintenance of a classless order requires constant attention, in particular to what Americans have traditionally called the rule of law.

     That brings us to today’s outrage:

     World leaders and officials attending the United Nations COP27 climate conference can spend up to $100 per entree to eat red meat, seafood and other gourmet menu items. However, the U.N. has previously discouraged red meat consumption due to the carbon emissions that beef farming creates.

     Delegates who arrive at Egypt’s beachside resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh to discuss ways to mitigate the “climate crisis” are able to enjoy COPGourmet’s $100 Angus beef medallion which is served with mushroom sauce and sauteed potatoes, according to screenshots obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. However, the U.N. aims to “minimize emissions per calorie” and to reduce meat consumption in order to prevent the planet from overheating, according to a COP27 food security document.

     Environmental activist Nathan McGovern, who almost certainly agrees with the greater part of the Agenda being pushed by COP27, calls this a “staggering disconnect.” If McGovern had anything to say about the hundreds of private jets that ferried the delegates to Cairo, it has not been recorded. It’s a good bet that he does not grasp the purpose of such a display of indulgence.

     Note that the COP27 delegates made no attempt to conceal their ultra-self-indulgent behavior. They wanted the world to see them at it. It expresses the class distinction they mean to establish and maintain between themselves, the elite of the world, and us of the hoi polloi. What they mean to forbid to us, they intend to reserve to their class. They want us to get used to it — to resign ourselves to it as “just the way things are” — and what better way to grind it into us than to display it openly and repeatedly?

     Does anyone else remember John Kerry’s conduct on the campaign trail in 2004? Compare it to what’s on display above. (Yes, Kerry is present at the Cairo conference.)

     Here there be tygers that could bite the elitists quite as savagely as us. For we the unwashed might self-subjugate to the elitists, but we might also rise in fury. At this time, I’d put the odds at even money.

     I could go on about this. There’s plenty of room. But it’s enough, I think, to draw my Gentle Readers’ attention to it. Please consider spreading it around. The more of us peones become properly outraged, the more likely it is that we’ll storm the haciendas and take their owners down.

A perfect storm of decay and destruction.

They are trying to convince me Americans voted for inflation, recession, war, CRT in our schools, gender fluidity, mutilating children, pedophilia, open borders, masking and vaxxing children, lockdowns, mandates, dead guys, and brain damaged commies. That is not what happened. They just used the exact same methods in the key races in the key states they used in 2020 to steal the elections. Why change if it works?

In the State of Florida, which implemented rational voting procedures and limited mail-in ballots, Ron DeSantis, who won in 2018 by 32,000 votes over a black, criminal, drug addict, deviant, won re-election by 1.5 million votes last week. After two years of torturing our children, encouraging murder, rape, robbery, and destroying our economy, the Democrats should have experienced massive losses in the mid-terms.

* * * *

The mail-in ballot scam used in 2020 due to the “Covid emergency” was kept in place, even though there is no emergency, because that is how Democrats can guarantee victory forever. . . .

* * * *

Those in control of this entire rigged system, including republicans like McConnell and Graham, don’t want anything to change, as they enrich themselves and their globalist benefactors no matter who is elected/selected. . . .

The globalists calling the shots want you demoralized, indebted, fearful, freezing, starving, and angry at each other, as they methodically implement their Great Reset agenda without fear of retribution or even comprehension of what their diabolical scheme entails. . . .

* * * *

The 2023 recession will trigger much higher unemployment and crashing stock, real estate, and bond markets. . . . This absurd woke agenda of glorifying deviancy and abnormality will fall by the wayside as people will be forced to worry about survival as opposed to this trivial nonsense.

At some point, life in America will become unbearably real, something that now it most clearly is not. Remember the candidate for the Supreme Court who could not define what a woman is? Right now we are still lapping up elite propaganda and we tolerate street-fighting leftist filth who make Hitler’s Brown Shirts look like Boy Scouts and prosecutors who live to flood our streets with violent criminals and persecute patriots.

But the iron laws of arithmetic, inflation, and fossil energy cannot be ignored forever and a hostile political class cannot forever lie (1) that we live under constitutional government and not an oligarchic plutocracy and (2) that they have even the most basic interests of the Nation or its people in mind. Points one and two are absurd distortions.

Film at 11.

Quinn: You Can’t Escape The Fourth Turning’s Winter Of Death.” By Jim Quinn, ZeroHedge, 11/16/22.

Biennial Seductions

     Do you know how the professional seducer operates? Are you able to detect one at work? What if the seducer is aiming his wiles at you?

     In his novels, Robert A. Heinlein made several observations about con men and their operations. Their aggregate import can be stated as follows: The con man selects his targets carefully. He prefers those who think they can get something for nothing.

     If you think you can get something for nothing – alternately, that you can acquire your desire for less than its market price, with no offsetting consequences – you are the con man’s meat and drink. His traditional appellation for you is a mark. He “marks” you for fleecing, as a sheepfarmer marks members of the flock whose wool is thick and ready to be shorn.

     Some con men work as a kind of corporation. Some are assigned the early scutwork of seining out a promising mark. Others arrange “build-ups” to reinforce the mark’s conviction that he can get something for nothing. Finally, a “closer” pulls the mark into the big scam designed to capitalize on the mark’s carefully reinforced belief that there’s a score to be had and he can get a piece of it. Compare this to the pattern followed by “hustlers” of all kinds.

     In all the world, there is no bigger assemblage of con men than the one that promotes politics as a route toward national goals.

***

     The components of the political con corporation – henceforward, PoliCon – are many. They fall roughly into three categories:

  • Communications media;
  • Party strategists and allied interest-group leaders;
  • Office-seekers and holders.

     Each of these groups has a piece of the biennial con. In general terms, the communicators strive to persuade the public that there’s something positive to be had from political commitment. The party strategists and their allies in the interest groups create a “how” for the quest: broadly speaking, the election of particular candidates and the popular demand for certain legislation. The candidates are the tip of the spear: those who are represented as the enactors of “the will of the people.” In combination, these forces function to keep voters agitated and voting.

     H. L. Mencken spoke of what usually follows:

     At each election we vote in a new set of politicians, insanely assuming that they are better than the set turned out. And at each election we are, as they say in Motherland, done in.

     “Done in” has a terminal sound about it. Yet what comes about – so far, anyway – is not the death of the nation. That’s not currently the aim of PoliCon. Rather, its masters seek the perpetuation of conditions already established by their previous machinations. Those who hold high-value niches are protected from displacement; indeed, many don’t stand for election at all. Regardless of vote distributions and the specifics of races won and lost, “business as usual” continues with only cosmetic changes. What’s “done in” is the hopeful attitude of many whom PoliCon seduced:

     Politics, as hopeful men practice it in the world, consists mainly of the delusion that a change in form is a change in substance. The American colonists, when they got rid of the Potsdam tyrant, believed fondly that they were getting rid of oppressive taxes forever and setting up complete liberty. They found almost instantly that taxes were higher than ever, and before many years they were writhing under the Alien and Sedition Acts. [Mencken again]

     Of course, if this pattern is repeated long enough, many who participated will realize that they’ve been gulled and will withdraw from further involvement. Demographic changes – maturation of new voters; immigrants from other lands; changes in the distribution of population – refresh the ranks of the marks. As the weary and cynical fall out of the ranks, they’re replaced by naïve newcomers.

     There’s a sucker born every minute. – ascribed to P. T. Barnum, but possibly apocryphal

     And the con goes merrily on.

***

     Let’s wind this up with maximum cynicism. Have a few statements from my vast collection of lapel buttons:

Don’t Vote:
It only encourages them!

If voting could change anything,
They’d outlaw it.

Nobody can fix the economy.
Nobody can be trusted with his finger on the button.
Nobody’s perfect.

Vote for Nobody!

Cthulhu for President:
Because you’re tired of choosing
The lesser of two evils.

     It’s been said, by me among others, that politics cannot fix politically created problems. The truth of that statement has penetrated a fair number of minds already. It’s a train of thought that deserves encouragement. However, it deserves a shift of focus.

     Politics sustains and promotes the notion that government can do what individuals cannot. This is so obviously a falsehood that there’s no imaginable way to defend it. Whether they act in their own private interest or from a conviction that doing some particular thing will distribute benefits widely, individuals are always the actors. Governments don’t swing hammers or wield shovels. All they do is impose an overhead on individuals’ actions.

     Governments are the reason for what’s called the “public goods trap:” the notion that mass coercion is “necessary” to prevent “free riders” on “public benefits:” i.e., persons who enjoy the benefits of government actions without contributing to their costs. The coercion is mainly through taxation:

     When religion needs money, it passes a collection plate and lets you decide how much to give, if anything. When society needs money, a silver-haired matron rings your doorbell, and you are free to say you gave at the office. [Government] has a better system; each year it figures out exactly how much the public will stand for—short of actual armed rebellion—and spends it in advance. Then on April 15 it says, “You pay or go to jail.” Belonging to a government is like having your credit card stolen. – Allan Sherman

     If my Gentle Readers need a crowning irony, it’s this:

Government creates more free riders
Than anything else in history.

     It’s just that they’re “hidden:”

  • As beneficiaries of transfer programs;
  • As organizations that sell to government;
  • As bureaucrats and office-holders who get the “skim.”

     Is the required shift of focus becoming a wee bit clearer?

***

     I hope I haven’t been heavier-handed about this than is warranted. The power of PoliCon at promoting government as the “solution” to “problems,” and the election as the necessary and proper agency of whatever changes we might seek, is millions of times what a lone Curmudgeon can bring to the fray. That tends to make these tirades strident and angry. There’s also all those “hidden” free riders at work, pushing the “government uber alles” agenda to preserve and increase their piece of the action. What’s one voice against all that?

     But with the con getting larger and more opulent every two years, with the masters of PoliCon becoming ever more deeply entrenched, and with an accelerating trend among young Americans toward centralized, socialist “solutions” to entirely fictitious “problems,” maybe the disparity isn’t a good reason to sit silent.

     Have a nice day.

A Sentiment I Have Often Felt

     It was unusual to see anyone in a p-suit in the corridors. Walking back suited up with the machine pistol and her sword in her left hand might get a few looks. She was way past caring.
     April put the badge back in the bag and tossed it to Bob. “Take care of it for me, will you?”
     He nodded, obviously uncomfortable.
     “I’m going home for a long hot shower,” April announced. “If anyone tries to stop me I’m gonna kill them.”
     Not a one of them took it for hyperbole.

     [Mackey Chandler, April]

     The cited novel is the start of a near-future SF series. From this book, I’d say it has a lot of promise. I’ll keep you posted as I progress.

What If…

MOST of the violence in the world is, at root, a fratricidal fight?

I was looking into a new book (recommended on the Ace of Spades) – Archduke Ferdinand Lives!, which looks at the possibility of WWI never happening, when the Duke survived.

And, it made me think – what proportion of global interactions occur because of entangled familial relationships?

We all know that the most vicious fights happen between relatives – brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, cousins, and so on.

In WWI, many of the combatants were closely related. In the picture below, the leaders of opposing sides were actually cousins.

And, many others in the ruling castes of those countries were likewise interrelated through marriage or birth.

They were, often, educated in the same schools. They traveled to the same resorts. They summered in the same locations.

But, as we all know, those you are most closely associated with can also drive you to almost homicidal rage, often abetted by a spouse who has other loyalties (and, women being what they are, a desire/need to ‘score’ off a social rival). No one can drive you crazy like your own family.

Think of the closely related nature of the new upper classes, who intermarry within a narrow range of acquaintances. When, and if, the cracks in those alliances show up, the damage may be irreparable.

“I Know A Place”

     “Hey, I know a place. Let’s go.” – Russell Baker

     I’ve always had a fascination with the truly remote places: the regions well separated from the main habitats of Mankind. Most such places are islands. If inhabited at all, their populations are small. The mode of life of the denizens is likely to be simple and monothematic. The one I’ve recently found most magnetic is the archipelago of Svalbard.

     Svalbard, a Norwegian principality, is well within the Arctic Circle. Even so, its climate isn’t a terror of unbearable frigidity. A gentle current, the West Spitsbergen Current, keeps temperatures there averaging from 43 degrees Fahrenheit in Summer to -15 degrees Fahrenheit in winter. Because of its latitude, it experiences both a 99-day period of midnight sun and an 84-day period of polar night. Clearly, it’s not the sort of place a surfer or beach bunny would choose to live.

     The civilian population of Svalbard is concentrated in the town of Longyearben. Just now, the town has about three thousand residents. As the residents hail from many nations, many languages can be heard there, though nearly all the residents have some command of English as well.

     According to Svalbard videographer Cecilia Blomdahl, the residents of Longyearben and the surrounding area are a cordial, convivial community. They coalesce strongly during the polar night, ensuring that solitude and sunlight deprivation won’t have deleterious effects on anyone. While the district does have a police force, it seems not to have a lot to do.

     And just now, it looks to me like the most appealing place on Earth.

***

     Imagine living in a community where there’s no politics, because there’s no one who feels strongly enough about anything to want to force his views on others. Imagine that community to be situated where none of the world’s governments care to assert themselves. Imagine, at last, that the district has nothing that anyone outside would want enough to try to take it by force.

     According to the Book of Genesis, the Garden of Eden was idyllic: perpetually perfect conditions in which Adam and Eve, had they not been ejected, would have known no want and no impositions from any source. The remote places of the world aren’t like that. They require hardiness and a kind of ascetic’s attitude: I can live here, despite the harshness. What I can provide myself will suffice. The first settlers in such places had to possess that mindset.

     They also had to find value in isolation. Their need for companionship and society had to be minimal.

     But really, what value is there in isolation? Aren’t we humans socially inclined? Don’t we take pleasure and a sense of security in being surrounded by others of our species?

     Well, yes. Most of us. But not all of us. Some of us desire above all else to be left alone. To have no one making demands on us for any reason. Back when there was a land frontier, many who chose to brave it sought exactly that.

     It’s not an appealing prospect for the elderly, the infirm, or the incapable. But the man confident of his ability to thrive despite unforgiving conditions and a lack of society might venture to a place like South Georgia Island, or Tristan da Cunha, or Franz Josef Land, or Svalbard…if he yearns to be “far from the madding crowd” and the demands it puts upon one.

***

     I have long held myself fortunate to have been born an American. Lately, that sense of good birth fortune has been wearing thin. It’s not for any reason but one: politics.

     To be an American has been, for about a century now, to be the focus and envy of the world. We have led the world in science, technology, and economic progress. Those things, plus our having escaped the devastation of the World Wars, has raised us to military primacy as well. But such things carry a cost: everyone everywhere wants something from you. That includes your own countrymen.

     Because of politics, it’s impossible for an American to fend off all the demands. Governments make sure of that. Besides governments, there are all the Cause People, arranged in their multitudinous interest groups. If those don’t drive you to distraction, add the victimists in their ever-expanding numbers. Finally, many of us have snoopy and annoying neighbors; the probability increases with the population density of one’s residence district.

     What’s American life like for the man who mainly wants to be left alone? The short answer is Not what it used to be. And it’s been getting progressively (SWIDT) worse.

     Ironically, North America was settled largely by men who mainly wanted to be left alone. If such persons still come to these shores, I doubt they stay for long.

***

     I’ve seen the following graphic a number of times lately:

     It tells an overpowering truth – especially so in these days when there is nowhere left to run. It would be well for the busybodies to reflect on it. They’ve got aged, unhealthy me thinking about packing up my family and moving us to Svalbard…or failing that, to load magazines and set out to express myself to the busybodies in a fashion too plain to be misinterpreted. Perhaps they might ask one another:


“How close are we to triggering the fury
Of the men who just want to be left alone?”

Time to Watch Idiocracy Again

It might be useful to give me strategies to use with the apparently Dullard Public of Fellow Citizens and Wannabes. And Virtual-Only “Citizens”.

It’s not simply the election of that brain-damaged Fetterman – it’s not like he was all that smart to begin with. It’s the open cheating, the dumped ballots (Don’cha know that it’s a manifestation of the Miraculous Feast of Dem-Controlled Balloting? Occurs every two years, just when the Average American Citizen wises up to the fact that they are being ruled by Crooks, Dullards, and AWFLs (Affluent White Female Leftists).

The Miracle ‘spontaneously’ occurs just when all hope seems lost, and those “Horrible Semi-Fascists” are on the verge of pulling off a Win.

At the very last moments, truckloads of ballots – SUDDENLY and UNEXPECTEDLY discovered – Honest Injun! – arrive to save the day!!!!

Yay!!!

It’s all as predictable as the repeated appearance of spinach, at the very last moment before Bluto pulverizes Popeye, that turns the tide and enables the Hero to beat that Villain.

Or, from the Actual Conservative’s perspective,

Good Grief!

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