Supporting Friends Friday: Nebraska Energy Observer

10 September 20211 September 2021 The Portly Politico16 Comments

Well, it was inevitable—after dedicating an extremely popular edition of Supporting Friends Friday to the irreplaceable Audre Myers, I had to dedicate one to the man and the website that gave her an outlet: Neo and Nebraska Energy Observer.

I’m not sure how I discovered Nebraska Energy Observer, but I suspect it involved Neo leaving a comment on one of my posts a couple of years ago. I’m generally suspicious of unknown commenters, as the Internet is full of trolls interested in harassing right-wing bloggers, but I quickly figured out that Neo was one of the good guys.

My initial perception was that Neo was obsessed with English history, and I figured his blog was largely dedicated to the “special relationship” between the United States and our erstwhile mother country. That relationship is, indeed, an important focus of Nebraska Energy Observer (though you’d never guess it from the title), but the blog covers a wide range of topics (including, of course, reflections on the life of an electrical lineman in Nebraska).

TBT: Walkin’

9 September 20217 September 2021 The Portly Politico24 Comments

The big “hit” piece (that is, the successful, well-liked post, not a piece attacking some famous personality) this week seems to have been my post about driving to and from Athens, Georgia. In the spirit of forward motion and scenic trips, I thought I’d dust off this chestnut from 5 August 2020, right before the previous academic year began.

I’d just gotten into walking right before school resumed, and was hoping to get in a couple of miles every day. That goal sure fell part quickly, and I realized I did not walk nearly as much as I thought I would at work. It turns out that 10,000 steps a day is actually a lot of steps.

That said, I did manage to get in over 30,000 steps in a single day once in the past year: when I spent an eighteen-hour day at Universal Studios. Needless to say, I slept until nearly noon the next day.

But that outlier aside, I did not come close to achieving that dream. When I dog-sat my girlfriend’s German Shepherd, we took some lengthy, sweaty walks. I was hoping that Murphy and I would do the same, but the old girl doesn’t go much beyond the yard before she is ready to turn back for another round of water, snacks, and naps, so my dreams of long, energetic dog walks have been smashed on the arthritic knees of my ancient dog.

Or I’m just making a bunch of excuses for myself. With that, here is 5 August 2020’s “Walkin’“:

Virtual Learning Day Review

8 September 20217 September 2021 The Portly Politico36 Comments

After a glorious Labor Day weekend and a scenic drive, my school opted to hold a virtual learning rehearsal day, intoning the usual incantation of “out of an abundance of caution” due to the possibility of holiday-related viral spread. The decision to do a day of virtual learning also came with the insistent emphasis that we are not planning on going to virtual or distance learning on a long-term basis, but merely wanted to practice in order to prepare for the worst.

Thank goodness! While I very much appreciated the more relaxed pace of the day—and by extension the cancellation of Back-to-School Night—I was also reminded of the shortcomings of distance learning.

Driving the Georgia Backroads

7 September 20216 September 2021 The Portly Politico30 Comments

Murphy and I spent this Labor Day Weekend visiting my girlfriend and her German Shepherd in Athens, Georgia, which is about three-and-a-half hours from Lamar. As such, I spent a solid seven or so hours on the road this weekend, not counting time we spent tooling around Athens.

For a three-day weekend, that’s not much driving, and I’ve driven longer distances. Way back in the mists of graduate school, circa 2006 or 2007, I drove from Knoxville, Tennessee to Rock Hill, South Carolina (not far), then from Rock Hill to Richmond, Virginia and back just to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra with a friend. She took the wheel only for the last hour of the drive back, and apparently as soon as I got into the passenger seat, I was out cold.

Granted, I was twenty-one or twenty-two at the time. In the intervening fifteen years, my zest for driving all night to hear live symphonic holiday power metal has waned considerably. Now I’m lucky if I can make it to 10:30 PM without falling asleep on the couch, my multiple after-school drives to Universal Studios notwithstanding.

But I digress. While I may lack the stamina of my reckless youth, I do alternatively loathe and appreciate a long drive.

Memorable Monday: Happy Labor Day [2021]!

6 September 20216 September 2021 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Well, it’s another Labor Day here in the States, and I couldn’t be happier. Last week was a slog, but a productive one—I managed to get caught up on all grading and even get a good bit of writing done, even though I was suffering from a gnarly head cold. Hopefully by the time you read this I am on the mend. I’ll have spent the weekend enjoying some rest and relaxation in Athens, Georgia, with my girlfriend and our dogs.

It being Labor Day, I’m going to observe the holiday in the spirit intended, and keep enjoying the rest. That means some glorious reblogging today, looking back past Labor Day posts.

Labor Day has always been a pleasant holiday early in the academic year—the symbolic end of summer, and a chance to catch one’s breath before the mad dash to Thanksgiving. It also seems to usher in the “spooky” season building up to Halloween.

As a child, we used to attend a massive Labor Day picnic my childhood church hosted every year at a campground in a rural portion of Aiken County. I loved that picnic, especially the opportunity to explore the woods with a fried chicken leg in my hand. It was a chance to play at being an adventurer, while still indulging in my beloved childhood obesity.

I’m not sure if there will be any picnicking today, but I can assure you I’ll be eating something decadent and unhealthy. With that, here is “Memorable Monday IV: Happy Labor Day [2020]!“:

Lazy Sunday CXXIX: Friends, Part I

5 September 20213 September 2021 The Portly Politico2 Comments

Back in June, I started a new feature on non-Bandcamp Fridays, Supporting Friends Friday. It’s a small way to highlight and support the works and talents of my various friends, of both the IRL and online variety.

Now that I’ve written several of these posts, it seemed like a good time to look back at them. The three this week are all good friends I know personally—indeed, they all live within forty-five minutes of me—and we have a musical connection. The first friend featured is a poet, but we met at local open mic nights.

“Supporting Friends Friday: Jeremy Miles’s New Book is Out Now” – My real-life buddy Jeremy Miles (who also maintains a blog) released his latest book of poetry, Hindsight: Poetry in 2020 in June. It’s available in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions. He gets a little political in this one (and not in “our” direction), but it’s still full of excellent, readable poetry. It’s not as bouncy and upbeat as his first two books, but it’s quintessentially Jeremy.
“Supporting Friends Friday: The Music of Frederick Ingram” – I dedicated this second installment to the music of my musician buddy Frederick Ingram. He’s an amazing guitarist with a distinctively Baroque flair, coupled with New Wave yacht rock sensibilities. When I wrote this post, Frederick had recently released the “Funky Margarita Mix” of his ode to open mic nights, “Fish Bowl.” Check it out.
“Supporting Friends Friday: The Cinematic Compositions of Mason Sandifer” – This third installment of Supporting Friends Friday highlighted the music of Robert Mason Sandifer, one of my private music students. Mason writes beautifully cinematic music, and is working on a soundtrack to his book—yes, a book soundtrack: the music highlights some of the key scenes from his fantasy novel. Give him a listen on SoundCloud.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Educational Tyranny

4 September 20214 September 2021 The Portly Politico3 Comments

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive. To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more. For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Apologies to readers for the delayed post. After a long but productive week and a drive to Athens—not to mention a late-night dose of NyQuil—I’m getting a late start on this post.

Education is a field that tends towards authoritarianism and centralization, especially when faced with a major problem outside of its usual scope. The field’s emphasis on safety—understandable given that teachers and administrators work with children—can become, in certain circumstances, pathological.

Schools, especially public schools, sit at the uncomfortable nexus of politics, liability, and conformity. Various political schemes to improve education often backfire, instead creating onerous additional tasks that rank-and-file faculty shoulder. Centralization of control at the State and federal levels, rather than aid classroom teaching, often merely force conformity on the profession, while creating unrealistic “benchmarks” that don’t align with local conditions or needs.

The ever-present fear of lawsuits reduces administrators to whimpering toadies, themselves often filled with silly pedagogical theories from bogus education programs. Educational dogma is fully onboard with social justice foolishness, and education programs are excellent at producing dedicated Cultural Marxists and “activists,” all eager to indoctrinate students into the prevailing cult of groupthink.

Within this milieu is the tendency for professional educators to possess a bit of an authoritarian streak. There are plenty of good teachers with an authoritative approach to both their subject matter and classroom management (the buzzword for “discipline” or control of the classroom), but some teachers and administrators relish control over their tiny little domains. Small people ruling small fiefdoms tend to possess rather inflated senses of their own rightness and righteousness.

The Age of The Virus, then, provided the perfect conditions for justifying all manner of policies and procedures that do little to help children learn, but do a great deal to empower administrators, district offices, and the like with the pretexts for depriving students, employees, and parents of any modicum of personal and academic freedom. The very same forces that would hawk abortions with the rallying cry of “my body, my choice” also gleefully mandate experimental mRNA vaccination regimens and literal muzzles—even for vaccinated employees!

Locally, the Darlington County School District has tied vaccination to COVID leave, an invention of the federal government that allows teachers quarantined or sick due to The Virus to receive paid COVID leave in lieu of their regular sick leave. Per the article at the News & Press (emphasis added), “‘Some people may think this is controversial,’ Education Superintendent Tim Newman said. ‘Sometimes, you just have to take a stand for what you think is right.'”

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

The Inexorable Forward March of Bandcamp Friday

3 September 20211 September 2021 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Yes, poor readers, here it is again: another Bandcamp Friday. Other than one of the earliest times I posted about this glorious monthly holiday—during which Bandcamp waives its usual commission on sales through its site—I don’t know that I’ve ever made a sale hawking my musical wares via the blog.

Well, if at first you do not succeed, pester, pester again (alternatively, doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, but all musicians are a bit crazy… right?). Also, with my lovely new readers from the British Isles, it’s never been a better time to bilk them out of their hard-earned pounds sterling.

Fortunately for them—and you, my fellow countrymen!—my entire discography (seven albums!) is just $19.98, a whopping 35% discount (just £14.50 as of 1 September 2021, according to Bing). That’s $2.85 (£2.07) per release, the kind of deal you only get on cassette tapes at the gas station (or from yours portly!).

TBT: Things That Go Bump in the Night

2 September 20211 September 2021 The Portly Politico66 Comments

Despite my griping about South Carolina weather in yesterday’s post, the first day of September was surprisingly cool and overcast, giving the slightest taste of the crisp autumnality to come. This time of year always gets me thinking about Halloween and spooky stuff, especially as everything feels more magical.

Our modern minds have diminished and dismissed the supernatural as mere superstition, often accompanied with attempts to explain away supernatural phenomena with explanations that themselves require faith to believe. That “faith” is in scientism, a counterfeit “religion” built purely on a material understanding of the world.

We see but through a glass darkly. There is more to our world than meets the eye—more to it than what we can observe. God tells us much of what is there—at least, what we need to know—and Scripture seems to suggest we shouldn’t go looking for things beyond Him and His Son.

Seems prudent to me. With that, here is 2 September 2021’s “Things That Go Bump in the Night“:

The Seasons in England

1 September 20211 September 2021 The Portly Politico8 Comments

My newfound English readers—thanks to Audre for bring them over—have really enlivened the comment section of the blog. One commenter, 39 Pontiac Dreamer, submitted some photographs of England in the autumn and the spring, as well as his local church; a country lane; and the local.

Here is 39PD’s e-mail to me, with accompanying pictures:

Hi Tyler,

Here are the pictures promised. The first taken in the Autumn, the second in Spring.

I’ve added a picture of our local church, St John the Baptist, the 4th is the country lane that takes us to our local, the 5th picture.

I’ve been meaning to take some more pictures of the village but the weather hasn’t been good of late. Hopefully, it’ll pick up again soon and I can pop out with the camera.

All the best

Michael (39 Pontiac Dream)