SubscribeStar Saturday: Thanksgiving Weekend

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It’s been a wonderful Thanksgiving Break for yours portly, full of two of the most important things in life:  family and food.  Indeed, there’s probably been too much of the latter.  The “portly” in this blog’s title is more than just a humorous pun, after all.

This weekend is a big deal for Americans.  It’s the gateway to Christmas, and it’s the first major of holiday of what Americans broadly call “the holiday season” (or “the Christmas season,” as we Christians prefer).  There’s a flurry of social and commercial activities this time of year, but it’s also a time for slowing down.  From Thanksgiving through New Years’, the entire country feels like after lunch on a Friday at a government bureau—no one is answering the phones, because everyone’s taken off for the weekend.

In the spirit of celebrating this slower, more reflective, more generous time of year, here is a rundown of my long Thanksgiving Weekend.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Live Remote Learning Rehearsal Day 2

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Yesterday my school ran its second Live Remote Learning Rehearsal Day.  We have actually done really well with keeping cases low—almost non-existent.  Nevertheless, our administration is taking a proactive approach by testing out remote learning in various scenarios in the event we need to go fully online.

Overall, the day seemed to go smoothly, at least on my end.  The difference this time was that instead of faculty teaching from school with students at home, faculty were also allowed to stay home.  That made the experience much more like our transition to distance learning back in March.

I’m enjoying some time with my niece and nephews this morning, so the rest of this post will be completed a bit later today.  Thank you, subscribers, once again for your patience.

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Delayed SubscribeStar Saturday Posted: Back in the Arena

This past Saturday’s SubscribeStar Saturday was delayed, but I got the latest post, “Back in the Arena: Second Lamar Town Council Special Election” posted last night.  It’s about the beginning of my second campaign for Lamar Town Council, and my strategy to overcome secret write-in campaigns this time around (basically, get more people to turn out to vote for me—not too complicated!).

It’s available now for $1 and higher subscribers.  For full details about subscriber perks, read this morning’s TBT post.

Thanks again for your support!

—TPP

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TBT: Giving Thanks (and a Sales Pitch)

We’re just one week from Thanksgiving.  I’m thankful to live in a State with enough commonsense and decency not to attempt to trample our right to gather with our loved ones on such an important day.  There may be a good bit of uncertainty about the future, but at least we can get together and enjoy some time together (and some turkey, of course).

In casting about for some TBT fodder this week, I came across this blatant sales pitch post from Thanksgiving Week 2019.  I haven’t pimped out my scribbled wares lately, and this season of generosity and giving seemed like a great time to urge everyone to dig deep and subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for a buck a month (or five, for that matter).

Last year at this time I had five subscribers and a piddling thirty-five posts.  As of the time of this writing, I have 144 posts on the page (which will hopefully be 145 by the time you read this TBT, as I owe subscribers for this past Saturday) and eight subscribers.  That includes fifty-three installments of Sunday Doodles, which only $5 subscribers get.  The rest are Saturday posts, with a few Five Dollar Friday posts tossed in for you big spenders.

I would love to get that subscriber count into double digits by Christmas.  If you’ve been hesitating for any reason, or said, “Oh, I need to do that when I have a minute,” make that minute now.  Grab your credit card and swipe that sucker (you actually have to type in the number) and make it happen!  Then you, too, can enjoy a bottomless back catalog of my portly musings.

With that, here is a very commercial, cash-grabby look back at “Giving Thanks (and a Sales Pitch)“:

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Lazy Sunday LXXXVI: Questions, Part I

With the major networks calling the election for Joe Biden, a number of questions are swirling about, chiefly—“what comes next?”  photog and I have been hashing this question out in the comments of his posts “The Question Has Been Answered” and “Camaraderie is Key.”

I don’t think the election is over—not by a long shot—as recounts are still be done, and the voter fraud is so blatant, it can’t help but lead to legitimate legal challenges.  But even if these mysterious early-morning ballots for Biden are thrown out and President Trump is duly re-elected, the whole debacle suggests that conservatives need to wake up to the folly of depending upon purely electoral solutions to our problems.  Winning elections is just one facet of the larger culture wars in which we find ourselves.

To that end, I’m dedicating a few editions of Lazy Sunday to going back through old posts that, in their titles, pose some kind of question.  These posts range from the philosophical to the political to the cultural, but also cover some fun stuff (like whether or not Saturn is the creepiest planet).  I’ll look at three or four posts every Sunday, which should take several weeks to get through (so we might take a break with some Christmas Lazy Sundays in the middle).

That said, here’s our first round of Questions:

  • TBT: Ted Cruz – Conservative Hero, or Traitor to His Party?” (originally at the old TPP Blogspot Page) – Back during the 2016 RNC, Senator Ted Cruz refused to endorse candidate Trump explicitly in his convention speech, which earned him jeers and scorn.  At the time, there was still real tension between clear-cut Trumpians (I was moving in that direction, but was a Cruz man myself) and the rank-and-file Republicans, never mind the Never Trumpers.  Cruz went on to be one of President Trump’s staunchest supporters and defenders, and even seemed to be a contender for a SCOTUS position.  One thing that’s clear, though, is that Democrats will back their candidate to the hilt, even if they don’t like him, but Republicans will scatter at the least whiff of controversy around a candidate.  Hopefully Trump has changed that to some extent.
  • Fire Furloughed Feds?” – Remember the much-ballyhooed government shutdown in early 2019?  Looking back on it, it seems like a big missed opportunity for President Trump to clear the decks and do some swamp draining.
  • TBT: Transformers 2: Conservatives in Disguise?” (originally at the old TPP Blogspot Page) – I wrote this post way back in 2009, when I was a very different (and much, much portlier) man.  It’s amazing what eleven years of working and living will beat into you.  Anyway, the post looks at what I perceived to be some pro-military and pro-limited government messages in the second Transformers film, in which a meddling government bureaucrat retards the fruitful cooperation between American military personality and powerful transforming space robots, which ultimately helps the bad transforming space robots.  There’s a similar plot device in Ghostbusters, in which an EPA functionary releases a bunch of contained ghosts into Manhattan because he thinks the Ghosbusters’ containment unit is an environmental hazard.  Yeesh!

That’s it for this Sunday.  More questions—and, perhaps, answers?—to come.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: What Next?

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Also, I will be posting last Saturday’s post sometime today or tomorrow.  As I noted in last week’s delayed edition of Sunday Doodles (posted now), the combination of hosting the Spooktacular, playing a four-hour gig the following night, and staying up late on Election Day really sapped my energy this week, on top of my normal teaching duties.  I’m playing catch-up on multiple fronts, but hope to have everything posted and done by the end of this weekend.

We’re still in an uncomfortable state of limbo as we await inexplicably slow vote counts in key States (well, we can explain them—Democrats are slow-walking returns to figure out how many fraudulent ballots they need to manufacture in those States).  President Trump is right to challenge suspicious vote totals in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, etc., as those sudden bumps for Biden in the wee hours are statistically so improbable, there’s a better chance of finding an inhabitable planet within human reach.

That said, the race is going to be a close one, and conservatives ought to consider what comes next in either a second Trump term or—shudder—a Biden-Harris administration.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Spooktacular Review

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Last night was my second annual Halloween Spooktacular.  I hosted a concert from my front porch, with attendees sitting on the front lawn.  I had some t-shirts made up, which I sold for $20 each, and my brother grilled hot dogs.  My girlfriend made a bunch of Halloween-themed baked goods, and I had a couple of opening acts.

House concerts have long been a popular option for independent musicians, but those are typically indoor performances at someone else’s house.  I took that idea and flipped it to an outdoor format.

In this post, I want to break down some of the numbers to see how it all worked out.  As of this moment—after paying for expenses, paying musicians, and the rest—the whole shindig cost me a little less than $20 (I’ll end up in the black after selling another couple of t-shirts).  Essentially, I threw a very well-attended Halloween party nearly at cost.

The rest of today’s post will be posted to subscribe to my SubscribeStar page tomorrow.  I’m playing a gig for a private party this evening and have to get ready to head that way.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Rule of Law Matters

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Also, the delayed Universal Studios post is now available to subscribers:  “Universal Studios Trip No. 3.”

During the recent incarnation of the domestic terror organization Black Lives Matter, a group of BLM organizers in Florence, South Carolina received permission to paint a “Black Lives Matter” mural on a section of street in downtown Florence.  The mural is meant to depict various scenes from African and African-American history, including some Egyptian elements.

The mural itself was a community effort, and took around three or four days to paint.  In all fairness, it was a peaceful project with the full support of the City of Florence, and seemed to be an expressive way for the black community to participate in a project that isn’t overtly destructive.  Creating art—even historically inaccurate, propagandist art—is generally preferable to looting stores.

However, the City of Florence has decided to remove the mural.  Naturally, it’s resulted in a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth from blacks and gentry white liberals in Florence, who are accusing Mayor Wukela—a red-diaper baby and progressive Democrat—of racism, of suppressing black voices, and the usual litany of complaints.

Of course, that has nothing to do with why Florence City Council—which is overwhelming Democratic and heavily African-American—is removing the mural.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Bearwallow Mountain

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Also, last week’s post on my third trip to Universal Studios in 2020 is coming soon—I promise.  This past week consumed far more of my time than I anticipated, so subscribers can expect that soon.

My uncharacteristic year of travel continued this weekend with a trip to Asheville, North Carolina, the hipster capital of the Southeast.  After our family trip to Burnsville, North Carolina, my girlfriend was itching to get back to the mountains, so we decided to come up and spend a day exploring the area.

It’s the first weekend in a few weeks that’s it actually been cold, and we reveled in the cold mountain air.  The high was around 60—perfect autumnal sweater weather.  It also made the hike up Bearwallow Mountain more pleasant and endurable.

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