Tag: analysis

MAGAWeek2023: John Taylor Gatto

The Portly Politico5 Comments

This week is MAGAWeek2023, my celebration of the men, women, and ideas that MADE AMERICA GREAT!  Starting Monday, 3 July 2023, this year’s MAGAWeek2023 posts will be SubscribeStar exclusives.  If you want to read the full posts, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for as little as $1 a month.  You’ll also get access to exclusive content every Saturday.

It’s no secret that education in the United States—at least, formalized, factory-style education—is broken, and quite badly.  No one, however, quite understands why.  State politicians, federal Department of Education bureaucrats, and local schoolboards all pass more and more regulations and requirements, few of which actually address the root causes of this brokenness.  Instead, they merely treat the symptoms, symptoms they themselves have created, and the treatments usually just breed more symptoms, to be treated once again with another dose of “education reform.”

Naturally, these “reforms” and “treatments” fall squarely on teachers to administer.  Politicians and school administrators are like aloof doctors who are so disconnected from their patient, and so motivated by their own agendas, they don’t really care about the patient’s health, so long as they can say, “we did something.”  Parents—forced into long working hours and with little free time—foist their students into a system that is supposed to work, but ultimately is just government-funded daycare.  How else is mom supposed to work sixty hours a week alongside dad?  That’s progress, after all!

So students and teachers are caught in the middle.  Teachers become nurses in this sick system.  Like real nurses, most of them think they know everything, and know better than the doctors.  Typically, teachers are correct in assuming they know more than the doctors; the problem, however, is that most of the most strident nurse-teachers go on to become the doctors, and then proceed to prescribe the same medicines, only this time they think they know better.

The other teachers labor on with some quiet grumbling, making the best of an increasingly impossible situation.  Caught between parents who are by turns indifferent and meddling and administrators and politicians who are inflexible and demanding, teachers administer whatever prescriptions they are forced to deliver, and try to do some actual teaching in the process.

The results are clear:  the worst become whiney thorns that are absorbed into the administrative ranks.  The best labor on, looking forward to summer.  The rest burnout quickly, leaving the profession early.

Students, meanwhile, are alternatively coddled and hyper-micromanaged.  They spew obscenities in the hallways and locker rooms with abandon; they vandalize bathroom stalls; they vape (the gayest form of nicotine consumption) between classes; they show up late every day.  At the same time, their every movement is tracked—by cameras, by sign-in and sign-out sheets, by teachers roaming the halls.  It’s a bizarre form of anarcho-tyranny in which all the poor behaviors are allowed to run rampant like kudzu, a weed the administration timidly trims from time to time while blaming the teachers for not realizing Johnny was at the vending machine instead of in the bathroom.

Is it any wonder we live in a world with rampant cheating and arbitrary rules, which are just arbitrarily waived the moment anyone offers up a sob story?  We’ve bred generations of students who are paradoxically rebellious and conformist—as long as Johnny takes his shot and is a good little office worker, he can indulge in whatever lame vices he wishes, so long as he shows up mostly on time the next day.  Did Johnny sleep with the secretary or steal money from the till?  Well, he must have had a good reason—he had a rough home life, you know.

None of these problems are particularly new or novel.  We’ve all come to accept them as the price for modern living:  send the kids off to indoctrination daycare, because God forbid both parents aren’t working.  After all, that’s feminism—women are liberated when they can slave for some strange man eight hours every day.  That’s way better than staying home with her kids and maintaining a good home for her husband and children… right?

Into this Orwellian nightmare stepped the great John Taylor Gatto.  Gatto taught in New York City public schools for thirty years, and was a renowned teacher, author, and public speaker.  He was one of the pioneers and major proponents of the “unschooling” movement, a variation on homeschooling that emphasizes activities chosen by the learner.  He was also a major critic of the kind of factory-style public education we have today (itself an innovation from socialist German intellectuals that, unfortunately, glommed its way onto the minds of American education “reformers” in the late nineteenth century).  Gatto argued forcefully that modern education is not only broken, but actively destroys real learning.  Instead, it merely creates conformist worker drones who are educated simpletons.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: The Portly Politico Summer Reading List 2023

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It’s that time of year again:  summer!  That means we’re due for The Portly Politico Summer Reading List 2023!

For new readers, my criteria is pretty straightforward.  To quote myself from the 2016 list:

The books listed here are among some of my favorites.  I’m not necessarily reading them at the moment, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t!

Pretty vague, I know.  Additionally, I usually feature three books, plus an “Honorable Mention” that’s usually worth a read, too.

For those interested, here are the prior installments:

With that, here’s The Portly Politico Summer Reading List 2023:

1.) “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and Other Stories from The Sketch Book, Washington Irving – There are dozens of compilations of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.  The book has been in continuous print since its first publication in 1819-1820, which is remarkable:  at the time, American literature was in its infancy, struggling to differentiate itself from the flood of European novels, poetry, and short stories coming out of the Old World at the time.  Irving, along with his contemporary James Fenimore Cooper, launched American literature beyond our own hardscrabble frontiers into the wider world, and both authors became the first Americans whose works were read widely in Europe.

I picked up this Signet Classics edition (ISBN: 0-451-5301-8) approximately fifteen years ago, largely on the strength of its two most famous short stories:  “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.”  These tales account for the vast popularity of the collection, but aside from a few other essays on American life, the vast majority of the collection takes place in England.

One of the most memorable essays from my first reading was “Westminster Abbey,” about the impressive abbey near London.  Here’s the first very first paragraph:

On one of those sober and rather melancholy days in the latter part of autumn when the shadows of morning and evening almost mingle together, and throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. There was something congenial to the season in the mournful magnificence of the old pile, and as I passed its threshold it seemed like stepping back into the regions of antiquity and losing myself among the shades of former ages.

How’s that for setting the scene and the mood?  There is something mystical about that period in late autumn that is “rather melancholy,” and everything seems to have a certain shadowy gloominess cast over it.  I’ve always thought that the best time to learn about colonial American history—especially the history of New England—is in late autumn, when that damp crispness enters the air.  It feels like Plymouth Rock, or Salem Town, or the backwoods of New Hampshire.

This summer, I hope to reread this collection for the first time in fifteen years.  The essays on Christmas—“Christmas Eve,” “Christmas Day,” and “Christmas Dinner“—are instantly charming, and explain much of the more ancient English traditions of celebrating Christmas, including ghost stories around the fire (which became more popular in the Victorian era).

Needless to say, The Sketch Book has had an immense influence on my own writing, particular my travel writing.  I’m no Washington Irving (or Geoffrey Crayon), but my second book Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams: And Other Adventures clearly illustrates Irving’s influence upon my writing style.

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TBT^2: Fighting Back Against Critical Race Theory

The Portly Politico6 Comments

Apologies for the delay, folks; I had this post scheduled for PM instead of AM. Oops! —TPP

For all the insufferableness of “Pride” and its gyrating acolytes, America’s original pagan deity was, and will always be, race.  There will come a time—and it’s already manifesting—when Americans will turn on LGBTQIA2+etc. movements with a vengeance.  At a certain point, there’s only so much pederasty a people can take.

But race is a far more intractable problem.  It is the dark (no pun intended) elder god come back to wreak havoc on Americans.  In exchange for cheap cotton and cloth in the 1800s, we now pay a thousand invisible taxes in tribute to appease this insatiable monster.

Gavin McInnes argues that we’re living in a “black theocracy,” at least in a cultural sense.  The gatekeepers of popular culture can’t seem to resist recasting traditionally European characters—like Anne Boleyn!—as ebony goddesses who somehow held twenty-first-century sensibilities in Tudor England.  We’ve all seen the endless television commercials that seem suspiciously absent of anyone with a drop of European ancestry.

Contrast that with Night of the Living Dead (1968).  The main character in that film, Ben, is played by Duane Jones, a black actor and university professor.  George Romero cast Jones for the part not because he was trying to “make history” (although in 1968 it actually was rare and controversial to cast a black man as the lead in a film), but because Jones was simply the best man for the job.  Jones himself backs up this assertion—it was never about race; he’s just a great actor.

I remember seeing Night of the Living Dead sometime in high school.  It was one of the most powerful films I’d seen up to that point in my life—terrifying, yes, but also dramatic, with such a disastrous (in a good way) ending.  I was on the edge of my seat.  Not once did I think, “oh, man, they cast a black dude for diversity points.”  I’m sure I recognized that Jones was black, but it did nothing to enhance or detract from the story—he simply was; in this case, he was Ben  He was perfect for that role.

Interesting and original black characters are great.  Black Panther (2018) was way overrated, but it wasn’t terrible; the late Chadwick Boseman was impressive in the title role.  Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (2018) was a clever way to introduce an “ethnic” variant on Spider-Man that didn’t simply steal an existing intellectual property.  Who else but Sidney Poitier could pull off Mark Thackeray in To Sir, with Love (1967)?

The examples are endless.  It’s possible to write compelling black characters without turning (to use the most recent outrage) Ariel into a washed-out black girl with eyes on either side of her head.

But who am I?  I’m an evil, white, cisgender man.  Let this articulate black gentleman explain it:

I’ll stop here before I end up in the breadline.

With that, here is 23 June 2022’s “TBT: Fighting Back Against Critical Race Theory“:

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Bloody Oranges (2021)

The Portly Politico7 Comments

I’m not typically one for “trigger warnings,” but this week’s film is hard to watch.  I’ve seen some pretty foul stuff in all the crappy B-grade horror flicks I consume, and I have, perhaps sadly, become immune to most shocking material.  Just writing that sentence made me feel convicted… dang.

But my crushing Pentecostal guilt can wait until after this film review.  This flick, the 2021 French black comedy Bloody Oranges (or Oranges sanguines in French) possesses some truly difficult scenes to endure.  I found myself watching through my fingers at a couple of points in the film.

It’s an incredible movie, a movie I will heavily discourage most readers from watching.  My parents, my aunts, Audre—don’t watch it.  Read some reviews if your curiosity is piqued, but don’t watch it.  Ponty, you could probably handle it, even though I know how much you hate the frogs.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Zero Trust Society

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Even the most casual of observers will have recognized that social trust is at an all-time low.  Our faith in our political institutions has long been rocky at best, but we increasingly have no faith in any of our institutions—cultural, academic, social, religious, etc.  Beyond that noticeable decline in institutional trust, we’ve increasingly stopped trusting each other.

That erosion did not occur in a vacuum, nor is it surprising that as trusts in institutions—which are made up of people, after all—erodes, so does our trust in our fellow citizens.  The same people debasing our institutions are the same people failing to fulfill the duties of those institutions to protect and guide us.

Sure, the conservative will say, “I don’t need some intellectual telling me how to live my life,” and that’s true.  But that intellectual’s ideas and proposals are making your life much worse, whether you realize it or not.  In a time of high social cohesion and trust, that boogeyman intellectual would be making decisions or proposing policies that would help or support his fellow citizens, or at least would seek to do no harm to them.

A major hat-tip goes to the blog The Most Revolutionary Act, which reblogged an excellent piece from American Thinker entitled “The GOP is Losing the Vote Fraud War” by Steve McCann.  To quote liberally from McCann’s piece:

A Rasmussen poll taken in October of 2021 found that 56% of all likely voters believed that cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.  Another Rasmussen poll dated April of 2023 revealed that 60% of all likely voters believed that cheating affected the outcomes of many 2022 midterm elections.  Unsurprisingly in a Rasmussen poll published on June 14, 2023, 54% of all likely voters believe that cheating will determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

Those are shocking numbers; that a whopping 60% of all likely voters (not just Republicans) believed that cheating affected the midterm elections is massive.

I would number myself among those 60%.  But even if we’re all wrong, and the 2020 and 2022 elections were totally above board (and, come now, who can honestly say that with a straight face?), the fact that we believe rampant cheating is taking place is an indication of an extreme distrust of our political institutions.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Noise

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A perennial saw pastors love to buzz is how in our modern age, we face such a deluge of constant stimuli, we never have quiet time with God.  Indeed, we sometimes seek out noise to distract ourselves from God.

The pastors are right.  There is so much noise—audible, of course, but also visual—that it’s easy to go an entire day without much quiet time at all.  I often fall into the trap of flipping mindlessly through my phone in bed instead of reading a book, or cranking up a podcast the moment I wake up.

I think the problem of constant, buzzing, inane noise is more than a spiritual one, even if that is chiefly what it is (after all, aren’t most problems, at least beyond the merely technical ones, ultimately spiritual?).  It certainly distracts us from keeping our spiritual “ears” open to God’s still, small voice, but it also prevents us simply from thinking.

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The Importance of Science Fiction

The Portly Politico13 Comments

Science fiction is amazing.  When it comes to fiction, it is probably my favorite genre, second to (but rivaling) only the ghost story.  Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction, which—as the name suggests—speculates about future events.

But the best science fiction doesn’t just look into the future—it tells us about ourselves, past, present, and future.  That so much of the great science fiction of the twentieth century has come true, to one extent or another, is indicative of the power of the genre to diagnose social developments, if not to predict them precisely.

The latest uproar over artificial intelligence—and the apparent willingness, blind or intentional, to develop it beyond all sensible precautions—is a prime example of the failure to take the warnings of science fiction seriously.

Science fiction is not Scripture—far from it!—but we ignore its warnings at our peril.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Horror streaming service Shudder is on a werewolf kick this month, flooding the platform with lycanthropic treats.  Werewolves don’t get the same love as vampires, but they’re an interesting creature.  Watching various werewolf flicks over the past week or so has demonstrated that the “rules” governing them are as versatile as those that govern the bloodsuckers.

Perhaps the best modern werewolf film is 1981’s An American Werewolf in London.  The brainchild of writer and director John Landis—the man behind the “Thriller” music video—it takes the established mythology of the werewolf and expands upon it.  The film even references the classic Universal Studios film The Wolf Man (1941), drawing upon that film’s contribution to the modern werewolf mythology (it doubtlessly helped that An American Werewolf in London was also a Universal Studios production, giving Landis full access to earlier Universal properties).

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PlayStation Ponty Reviews: Hogwarts Legacy (2023)

The Portly Politico8 Comments

It seems that, despite his protestations earlier this year, dear old Ponty just couldn’t keep away from the warm, chubby, sweaty embrace of The Portly Politico.  We’re all too happy to take him back into our doughy arms.

Ponty’s breaking the silence with a powerhouse review of Hogwarts Legacy, a roleplaying game based on the beloved Harry Potter franchise.

I’m not a Potterphile—I was born just two or three years too late to be in the books’ key demographic upon their release—but I certainly appreciate magic and whimsy.  That said, I don’t know my Muggle from a Hufflepuff (except that I am, apparently, both), so for all you people out there whose only frame of reference for the world is a series of children’s books about kid wizards, don’t persecute me for my ignorance.

What I do know is that this game engendered (no pun intended) a great deal of controversy upon its release because the series’ creator, J.K. Rowling, is a TERF—a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist.  That means that, while she loves all the feminist foolishness a woman of her age tends to believe, she still believes that men are men and women are women.  For that, detractors decried this game as “violence against trans people,” because apparently we can’t separate a work of video game fiction—itself quite distinct from the original author’s work—from one’s personal beliefs, and because one’s personal beliefs are now deemed violence if certain mentally impaired individuals deem it to be so.

Well, there’s no use arguing with the insane.  Ponty, however, does commit a bit of violence against Hogwarts Legacy from the other direction, though purely in an editorial sense.  And before he gets to some of the bad, he does extensive yeoman’s work covering the good, too.

With that, here is Ponty’s excellent review of Hogwarts Legacy:

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

The Portly Politico8 Comments

Saturday evening my neighbor invited me over to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) on his outdoor inflatable screen.  My neighbor, his wife, his son, and I had a blast watching this classic under the stars.

Raiders is one of those films that has so many iconic scenes, I sometimes forget the actual order of events.  I experience the same sensation with the original Star Wars (1977) film, which I also watched outdoors with my neighbor and his family:  I know the broad strokes of the story and all of the memorable moments, but I am always amazed by how much I have forgotten between viewings.

I don’t know if anyone else experiences this sensation when watching these modern classics, but I think it accounts, in part, for their enduring freshness (even if Star Wars looks like the 1970s in a samurai-western space opera).  Every viewing feels, in a small way, like seeing the film for the first time.  I suspect it’s due in part to the young age at which I first saw these flicks, and the marked but incomplete impressions they left upon my young mind.

But enough navel-gazing!  Raiders stands the test of time, and I was reminded again how great Hollywood blockbusters used to be.

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