Tag: culture

TBT^256: Rebuilding Civilization: The Hunter-Gatherer

The Portly Politico6 Comments

Months ago I soft-pitched the idea for a piece to Feigned Flight Magazine about the Mongols, specifically related to a question their editor and founder, Michael, posed: did the Mongols really contribute anything enduring to civilization? And, no, we’re not talking about yurts or horseback riding equipment or techniques; rather, did they contribute anything that left an indelible imprint beyond a handful of technological innovations?

The historical record seems to indicate that, while the Mongols certainly had a significant impact—destroying some insane percentage of the world’s population, along with countless cities and towns—they never seemed to develop a culture of their own that would come to dominate other cultures. Instead—as is often the case with nomadic steppe peoples—they adopted the cultures of their conquered peoples.

Certainly, something similar could be said of the Romans—they largely adopted Greek culture as their own—but even before their conquest of Greece, the Romans had a highly sophisticated religion, government, etc. It seems that the Mongols had a world-historic figure in the form of Genghis Khan—and that’s it. His empire barely lasted a century beyond his death. Perhaps his most impactful descendant, Kublai Khan, is more noteworthy for how quickly he abandoned the life of the steppe for the soft silks of Chinese civilization (although it is said that he maintained a patch of Mongol grass and dirt on his palace grounds so he would stay tied to his homeland).

I don’t want to write off the Mongols entirely, but my (admittedly very) preliminary research seems to indicate that any “contributions” they made were really detriments to human development and flourishing. “Spreading the bubonic plague” isn’t exactly a “contribution,” more of an unfortunate side effect of hordes of horsemen thundering across Eurasia, leaving a bloody trail as they went.

If the Mongols accomplished anything, it’s that their swath of destruction brought about the fanciful “Pax Mongolica,” or “Mongol Peace,” a period from roughly 1250-1350 AD in which there was relative stability on the central Asian steppe. That peace allowed trade to flow relatively unmolested along the Silk Road (although the accounts of Marco Polo and others make it clear that it was still a very violent place). As I told my students in World History, though, it was “the peace of the graveyard”—it’s easy to pacify a wild land when there’s no one left alive to challenge you!

It is interesting to ponder, though: perhaps the real “contribution” of nomadic peoples like the Mongols is that they cause settled agriculturalists to better defend themselves. It also seems that the absorption of nomads into settled society injects some steppe vigor into established civilizations: the barbarians are uncouth, but they’re alive. Also, for all the independence of the Mongols and other steppe tribes, they had a codependent relationship with settled civilizations: the former depended on the latter for supplies via trading or raiding. It is interesting to consider, too, that once having tasted the fruits of civilization, many nomads opted for that life over the rough-hewn existence of the plains.

All interesting points to consider and mull over—and hopefully turn into a more structured essay!

With that, here is 28 August 2025’s “TBT^16: Rebuilding Civilization: The Hunter-Gatherer“:

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Midweek Koi Pond Update VI: The Summer Doldrums

The Portly Politico6 Comments

It’s been awhile since I wrote an update about our koi pond; the last time was mid-May of this year, when the pond was brimming with life. Temperatures were warm enough for the koi to come up regularly for feedings, and they were hungry—I was feeding them two or three times a day. The rosy red minnows also experienced a population boom, as dozens of the little guys and girls were hatching in the pond.

Fast forward to today (Dr. Wife’s birthday, by the way!), and the pond is in a bit of a doldrums. I suspect that the heat has driven the koi to the cooler, deeper waters, but even the minnows, which often stayed near the surface, have been more muted, even at feeding time. I’ve reduced feedings to once a day, and occasionally once every other day, but still have not seen much activity.

Dr. Wife was growing concerned, especially as I didn’t feed the fish for two days before her family paid a recent visit. I was hoping they’d be hankering for some Kaytee Koi’s Choice, but no dice—other than a brief splash from Sunny, the pond was quiet (the various water bugs and dragonflies, though, were quite active, enjoying sips of pond water). I proposed donning my swimming trunks and taking a dip in the green waters so I could feel around for the fish; she wisely countered that I should probably just get the net and skim through the pond.

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New Music Tuesday XXI: “Deep Chorale”

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Yesterday morning I had a little bit of free time and a little bit of staff paper, so I jotted out a little chorale. I decided to write one in the bass clef, which I don’t usually do, and while I followed some of my own “rules” for these chorales, I also took quite a few liberties with them.

I imported the WAV of the finished product into Audacity, where I applied a “Medium Room” reverb filter; a “Wide Synth Pad” chorus effect (one of my favorites); and a “Firm Bass” master effect. The result is this enigmatic, low-end-heavy chorale.

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Tattoos

The Portly Politico8 Comments

My succulent paid subs—you have a belated edition of SubscribeStar Saturday coming your way imminently (coming 10 AM EST today, Monday, 24 August 2026). In the meantime, here’s a quick musing for the plebes. —TPP

I’m just old enough to remember a time when tattoos were taboo and trashy. The only people that had tattoos were the following:

  • Military veterans who had seen real combat
  • Motorcycle gang members
  • Tramps (remember the early 2000s “tramp stamp” lower back tattoo?)
  • Really rough lower-class types and/or people who were trying to emulate that style

Only the first two are acceptable. If you were at Iwo Jima, yeah, you’ve earned a tattoo of an angry fish or whatever. I remember in college (the early 2000s) the third—the “tramp stamp”—became more common among some women, but it was something that instantly marked a woman as having poor taste and impulse control. The male equivalent was that “tribal armband” thing.

Otherwise, tattoos were basically a form of self-medication for various forms of mental illness, like smoking cigarettes. Often, the overlap between the two—tattoos and tobacco consumption—were very high.

Now, everyone has them (well, not me). People reportedly get “addicted” to getting them (a common refrain I’ve heard from tattoo aficionados is that, once you get one, you want another).

I suspect their ubiquity now is indicative of our society’s general inability to think beyond immediate here and now. That used only be the purview of the fourth type on that list—those poor souls who are so diminished intellectually or developmentally or socially that they never learned—or were incapable of learning—impulse control. Now, it seems as those a vanishingly small number of people can think long-term.

Surely social media plays a role—as it always does—in both popularizing tattoos (“everyone” has one, so I should, too!) and in reducing our overall long-term planning abilities. Do I really want a tattoo of a flower that represents my deceased grandmother on my boob when I’m seventy? I don’t think people think it through.

I also suspect tattoos are a reflection of society’s increased nihilism. If everything is meaningless, then why bother with Beauty? Let’s just make ourselves and everything else ugly (ironically, I think some people get tattoos in an attempt to overcome their physical deficiencies; it’s rare—or used to be rare—for a gorgeous person to be covered in tattoos, but I’ve seen plenty of amorphous land whales with the physique of the Pokémon Ditto covered in tats and sporting bright blue hair). As always, nihilism is a blight on all things Pure and Good and True—and Beautiful.

To be clear, get your tattoo; it’s no skin (no pun intended) off my lower back. But I’ll judge you. You shouldn’t care about that, but if you do, it proves to me that you’re only getting the tattoo because you’re seeking external validation, so much so that some chubby raconteur on the Internet is getting a rise out of you.

God Gave you beautiful skin (ladies, listen up in particular). Don’t sully it with a spinning wheel that’s a metaphor for time or how your Mimi used to sew you a sweater. Mimi would rather her little apple dumpling have smooth, beautiful, unadorned skin, not a sick-green outline of a dove that starts to look like an amorphous blob after ten years.

Think ahead. Don’t be a putz. Tattoos are for military veterans and bikers, not corporate drones sending e-mails for a living.

white ringed flycatchers perching on a branch

Phone it in Friday CXLII: YouTube Roundup CCII: Nugget and the Birds

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Remember Gumby? He was that green, bipedal, Claymation humanoid with the orange pony, Pokey. I always liked Gumby and his amorphous, shape-shifting ways.

Apparently, our three-legged dog, Nugget, has beef with the Gumbster. She has a Gumby toy that she loves to shake around. Lately, she’s been pulling Gumby’s soft inner fluff out the poor fellow, and yours portly ends up being the one picking it up. Perhaps Nugget is trying to get me to exercise a bit more.

What Nugget has not been mauling—thankfully—are the birds that come to our bird feeder. I bought a ten-dollar bird feeder at Lowe’s and hung it with a nail outside of our sunroom. Dr. Wife loves the birds, especially Peepers (a female cardinal) and her “boyfriend,” Big Red (a male cardinal).

What’s cool is that the birds are so enamored with their treats, they’ll let me walk right up to the window and look at them. I can get some pictures of them, although they tend to come out a little dark thanks to the UV coating we have over the windows. One day I’ll do a post of nothing but bird pictures (and my self-indulgent commentary).

Today is not that day. Instead, I’ll be sharing a video of a cute bird eating—and of Nugget locked in battle with her Claymation foe:

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zaira

Pit Bulls and Genetics

The Portly Politico2 Comments

There’s been a lot of debate around pit bulls for years, and the sides are pretty predictable: some people argue they are only violent because of bad upbringing and abuse; others argue that the breed is genetically predisposed to aggressive and unpredictable behavior. I fall firmly in the latter camp.

Are there are exceptions to the “killer pit bull” stereotype? Sure. Nugget, who is truly the meekest, sweetest dog to ever live, is apparently 75% pit bull genetically; the only indication is her blocky head. Whatever pit is in her is completely subsumed under the other 25% of her genetic heritage (we highly suspect she has some rat terrier and/or Australian Cattle Dog in her). But no one would look at Nugget and say, “that’s a pit bull.”

We all know what a pit bull is, even if their advocates will try to argue that it’s “not really a breed” (funny how they’ll argue the breed isn’t inherently violent, then in the next breath argue the breed doesn’t exist; you can see why this dog is a favorite of single white liberal ladies in their thirties). It reminds me of that Supreme Court justice who, when asked to define pornography, said (to paraphrase), “I know it when I see it.”

Here is a pit bull. It’s a beautiful dog, don’t get me wrong. I also wouldn’t let it anywhere near my hypothetical children.

“Portly, didn’t you have a bull terrier?” Yes, and that’s a challenging and neurotic breed. I loved Murphy, but she wasn’t a saint; she infamously scratched one of my nephews one horrible Christmas (she was super stressed out, but it was still totally unacceptable; my nephew was fine, but understandably shaken up). I did a lot of work with her to test her boundaries and to ensure she wouldn’t go too far or get too rough. Additionally, the bull terrier, while sharing some common stock with the American pit bull, was bred to be super friendly towards humans. Other than that one unfortunate incident, Murphy loved people.

I still would never let her around a two-year old.

I’ve long suspected that a lot of the rhetoric around pit bulls isn’t really about dogs—it’s about race. I don’t believe that one’s race automatically defines a person, but there are clear differences between human races other than skin tone. For example, some Asians are lactose intolerant, while most Europeans aren’t; people of African descent are more likely to suffer from sickle cell anemia. These things don’t mean one group of people is inherently better or worse than another (“all hail the dairy drinkers!”), just that genetics are real and play some role in who we are.

Anyone who has ever had children, or witnessed young children develop, knows this intuitively, even if they’d never say it out loud. My niece is my mother; the older of my two nephews is my father. It’s absolutely wild how they’ve inherited personalities and traits and talents across generations. Obviously, my niece and nephews are their own people, with their own unique quirks and abilities, but it’s striking how much they have ingrained behaviors and mannerisms, not just from their parents, but from their grandparents. The dynamic between my niece and the older nephew is like watching my parents interact.

Again, let me stress what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that biology is 100% destiny. But I’m also rejecting the “blank slate”—we have all sorts of things imprinted upon us genetically from the moment of conception. That’s a really beautiful thing.

Similarly, dogs are influenced by their genetics. This shouldn’t be controversial—we literally breed dogs into breeds. What makes a breed a “breed” are the distinct characteristics between them. Some dogs are bred for companionship; some for hunting; some for receiving; some for pointing.

Some are bred as brutal killing machines. And we’re kidding ourselves if think we are safe just because we’re nice to the brutal killing machine.

But, again, for a certain segment of the population, I suspect their fear is that if we draw that conclusion about dogs, we might draw that conclusion about humans. Never mind that humans are ensouled; that we’re made in the Image of God; that God Gave us intelligence and self-control. Sure, some people might have more or less intelligence or restraint than others, but they can make a conscious effort to overcome or mitigate at least some of their biology.

What prompted this lengthy reflection was this post from Substack author Georgi Boorman. I can’t say I disagree with her overall thesis.

Here is my response:

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Lazy Sunday CDI: Koi Dance on Other Blogs

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Koi Dance is out now on all streaming platforms and at https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com. It’s 90% off (!) with promo code koipond. That promo code is also good for everything on the site, so my full discography is under $10.

A couple of my blogger buddies very kind wrote little blurbs about Koi Dance, so I thought I’d share them today:

Legendary blogger Roman of Opium Tales has also graciously agreed to review the album, so stay tuned!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Phone it in Friday CXLI: YouTube Roundup CCI: Loaches and Water Treatment

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Koi Dance is out now on all streaming platforms and at https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com. It’s 90% off (!) with promo code koipond. That means it’s $1 for twelve tracks of great music (and that promo code is also good for everything on the site).

The intense summer heat has kept the fish deeper underwater, where they can escape the sun and enjoy cooler temperatures. Even the rosy red minnows, who usually swarm any food we toss into the pond, have been more taciturn of late. It had me a bit worried, but water testing indicates that everything looks good. I imagine we’ll see more activity once temperatures began to back off… in late November—ha!

That said, we’ve had a few fun sightings. One of our intrepid loaches has been making himself known, and it’s always fun seeing those weird, goofy-looking critters near the surface.

Loaches typically live at the bottom of the pond, and like to burrow into the dirty substrate. They eat food that’s fallen to the bottom and generally feed on detritus and what not. But they will surface in response to barometric changes, and we have at least one that loves to explore (I’m pretty sure he’s the same one I saw wriggling around in the filter basket one morning; my attempts to relocate him were marginally successful). It’s always super fun seeing them in the ivy, which our big yellow koi, Sunny, also seems to enjoy.

So it is that I have loach-related videos for you today, as well as one kind of boring update about the unsexy side of pond management.

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TBT: First Day of School 202[6]

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Yesterday was the first day of classes for the 2026-2027 academic year. It is the first “first day of school” I have not attended in fifteen-ish years.

Instead, today is my first day of the school year. I’m now the part-time Chaplain for my school, and I only go in (usually) once a week, on Thursdays, for the morning Chapel service. The new headmaster will be covering today’s Chapel, so I won’t give my first devotional until next week.

It’s a little surreal being “back-to-school” in this new role—and without truly being “back” all the time. But I love it so far.

I had to attend a few of the back-to-school trainings and professional developments, and while my school is incredibly mild with that stuff compared to public schools, it was a confirmation that leaving full-time classroom teaching was the right move. Admin was scrambling to finalize the master schedule (in part because there is a new schedule this year), and one colleague had a substantial, last-minute change to his teaching load (fortunately, I was able to give him all of my materials for the course, so he should be good to go). Everyone is magically expected to be ready for this week, and it’s a testament to the kind of miracles teachers pull off that most of them probably were!

Avoiding that kind of chaos is pretty sweet. I’ve had a small dose of it, as the time for Chapel kept shifting around as the admin continued to make tweaks to the new schedule, but I’ve found that being proactive and trying to nail down details with them in writing and in advance goes a long way in the CYA department. Also, I don’t really have to work anymore, so I have ultimate outcome-independence. Being able to say, “no, I don’t think I will” is pretty liberating, albeit counterintuitive to an innate people-pleaser.

Well, here’s to doing the fun part of education with almost none of the baggage. Woooooooooot!

With that, here is 18 August 2025’s “First Day of School 2025“:

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gym equipment

Exercise

The Portly Politico9 Comments

Yours portly has had a lifelong aversion to exercise. Not physical exertion, per se—I grew up moving furniture around my parents’ Victorian house and still lug sound equipment hither and yon—but the idea of physical exertion for its own sake. Why sweat when you don’t have to?

Well, because it’s not “physical exertion for its own sake”; exercise serves a greater purpose in that it improves one’s health. The physical benefits of exercise are, of course, well-documented: weight loss and/or management; greater strength; increased stamina; better cardiovascular health; etc. The mental benefits are pretty profound, too: better sleep; better mood; better ways to sweat out the bottled-up rage of decades.

Still, even with all the alleged benefits, I’ve rarely been one to go out of my way to seek additional physical exertion just because—gasp!—it might be good for me. Exercise is hard. It’s sweaty and unpleasant. Especially when I was working full-time, I dealt with enough sweaty unpleasantness that, in my precious spare time, I preferred to stay glued to my computer desk chair than move around unnecessarily.

Naturally, that’s partially why yours portly is, well, portly (not to mention my unhealthy relationship with food—I’m a sensualist when it comes to eating mish-mashed leftovers). Living life as a larger-than-life bon vivant has its advantages, but it also carries some hefty baggage.

So I’ve been taking some small steps towards improving my overall physical (and mental) health. Dr. Wife and I take a long walk most nights after dinner. I’ve been doing that for a few months now. I enjoy walking, but as my older brother once told me (to paraphrase), “walking is good, but it takes a tremendous amount of time [to see any real caloric burn].” If Dr. Wife isn’t with me I’ll sometimes get in some brief interval running, but I’m not consistent with that at all.

What’s a portly bon vivant to do?

“Eat less, fatso”—hey, I heard that! But, yes, I’m doing that (imperfectly).

“Find exercise that works for you, tubsy”—ah, yes. A good solution. Well, walking works for me, but, as my older brother has noted, it’s fairly inefficient. Running is unpleasant (again, most exercise, for someone like me, is).

Dr. Wife, as usual, presented the solution in the way only an upper-middle class American white girl can: ride the Peloton.

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