Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November

5 November 20255 November 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Today is Guy Fawkes Day (or Night) in merry old England, a holiday that is unapologetically nationalist, monarchist (in the best English tradition of that form of government) and Protestant Christian. There’s something fun and refreshingly patriotic about a holiday dedicated to burning a treacherous Papist in effigy. Not to make everything about America, but it smacks of the Fourth of July, albeit without the anti-monarchist undertones.

Most Americans will be familiar with Guy Fawkes Day and the iconic mask from the film V for Vendetta (2005), in which the meaning of Guy Fawkes focuses on the man’s role as a would-be freedom fighter for English Catholics against an oppressive Protestant regime. In the context of the film, the titular V dons the mask in the context of a freedom fighter against a fascistic, quasi-religious British government.

Open Mic Adventures CLIV: “Aachen Cathedral Chorale”

4 November 20252 November 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

This week I’m digging up an older piece that invokes (in my mind) the ancient traditions of medieval Europe.

TBT: Rooting Out Heresy: The Cathars

30 October 202527 October 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

We’re living in heretical times. All sorts of New Age nonsense is afoot.

The thing is, all the “New Age nonsense” is just Old World paganism and Gnosticism wrapped in therapeutic language. People are looking for answers—the easier the better. I’ve been reading the classic, authoritative book on the subject, The Kingdom of the Cults (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link, as are several others links in this post; I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you), by theologian Walter Martin, and it is wild how many of these cults share the same basic qualities—claiming to be “Christian” while perverting and distorting the very heart of the Gospels.

With that, here is 14 October 2024’s “Rooting Out Heresy: The Cathars“:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Sid Meier’s Colonization (1994)

28 June 202526 June 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

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.

Before I dove headlong back into Civilization VII, I spent a solid two or three weeks playing Sid Meier’s Colonization on Governor difficulty (the penultimate difficulty level). I finally won a game as the Dutch, with a strong colonial basis in modern-day Argentina and Chile:

I first played this game in the mid-1990s when I was a kid. I was hooked immediately, and this game is largely responsible for sparking my interesting in teaching American history. It also ignited a lifelong interest in the American Revolution.

So, how does it hold up thirty-one years after its release?

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

Lazy Sunday CCCXIII: The French

15 June 202512 June 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Last Sunday I linked to posts vaguely about and/or related to Scandinavians; today, I look at the French:

“TBT^2: Napoleonic Christmas” (and “TBT: Napoleonic Christmas” and “Napoleonic Christmas“) – a post about Napoleon.
“French Independence in Sid Meier’s Colonization” – a post about playing France in an ancient video game—ha!
“Open Mic Adventures CXXXIV: ‘French Cuisine’” – a post about one of my musical compositions.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

French Independence in Sid Meier’s Colonization

28 May 202527 May 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Back in January 2025 I subjected the longsuffering Dr. Fiancée (then still Dr. Girlfriend) to an excited and probably tedious explanation of Sid Meier’s Colonization, the game that was probably most responsible for me becoming a history teacher. Since then, I started a few games, but never finished them. Like many Civ and Civ-adjacent games, Colonization drags a bit in the middle, becoming at times a laborious economic management sim (which, essentially, is what the game is).

However, the end of the game is exciting, and is essentially an entirely different game from the rest. The goal is to declare independence from your mother country, which becomes possible only after building up a self-sufficient economy in the New World. A major part of that economy is the ability to produce massive amounts of muskets and horses, as well as populating your colonies with immigrants and natural-born settlers who will use those muskets.

Late Monday night—far too late to be up before heading to work—I finished up a game as New France, successfully gaining independence from the mother country after a tough fight for independence.

Memorable Monday: Saint Patrick’s Day

17 March 202517 March 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, and yours portly is a bit busy at the moment, so I’m doing a quick reblog today.

With that, here is 17 March 2021’s “Saint Patrick’s Day“:

Midweek Mongol Madness

5 March 20254 March 2025 The Portly Politico2 Comments

I’m getting into the Mongols in the next unit in World History, but our current unit on the Byzantines, Russians, and Turks has already run into the Khanate of the Golden Horde.

The vast Eurasian steppe is one of those parts of the world that seems like a big, open, empty area in which nothing of substance really happens. However, the exact opposite is true: it’s a virtual spawn point for nomadic, horseback-riding invaders. Long before the Mongols, groups like the ancient Aryans (the historic people, not the mythologized Nazi ones) and Scythians drove down from the steppe into Europe, India, the Middle East, and even China.

History YouTuber WhatIfAltHist posted a video earlier this week covering the “anti-civilization” of the steppe, and how various invaders have shaped civilizations around them.

Sid Meier’s Colonization Intro Scene

27 January 202526 January 2025 The Portly Politico7 Comments

No movie review this week, dear readers. While I have quite a few posts scheduled, I was a bit short on time and haven’t watched anything worth reviewing lately, so I figured I’d do something a bit different today.

I was visiting Dr. Girlfriend this weekend, and for some reason, I started to tell her excitedly about the video that got me into history in a major way, Sid Meier’s Colonization.

TBT^2: Napoleonic Christmas

26 December 202419 December 2024 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Way back in 2019 I wrote a post entitled “Napoleonic Christmas“; it took off thanks to being featured on a conservative news aggregator that, at the time, was presenting itself as an alternative to The Drudge Report, which inexplicably but notably turned hard to the Left after the 2016 election, in which it played an important role in getting GEOTUS Donaldus Magnus elected.

Napoleon has always fascinated me. Indeed, I wrote an entire tone poem about the enigmatic figure:

I don’t think Napoleon was a good guy, but he was great, in the sense that he was—much like Trump—sui generis, a man unto himself, and a man for the historical moment in which he found himself.

At Christmas, however, the Greatest Man Is a little Baby in a manger. The Son of God Humbled Himself to become like us. No Napoleon or Trump (the latter of which I like very much, and who I believe has God’s Hand of Protection over him) could ever do that—or would.

With that, here is 28 December 2023’s “TBT: Napoleonic Christmas“:

The Portly Politico

One Southerner's unique, erudite, conservative perspective in a hectic world

Tag: European history