Longtime readers know that photog of Orion’s Cold Fire is a blogger buddy of mine. He recently proposed we “interview” one another via e-mail—a project we both hope more folks will engage in soon. We asked each other five questions and responded. You’ll be able to read my responses at his blog this morning, too.
Here are photog’s responses to my questions, reproduced without editing, other than for style and for adding links to the books he referenced:
It is—to use a Southern expression—hotter than blue blazes here in South Carolina, as it always is in early September. Lately, the extreme heat and humidity have made any outdoor activities unbearable, at least for yours portly. The air is thick and muggy.
But there is some relief in sight. We’ve had some rainy days here and there that have given brief—fleetingly brief!—tastes of autumn.
Autumn is, by far, my favorite season. After the brutal oppression of summer, autumn is a welcome relief. Autumn in South Carolina is brief, but lovely—the days are warm, the nights crisp. The season makes it stately arrival fashionably late, usually late in October or early in November (though Halloween always manages to be hot; just once I want an Indiana Halloween!).
The cooler weather brings with it better smells: pumpkins and spices replace the persistent smell of cut grass and sweat. Food tastes better in autumn, too. There’s a reason candy apples are an autumnal fair food: that thick, sugary, caramel coating wouldn’t last in the humidity of summer. There’s also the pies: pecan and pumpkin, of course, but also sweet potato.
Oh, and there’s college football. The SEC hasn’t (yet) betrayed fans like the West Coast conferences.
So, here’s hoping autumn returns sooner rather than later to South Carolina this year. With that hope—and prayer—in mind, whip out the pumpkin spice and enjoy November 2019’s “The Joy of Autumn“:
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A couple of days before the start of the school year, my school underwent a round of indoctrination professional development: the dreaded diversity, equity, and inclusion training ($5 subs got a sneak peek of my handwritten notes earlier this week, which I uploaded as a digitized PDF). As these things go, it wasn’t terrible, but there was plenty of social justice buzz words, and a subtle, implied anti-white bias to it. Really, it was an anti-Truth and objectivity bias.
This Saturday, permit me to be your guide through the harrowing world of corporate-style diversity training in the Year of Our Wokeness Two-Thousand and Twenty C.E. (because “A.D.” is discriminatory against non-Christians, even though the B.C.E./C.E. dating system is still based on the Birth of Jesus Christ!).
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Way back in 2001, good ol’ John “The Derb” Derbyshire wrote a column for National Review called “Hillary’s Style Crash.” That was back in the days before NR kicked Derb to the curb for writing his controversial piece for Taki’s Mag “The Talk: Nonblack Version,” in which Derb dropped some unpleasant nuggets of wisdom. That piece went up during the first round of the past decade’s worth of race riots, back before most of us realized it was mostly ginned up controversy.
Regardless, while I don’t agree with Derb’s race realism overall, he does offer up some remarkably insightful commentary. His weekly podcast is often the highlight of my Saturday mornings, and he comes across as an intellectually curious, gentle man who sincerely cares about his adopted country. His best commentary involves cultural matters, and that 2001 piece offers up a great insight: conservative girls are prettier, but progressive girls are easier.
It was inevitable—a Lazy Sunday dedicated to the coronavirus. This may end up being a “Part I,” depending on what happens over the next few weeks, but I’m planning on shifting away from corona talk for awhile. There are bigger and better things in life than a Chinese biological weapon and/or Chinese culinary disaster-turned-virus.
I’ve been trying to make the most of a generally bad situation. It’s springtime in South Carolina, so for about two weeks, we’ll enjoy pleasantly mild weather before the oppressive heat of summer hits. Z Man has an excellent, optimistic post up today about “Springtime In The Pandemic“; it’s a must-read, and follows some of my own ideas about the possible cultural consequences of everyone being at home and resuming more traditional roles.
So this Lazy Sunday, it’s time to look back at my various posts on the dreaded virus:
Well, that does it for now. Stay safe, wash your hands, and God Bless!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
Milo Yiannopoulos posted a screen shot yesterday of an essay from The Atlantic reading “How the Coronavirus Will Send Us Back to the 1950s” (the piece, by Helen Lewis, is now called “The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism“—a silver lining to this pandemic, I suppose). His caption reads, “HOLY SH[*]T YES PLEASE[.]”
The Lewis piece is the usual feminist hand-wringing about the disparate impact of the coronavirus on women. Feminists always find a way to make global catastrophes about them, and not about everyone who is truly suffering. The attitude seems to be, “yes, yes, people will die, but why do I have to make any sacrifices or trade-offs for the people I ostensibly love?”
If you’re ready for your blood pressure to spike before you even eat your cholesterol-thick breakfast, here’s an example of the delusional loonies on the Left: a California woman (almost) divorced her husband because he voted for Trump.
This story is a bit old, as it dates back to early 2017, but it’s indicative of where our nation is. It not only demonstrates the intense loyalty of the Left to their progressive dogma, but also how cheaply marriage is held.
The short version is thus: 73-year old Gayle McCormick threatened seriously to divorce her husband of twenty-two years when she found out he voted for Trump (ultimately, they merely separated permanently).
It’s finally here—FIFTY WEEKS of Lazy Sunday. I started this little feature with “APR Pieces” (the feature of last week’s TBT) one year ago, and today marks the fiftieth edition (that’s what the little “L” in the title means, for those not familiar with Roman numerals).
When I took the blog daily in 2019, I realized I needed at least one or two days of easier posts, as churning out seven totally original posts a week is tough (even writing five is challenging sometimes). Thus, Lazy Sunday and TBT were born. While TBT is a fun way to look back at past scribblings, Lazy Sunday is useful for grouping disparate posts thematically.
Naturally, Sunday is one of the slowest days for views, and I don’t often put a “read more” tag on Lazy Sunday posts, so they have pretty low views overall (I imagine many subscribers read the posts in their e-mails, then click-through to the linked pieces; my limited data from WordPress suggests as much). So that’s all to say that the “Best” of Lazy Sunday is still way below my most-viewed posts.
Anyway, that’s enough sausage-making. Here are some of the most-viewed Lazy Sunday installments:
There you have it! Six beefy Lazy Sundays to reread and re-enjoy. There are forty-nine other good ones, too! Show them some love.
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
More proof that Mormonism is not Christianity: the Utah State Senate approved a bill in committee that will decriminalize polygamy, reducing it from a felony to an infraction. The premise behind that bill is that it will encourage people (presumably women) in polygamous relationships to come forward when reporting other crimes, and that polygamists are tired of being treated like “second-class citizens.”
Well. The My Faith Votes post on this bill makes a compelling point against the bill: “decriminalizing polygamy will give more power to the abusers” and “the act of categorizing it as a mere infraction, with jail time only enforced for additional crimes such as fraud or abuse, sends the message (whether intended or not) that polygamy is a legitimate lifestyle as long as the adults are consenting.” The latter, I suspect, is the real point.
Everyone knows of Mormonism’s controversial history with polygamy. In an older, better America, polygamy was not just frowned upon—it was illegal. Indeed, the young Republican Party was organized to fight slavery and polygamy, which its platform proclaimed “the twin relics of barbarism.” In order for Utah to enter the Union, it had to do away with polygamy, which was accepted practice in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It finally did so in 1890.
But now we have an odd situation in which progressive dogma dovetails with a conservative religion. Progressivism’s successful assaults on traditional, monogamous marriage opened a Pandora’s Box of sexual deviancy. If gay marriage is acceptable, why not other forms of “marriage”? At least polygamy has historical foundations, unlike gay marriage, but it’s still a destructive social arrangement.
To be clear, I am intentionally conflating politics in Utah with Mormonism. The LDS faith dominates the State’s politics, and this bill has support from Republicans. With the usual acknowledgment that there are always rare exceptions, my premise is that a Republican in Utah is incredibly likely to be a Mormon.
As such, it seems like this bill is old-school Mormonism making a comeback—they can finally undo the indignity (as I suspect some of them see it) the United States forced upon them in 1890, and they can revive their original acceptance of polygamous relationships.
Polygamy is a dangerous institution. Indeed, the United States today essentially practices informal polygamy in the form of modern dating: alpha chads dominate the sexual marketplace, while normal guys struggle. Such is the outcome of polygamy: wealthy, successful men in traditional polygamous societies kept multiple wives, but most men never had the opportunity to enjoy marriage.
That’s a recipe for disaster. A stable society needs monogamous, opposite-sex marriages for the vast majority of its people. It prevents the shiftless shuffling of legions of young, unmarried men. It also causes the slow, demographic death of a country, and it destabilizes families, leading to a profusion of single motherhood.
Men become simpering betas and sexual mercenaries, hoping for a simulacrum of love. Women come to expect nothing more than a series of hook-ups and flings, then find themselves pining for the alpha lover of their youths while desperately seeking a pliant beta to raise her kids. It is a bleak, bleak scenario.
Polygamy merely formalizes a bad system. It also strips women of dignity, forcing them to participate in harem politics, jockeying for the favor of their man for the benefit of their children. It brings out the worst in men and women—a man domineeringly controlling his brood, and his women fighting cattily for a crumb of his affection.
Alternatively, a monogamous society creates stability and social harmony. Children grow up with two parents in the household, gaining important elements from their fathers and their mothers, as each provide something different to their children.
I’ll give the Mormons credit: they’ve made monogamy work extremely well, and they raise lovely families. They should stick to it.
And vote out Mitt Romney.
