After MAGAWeek2023 and my extended time out of town, I’ve decided to take this week to rerun some classic hits from the extensive TPP back catalog. Most of the posts are those with very high view counts, though I am presenting them in no particular order. TBT will proceed as usual, and regular posts will resume Saturday, 15 July 2023.
With that, here is 30 September 2019’s “Tom Steyer’s Belt“—the most viewed post on the blog:
I’ve had animals on the brain lately, especially dogs. Perhaps it’s my girlfriend’s sweet German shepherd puppy, or my parents’ photogenic rat terrier; regardless, I realize I am becoming a softy for critters.
Not just the furry, charismatic ones, either: I’m considering adding a small frog garden to my existing flower beds, as I have a number of toads and frogs that take up residence in my beds and planters already. Giving them a murky little pond to splash about in would be fun, and might help cut down on some bugs in the yard.
So it is that I’m looking back to this horrible story from March 2020, about the poaching of two rare albino giraffes in Kenya. In the original piece, I make quite a few wild speculations about the nature of the poachers, even implicating the 50,000 Chinese immigrants to the country.
Given that The Virus originated, most likely, in a Wuhan virology lab—suggesting the Chinese were working on some kind of horrible biological weapon—I’d say mistrust in China’s motives is justified. It’s also a very weird culture, as the wet markets proved. The Chinese long believed rhinoceros horn to be an aphrodisiac; how far-fetched would it be to think they would believe something similar about the flesh of an albino giraffe?
For that matter, Africa is still a land filled with many folk beliefs and superstitions. Albino humans in Tanzania, for example, are the targets of witch doctors, who harvest albinos’ body parts for use in their dark magic. Gavin McInnes frequently mentions the belief among some African tribes that bald men’s heads are filled with gold. And there is the horrific practice of AIDS sufferers raping virgins—especially very young children—in the belief that doing so will cure their affliction.
These are terrible things—far more wicked and evil than the murder of two albino giraffes. But how we treat God’s Creation, even in its lower orders, is a reflection of how we treat one another. Animal mutilation and murder is a key sign of a future serial killer or sociopath.
With that depressing preamble, here is 24 March 2020’s “Albino Giraffes Poached“:
As if dancing plagues and Chinese viruses weren’t enough, albino giraffes are getting poached.
Two extremely rare white giraffes have been killed by poachers in north-eastern Kenya, conservationists say.
Rangers had found the carcasses of the female and her calf in a village in north-eastern Kenya’s Garissa County.
A third white giraffe is still alive. It is thought to be the only remaining one in the world, the conservationists added.
Their white appearance is due to a rare condition called leucism, which causes skin cells to have no pigmentation.
Apparently, no one knows why these giraffes were killed; the poachers’ “motive is still unclear,” per the BBC.
When I was in college, I formed this ridiculous pseudo-band with a suitemate of mine (who has, apparently, now gone down some dark roads) called Blasphemy’s Belt, which my bio on another band’s website refers to as an “electro-pop humor duo.” I can’t remember how we came up with the name—our music wasn’t particularly or purposefully blasphemous (or good), and while we wore belts, they weren’t outrageous (just to keep our pants up)—but it was apparently catchy enough that people picked up on it.
The Belt never performed live, other than for an annoyed roommate, and a highly grating pop-up concert (at least, that’s what hipsters would call it nowadays) on our floor’s study room, but we generated enough buzz to get people to vote for us in a “Best of Columbia” survey in The Free Times. We didn’t win anything, but it was an object lesson in how enough hype can make people believe you have substance when you really don’t.
That’s my self-indulgent way to introduce some literal navel-gazing—at Democratic hopeful and wealthy scold Tom Steyer‘s virtue-signalling, sanctimonious belt.
The Portly Politico 