Monday Morning in America

The Portly Politico is striving towards self-sufficiency.  If you would like to support my work, consider subscribing to my SubscribeStar page.  Your subscription of $1/month or more gains you access to exclusive content every Saturday, including annual #MAGAWeek posts.  If you’ve received any value from my scribblings, I would very much appreciate your support.

The couple of weeks I’ve been feeling bleak about the future.  I’m a declinist by nature when it comes to the macro view, but the micro was starting to get to me.  How do we get through to people?  We don’t have the luxury for the old days of slow, steady relationship building and piecemeal red-pilling.  Further, it seems every step we take forward, the culture takes three steps back.

I wrote as much on Saturday, in a post where I gave full-vent to the frustrations I’ve experienced.  One of the problems with writing daily (and under self-imposed deadlines) is that it’s easy to let your emotions about recent events take over.  I’d been giving way to despair, and it started twisting my analysis.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Aiken Amblings

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It’s been quite a nice week, Hurricane Dorian notwithstanding.  Last night I called my first varsity football game (I’ve been calling junior varsity games for a few years now), and I am eternally grateful to the eagle-eyed coaches in the pressbox who fed me some of my best lines.

After the game—a blowout of such proportions that the second half instituted a “running clock,” which meant an abbreviated evening for yours portly—I drove to my hometown of Aiken, in the western part of South Carolina.  My destination for the weekend:  the large arts and crafts fair known as Aiken’s Makin’.

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250th Day Update

Today’s post marks 250 days of consecutive posting.  That’s a major milestone in my ongoing project to blog daily, which I last commemorated in a substantial way at Day 101.  With this post, I’m a mere 115 days away from reaching a year of daily posts.  So close, and yet—so far.

I tried to find a word that meant “250 days” in the way that bicentennial means “200 years,” or sesquicentennial means “150 years” (from those words, I reason that 250 years would be a “sesquibicentennial”).  My search proved fruitless, though I did learn that 250 is the number of men that rebelled against Moses in Numbers 26:10 (thank you, Wikipedia).

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Happy Labor Day 2019!

It’s Labor Day here in the United States, a day to celebrate the hardworking men and women that make our country great.  Yes, I’m sure a holiday engineered by labor unions (like the radical nineteenth-century union the Knights of Labor) has some seedy progressive origins, but I think we can all appreciate a Monday off.

It’s been a pleasant weekend here at the Casa de Portly.  All the ambitious plans to grade and catch up on work predictably flew out the window, and I’ve gotten loads of much-needed rest.  My hacking cough is virtually gone, and I’m feeling rested and relaxed—a rare sensation for yours portly.

I also rediscovered a fun little turn-based strategy game that has devoured some of my time this weekend:  Delve Deeper, from Lunar Giant.  You manage a team of five dwarfs as they “delve deeper” (get it?) into critter-infested mines, all while competing against other, AI-controlled teams to mine and loot the most treasure.  It’s simple and not exceptionally deep, but it’s quite fun.

I’ve also played some Left 4 Dead 2 with the boys, and watched the heartbreaking finale of the USC-UNC game.  Knocking off top-seeded Alabama in a couple of weeks is looking less and less likely.  Ugh…—but Go Cocks!

That’s it for today.  We’ll be back to history, politics, and the culture wars tomorrow.  For now, enjoy some downtime with your family, and try not to think about the collapse of Western civilization for at least one three-day weekend.

Your portly,

TPP

SubscribeStar Saturday – Delayed

The first week of the new school year is in the books. It was exhausting, but fulfilling—a great reminder why I teach.

Last night our football team played its home opener. I run sound for the cheerleaders and announcer, so I attend until the end, bitter or otherwise (last night, unfortunately, was bitter, but the boys played well the entire game). Afterwards, I drove through some rain to get to my hometown around 12:30 AM, and have been spending time with the niece and nephews today.

I’m also attending an appreciation banquet for a missionary organization my aunt and uncle are involved with (they’re career missionaries in Honduras). There are some powerful stories of how Christ is changing lives in South and Central America.

So, the regular SubscribeStar Saturday post is delayed until tomorrow. Apologies to subscribers for the delay.

God bless,

TPP

First Day of School 2019

It’s the first day of school for yours portly.  I’m excited to start the new school year, and the whirlwind first day back is in the books.

I’m teaching three sections of United States History this year (Advanced Placement), a semester of Economics (followed in the spring semester with US Government), and my middle and high school music courses.  I’m particularly excited about the High School Music Ensemble, which is a good group of music program veterans, young and old.

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Sickly Tuesday with Fredo

Teachers reported back yesterday at the little private school where I teach, so things are about to from busy to insane for yours portly.  Amid the hours of training sessions and diversity seminars, I came down with a bit of a cold yesterday afternoon.

The congestion and general wooziness that comes with it is not exactly conducive to mental activities like blogging, but some expired children’s Dimetapp, a hot shower, and Vick’s Vapor Rub helped immensely.  Toss in a good night’s sleep and some early morning ibuprofen, and I’m already feeling better.

That’s all to say that I don’t have much to write about this evening.  We’re still amid the summer news slump, wherein the smallest non-troversies grow startlingly out of proportion.

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Funcling

It’s a super belated, super short post this evening.  I’m helping out with my niece and nephews as part of an extended goodbye to summer vacation, and the babies have been whisked away to sleep.

Regular programming will resume tomorrow with an edition of TBT.  For today, I don’t have much to say.  It’s been a fun, tiring time with the little ones, who are big fans of the Nintendo character Kirby.  They’ve also recently started watching episodes of Pokémon, and have taken to calling themselves their favorite critter (Vulpix, Pikachu, Oddish, Gloom, and Psyduck seem to be household favorites).

If the SJWs had their way, my niece and nephews would be forced to undergo species reassignment surgery because, at varying points, they have strongly identified as one or multiple of these characters.

Ludicrous, you say?  Yes, but when it comes to this gender wackiness, the slippery slope is very real.  Why stop at giving a three-year old gender-altering hormones?  By that same logic, shouldn’t a three-year old be made into the pocket monster of his or her wildest playtime dreams?

But I digress.  I’m looking forward to another couple of days of “funcling”—that is, being a fun uncle—before getting back to the spirited grind of another school year.

—TPP

Lazy Sunday XXI: Travel

I don’t really like to travel, mainly because I prefer sitting on my own toilet and watching my own TV.  If you’ve seen one trendy downtown district, you’ve seen them all, and going to cool places overseas is expensive, time-consuming, disruptive, and dangerous.  Yes, I would liked to have visited London thirteen years ago (when my family took a ten-day trip all around Ireland), but now that it’s part of the Islamic caliphate, I’ll pass.  Same with Paris.  The United States is a big country, with plenty to see and do domestically.

That said, I keep the road hot, and enjoy the occasional excursion to points of interest near and far.  With my recent trip to Wilmington—and with summer rapidly drawing to a close—I thought I’d dedicate this belated Lazy Sunday to posts about travel.

  • Gig Day II” – This post is super short, but it briefly chronicles my trip to The Juggling Gypsy Cafe a year ago.  At that point, I was living in a hotel because my old apartment had flooded.  Because of the flooding, the power supply for my Casio keyboard was kaput (though it miraculously began working again a couple of weeks later), and I had to borrow an incredible Korg SV-1 from a pianist friend.  I’d spent the day laying sod at school, a grueling, physically-demanding job.  Conditions were far less than ideal for a late night gig in a distant city, but it went pretty well.
  • Put Your Money Where Your Poll Is” – This piece analyzes a 2018 Gallup poll, in which 16% of Americans said they wanted to leave the United States permanently.  The findings showed that young, Democratic-leaning women tended to be the least grateful to live in this great country, as Ilhan Omar and Squad have demonstrated.  I posed the question then:  “So, young radical feminists, why don’t you put your money where your poll is?  I’d wager less than 1% of those who indicated they want to leave will actually do so.”  If you don’t like it—by which I don’t mean, “If you love the country, but you want to fix some things,” but rather, “If you fundamentally hate what our country is and stands for”—then get the hell out.
  • Mid-Atlantic Musings” – This SubscribeStar-exclusive post details my trip to New Jersey, Coney Island, and the New York City Aquarium.  It also features hilarious of a video of an otter spinning head-over-tail in circles for minutes on end, one of Nature’s many bizarre pranks.  But you’ve gotsta be a subscriber—for just $1 a month or more!—to read it.
  • Wilmington Wanderings” – Another SubscribeStar-exclusive post, this one covers my trip two days ago to Wilmington for another gig at the Juggling Gypsy.  It’s a detailed account of my encounters with a friendly transgender bartender/photographer, as well as the seedy nightlife of aging hipsters.  It’s well worth a $1 subscription (heck, you can even cancel immediately after reading it!).

That’s it for this week.  Here’s to the last week of summer vacation!

–TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Wilmington Wanderings

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

In yesterday’s post, I alluded to a gig in Wilmington, North Carolina, at the Juggling Gypsy Cafe.  It’s an artist-friendly venue that has the vibe of such places:  a shabby, dimly-lit interior, populated with colorful, post-ironic types (some young, some clinging to youth on the wrong side of 35), the walls plastered with flyers for obscure bands and pages from old comic books.  It’s the kind of place I used to play frequently in my twenties, when I still had the energy and drive to play for peanuts at 10:30 PM on a Wednesday night.

It was a fun trip there and back.  I met a transgender photographer working as a bartender.  I talked to a really passionate carpenter.  An old dude had personal conversations with me during my second set.  But if you want to hear the whole story, you’ve gotta subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more!

Check out my music at www.tjcookmusic.com.

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