New Mustang is a Sign of the Times

20 November 201920 November 2019 The Portly Politico11 Comments

Before diving into today’s post, I’d like to give a YUGE “thank you” to Nebraska Energy Observer for reblogging yesterday’s post. His commentary on my post and Leslie Alexander’s moving personal essay adds greatly to the discussion of modern alienation, and gives me some encouragement in these dark days.

Everything awesome goes to crap. That’s the thought I had yesterday when reading fridrix’s brief post lamenting the new electronic Ford Mustang, the Ford Mustang Mach-E.

Electric cars are fine, although environuts shouldn’t delude themselves that driving these battery-powered vehicles are saving the environment (it’s pedantic to point out, but batteries require a great deal of mining to get the metals necessary to build them, and the electricity to charge them comes from coal-, oil-, and nuclear-power, so it’s not like you’re truly making an end-run around fossil fuels). But a Ford Mustang shouldn’t be an electric car; at least, it shouldn’t be one that looks like this iteration.

Corporate Grind II: The Return of Corporate History International

15 November 201914 November 2019 The Portly Politico7 Comments

It’s been a golden week for reblogging, as some of my blogosphere buddies continue to generate some amazing content. It looks like I may have to do another Dissident Write feature soon (here are I and II). Armistice Day always brings out the best material, too.

As we head into the weekend—mercifully free of professional obligations—I’m pleased to note the revival of my buddy fridrix’s blog, Corporate History International.

Election Day 2019

5 November 20195 November 2019 The Portly Politico5 Comments

It’s Election Day 2019! I’m sure there are all sorts of interesting elections happening all over the country, but for me, the big election is right in my backyard, in little Lamar, South Carolina (which just got a website!).

Lamar is holding elections for two at-large Town Council seats. There are two incumbents and two challengers, and the election is non-partisan (for what it’s worth, I cast my two votes for the challengers, in the Jacksonian spirit of rotation in office).

I like to vote early (though not often—that’s a federal crime, and since I’m not a Democrat or an illegal alien, I’d get in trouble for doing so), because I never know if I’ll be home by the time polls close. Polling in South Carolina always runs from 7 AM to 7 PM, which is a pretty substantial window. So, I was there right at 7 AM, and was the fifth person from my precinct to cast a ballot.

What was really surprising were the new voting machines, about which I have mixed feelings.

Warrior for Life

29 October 201929 October 2019 The Portly Politico13 Comments

Per yesterday’s post, my intent was to share a spooky ghost story with readers today. However, some major news broke locally that has important national and spiritual implications.

Father Robert E. Morey, the priest at Saint Anthony’s Catholic Church in Florence, South Carolina, denied former Vice President Joe Biden Communion at the 9 AM Sunday Mass. Father Morey wrote that “Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that. Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching.”

Happy Columbus Day!

14 October 201914 October 2019 The Portly Politico3 Comments

Today is Columbus Day in the United States, the day that commemorates Columbus’s voyage to the Americas in 1492. It’s one of the most significant events in human history—as I tell my American History students, “we wouldn’t be here if Columbus hadn’t made his voyages”—yet the social justice, Cultural Marxist revisionist scolds want to do away with the holiday entirely, replacing it instead with “Indigenous People’s Day.”

The thrust of the proposed (or, as is the way with SJWs, demanded) name change is that Columbus was a genocidal, white male meanie who defrauded and murdered peace-loving Native Americans (who had the gall to mislabel Indians!), so instead we should celebrate the contributions of Stone Age cannibals.

World Space Week Starts Today

4 October 20194 October 2019 The Portly Politico2 Comments

It’s been a long but productive week for yours portly. Readers will notice that, other than my recent #TBT features (yesterday and last Thursday’s posts), I’ve been mostly silent on the impeachment circus. My general policy in this age of media perfidy is to withhold comment until the real facts have been reported.

The way everything is shaping up, my gut instincts—that there is nothing to claims that President Trump has committed impeachable offenses, defined constitutionally as “high crimes and misdemeanors”—seem validated. Of course, that won’t stop the Democrats from expending months of energy, treasure, and rhetoric on banging the drum of impeachment.

In general, I’ve been trying to expand the focus of the blog, moving away from strictly writing about politics and politics-adjacent issues to more general interest topics. My little piece on Saturn from a few weeks ago was enjoyable to write, and seemed to garner some positive feedback.

As such, I was excited to see that today marks the beginning of World Space Week.

TBT: More Never Trump Treachery

3 October 20192 October 2019 The Portly Politico4 Comments

With all the impeachment talk swirling, I thought it would be worth it to look back at a piece I wrote in May, focusing on squishy Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, the so-called “libertarian Republican,” as an example of the kind of bitter Never Trumpery that is champing at the bit to see President Trump impeached.

At that time, Amash argued that President Trump’s conduct was impeachable—not any actual crimes he committed, just that the way he comports himself is impeachable. This claim coming from a guy who allegedly supports the Constitution.

Acting like a boor is not an impeachable offense. It falls well below the bar of “high crimes and misdemeanors” set by the Constitution. Further, President Trump’s phone calls to the Ukraine and Australia certainly fall well below that bar; I don’t even think he did anything wrong.

Tom Steyer’s Belt

30 September 20191 September 2020 The Portly Politico18 Comments

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 Leftist Pantheon, Part I: Environmentalism

27 September 201926 September 2019 The Portly Politico8 Comments

I’ve written a good bit lately about the spiritual hole in the lives of many Westerners (see “The Desperate Search for Meaning,” as well as Parts II and III). A big part of Marianne Williamson’s appeal, for example, is that she casts political battles in spiritual and moral terms—a point on which she and I agree. I think President Trump, too, intuits that politics is about more than officious wonkery.

Progressivism offers a kind of fleshly faith for its sycophantic, virtue-signalling followers. But it is not a monotheistic religion; rather, it is a polytheistic cult with its own pantheon of gods and (often) goddesses of greater and lesser importance. Progressivism is a means to an end—power and dominion—so it can’t claim one central deity, as it seeks to cobble together multiple believers in a paradoxical pick-and-choose theology—so long as you pick from the approved list.

With all the scuttlebutt about teenage imp Greta Thunberg, the angry Apostle of Mother Gaia, I thought it might be interesting to delve deeper into the Left’s pantheon.

MILF on a Hot Tin Mic

25 September 201925 September 2019 The Portly Politico2 Comments

America’s favorite Dukakis-hugging moon maiden, box wine auntie, and power crystal aficionado Marianne Williamson experienced an endearing epiphany on a hot mic after a recent Fox News appearance: that the Left is really mean!

After being treated civilly by someone with different political opinions—gasp!—Williamson expressed surprise at how kind Eric Bolling was to her. The bigger realization was that her own side can be terribly cruel, even to its own (of course, conservatives have long recognized the tendency of the Left to eat its own).

The Portly Politico

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

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