Lazy Sunday LXX: Phone it in Fridays, Part IV

We’re rounding out the month of Phone it in Fridays this week with the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth editions.  I’ve intentionally avoided doing more PiiFs while going through them, although I’ll likely write more in the future (because they’re easy and quick), and there will likely a “Phone it in Fridays, Part V” at some point (because it’s easy and quick).

Like last week’s installment, The Virus cast a long, sickly shadow over these entries.  For a time, that’s pretty much all bloggers and the commentariat were discussing, to the point that it got boring and tiresome.  We also settled into our oppressive new normal like slowly boiling frogs, and now every trip to the grocery store looks like a Japanese subway station.

Here are Phone it in Fridays X, XI, and XII:

  • Phone it in Friday X: Coronavirus Conundrum, Part III: Working from Home” – One of the silver linings of The Age of The Virus was teaching from home.  At least, I quite enjoyed it—virtually all of my colleagues hated it.  I’m fortunate to teach in a field (History) that is easy to port to an online format, and I’ve been teaching online since 2015, so I have a good sense for the kind of feedback and communication necessary to make distance learning smoother for students (and myself).  This post had me musing about the future of work, and my hopes that we’d see more white-collar work done from home.
  • Phone it in Friday XI: Coronavirus Conundrum, Part IV: Liberty in the Age of The Virus” – One of the more astonishing aspects of the lockdowns, quarantines, shelter-in-place orders, mask ordinances, etc., was the ready compliance of most Americans to shutting down their lives.  I think everyone was copacetic to the “two weeks to flatten the curve” mantra, but that two weeks turned into “indefinite oppression because we said so.”  As cases have shot up in South Carolina, even our more conservative municipalities have put mask ordinances into place, albeit relatively mild, with tons of exemptions.  Had I won my that Town Council election on Tuesday, I would have voted against any such ordinances, on the grounds that a.) law enforcement doesn’t need to waste their time enforcing the unenforceable—and the non-criminal, and b.) mature adults and individual businesses in a free society can make their own best decisions about masks, etc.  Regardless, we all seemed to forget about the Constitution the minute a plague hit—unlike our plague-ridden ancestors.
  • Phone it in Friday XII: Good Reads” – The point of PiiF is to churn out some quick content on Fridays when I’m ready to relax for the weekend.  This PiiF ended up being one of the longest ones yet.  I read a ton of blogs every day, schedule-permitting, so I come across some good stuff from time to time.  This post shared great pieces from Rachel Fulton Brown, Z Man, and photog.

That’s it!  Twelve Fridays in one month of Sundays.  Lots of numbers divisible by 2 and 3 there.  I hope these PiiFs brought some joy to your life.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday LXVIII: Phone it in Fridays, Part II

A quick note:  tomorrow marks the beginning of , a week-long celebration of people, places, concepts, innovations, etc., that MADE AMERICA GREAT (AGAIN) posts are SubscribeStar exclusives, so you need a subscription of $1 or higher to gain full access to these extended posts.  You can check out #MAGAWeek2018 and #MAGAWeek2019 Lazy Sunday posts to get a better idea of the kind of content you’ll see this week.  God Bless America!

We’re continuing our review of Phone it in Friday posts with editions IV, V, and VI.  Hopefully they’re as good as the original Star Wars trilogy.  At the very least, they can’t be as bad as the prequels, or as woke as the new trilogy.  ¡Dios Mio!

  • Phone it in Friday IV: Conferencing” – I hate meetings.  I’ve been in enough of them to know that they are typically a soul-sucking waste of time, and their agendas are often way overstuffed, usually with information that could be explained easily enough in an e-mail.  That said, I love conferences.  This post was a review of a private school association’s annual teachers’ conference, which our faculty had not attended in some years due to various conflicts.  I find that, unlike meetings, conferences are full of opportunities to learn and to network.  There’s an air of sociable conviviality at a good conference—and cheese Danishes.
  • Phone it in Friday V: Ode to Friday Evenings (and Weekends)” – This post was truly a phoned-in edition of Phone it in Friday—it was late, I’d had a long week, and I needed to slam out some content to appease the WordPress Daily Post counter.  I explain that magical period “from about 3:30 in the afternoon until around about bedtime Friday night” when everything is alive with possibilities for the weekend ahead, and when you’re at the furthest possible point from official responsibilities.  Now that I’m on summer vacation and was doing distance teaching for two months prior to that, everyday is Friday, essentially (except for Wednesdays, when History of Conservative Thought meets).  I’m trying to enjoy unlimited Fridays while I can!
  • Phone it in Friday VI: Valentine’s Day” – This post wasn’t really about Valentine’s Day, per se, but it did include Z Man‘s excellent “The Lovecast” episode of his weekly podcast, as well as photog’s post about bringing back matchmakers.  I also reflected on some positive signs during a trip to a rural Hardee’s, which was remodeling:  “It was also heartening to see a Hardee’s in rural Lugoff, South Carolina spending the money to remodel.  Times are good.”

Well, that’s it for this classic trilogy of Phone it in Friday posts.  The fun continues next Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Phone it in Friday XII: Good Reads

It’s been awhile (3 April 2020) since I’ve written a Phone it in Friday, which means I’ve been doing my job and writing actual content on Friday, not just slapping together listicles of random thoughts (that link is not intended to diminish Audre Myers, a far more engaging random thinker than me).  That said, today seems like a good opportunity to phone it in—after a day of baby wrangling yesterday, and a fitful night’s sleep (thanks in part to some heavy, but delicious, meals).

I’m also planning on unveiling my 2020 Summer Reading List in tomorrow’s SubscribeStar Saturday post (subscribe for a buck to read it!).  Ergo, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to highlight some good Internet reads from the past couple of weeks.

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Lessons from the Riots

A bit H/T today to photog at Orion’s Cold Fire, whose blogging and re-reporting on the riots have helped me keep abreast of events amid my illness.  I’ve linked to several of his posts throughout as reference.

One thing that’s struck me about the rioting is the utter lack of response from authorities in large cities.  It seems that the prudent response should have been, from the moment the first brick flew through the window of a Wendy’s, an overwhelming yet restrained show of force.  Make some arrests, crack some skulls judiciously when warranted, and send the clear signal that rioting is not allowed.

Instead, blue cities are completely kowtowing to the rioters.  Minneapolis’s City Council voted—ludicrously!—to disband the Minneapolis Police Department.  The mayor of Minneapolis—a radical Leftist—has washed his hands of the looting, essentially endorsing it.  In Massachusetts, the Attorney General has justified rioting as a positive good, saying, “Yes, America is burning, but that’s how forests grow.

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Flynn Flies Free

A big H/T to blogger buddy photog at Orion’s Cold Fire for sharing Tucker Carlson‘s latest Truth Bomb.  photog helpfully shares Tuck’s summary of the Flynn fiasco:

Michael Flynn’s coerced guilty plea is one of the many puzzle pieces clumsily assembled in the vast coup conspiracy against President Trump.  Our ursuline Attorney General, Bill “The Bear” Barr, has pushed for a dismissal of the bogus case against Flynn.

The commentary from the Left boils down to, “But he plead guilty!”  Yes, he plead guilty, out of desperation, to spare his son from a similar witch hunt—a father taking the fall to save his son.

More importantly, the entire investigation was based on FISA warrants obtained under false pretenses.  If your local police department bust into your house without a warrant and went through your underwear drawer, every judge in the country would throw out the case, even if they found bags of cocaine tucked away with your Fruit of the Looms.

The entire Mueller probe was a farceJames Comey is a sanctimonious a-hole who self-righteously mismanaged the FBI because of his own apparent moral superiority.  Two agents involved in an extramarital affair—presumably our moral betters, or least smarter than the rest of us—plotted the overthrow of President Trump.

And yet they all waltz about, consequence-free, while a military man who served his country was facing five years over a guilty plea for something that AG Barr says wasn’t even a crime!  Per Barr:

[P]eople sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes. … And the Department of Justice is not persuaded that this was material to any legitimate counterintelligence investigation. So it was not a crime

It’s the same situation with Roger Stone, who is literally facing four years in prison for forgetting he sent an e-mail, while other, actual convicts—like slick extorionist Michael Avenatti—are being released from prison because of The Virus.  Stone mixed up some dates while being interrogated as a part of—again—the bogus Mueller investigation.

In both cases, the FBI withheld exculpatory evidence—a clear violation of the right to a fair trial, in which the defense is supposed to have access to all the same evidence as the prosecution.

Our federal justice system is a farce.  Barr made this point in a CBS News interview:

I was concerned people were feeling there were two standards of justice in this country. … I wanted to make sure that we restore confidence in the system. There’s only one standard of justice.

But our elites are content to destroy due process and rule of law in order to get Trump, or anyone near him.  They’ll violate the spirit and letter of the law with impunity whenever it suits their purposes.

If there was any justice in this world, the Clintons would be in prison, Ilhan Omar would be deported, and James Comey would be dime-store philosophizing on third shift at the 7-11.

Instead, we’re destroying our economy over the flu and arresting salon owners for feeding their families.

Can we just have an amicable divorce from these weirdos?

Tarantulas and the Hygge

One of the joys of blogging is discovering the weird side of the Internet—the fun weird side, not the dark, inappropriate weird side.  Today’s post is a trip down one of those byways of oddity.

My blogger buddy photog posted a striking stack photography image a couple of weeks ago with the enigmatic title “Name That Tooth.”  He invited readers to identify a truly remarkable fang.

After studying the image for a few moments, I ventured a guess, which turned out to be correct:  it was the lethal, chitinous fang of the mighty tarantula.

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Post-Trump America

Well, the craziness of yesterday has subsided, and I’m almost finished with report cards.  Student-musicians apparently did quite well at their Music Festival, and life is (hopefully) about to calm down a bit before getting insane all over again in about five or six weeks.

All that said, I’m still pretty worn-out today.  Fortunately, my good blogger buddy photog, proprietor of Orion’s Cold Fire, wrote a post yesterday, “Building on Trump’s Revolt,” which raises some interesting questions.  Foremost at the back of every Trumpist’s mind:  who takes over after Trump?

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Phone it in Friday VI: Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day, readers!  Don’t try going out to eat tonight—it’s going to be a mad house.  Sensible couples will probably wait and dine out on a less sexy night, like Tuesday, or pick up Taco Bell.

We’re in the midst of a glorious four-day “Winter Break.”  The great thing about teaching is all the bogus holidays.  Valentine’s Day and President’s Day just happen to bookend the weekend, so why not turn it into a slightly-extended holiday?

In the spirit of Jay Nordlinger, today’s post is going to be a series of barely-related reflections, as well as some links to the stuff you should read or watch.  Speaking of Nordlinger, how do I land a gig getting paid to write about classical music in exotic parts of the world?

But I digress.  Here are some reflections on this Day of Love:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: The Twenties

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.

It’s (sort of) the start of a new decade, and every blogger and tin-pot commentator (like yours portly) has been putting out prediction posts for the decade.  My good friend and fellow blogger Bette Cox has written not one, but two posts about the coming decade, based on her prayer-conversation with God.

I’ve taken more of the approach of photog at Orion’s Cold Fire:  rather than offering lock-of-the-century predictions, I’ve just commented on things as they stand currently.  I am notoriously bad at making predictions and calling elections.

That said, I thought I’d play to my strengths and instead write about The Twenties—the 1920s.  Yes, it’s a bit hackneyed, but looking back at the past can be instructive of where we are now, if not what our futures hold.

Note to subscribers:  due to a heavy rehearsal schedule today, this post may not be completed until later this evening.  Thank you for your patience.

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

One Year in the Books: Looking Back

Thanks for a great 2019, dear readers.  If you’d like to support the blog, please subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  Or just leave a comment and share my posts with your friends and families.  Thank you!

Today’s post marks the 365th day of consecutive posts.  On December 31, 2018, I wrote “2018’s Top Ten Posts” to look back at the year (I downsized a bit this year, only looking at “2019’s Top Five Posts“).

At the time, I was enjoying—as I am presently—the glory of Christmas Break.  The blog had largely been dormant following a blitz of posting during the Summer of 2018, with only occasional posts here and there, such as transcriptions of my various “Historical Moments” mini-talks.  Over the Christmas season, I was trying to get back into writing.  I wasn’t in the custom of churning out 600+ words on a daily basis, so it took a bit more effort to sit down and write a post.

I never intended to keep a 365-day streak going.  At first, I didn’t even realize WordPress tracked such activity.  But I noticed (probably with this moderately popular post) that I had a three-day “steak,” as WordPress calls it.

So I decided to try to write something everyday for the month of January 2019.  January tends to be a slow month in the school year, with everyone groggily easing back into intellectual activity during the grayest month of the year.  I also find the cold intellectually stimulating—the bracing bite of mid-winter always seems to get the creative juices flowing.

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