Tag: Reblogged

Lazy Sunday CC: Myersvision, Part II

The Portly Politico9 Comments

Lazy Sunday turns 200!  It’s hard to believe that I’ve been phoning it in for 200 Sundays now, but here we are.

In celebration of this milestone, I’ve decided to highlight some more features from our senior correspondent, Audre Myers, who contributes her Myersvision pieces roughly every Wednesday (or whenever the muses move her).  Here are three more of her excellent pieces:

Here’s to many more editions of Myersvision to come!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT: Go to Church

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Easter has come and gone, so ’tis the season the stop attending church until Christmas.  At least, that’s the attitude of some folks.  Here at TPP, we endorse frequent church attendance.

Last year I lamented the way our attitude about church attendance demonstrates our skewed priorities.  We’ll bend over backwards (for some people, perhaps literally) to appease our increasingly unreasonable bosses, but come Sunday morning, we’ll lounge about in bed rather than fellowship with other Christians.

To be clear, I don’t think church attendance is a necessary precursor to salvation.  At the same time, a Christian should want to spend that time learning about God’s Word and worshipping Him with other believers.

I certainly don’t feel like it every Sunday.  Because of my extremely busy work schedule, I sometimes catch myself begrudging the long drive to church on Sunday mornings, and the way that it cuts into the day.  But I almost always am glad I went.

Funny how even the tiniest sacrifices and the slightest hardships, once endured, help us improve.  Attending church once a week is not a major imposition.  Now churches just need to make sure they’re teaching the Truth, not watered-down inspirational speeches that I could find on a mommy blog.

With that, here is 13 April 2022’s “Go to Church“:

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Lazy Sunday CXCIX: Ponty and Portly’s #1 Picks

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Between Easter and Spring Break Short Story Recommendations 2023, I never got around to writing a retrospective of the films from the Top Ten Best Film lists Ponty and I put together.

Well, in case you missed them, here they are now:  the “best” films of all time:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Birthday to my mom!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT^2: The Joy of Spring

The Portly Politico12 Comments

Spring has sprung, and it’s been a surprisingly mild one so far.  It’s going to get brutally hot soon, I am sure, but South Carolina has enjoyed a bout of good weather.

It reminds me of the notorious Spring of 2020, right at the dawn of The Age of The Virus.  It seemed at the time—and I still believe this to be true—that God Delivered us good weather at that time when everything remotely social had to be done outdoors (unnecessarily, as we’ve since learned).

I now find all The Virus stuff to be endlessly boring and tedious, but it’s worth remembering how bad it was—and how totally unhinged our reaction to it was.  I can excuse some of the hysteria of the early days, but soon an entire regime of busybodies and medical “experts” (usually nurses twerking on TikTok) grew up to make the rest of miserable.

In reflecting on that beautiful Spring of 2020, we would do well to remember the tyranny that bloomed along with its flowers—a tyranny we’re now all-too-quick to forget.

With that, here is 28 April 2022’s “TBT: The Joy of Spring“:

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Lazy Sunday CXCVIII: Spring Break Short Story Recommendations 2023

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Another Spring Break is in the books and I’m back to the grind tomorrow.  It’s five weeks of classes, one week of exams, and one week of teacher meetings until I’m free—free!

Before heading into the final leg of the school year, here’s a look back at last week’s Spring Break Short Story Recommendations:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Reading!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT^16: End the Income Tax

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By the time you’re reading this post, I should have filed my taxes, and endured the annual reaming from Uncle Sam.  Now that my private music lessons have taken off (thank you, Lord!), I’m one of those productive members of society who has to pay through every orifice come tax season.

Hopefully those orifice contributions can pay for some poor child’s gender reassignment surgery, or to buy Volodymyr
Zelenskyy another ivory backscratcher.  One can only hope!  I’m confident my hard-earned dollars are in capable, unelected hands.

I doubt we’ll ever replace the income tax, but we should.  At the very least, we should make it less invasive.

With that, here is 14 April 2022’s “TBT^4: End the Income Tax“:

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Lazy Sunday CXCVII: Easter III

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Easter is here!  He is Risen!

I’m fortunate to teach at a school that recognizes Good Friday as a day worth honoring, so my Spring Break always coincides with it (actually, we start on Maundy Thursday, which is pretty nice).  I’ve long advocated for a long break at Easter, a la the two-week Christmas Break.  Many countries (especially in Latin America) take two fulls weeks for Easter, paying proper respect to Holy Week.

Wherever you are today, and whatever you are doing, take a moment to thank God for Giving us His Son, Jesus Christ—and know that Jesus Lives!

Happy Easter!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT: Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: “Witch’s Money”

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It’s SPRING BREAK!  One of my multiple cushy, extended breaks—the primary perk of dedicating one’s life to the molding of young minds—has now commenced, which means next week I’ll be inundating you with reviews of short stories, as is this blog’s Spring Break tradition.

One story I read last year was John Collier‘s “Witch’s Money.”  It’s the tale of a haughty artist who succumbs to the ignorance and greed of peasants who think that checks are a magic source of money. I read it when I was quite young—to young to appreciate its nuances at the time—and it made an impression on me.  Don’t write a check your butt can’t cash… or, at the very least, don’t write checks in lands where people don’t understand the basics of modern banking.

With that, here is 20 April 2022’s “Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: ‘Witch’s Money’“:

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Lazy Sunday CXCVI: Hono[u]rable Mentions

The Portly Politico4 Comments

The long countdown of mine and Ponty’s favorite films ends tomorrow with Ponty’s pick.  What will it be?  Weekend at Bernie’s II (1993)?  Porky’s (1981)?  That video he and Tina made that no one else is supposed to know about?  In twenty-four short hours, we’ll know all.

In the meantime, here are our respective hono[u]rable mentions lists.  I did mine in one succinct, efficient package; Ponty spread his over three massive posts, full of lovingly rendered detail and pathos:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT^4: Nehemiah and National Renewal

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A quick blurb before today’s post:  I’ve released my second book, Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams: And Other Adventures.  It’s a collection of travel essays I’ve accumulated over the last four years, and it’s available now on Amazon.

Here’s where you can pick it up:

Pick up a copy today!  Even sharing the above links is a huge help.

Thank you for your support!

—TPP

***

I first wrote this (admittedly) political interpretation of Nehemiah 1:1-11 back in 2019.

2019.  What a different world.  That was in The Before Times, in The Long, Long Ago, before The Age of The Virus.  I suppose we’re living in the After Times now, a strange new world that is indelibly different after two years of masked ‘n’ vaxxed hysteria.  Doesn’t it seem like we’ve woken up, groggy and confused, from a two-year nightmare?  Everyone is living in a haze of uncertainty and regret—“maybe we shouldn’t have shut down restaurants and harassed people for not wearing a mask in their cars.”

It’s also interesting how that whole ridiculous, absurd ordeal now seems like some vague afterthought, almost like we only just barely remember what we endured a scant year or two ago.

Perhaps waking up from the nightmare and recognizing it as such is some form of national renewal.  I’m not so optimistic.  I think our society has goldfish memory, and we’ll act independent and defiant until the next cadre of experts delivers the next set of restrictions that we all must adopt, otherwise we’ll be Very, Very Bad People.

Why can’t we get national leaders like Nehemiah?  He stood up to attacks, schemes, plots, and slander, and managed to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem—and his people in the process.

With that, here is 24 March 2022’s “TBT^2: Nehemiah and National Renewal“:

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