Tag: TBT

TBT^16: The Frisson of the Night

The Portly Politico10 Comments

Since getting with Dr. Fiancée, yours portly has come to appreciate the daylight hours.  She is big on natural light, and even has this bright light that she puts on in the winter months which we jokingly call the “Depression Light,” as it allegedly wards off bad feelings by blasting one’s eyeballs with synthetic sunlight.

The nighttime is more exciting when you’re a younger man.  I find that my nights now are either for playing Civilization VII entirely too late or for falling asleep while reading.  At Dr. Fiancée’s house, nighttime is for having tea before bed—one of my favorite rituals when we are together.

What nighttime rituals do you have?  How do you wind down at bedtime?  Are you a night owl?  Let me know in the comments—and sleep tight!

With that, here is 19 September 2024’s “TBT^4: The Frisson of the Night“:

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TBT^2: Remarkable Animals

The Portly Politico2 Comments

After years of misspent youth, during which time I considered animals little more than fleshy, occasionally cute, robots, yours portly has learned the error of  his ways and become an animal lover.

Don’t get wrong—I love to eat animals as much as I enjoy keeping them as pets, and I possess a realistic view of animals:  they exist to serve us, not the other way around.  I love Murphy, and I’ll make sure she is fed, watered, and (when appropriate) medicated.  But the day that the vet says, “we can keep her alive another two weeks with this $4000 experimental canine chemotherapy,” it’ll be time to give the old girl a heartfelt goodbye.  By comparison, I’d sell my left kidney to the gay mafia if it’d add one day to the life of one of my family members or Dr. Fiancée.

All that said, I now very much see animals as a gift from God.  Every child in Sunday School knows that the first job of the first man was to name the animals; God Spared the animals along with humanity when He Commanded Noah to build an ark.  Clearly, our relationship with animals is meant to be a fruitful and productive one.

Further, anyone who has ever owned a dog (or even a cat) knows that these creatures have personalities.  Sure, I imagine jellyfish don’t lead rich inner lives, but it’s wild and amusing to me how dogs can possess such a range of personalities.  Murphy is aloof and anxious, but very much the queen of her domain.  Dr. Fiancée’s three-legged mutt is sweet and loving, but has her sassy moments like Murph.  My parents’ two rat terriers are cousins and/or half-brothers of some kind (I think they share a grandparent), but despite their genetic similarity, their personalities are nearly opposite (much like human siblings at times).

Do I think dogs have souls?  Perhaps not in the way that humans do.  But there is a life and intelligence behind the eyes of a dog.  Even the most forlorn, neglected mutt possesses something of a shimmer behind his sad eyes.  The fact that the eyes can even express emotions suggests there is something deeper there.

Of course, the evolutionist wags will snarkily remark, “we just bred them to reflect qualities we like.”  Perhaps.  Nevertheless, I’m struck by how human dogs can be, while also being something quite different—in some ways, something even better.

All points worthy of speculation, idle or otherwise.  What do you think, dear readers?

With that, here is 12 September 2024’s “TBT: Remarkable Animals“:

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TBT^16: Road Trip!

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All the recent fracas over Cracker Barrel changing its logo (an incredibly stupid move—people go to Cracker Barrel because it’s kitschy Americana with old photos hanging on the wall and Uncle Herschel leaning against a barrel) brings to mind another all-American institution:  the road trip (naturally, the best place to eat on a road trip is Cracker Barrel).  Yours portly hasn’t been able to do much of what would technically be considered “road tripping,” but I have been driving a lot.  Between going to see Dr. Fiancée, attending family events, playing piano in another town on Sundays, and running distant errands, I’ve been keeping the road hot.

Of course, here in the United States we just observed one of our major road trip holiday weekends, Labor Day.  It’s the last big vacation weekend before we slowly creep into autumn.  I can attest that the cars and the cops have been out in force.

These days, I only really want to take road trips with Dr. Fiancée, but those will have to wait until she finishes residency.  Otherwise, I’d much prefer just driving to and from work—and to see her!

With that, here is 5 September 2024’s “TBT^4: Road Trip!“:

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TBT^16: Rebuilding Civilization: The Hunter-Gatherer

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Yours portly is teaching World History for the second consecutive year (before last school year, the last time I’d taught the course was way back in the 2011-2012 school year, although I also taught the close cousin of World History, Western Civilization, at the local technical college more recently), and I love these early weeks of the course, as we talk about early civilizations and how they arose.  The short answer is “agriculture.”

That always gets me thinking about this post from 2021 about how remote hunter-gatherer tribes would survive the collapse of civilization—because they lack it entirely.

It occurred to me that these remote peoples likely would not be the ones “rebuilding civilization.”  Having not developed it in the first place, and seemingly unlikely to do so within any reasonable timeframe (because over the course of 6000 years of human civilization, they have never developed it), it seems like the best hope for civilization would, ironically, be the very peoples that destroyed it in the first place.

We see this pattern play out throughout history.  The people living in the remnants of the Roman Empire rebuilt—however slowly—a distinctly European civilization.  That’s not even mentioning the Eastern European or “Byzantine” Empire, which endured until 1453.  We often forget that only half of the Roman Empire collapsed in the first place.

But I digress.  I am a big believer in civilization, warts and all.

With that, here is 29 August 2024’s “TBT^4: Rebuilding Civilization: The Hunter-Gatherer“:

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TBT^4: Chapel Lesson: Listening

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One of the appeals of teaching is that there is a rhythm and regularity to the school year.  The same events occur at roughly the same times each week, each month, each year.  I became a teacher for many reasons, but the predictability of the schedule has always been a major appeal.  I like a structure of routine that allows for great variety of experiences and activities within that larger structure.

So it is that we have come, once again, to the first day of Chapel for the new academic year.  We have Chapel every Thursday morning during our Morning Break/Meeting time.

Very occasionally, yours portly is called upon to deliver a brief Chapel lesson.  Here is one from a few years ago.  My only regret is that I did not do more to tie the message specifically and overtly back to Christ.

With that, here is 22 August 2024’s “TBT^2: Chapel Lesson: Listening”:

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TBT^65,536: Back to School with Richard Weaver

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The 2025-2026 school year kicks off on Monday, 18 August 2025.  That means it’s time for my annual reflection on the works of Richard Weaver, the legendary academic who did more than anyone (that I know of) to defend a more traditional, quasi-medieval way of life.  He was also a major champion of the South.

Weaver catches a lot of flack from edgier fringes of the Right because his book Ideas Have Consequences (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link, as is the “South” link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you) places a large emphasis on ideas as the source of our various social maladies, overlooking more fundamental influences like biology.  While I do believe that genetics play a fairly significant role in how we interact with and perceive the world, I am not a biological determinist by any stretch of the imagination.  Humans are animals to an extent, yes, but we are more.  We have souls that endure beyond our body.  We also have minds with which to think.

The HBD crowd among the online Right has some interesting insights to bring to the table, and their critiques of blank slatism are worth considering (for example, it is clear that black Americans and Africans are far more likely to develop sickle cell anemia than other races, as sickle cell anemia developed as an adaptation to resist malaria in sub-Saharan Africa), but plenty of people with the same genetic constitution believe and practice vastly different things.  Ideas, experienced and encountered at the right times and/or under the right conditions, can have a massive influence on how an individual develops.  Sure, we might see certain ideas taking hold more among a group of people, but that doesn’t mean every person in that group must come to believe those things.  The HBD folks also downplay the importance of cultural reinforcement of certain ideas.

For example, do I think Southerners are more conservative and traditional and religious than other Americans because so many of our ancestors were part of the pro-monarchy Cavaliers in the English Civil War?  Sure.  But none of us are sitting around talking about the Cavaliers outside of University of Virginia football (and, honestly, we’re not talking about that much, either).  Centuries of cultural reinforcement have played a huge role in keeping our institutions and our churches relatively traditional.

Dr. Fiancée’s family, for example, are of German Lutheran extraction from Michigan.  She was raised in the Lutheran tradition.  I can definitely see the German genetic influence in her family’s more taciturn, logical nature.  But her family moved South when she was still a child, and she is very Southern.  Her religious journey ultimately brought her to the Southern Baptist tradition.  She speaks with a Southern accent.  She is incredibly reflective and thoughtful, and came to her conclusions about religion through rigorous reading and reflection (and, of course, through the power of the Holy Spirit).

So, no, I don’t think Richard Weaver is the secret source of all of our modern ills, because he thought that ideas matter.  That’s rather myopic.  Indeed, Weaver’s work demonstrates how even the grain of idea can grow into a huge worldview.  Christopher Nolan explored the very same concept in his film Inception (2010).

With that, here is 15 August 2024’s “TBT^256: Back to School with Richard Weaver“:

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TBT^256: Back to the Grind 202[5]

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Well, the long, glorious, hot summer is over—at least for yours portly.  Yes, the summer heat beats on, but I’m back at work today.

It’s that time of year again:  the academic year.  The poor public school teachers (and kids!) have already been back to school.  No student should darken the door of a schoolhouse in July—that’s just brutal.  July should be completely devoid of any structured learning in a classroom.  Kids should be reading for fun, splashing in the pool, running around getting heat stroke, not locked in a stuffy classroom.

And what of the poor teachers?  I’m spoiled—I’ve taught almost all of my professional life, with the exception of two years from 2009-2011.  June and July are sacred.  I don’t to put pants on in July, much less a long-sleeved shirt and a tie.

Not that August is much better.  In my considered opinion—not based on what is best for the student, but what is best for me—school should start the Tuesday after Labor Day and the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend.  The school year is entirely too long (for students, too).

But I digress.  No one ever wants to hear a teacher complain—“I have to work every day!”  Well, I became a teacher for a reason:  summertime (and because it’s my calling and I sincerely love it—just not in August)!

With that here is 8 August 2024’s “TBT^16: Back to the Grind 202[4]“:

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TBT: VP Vance: A Worthy Successor

The Portly Politico2 Comments

It’s hard to believe that a year ago, we were gearing up for a presidential election.  Now Trump is back in office—woooooot!—and he has a worthy successor in the wings.

It’s going to be tough sledding in the years ahead, but it’s reassuring to know that we have a legitimate successor ready to roll in 2028.  Vance’s incredible speech to the various heads of Europe’s governments earlier this year was a call to government accountability—and for Europe to wake up.  It was not an attack on Europe, per se, but a powerful plea for its leaders to do something to improve the lives of their people.

I’m excited to see more from Vance in the years to come.

With that, here is 17 July 2024’s “VP Vance: A Worthy Successor“:

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TBT^16: Modern Art and Influence

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I’m currently reading through J.D. Cowan‘s short book The Pulp Mindset: A NewPub Survival Guide (those are Amazon Affiliate links; I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you), which isn’t precisely a guide on how to write pulp but, rather, an extended argument for why one should write pulp.  Cowan unapologetically—indeed, enthusiastically—argues that the “low art” of the pulps provides readers what they want:  action and wonder.  He makes a reasonable argument for reviving this older form of writing, which features punchy writing and upright heroes:  audiences want to read such stories, but “OldPub” (his term for the current publishing industry) prefers massive tomes that push approved messages.  Readers lose out, therefore, on good stories, and the publishing industry is dying as a result.

That’s gotten me thinking about art and writing and what not.  Last summer, a guest writer, Brian Meredith, wrote a post entitled “There’s No Such Thing as Bad Art” here at TPP.  I don’t precisely agree—I think we can have (more or less) objective standards for what qualifies as good art and literature—but he does touch upon what I think is the important distinction between “low” and “high” art.  Cowan argues in his book that pulps are “low art,” but that doesn’t make them worthless.  But both low and high art can, I would argue, be quite bad.  Just take this example from author and poet Liza Libes (Libes is an exquisite writer; she’s just sharing an excerpt from some trashy “romance” novel); no one can read that and not realize it’s awful writing (and not just because of the lurid subject matter).

But the worst art is art that is only valuable in the financial sense because the people making it are either a.) well-connected and/or b.) elevated because of some perceived victim status.  We’ve had too much of both lately, and it’s why—as Cowan argues—the publishing and film industries are dying slow deaths (and, yes, yes, shortened attention spans due to TikTok and what not play a role, too, I’m sure, but people go to those platforms because they at least give folks what they want).  That was the crux of this post, first written back in 2021 and reblogged mercilessly every summer.

With that, here is 25 July 2024’s “TBT^4: Modern Art and Influence“:

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TBT: We Are All Deplorables Now

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It’s wild to consider that, about a year ago, President Trump survived a public assassination attempt.  It was a turning point in the election, and had the president not turned to look at a chart at the precise moment the bullet flew, it likely would have been a dire turning point for the nation as a whole.

Fortunately, the bullet missed.  What is crazy to consider is that, a year on, this entire event seems to be forgotten—or, at least, not discussed very much.  I suppose that is the way of things—who talks about the various assassinations of European nobility and royalty in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?  Other than an Austrian archduke, we don’t.

I still shudder to think of how differently things might have been had the bullet struck.  I suspect we’d have a J.D. Vance presidency—if the election had happened at all.  Civil war would have been a likely outcome; the government cracking down and/or cancelling the election on grounds of “public safety” could have been another.  Biden’s cancerous shell might still be marionetting around the White House.

Well, thank God the would-be assassin missed, but let us keep fighting on.

With that, here is 15 July 2025’s “We Are All Deplorables Now“:

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