Tag: TBT

TBT^4: Rebuilding Civilization: The Hunter-Gatherer

The Portly Politico6 Comments

As readers are doubtlessly tired of hearing, I am teaching World History this year for the first time in over a decade.  So far it’s been hugely fun, as we have been studying the earliest humans and how people transitioned from the hunter-gathering lifestyle of the Paleolithic Age to the settled agricultural lifestyle of the Neolithic Age.  With agriculture came cities and, ultimately, civilization.

There’s been a subtle-but-noticeable trend of late that idolizes the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.  Wouldn’t it be great to spend a few hours gathering food each day, then lounging by the campfire with your kinsmen and relaxing?  Well, yes, if you’re in an area of great abundance, that wouldn’t be bad, but you’re also living with massive food insecurity all the time.

One telling graph in my students’ World History textbooks shows the population of the world prior to the rise of agriculture, and the population afterwards.  The transition is dramatic:  while the global population hovered around just a few hundred thousand people for millennia, the global population shot up to roughly ninety million people in the first 5000 years following the advent of agriculture.  The graph is a real hockey stick.

We definitely have made sacrifices for civilization, and I think Western Civilization has particularly grown quite sick.  Crowding a bunch of people into tightly-packed cities is probably not good for our mental health.  Some people need to live on forty acres in the middle of nowhere.  I suspect that most of us need considerably less space, but there’s something dehumanizing about cramming people into shoebox apartments stacked one atop the other.  We’re probably also not meant to destroy our minds and bodies on soul-sucking corporate work for a dozen hours a day, either.

But even with these drawbacks, civilization breeds life.  And the struggles inherent in maintaining a civilization create the greatest art and literature the world has ever known.

My argument for civilization will always boil down to this idea:  the civilization that produced Bach is a civilization worth preserving.

With that here is 24 August 2024’s “TBT^2: Rebuilding Civilization: The Hunter-Gatherer“:

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TBT^2: Chapel Lesson: Listening

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Today marks the first Chapel of the new school year.  My school holds chapel every Thursday, and we have a really excellent chaplain.  He is an Episcopalian/Anglican reverend originally from England, and he is a true man of God.  He is also a towering figure, and he makes an impression.  I am teaching one of his sons in my Middle School Music Ensemble this year, too, which is fun!  The young man plays cello.

When the good Father can’t be there to give the chapel devotional, though, I am typically asked to substitute.  For awhile, I was informally taking on occasional chaplain duties with and from our last chaplain, a very sweet young man who was shy about speaking in front of large crowds, which made it a bit difficult for him to muster up the courage to deliver the weekly devotional.

Thus it was that this short little lesson was born, as I was the “warmup act,” as it were, to show this young former chaplain that it’s not too difficult if you just listen to the Holy Spirit and speak from God’s Word.

With that, here is 31 August 2023’s “TBT: Chapel Lesson: Listening“:

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TBT^256: Back to School with Richard Weaver

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The 2024-2025 school year resumes this coming Monday, 19 August 2024, and yours portly has already been back on campus for the past few days, busily preparing for another school year.

Without any warning, my administration has given me two sections of World History to teach, rather than my usual US History classes.  While they should have told me about the change two months ago, I’m excited to dive into a subject I have not taught in many years (the last time I taught the class was in the 2011-2012 school year, and I taught its kissing cousin, Western Civilization, off-and-on in 2014 and 2015 at the local technical college).

Last school year was a fairly brutal slog, and I’ve been alternatively dreading this year and looking forward to it.  Perhaps the opportunity to teach World History will reignite the spark (plus, World History is just cool).

But what of our good friend Richard Weaver and his book Ideas Have Consequences?  At the time of writing I haven’t dipped back into Weaver the way I would like, but I find that his ideas always help to crystallize for me what teaching and education are all about—the preservation of civilization for at least another generation.

With that, here is “TBT^16: Back to School with Richard Weaver“:

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TBT^16: Back to the Grind 202[4]

The Portly Politico3 Comments

My two-plus months of living like a French duke and/or welfare queen have come to an end.  Yours portly returns to the salt mines of secondary education today.  Classes won’t start back until Monday, 19 August 2024, but teachers reports back today for the usual bout of annual trainings, AFLAC representatives, handbook excursions, etc.

[UPDATE:  due to Hurricane/Tropical Storm Debby, we won’t report back until Monday, 12 August 2024—whoa!  But I’m still going to grouse about going back to work.  —TPP]

I’ve never quite understood why we report back on a Thursday, when we could easily cover all of this foolishness in a day or two of meetings the following week.  It seems like a way to deprive us of one, final, long weekend before the drudgery returns.

To be frank, I am not much looking forward to this school year—a sadly common refrain from yours portly the past few years.  Our enrollment is way down, which will bring with it all sorts of austerity measures and demands for teachers to sacrifice more time and energy for the good of the school.

Last year was absolutely brutal, and while I’m always cautiously optimistic, I am having a hard time talking myself into a good attitude this year.  Perhaps simply getting back into a rhythm will be its own reward.

With that, here is 3 August 2023’s “TBT^4: Back to the Grind 202[3]“:

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TBT: The Joys of Fasting

The Portly Politico15 Comments

Yours portly had a particularly grueling school year last year, and I fell into my bad habit of overeating to cope with the stress.  Because of an unfortunate quirk in my schedule, I did not have time for lunch most day, which meant I would eat a large breakfast, then gorge myself during a morning planning period on whatever lunch I had packed.  I’d get home in the evenings very late and tired, and would proceed to eat even more.

Fortunately, I didn’t quite get to the “disgracefully fat 271.8 pounds” of the 2022-2023 school year, but I still chunked up a bit.  At the time of writing, I’m slowly dropping weight, and am down from about 260 pounds to around 252 pounds.

My approach, as always, is intermittent fasting and the elimination of most snacks.  Essentially, I skip breakfast; eat lunch around noon; and eat dinner around 6 PM.  If I have a particularly light lunch I might have a snack around 3 PM—a fig bar, for example—but that’s about it.

I’m not much of a “get-out-there-and-exercise” type, either, and with the brutal heat and humidity this summer, I’ve become quite sedentary, treating my house like it’s some kind of biodome habitat plopped onto the surface of Venus.  It reminds me of that Ray Bradbury short story, “All Summer in a Day,” in which Venusian schoolchildren only get two hours on the planet’s surface every seven years.

That’s how I’ve handled summer:  take Murphy out; go to lessons; do the bare minimum outside; get back inside.  It works, but I’ve become like George Costanza during “The Summer of George“—atrophying due to a lack of movement.

Well, I’ll be hoofing it again soon enough.

With that, here is 28 July 2023’s “The Joys of Fasting“:

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TBT^4: Modern Art and Influence

The Portly Politico4 Comments

The state of modern art is not exactly a pressing concern in a nation wracked with attempted assassination attempts and listless, anxious youths.  At this point, I suspect most of my readers will realize that modern art is something of a joke played on the rich and gullible to separate them from their money.  It’s also an attack on Beauty, one intended to demoralize us.

What I learned shamefully recently is that modern art was also a CIA psy-op.  That’s not some wild-eyed conspiracy theory; it’s so well-documented and mainstream, even the BBC wrote about it—in 2016 (see, I’m late to the party)!

I’m actually not opposed to government funding for the arts, but whenever the government gets involved with anything, there is the risk that the government will pervert and distort what the art is supposed to be.  One very real risk is that “art” will devolve into propaganda.  That’s fine if we’re fighting the Second World War and need to inspire people to fight Hitler and the Japanese; if we’re trying to demoralize our own populace with nastiness, it’s not.

The other, related risk is that the government will fund art that we don’t like, personally or collectively.  The government is ostensibly “of the people,” but when everyone allegedly is in charge, no one is.  The functionaries responsible for handing out National Endowment for the Arts grants are likely doing so based on qualities of the artist—race, regime-approved ideology, gender, etc.—rather than any actual technical skill.  So we end up with patronage not of skilled artists, but well-connected or demographically-approved artists.  The results are predictably terrible, and we’re all flummoxed as to why we spent $2 million of taxpayer money on it.

A healthy government that actually cared about its people would fund art that promotes Beauty and Truth.  If we had such a government, I’d be all for government funding of the arts.  Indeed, we probably do have that at the local and State levels.  I personally love that the City of Columbia, South Carolina subsidizes the South Carolina Philharmonic.  Many Republicans and/or conservatives would balk at that, but it is a worthwhile investment to keep classical music alive in—let’s face it—the “Sahara of the Bozart,” as H. L. Mencken cruelly (and, I think at the time, unfairly) labeled the South.

I feel like I’m contradicting myself a bit here, so to distract from that—and to get on with the post—here is 27 July 2023’s “TBT^2: Modern Art and Influence“:

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TBT^4,294,967,296: Happy Birthday, America!

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Today the United States celebrates its 248th birthday.  Things seem to be looking up from a year ago.  The Usurper Biden short-circuited during last week’s presidential debate, while President Trump came across as a restrained but effective pugilist.  As I told my neighbor, one of the two came across as presidential; it’s pretty clear which one.

Tucker Carlson’s ouster from Fox News has been a Godsend for open discourse and dialogue.  Not only did he interview Vladimir Putin—perhaps the most important interview of the century—he’s hosted dozens of guests from all across the political spectrum and from all over the world, many of whom would have been too spicy for Fox News to touch.

Across the pond, Nigel Farage is shaking up an otherwise dull parliamentary election with his revitalized Reform Party.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.  It’s starting to feel a lot like 2016 again—and a lot like 1776.

With that, here is 6 July 2023’s “TBT^65,536: Happy Birthday, America!“:

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TBT: A Discourse on Disclaimers

The Portly Politico29 Comments

Last week my Dad sent me a link to an old piece of mine, “A Discourse on Disclaimers.”  When I wrote it, I was still undergoing a based transformation.  This piece represents one of those many little turning points that moved me to the point of realizing that there is no reasoning with the Left.  After all, how can you reason with an ideology that has no fixed moral center, which is always shifting its own goals in the name of some amorphous, perpetual revolution?

The failure of the modern Right has been to attempt to point out the hypocrisy of the Left, based on the unspoken assumption that if we just keep pointing it out and keep using logic, they’ll see the light and convert to reason, logic, and Truth.  It’s like arguing with a pit bull when your baby is dangling from its jaws:  it’s fatally ineffective and will cost you something precious.

Fortunately, while the Left possesses all of the irrational insanity and ferocity of the pit bull, it lacks the animal’s strength.  Yes, there is a strength the Left possesses in delusion and with its control of the institutions, but even that edifice of institutional control is crumbling.

It’s time for us to be bold.  Doing otherwise is tantamount to doubting God’s Promises.  Yes, we should be wise—no good will come from shouting red-pilled Truth bombs in the wrong context—but we should be brave, too.

With that, here is 20 June 2018’s “A Discourse on Disclaimers“:

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TBT^2: Happy Birthday, Murphy!

The Portly Politico19 Comments

This past Saturday my sassy old bull terrier, Murphy, celebrated her eleventh birthday (humorously enough, she and my recent ex-girlfriend share the same birthday).

The old girl is doing well enough.  I adopted Murphy when had just turned eight, and I can tell she is slowing down as the years progress.  She still has a bout of the “zoomies” in the evenings before bedtime, but that usually wears her out.  Mostly, she spends her days lounging like a diva and begging for scraps from me, her all-too-manipulable owner.  As I write this post, she’s relaxing on the floor near me, and I can tell she is considering whether or not she wants to get up and go out—which, when she hears the clackety-clacking of my keyboard, she usually wants to do!

According to the American Kennel Club, the life expectancy for a bull terrier is between twelve and thirteen years, though I have known of bull terriers that live longer (interestingly enough, the miniature bull terrier has a similar life expectancy).  Other than slowing down a bit, I don’t think Murphy is going anywhere anytime soon, but she is nearing the end of the breed’s average life expectancy.

Here’s hoping the old girl has at least a few more birthdays in her.  She’s a good, albeit sassy, dog, and I’m thankful to have this chubby, stinky old diva in my life.

With that, here is 15 June 2023’s “TBT: Happy Birthday, Murphy!”

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TBT^2: Touring the Solar System in Rural Maine

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Back in 2019 I learned about The Maine Solar System Model, a model of the Solar System stretched along Highway 1 in Maine.  The planets are spaced proportionally as they are in the Solar System, with the Sun being part of an entire building.  It’s a really cool concept, and it’s something I hope to see someday.

This model Solar System reminds me of what John Derbyshire calls the “old, weird America.”  The United States is a vast country, with huge regional differences, even within States.  Just look at barbecue, for example:  there is no uniform way to prepare it in the South.  By “barbecue,” I specifically mean pulled pork barbecue, and being from western South Carolina, we like a mustard-based sauce for ours.  In North Carolina, its vinegar-based.  Other States use—horrors!—ketchup-based sauces.

The point is not to get you hungry—although my mouth is watering—but to give one example of how even in the tiniest details, we Americans are an incredibly varied bunch.  One major source of the American Civil War that is often overlooked is the sheer differences between Northerners and Southerners in their respective outlooks about the world itself, much less all the political and economic disagreements.

The Maine Solar System Model is a great example of that kind of weird, localized boosterism.  It also harkens back to a time before everything was built to look like a Brutalist J.C. Penney’s.

With that, here is 8 June 2023’s “TBT: Touring the Solar System in Rural Maine“:

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