TBT^4: Reclaim the Rainbow

6 June 202431 May 2024 The Portly Politico7 Comments

Perhaps it is my own ignorance of worldly affairs, but it feels like the gay stuff has been toned down dramatically this June. After many years of insufferable degeneracy masquerading as “tolerance,” the “pride” people went too far, and people who didn’t want their kids stuffing dollar bills into gay men’s leather thongs or getting secret gender reassignment surgery through their local elementary school’s guidance office rose up and fought back—by withholding their spending.

Conservative efforts at boycotts have always been iffy, but now they actually seem to be working. Target saw a substantial reduction in its business after displaying kid’s clothing that came equipped with wiener-tucking compartments for all those “trans” kids out there. Budweiser—the most American beer, perhaps the most American product, period, after maybe the Ford F-150 and Levi’s—lost so much market share that Modelo—a Mexican beer company!—dethroned it as the king of beers. In this case, I don’t think you can chalk that up to mass Mexican immigration.

Of course, I could be wrong. In spite of these clear messages that most Americans don’t want to be forced to “celebrate” a tiny minority’s sexual peccadilloes, I suspect that we’re going to keep having public homosexual erotica thrust into our faces (perhaps quite literally) whether we like it or not.

All the more reason, then, to reclaim the rainbow. What was once a symbol of God’s Promise to Moses—and, thereby, humanity at large—has been co-opted to represent the government’s promise to emasculate and depopulate all of us.

With that, here is 22 June 2023’s “TBT^2: Reclaim the Rainbow“:

TBT^2: Summertime Schedule Begins

30 May 202422 May 2024 The Portly Politico25 Comments

Not to rub it in or anything, dear readers, but today marks the first true day of my summer vacation. Who knows how I’ve started this auspicious day? Perhaps I lounged decadently while sipping coffee. Perhaps my dog is licking my feet. Maybe I’m still asleep—gasp!

Well, it’s an interesting little dip here—this extended weekend, of sorts, before I start my summer camps next week. I always relish this transitory moment before camps begin, as it’s a good chance to decompress.

Whatever I end up doing, maybe I’ll finally get some work done on my planned third book, Offensive Poetry: With Pictures. I largely abandoned the Sunday Doodles book, but perhaps I should revive that old chestnut, too. I’ve got all summer to figure it out—mwahahahahaha!

With that, here is 9 June 2022’s “TBT: Summertime Schedule Begins“:

TBT^2: Zelda Game & Watch

23 May 202420 May 2024 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Summer is tantalizingly close. Today is the last day of exams, which means there’s just graduation and a couple of days of work next week until yours portly is basking in the limitless freedom of summer.

As last week’s edition of TBT discussed, my thoughts are increasingly turning to video games. I don’t have nearly as much time (and, if I am honest, inclination) to play them as I used to, but I am getting the itch to lose myself in some fantasy worlds for a bit. Even with my workday slowing down, this week has been surprisingly busy, which only increases my yearning for digital realms.

Two years ago I spent an inordinate amount of time playing the Nintendo Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda handheld console (that’s an affiliate link, by the way, so if you purchase anything through it, I get a portion of the proceeds, at no additional cost to you). It is a nifty little unit; I ended up landing a scorching deal on it, but even at the inflated current price of $52.60, I’d recommend it—highly!

I cut my teeth playing Zelda games, and this little unit includes three of my favorites: the original LoZ; the enigmatic sequel; and the Gameboy exclusive Link’s Awakening. Beating LoZ II is probably the pinnacle of my video gaming achievements.

With that, here is 25 May 2023 “TBT: Zelda Game & Watch“:

TBT^4: SimEarth

16 May 202416 May 2024 The Portly Politico27 Comments

May. It’s the superfluous final month of school. There’s not enough time to cover any new content, but too much time to launch right into exam review. The result: an odd limbo in which neither students or teachers wish to dwell. It’s the time of year when everyone is in on the game of modern education—we’d all be better off doing and being somewhere else, but we’re still going through the rituals of an industrial-era factory.

Naturally, with summer looming, I’m getting the itch to do some gaming again. Since finishing Disco Elysium a few weeks ago, I have not played any game deeply. I did purchase Planescape: Torment, the spiritual ancestor of DE, but only managed to get in about an hour of playtime. One of my students asked me earlier this week about Stardew Valley, which I played religiously for about two weeks in probably 2013. That’s a modern classic I want to dust off soon.

As for the ostensible subject of this post, my forays into SimEarth have been nonexistent since those halcyon days of May 2020, when America’s love affair with The Virus was in full swing. Being cooped up in the house got me nostalgic for the classics, but I need to revisit the planet simulator soon.

Big plans for the summer. If I play all these games as planned, my eyeballs might fall out.

With that, here is 11 May 2023’s “TBT^2: SimEarth“:

TBT^4: Egged Off

9 May 20248 May 2024 The Portly Politico5 Comments

In a better, vanished era, eggs were cheap. At one point, you could get eighteen eggs here in South Carolina for around $0.89-$1.19. I’m not talking about the 1980s; this was four or five years ago.

Fortunately, it looks like chickens might soon be legal in my town, thanks in part to the efforts of yours portly, but mostly because everyone is feeling squeamish about cracking down (no pun intended) on “illegal” fowl in the city limits. Hopefully I’ll have a full report next week.

Let a thousand eggs scramble, I say. People need relief. Cheap eggs and abundant fertilizer can only help.

With that, here is 4 May 2023’s “TBT^2: Egged Off“:

TBT^4: The Joy of Spring

18 April 20247 April 2024 The Portly Politico2 Comments

We’re enjoying a glorious Spring here in South Carolina, much like the Spring of 2020, which inspired the original in this chain of posts. Other than a few bitterly cold and brutally hot days on either end of Easter, it’s been very pleasant—cool in the mornings, warm in the afternoons, with low humidity. The nice weather and Pokémon Go have gotten me out in God’s Creation more than usual, and I’m enjoying its beauty while it’s still tolerable to do so.

With that, here is 20 April 2023’s “TBT^2: The Joy of Spring“:

TBT^256: End the Income Tax

11 April 20245 April 2024 The Portly Politico5 Comments

It’s that time of year again, when yours portly yells impotently at the clouds and demands the end of the income tax. Unlike prior years, yours portly actually got his taxes done relatively early (if you count early March as “relatively early”), and while I owed both Uncle Sam and the Great State of South Carolina a pound of flesh, I ended up getting away with only paying $54 total—woooooot!

Still, the annual ritual of telling the federal government how many miles I drove to music lessons and what I paid for WordPress is an odious and obnoxious reminder that the federal government dominates our lives and our personal information. I recognize that taxes are a necessary evil, but let’s focus on the “evil” part of that equation.

I don’t know what the solution is, and I think the Republican Party has spent far too much time quibbling over the placement of commas in the tax code instead of fighting the necessary cultural battles in our nation, but tax reform should be a no-brainer. Here’s the Portly Proposal:

Tax all income at 10%
Don’t tax interest earnings in savings accounts

That’s it! Easy. Cheap. Everyone pays the same percentage. Maybe—maybe!—have a carveout for people who earn, say, less than $20,000 a year—they pay, say, 5%, or even just 1%. If people want to withhold from their paycheck, fine. But there are no surprises—if you earn $2000 in March, you withhold $200. At filing time, all that would be done is confirming you’ve paid your amount; if you overpaid on that first $20,000, then you’d get a refund.

Even that is more involved than I’d like, but it gives a bit of relief to the working poor. Otherwise, no deductions, no carveouts, nothing. There’s still an incentive to save, since no one pays for interest earned on savings accounts.

Yeah, yeah—you want to write off your $300,000 mortgage. No. Sorry—let’s not incentivize people to borrow huge amounts of money so they can save forty bucks on their taxes.

With that, here is 13 April 2023’s “TBT^16: End the Income Tax“:

TBT: Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2023: “The Bottle Imp”

4 April 20241 April 2024 The Portly Politico4 Comments

One of my favorite short stories from last year’s Spring Break Short Story Recommendations was Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Bottle Imp.” It tells the story of a Hawaiian sailor who finds a bottle. Inside the bottle is a terrifying imp, one that will grant wishes, but the owner of the bottle is doomed to Hell. The only way to avoid that fate is to sell the bottle, but the bottle must be sold for a price lower than what they paid for it.

It’s a fun little story that, despite some heavier moments and some genuine suspense, warns against quick riches and deals with the infernal. The Hawaiian setting is also unique, and gives the whole story a quirky bent.

With that, here is 12 April 2023’s “Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2023: ‘The Bottle Imp’“:

TBT^2: Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: “Witch’s Money”

28 March 202422 March 2024 The Portly Politico2 Comments

It’s SPRING BREAK, baby! Finally, at long last, yours portly has eleven glorious days (counting weekends) to recuperate from a rather brutal semester, before slogging through one more round of it.

I typically experience severe burnout about twice a year, and it has hit hard lately. I’m sleeping poorly, working constantly, and eating excessively. My overall health has suffered, and I need to shut down for a few days.

Shut down—and read short stories! Every year I offer up my Spring Break Short Story Recommendations, which will start up next week. But here is a little preview of a past story recommendation.

With that, here is 6 April 2023’s “TBT: Spring Break Short Story Recommendation 2022: ‘Witch’s Money’“:

TBT^2: Inspector Gerard eBook is Coming 1 April 2021 (Out NOW in Paperback)!

21 March 202417 March 2024 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

It’s hard to believe that I released The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot three years ago (well, almost three years ago—give it another couple of weeks). It was my first foray into self-publishing, and it was a fun experience. I still need to go back and edit some of the embarrassing typographical and grammatical errors in the book, which I will get around to doing eventually.

Since then I’ve released a second book, Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams: And Other Adventures. It has not done as well as Inspector Gerard, but at the time of writing, Amazon has it marked down to $11.16 for the paperback version. That is a steal, as the list price is usually $20, so it’s 44% off. It’s actually a pretty good book. Of course, I’m biased.

This week is testing for middle school students at my school, and it was during this same testing week in 2021 and again in 2023 that I slapped together my books. There’s something about having that extra hour or two a day without my Middle School Music Ensemble class that makes it feasible for me to compile and edit my writings into book form. I am currently working on my third book, Offensive Poems: With Pictures, but I’m not sure if I’ll manage to get it written and edited this week, even with the extra time.

Still, I hope that by the time you’re reading this post that I’ll have put a dent into it. The biggest challenge is going to be converting all of the hand-drawn pictures into a digital format. I imagine the formatting of the entire book will be a huge headache, but it’s just a matter of making the appropriate sacrifices to Microsoft Word and Kindle Direct Publishing.

With that, here is 23 March 2023’s “TBT: Inspector Gerard eBook is Coming 1 April 2021 (Out NOW in Paperback)!“:

The Portly Politico

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

Tag: TBT