Category: history

Confessions of a Blindfolded Newsman REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

6,888 Blindfold Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images

From March 27, 2023

In the 1970s the U.S. Dept. of Education was founded, and various states set up their own departments of education, or else greatly expanded the powers of those already in existence. These steps drastically altered the state of public education in America… not that it ever was all that good an idea in the first place.

I was a newspaper reporter and editor in those days. Among other duties, I covered three school boards and had part-timers covering the rest. When a major story came along, we worked on it together.

Very important changes were put in place back then. These happened right before my eyes: and I’m ashamed to tell you that I didn’t see them. Right out there in front of me, and I might as well have been wearing a blindfold. I can only say I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Too many distractions kept me from seeing the big picture.

I saw the state education bureaucracy swallow the authority of the local boards–and didn’t realize what I was seeing. I remember now a meeting of the Matawan Board of Education, in which a nerd from the state came and told the board members what New Jersey would be expecting of them from now on.

One member objected. “What is this?” he said. “It sounds like one of those old Soviet five-year plans!” The response was a coy “Tee-hee! Once you buy into the program, you’ll have a clearer understanding.” What I didn’t realize was that he already had a very clear understanding of exactly what the state was doing! But he wound up resigning, and it never occurred to me to sit down with him for an in-depth interview.

Dammit all! I was a newsman, and this was news! I had it in my power to inform the public that they were all being taken for a ride. That they were down there in Trenton growing the government at the community’s expense. That the teachers’ union had the state wrapped around its little finger.

So the people who paid for the schools, and sent their children there, would no longer be getting what they thought they paid their taxes for, but what Far Left teachers’ unions and quasi-Marxist, grey ponytail “educators” in Trenton thought they ought to get.

By and by the newspaper workload became too heavy a burden for me and I resigned, too.

People who don’t much like us, and want to change our way of life, have been working on our schools for fifty years.

Pull your kids out of there. That’s all that’s left for us to do.

The Difference Between Us Reprint

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From November 30, 2017

See the source image

What is the difference between Christianity and humanism? It’s easily explained.

Humanists believe in the perfectibility of man by man; and we, as Christians, don’t.

Plato, Rousseau, the modern Left–they all think that if we only get the right science behind it, spend enough money, and apply the requisite measure of brute force, we can solve any human problem. All we need is another law, another set of new regulations, another bureaucracy to put it into play, round up all the dissidents, and bob’s your uncle: Utopia is achieved.

We believe in an ongoing process of individual sanctification, accomplished by God’s grace and by faith in Jesus Christ. We may not reach perfection, but we can get better than we were. As for Utopia, that doesn’t come until Jesus returns and establishes His kingdom on the earth. We do not believe that human nature is just a more complicated form of Play-Doh, to be shaped as desired by anyone clever enough, strong enough, rich enough, or ruthless enough to do it.

But their belief in their own godlike powers, their own wisdom, pretty much explains the whole history of that horrible 20th century. Always breaking eggs to make the perfect omelet, but never getting there no matter how many they break.

See? I told you it was easy.

A Message from Sauron REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From November 3, 2015

That’s one of my Orcs in the background.

Hi! I’m the Dark Lord from those Lord of the Rings movies. Betcha didn’t know I’m real! But of course, here in the real world, I go by another name that only sounds like “Sauron.”

Anyway, I’m here today to tellya that national borders are, like, so totally obsolete, we just don’t need ’em anymore. And look around the world–those borders just don’t work. Go ahead, show me where they’re working. ( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-30/orban-accuses-soros-of-stoking-refugee-wave-to-weaken-europe )

What’s that I hear you sayin’? That me and my friends, we sabotaged the borders, we stirred people up to invade neighboring countries, we created this whole illegal immigration/refugee crisis–just so we could say, “Oops, dude, too bad, this whole nation thing doesn’t work anymore, the only thing is global government”? Would we do that to you?

You say we shouldn’t be rewarded by being given what we want, after we did everything we could think of to gut immigration laws and create a jillion refugees. But I say this–if you stupid peasants know what’s good for you, you’ll let us rule you. We’ve got the money, we’ve got the science, we’ve got the power… and you don’t.

Remember, it’s not nice–and it sure ain’t healthy!–to mess around with Sauron.

Only in the movies–oh, yeah, and in that Bible of yours: but the Bible simply isn’t true–do the good guys beat me.

And this is not a movie.

Why I Fear for Britain

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From February 18, 2016

I try to stay abreast of world events, but I pay particular attention to Canada and Britain. Canada, of course, is right next door. But why Britain? Because, like many Americans, I feel affection and affinity for the Mother Country: we are, as Churchill once said, two countries divided by a common language. But it also seems to me that the ills which affect Britain are common to all the Western countries, including my own; and that things that happen in Britain and Canada wind up happening here, too.

I have never been to England. I watch a great deal of British TV and movies, just about every day. I read a great deal of fiction by British writers, past and present. And I happen to think you can learn a lot about a nation by becoming familiar with its popular culture.

So I fear for the state of Christianity in Britain. What else am I to think, when episode after episode, in show after show, depicts Christians as at best irrelevant, at worst backward, evil, and dangerous? When actors like Hugh Laurie (atheist) and David Suchet (Christian) both say, in interviews, that Christianity in Britain isn’t what it used to be? Why should they lie about it?

As a Christian, I cannot think any good can come to a nation that turns away from Jesus Christ–especially a nation that’s been Christian for some 1,400 years.

Do I take TV shows and crime novels as literal truth? Of course not. Do I believe every article I read in British newspapers online? No, despite what you may have heard. And I do stay in touch with email friends in Britain and Canada.

From all these different sources, I’m getting the same message: Britain is rejecting her Christian heritage, and–like our own–her culture is coarsening, largely as the result of self-destructive leadership.

Of course, if you’re a fan of “gay marriage,” growth of government, multiculturalism, political correctness, speech codes, and all the rest–well, you’re getting it. In all the Western countries you’re getting all that stuff, and then some.

And so I fear for Britain, as I fear for my own country, and for the same reasons. We as nations have sinned, and we need to repent. Instead, our leaders draft and pursue policies which seem to be based on the principle that evil is good, and good is evil; and the people seem content to have it so.

But not all of us.

No, not all of us.

Crazy Jane, the Queen of Spain

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From September 18, 2015

It isn’t always a picnic, being a member of a royal family. Consider the case of Juana la Loca–meaning “Crazy Joanna” or “Crazy Jane”–the first rightful queen of what was to become modern Spain.  She died in 1555 after being kept under close confinement for going on 40 years ( .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_of_Castile ).

Juana was among the most cultured and well-educated women of her time, mastering philosophy, classical languages, and music. She was also beautiful, and a royal heiress–all in all, a fine catch for any ambitious prince.

So why was she diagnosed as mentally ill, given that “Crazy Jane” nickname that’s lasted some 450 years, and locked up for most of her life?

First her father put her away, so he could continue to rule as a king in Aragon. That didn’t work out too well. Then her husband died, and the Hapsburg dynasty had her locked up so they could keep Spain for her infant son, the future Emperor Charles V. It seems everyone who had anything to gain in `16th century European politics was out to keep poor Juana locked up in a nunnery. And in every event the explanation given was her supposed mental illness–a diagnosis which is met with strong skepticism by today’s historians.

But of course Juana’s great exhibition of craziness was her reading and studying the work of Martin Luther, her defense of him and of his doctrine, and the suspicion that she had become a secret Protestant. With that to be held against her, there was no help for her.

And so she comes down to us as Crazy Jane–just as Richard III has come down to us as a hunchbacked monster who murdered the poor little princes in the Tower, his own nephews. The case against Richard is weak, and the case against Queen Juana even weaker.

I guess you can’t believe everything you read in the history books.

Remember These Women Who Helped Win WWII

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From March 26, 2016

 

Nazi Germany could not have been defeated in the West without a preponderance of Allied air power–mostly achieved by American bombers and fighter aircraft based in England.

But how did those planes get there?

Someone had to fly them across the Atlantic Ocean to deliver them for combat duty; and that’s where the Womens Airforce Service Pilots–WASPs–came in.

There were a little over 1,000 of these women, and only a few still living, all of them in their 90s. In 1943, aviation technology wasn’t what it was today, and flying across the Atlantic was a dangerous job: 38 of the women lost their lives, doing it.

And at the end of the war, their records were sealed and, because the WASPs were never formally part of any branch of the armed forces but were considered Civil Service employees instead, the women were not classified as veterans and were not given benefits. They were, in short, the victims of a crossfire in a bureaucratic turf war within the Dept. of Defense. It wasn’t until 1977 that Sen. Barry Goldwater was able to get a bill passed recognizing the WASPs for their service to their country.

Visit the WASP Museum ( http://waspmuseum.org/ ) in Sweetwater, Texas, or donate online.

My father was only an ordinary sailor in the Navy, part of the crew of an ammo ship (one glancing blow from a torpedo, and up she goes). When he died a few years ago, the Navy sent an honor guard to his burial service and presented a flag to my mother. This was right and fitting, and the memory of that ceremony still moves me when I think of it.

But the WASPs were long denied anything like this, and that’s not right.

Ladies, my little blog salutes you.

A Hero with a Broken Wing

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of roy chapman andrews

Roy Chapman Andrews in the field

I raced through my wife’s gift, Quest in the Desert by my boyhood hero, Roy Chapman Andrews–the story of an expedition to Mongolia in the 1920s, and the wild adventures of the leader and his dog. These are avatars of Andrews and his dog, to whom he dedicated the book; and the adventures are based on his actual experiences.

I was expecting a rip-snorting yarn, and I got one. What I wasn’t expecting was an undertone of sadness that will haunt me for a while.

The Mongolia that Andrews fell in love with is long gone, the world he inhabited is only a memory–and I’m old enough now to empathize with that. My world’s pretty much gone, too, and I don’t much like the one that’s replaced it. And yet there’s more to it than that.

I somehow got the impression of a man who, wherever he went, didn’t quite fit in. Certainly he was needing something that he couldn’t seem to find.

And then, watching some film footage of Andrews’ expeditions, it occurred to me that maybe the wistfulness was in me, not the writer. Watching the black-and-white ghosts of Andrews’ bygone world, I found myself longing for it in some way that I could hardly understand.

I have read much of Andrews’ non-fiction, and now I’ve read his novel, written more than twenty years after he had to leave Mongolia for good, the communist regime having kicked out all the Westerners. And now I think I know what Roy Chapman Andrews was missing–mind you, my conclusion is based only on the words he committed to publication.

There is no sign, in any of this printed work, that the author had any communion with the God who created him, whose Son redeemed him. And looking out on our God-rejecting age–which, with a little bad luck and a lot of stupidity and wickedness, could turn out looking like Northern China in 1926–it makes me think that a human being without God is incomplete, and will never be complete. There is only so far we can go without Him, and that’s not far enough.

Which, I believe, was the broken part of Roy Chapman Andrews. He traveled very far indeed, but never far enough.

From February 20 2017

 

Oh, Boy! ‘Post-Truth’ Politics

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

[S]hall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar…   –Romans 3:3-4

The Oxford English Dictionary has selected, as its Word of the Year for 2016, the charming little term, “post-truth,” as in “post-truth politics” ( http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/oxford-english-dictionary-names-post-truth-word-of-the-year-w450650 ).

Somehow I missed that one. Post-truth politics is defined as repeated appeals to emotion, continuous repetition of talking points, and not bothering to answer facts offered in rebuttal. Disingenuously, this term has been applied mostly to the Brexit movement and to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign–as if it were any kind of truth at all that Britain ought to remain in the European Union no matter what, and, even more preposterous, that Hillary Clinton should have been elected president.

I’m pretty sure “post-truth” ought to refer to anything said by any member of the Democrat Party, anytime, anywhere.

Let us not forget that, for the past 20 yours or so, the sages at our collidges have been teaching that there’s no such thing as truth, there’s only “your truth” and “my truth” (even though their “truth” is always insisted upon as the only permitted point of view)–and this teaching has borne fruit.

Go ahead, just try to get some true truth out of the nooze media, the government, Hollywood, or any public school or university. Let everybody know if you succeed!

But we are sure God wishes us to tell the truth, and value it, and resist the post-modern fetish for lying.

From 2016

There’s Something Wrong with Our Politics

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Broken dome of an ancient square monument in Mandu, Madhya Pradesh Stock Photo - Alamy

There’s a lot I don’t understand about our current politics.

How does 1) a paper-thin majority in the House of Representatives, 2) a tie vote in the Senate, and 3) a president whose election was, to put it as charitably as possible, of doubtful legitimacy add up to a partisan government that does everything it damned well pleases without encountering any meaningful opposition?

Once upon a time, even if you were the majority party, you still had to dicker, compromise, give the opposition some of the things they wanted, You couldn’t just ignore them–as is being done now.

Another thing: the president is the chief executive. Among other things, his duty, as laid out in the Constitution, is to see that our country’s laws are enforced. Our immigration laws are statutes enacted by Congress and signed into law by various presidents. So how come China Joe gets to not only ignore those laws, but refuse to enforce them and encourage people to break them?

Is our system broken? Is that how we’ve wound up with these very strange politics? Did they repeal the Constitution when we weren’t looking?

Stolen elections have consequences, don’t they?

One of those consequences is that we completely lose control of our government.

From March 22, 2021

The Very First Oy Rodney Post REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

This is from 2017.  The picture is a different one, as I couldn’t bring Lee’s picture over, I put a picture of a dog that looked exactly like my little guy from many years ago.  Dobie.

All right, so I don’t have a dog.  I wouldn’t let my cats read it, either.

Oy, Rodney! by Violet Crepuscular is one of those awful romance novels, but with an added twist: the author has hired goons–formal job description “literary consultants”–to go into bookstores and make thinly veiled threats.  The plot ain’t nothin’ to write home about, either.

Can young Lord Jeremy Coldsore, 5th Viscount Atropine, win the love of the aging but still quite homely Dame Margo Cargo, the richest woman in Scurvyshire?  Or will the mysterious stranger who looks like Ed Begley, but isn’t, get in first?  What is the awful secret concealed under the Vicar’s plastic wading pool? And how come there’s no character in this book actually named Rodney?