Tag: cultural musings

‘Excuses are the Patches…’ REPRINT

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From October 6, 2012

Wednesday’s presidential debate has launched us into a national orgy of excuse-making. On Thursday the media were all making excuses for their president’s abject and humiliating failure. On Friday various persons were making excuses for having voted for the guy. (“Oh, I knew he was totally unqualified to be president! But I was so afraid of Sarah Palin…” That’s what happens when Democrats try to think.)

Here now are some of the excuses people have volunteered to me for not voting for Romney… which I think is the same thing as voting for the communist community organizer who hates America and is trying to wreck it.

1. “I’m not going to vote at all because there is no righteous candidate that I can vote for.” Hey, Ace, do you realize what you’ve done? You have decided to let the unrighteous decide who rules over the righteous. Think that’ll turn out good?

2. “I’m not voting because Republicans and Democrats are exactly the same.”
When he wrote his famous Dictionary, Samuel Johnson defined “pastern” as “the knee of a horse.” (It’s the ankle, BTW). When a woman asked him why he wrote that definition, he replied, “Ignorance, madame–pure ignorance.”

Admittedly something happens to Republicans when they go to Washington, particularly if they have been elected to the Senate. But when it comes to the differences between millions of Republicans and millions of Democrats, only pure ignorance can back the assertion that they’re all the same.

Continue Reading “‘Excuses are the Patches…’ REPRINT” →

Self-Education via Pop Music: Foolishness 101 REPRINT

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From June 13, 2017

One of the ways we continually educate ourselves is by consuming pop culture. And just so you don’t think this present time has a lock on truly ridiculous ideas expressed in music, dig this award-winning turkey from 1962, sung by Jack Jones: Lollipops and Roses.

Do you believe these lyrics? “Make it her birthday each day of the week…” On Dec. 31 she’ll be 365 years old. But even more preposterous, “One day she’ll smile, next day she’ll cry,/ Minute to minute, you’ll never know why…” Sounds like she’s more than ready for the rubber room. Can you imagine living with somebody like that?

So much of our music, our movies and TV, our books, teach us an awful lot of pazoo about how we ought to relate to one another. Do you really think nobody actually picks up on this teaching? No one’s influenced by it? Well, bunkie, there’s a whole advertising industry that’s betting that you’re wrong. And a whole public education industry, too, for that matter.

The only reason nobody gets a degree in Being a Dope is that nobody needs one.

The Year Civilization Collapsed REPRINT

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From July 27, 2014

We watched a lecture yesterday entitled, “1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed.” It’s a good thing they included the date in the title, or I would have assumed it was talking about 2014.

Even so, how do you collapse civilization without Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Harry Reid and the other idiots and villains who are so busy collapsing ours?

Well, to bring about the end of the Bronze Age, they had droughts, famine, repeating earthquakes, and whole nations of aliens pouring in, taking everything they could and burning everything they couldn’t take. And that was the end of the ballgame for the Hittites, Mycenaeans, Cyprus, Ugarit, and several other Mediterranean civilizations. Egypt survived with incurable wounds. Assyria was flattened, but came back strong.

Point is, it wasn’t their fault. They didn’t have any SUVs or air conditioning or light bulbs to cause *Climate Change* and wreck their civilizations because they didn’t pay a carbon tax. They were destroyed by droughts, famine, earthquakes, and barbarian invasions on a mighty scale. That’s how civilization was able to collapse without Democrats.

They didn’t have culture big-shots preaching sodomy and sex-change operations, high officials encouraging the aliens to flood across the border, created wealth being instantly destroyed by wacko public policies, police on the lookout for bake sales while street gangs have a field day, the US attorney general urging state attorneys general not to enforce their states’ laws, reality TV, Democrat delegates booing God at their national convention, and whole church denominations embracing evil heresies.

Nope–they had to be destroyed by prosaic causes like war and natural disaster. They couldn’t help it.

But what excuse will our age offer history?

And Then They Booed God REPRINT

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From September 7, 2012

After this post, I’ll try to stay away from politics for a while. But it isn’t every day that professional politicians do something so bizarre, so self-damaging, so crass as this.

Right in the middle of their national convention, on national TV, the Democrats booed God. In case you missed it, catch the video at http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=10455 .

First they took God’s name out of their party platform. When the public’s attention was called to that deletion, they decided they’d better put God’s name back in. Some guy claiming to be a minister of the United Methodist Church, and chairman of the platform committee, made a motion on the floor to make the change–because, he said, the Democrat platform just so brilliantly reflects God’s will.

Yep, that’s the very same Democrat platform that promotes same-sex mockmarriage and abortion on demand (paid for with public funds, no less). Those are two projects dear to the hearts of America’s flatline Protestant denominations, but about as estranged as you can possibly get from God’s will as revealed in Scripture. You might even say it would be profoundly insulting to God to have His name linked to such a document.

The convention chairman called for a voice vote by the delegates. Unable, after three tries, to get the result desired by the party leadership, he simply created his own reality by declaring that the “ayes” had it by a two-thirds majority–a blatantly untrue statement–and so God’s name goes back in. That’s when thousands of the delegates booed God.

What does it say about us as a people, that this continues to exist as a national party in America?

I Stuck My Toe in the Toxic Pool of Pop Culture

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This afternoon, I decided to catch up and do a “what ever happened to” search about some of the confused characters that were featured–no, more like inescapable–a few years back.

Jazz Jennings:  a highly confused little boy, whose mother, in her infinite wisdom, decided not to discourage her child in this sexual identity thing, but instead chose to go full-bore down the road of fostering and encouraging the delusion.  This started when he was a toddler.  That meant puberty blockers and “sex reassignment surgery”.  I could describe that, but I won’t.  It would do credit to the Spanish Inquisition.  Jazz  claims to be  now very happy, because “she” just lost over a hundred pounds (due to a binge eating problem).  Also, Jazz says there is no boyfriend because right now the main focus will be on “herself”.

Chaz Bono: This individual is Cher’s daughter (Chastity), who waited until the age of 40 before starting the mutilation process. She has done the whole spectrum (another group of surgeries which I will not describe.)  Breast amputation is only the start–and believe me it gets a lot worse.

Suddenly, I realized over an hour had gone by.

I didn’t want to do any more.

If it wasn’t the dead of winter and I couldn’t move my car, I would have liked a nice long swim in some very, very clean water.

Anyone who says our popular culture is not toxic is just plain crazy.

What a Chump I Was in College REPRINT

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From November 1, 2014

While I was a college student, one of my favorite books was Hercules, My Shipmate by Robert Graves, a re-telling of the story of Jason and the Argonauts. So I was delighted when my wife gave me a copy of it for Christmas. It must’ve been 40 years or more since I’d read it last.

Many books and movies I liked when I was young, I still like now. Some I like even more, like The Lord of the Rings, Agatha Christie’s novels, and Peter Sellers in Never Let Go. And I’ve always enjoyed Robert Graves’ most famous novel, I, Claudius (although Jack Pullman’s screenplay for the I, Claudius TV series is even better). Naturally I expected to be delighted by Hercules, My Shipmate.

Everyone, I suppose, once knew someone whom they thought was the absolute bee’s knees. Then you lose touch with this person, make contact again 30 years later, and wind up asking yourself, “What did I ever see in him? He is a total putz!”

So it went with Hercules, My Shipmate. *Sigh* Mostly it was Robert Graves reconstructing and then wildly enthusing over the creepy paganism of pre-Classical Greece, complete with human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism.

What did I ever see in this? Could I really have been such a chump, back then?

Yes, college can be rather an overwhelming experience. It took me about 30 years to outgrow it, and a lot of people never outgrow it. The better to manipulate you, your professors convince your intellectually defenseless 19-year-old self that you’re a thousand times smarter than your parents and you don’t need any of their silly old stuff anymore–including all that Christianity business. Why, in no time at all, you’ll be as smart as one of these professors!

I look back on this and shudder.

Toxic Fiction REPRINT

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From June 30, 2013

Ages ago, one of my wife’s co-workers bought a rental property with a paid-up tenant, a little old lady who’d been there for years. The new owner wanted someone who could pay a higher rent, so she evicted the old woman–and came to work the next day bragging about it. “Just like J.R.!” she crowed.

She was referring to “J.R. Ewing,” the antihero played by Larry Hagman in the old TV series, Dallas. She was gloriously happy that she’d done something worthy of the villain in a TV show. (If you’re too young to have any idea what I’m talking about–well, go find out what I’m talking about.)

[Just in case you think God pays no attention to these things: The J.R. wannabe spent a lot of money remodeling the property and spiffing it up, and soon got the new tenants she asked for. They never paid the rent, and inside of two months, turned the place into a slum.]

As Solon once said, some 2,500 years ago, “If you put all those lies up on your stage, someday we’ll have them in our business.”

Far be it from me, as a story-teller, to say “No more story-telling!” But fiction can exert a powerful influence on the behavior of its consumers, and it’s so constantly available in so many different forms–novels, TV, comic books, movies, cable “news” shows. To what extent is our fiction responsible for the rotting-away of our Western  culture? Is it the fault of amoral story-tellers who don’t care what they create, as long as it makes a buck? Or is it the fault of mindless consumers who will gobble up anything as long as it’s labeled “entertainment”?

Just asking…

PS–The link to “Dallas” was supposed to take you to the TV show, but the stupid computer decided you would be better served by a high-altitude aerial photo of the city of Dallas. If you want to find out about this classic TV show, the link to “J.R. Ewing” will get you there.

A Canadian Tragedy (Or Is It a Farce?) REPRINT

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From November 20, 2012

 

This was bound to happen.  In this excursion into Canadian public policy, the irresistible force has met the immoveable object.

As reported Nov. 16 in The Toronto Sun, a lesbian went to a Muslim barbershop in Toronto and demanded a “businessman’s haircut.” The Muslim barber told her to get lost. So the lesbian, of course, ran to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal and filed a complaint against the barber.

Hmmm… By law, Canada’s Multicultural Act, the Muslim has an inalienable right to refrain from touching a woman, let alone giving her a haircut. And by law, Canada’s Human Rights Act, the lesbian has an inalienable right to force the Muslim to give her a haircut.

O frabjous day! The irresistibly ridiculous has collided with the immoveably inane!

For years both lesbians and Muslims in Canada have used the “human rights” commissions and tribunals to bully Christians. It was their happy hunting ground. The state pays every cent of the plaintiff’s legal costs, the normal rules of evidence do not apply, and we know of not one instance in which the Christian defendant was not screwed.

But now comes the power struggle which I’ve long predicted–the Gays vs. Muslims Steel Cage Match!

Let’s sit back and watch the fun.

 

More Insane Liberal Beliefs REPRINT

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From October 7, 2014

The notions libs ‘n’ progs have rattling around in their skulls, who can explain them? It’s all I can do just to collect them. Here are a few more gems from this collection.

*The murdering savages who call themselves “The Islamic State” have nothing to do with Islam. Nope, nothing at all.

*It’s OK to import Ebola into this country because no Americans will catch it. We know this because the government tells us so.

*Pouring uncounted millions of illegal aliens into the country all at once, many of them carrying all sorts of tropical diseases, most of them unemployed and unemployable, hardly any of them able to speak English, will turn out to be a good thing for America. Honest.

*Chelsea Clinton is America’s bright hope for the future.

I’m sorry, but that last one has upset me. I just can’t face any more of these preposterous beliefs today. Besides, you can think of as many as I can. Please feel free to add to the list.